6/9/14: We're Still Alive...I Promise!

I've been needing to write for a while now, but it feels like there's so much to say and yet, so little at the same time.  So I've put it off.  But I can't sleep, and I need the catharsis right now, so here I am attempting.

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Well, I'm now more than halfway through my master's program at BYU and it feels like it's flying by.  I've done almost half of my clinical hours and seen my clients do just about everything from dropping out of therapy early, hating me, depending on me way too much, and even starting to stand on their own two feet again and face the world without the help of therapy.  Obviously, the last scenario is the most rewarding for me to watch, not only because it reaffirms my self-doubts about whether or not I'm helping people, but because it's really inspiring to watch someone change before your eyes and build their own strength to the point of independence.

So as far as therapy-land is going, I'm still loving it.  My favorite clients are my families (so either kids with their parents, teens with their parents, or adult kids with their really old parents).  There's just so much going on in the session and it's amazing how quickly the change happens when you have parents who are involved and just want to love their kids and do their best.  I like working with couples as well, but their cases are a little discouraging sometimes because their marriages have fallen so far and a lot of them are here as a last resort so I just wish I knew how to help them better.  And as always, individuals are sometimes great, sometimes mind-numbing, depending on the client.  But I still want to do this for the rest of my life, so in my book, that's a win! :)

I'm seriously considering BYU's PhD program in MFT which would mean another 3 years of school here.  But they pay for it plus a generous stipend, I already know all the professors, and one of them is doing a research study about women's health issues and how marriage and family therapy can help with it.  He actually works on it in conjunction with the doctor who manages my chronic pain, so I'm very interested in joining his team.  It's hard to know if it'll be the right thing for us, but I feel pretty good about it and will hopefully be applying this Fall to start next year after I graduate.

As far as Dave and I, Dave got a promotion at work so that was a really huge blessing for us--the timing couldn't have been better--and he's happy with all his responsibilities at the MTC.  We are slowly chugging along on the house with paint and crown and trim.  We're almost done with all the upgrades we think we'll do, we just need to get the motivation to finish it!  We're hoping to be fully finished by the time Fall semester starts up again (I'll believe it when I see it...).  Dave's still liking his program at school and gets to take independent research credits this Spring/Summer, so it's like a pseudo-break in the sense that he doesn't have to physically be in class during the week, but just needs to do independent studying on his own for his dissertation.  He's still enjoying what he's learning, so that's great.  We realize we're both pretty lucky to have found things we're passionate about to be spending so much time and energy on :)

This past semester was really insane and we hardly saw each other because I came home around 9 pm almost every night, and he left around 6:30 am every morning.  We're enjoying the slow(er) pace of spring and summer so far because it means we actually get to see each other more than 1 hour a day, haha.  But even with all the craziness, the sheer mental and physical exhaustion, and the frozen lunches and dinners, we're really happy with our life.  We both love what we do, we live in a great house, we have a great ward, and we have family right here in Provo with us.  We just have to remind ourselves of all of that once in a while when things go haywire ;)

Here's a bit of life from the lens of my iPhone...

We still love our planter we built from the ground up :)

This was a bold risk for me!  But I love the blue and think it turned
out great. 

It just makes the house look more finished, I think. 

There will be another post dedicated to this picture,
but these were a concrete and very poignant
reminder to me that Heavenly Father is aware of me
and my pains and struggles.  A testimony that he
 uses angels to comfort the weary and strengthen the weak. 

UVMCO had their concert dedicated to America!!  While the
narration was a little strange, the music was incredibly
moving, and I've loved every minute of being in this
choir this semester!

Um...I live on these things...

And Dave lives on fishing, but I went with him and my Dad this time
and I caught some beautiful fish!

Puzzles are my current escape.  Since I can't solve my clients' problems,
and I can't solve the chronic pain, it's my reassurance that at
least some puzzles have answers.  

On a lighter note, I cut my hair last week!!

And I especially like it curled!

And I just want to go back here.  I spent the week in CA last week watching the kids of one of my favorite families ever for a week while their parents were gone.  It was a lot of work, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!

1/21/14: Our Life Lately...

So I haven't really done any catch-up blogs lately, and I'm sitting here bored out of my mind in class so I figured I'd give a brief recap of the last few weeks at our house.

Christmas Sunday we stayed in Provo so I could conduct the Christmas Program by the choir in sacrament meeting.  The choir did a beautiful job and I was really moved by spirit I felt.  It was the highlight of my Christmas season up to that point without a doubt.  It might have had something to do with the relief I felt with it being over with, though...

We went home to California for Christmas and it was crazy busy like always, but really fun to be with everyone.  It was my family's turn for Christmas so we had a ton of people at the house and it was slightly chaotic.  My parents were saints to let everyone stay there in their house!  There wasn't much downtime, but I needed a break from school so badly that just being away from clients, classes, and the cohort was glorious regardless of what else was filling my time.

We had everyone over for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and Emma's farewell brunch the following Saturday so there was lots of cooking, cleaning, .  It was way fun to see everyone and I was so sad to head back to Provo (and sad that our truck broke down on the way back, of course...).

Once the second semester started, we hit the ground running and haven't stopped since.  Dave's working on a huge project at work doing about 50 hours a week, and his classes are tough this semester too because they're advanced statistics and another theoretical class.  Our schedule basically goes like this:
6:00am-Dave wake up and head to work
8:00am-Erin wake up and get ready for school/clients
5:00pm-Dave come home from work
5:00-9:00pm or midnight-Dave do homework and continue to work on work project
7:30 or 8:00pm-Erin come home
8:00-10pm-Erin do homework
10:00pm-one of us go to bed
12:00am-the other one of us go to bed.

repeat.

So now we're understanding what people mean when they say they barely ever see each other.  We feel like we're living that, but luckily, we both really enjoy what we're doing.  We're just a little busy and tired with everything.

This last week we had my old roommate Courtney over for dinner (she just got back from her mission), had Emma and all my family over on the Tuesday night before she left for the MTC, had my cohort over on Thursday night, and had my cousin Corbin over on Sunday for dinner.  Our house has never been cleaner!

On top of everything we've been doing, I've managed to finish a second draft of my thesis, Dave's been fishing 3 times in the past 2 weeks, we've cooked at least 3 meals a week (our New Year's Resolution), stayed healthy so far, and managed to keep our heads above water.  I'll check in to let you know how we're doing after another week of this crazy life!

11/22/13: Gone Fishin'...

I wish I was gone fishing, that's Dave right now.  I'm actually sitting here in isolation in an office on campus attempting to write my first draft of my lit review for my thesis.  It's due tonight and I haven't started writing yet...so your regular Friday blogging program will return when said paper is finished.  Wish me luck!

Until then, please enjoy this little gem of a philosophy I'm choosing to live by right now in spite of being taught to rise above this temptation during my English undergrad years :)  What can I say?  Grad school is just a different ball game.  Sometimes mediocrity is all we can afford to achieve if we want our sanity to remain in tact!

11/8/13: Slow it Down Now...

We had a slower week this week.  Well, it wasn't going to be a slower week, but I kind of broke down this week and decided something needed to change.  I can't keep running a million miles an hour every day with this pain unless I want to seriously become addicted to strong pain meds.  So Dave helped me sort through the things I don't really need to be doing right now and how I can slow down from day-to-day so I leave myself some time to rest.  Overall, it was a better week and I feel like I have more energy than I normally do on Fridays, which is great!

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures, but we had my cohort over last Friday night and unfortunately about half of my cohort was sick so they couldn't make it.  It was fun to have the spouses and boyfriends of everyone who was able to come, though, and we had some delicious treats like peanut butter bars, artichoke dip, pumpkin pie, home-made hot chocolate, and more :)  It was really great to hang out with each other in a different setting from school and get to know the spouses as well (considering we all share stories about our marriages and relationships, but no one's had a very good picture of the relationships yet).  Dave and I have kind of been stuck in a place where no one is really our age or in our life situation in our ward and neighborhood, so it's been totally awesome to have peers we get along with, and I think the next 2 years will be really fun with everyone :).

On Saturday morning we had my date for which I picked seeing the Ender's Game movie.  Now, you have to understand my possessive feeling about Ender's Game.  Ever since I read it in elementary school I've felt like it was one of those books that should only be shared with those who would really appreciate it.  This sounds totally ivory tower-esque, but I just felt like I loved it so much that I didn't want people to read it who didn't deserve to read it, you know?  (I know, that's totally bratty)  I remember seeing this first book cover in elementary school and being so upset about it.  It just made the book look so juvenile and dumb.  I thought the only cover should have been the second, "spacey" one that I grew up on!

As I've gotten older, I've come to like the Ender's Shadow side of the series a lot more, but that didn't change how hesitant I was about Ender's Game being turned into a movie.  So, after that crazy set-up, aren't you soo anxious to hear what I thought??  Haha, just kidding, but I'll tell you anyway, even if you don't care.

Can you ever go wrong with Harrison Ford, really?

I thought it was alright.  It didn't ruin the book, which was a total win in my book.  But on it's own, I don't think the movie was all that great.  It felt totally plot driven and it just glossed over the intricate relationships between the kids in battle school which is what makes the book so compelling in my opinion.  Caveat: I didn't really like how they represented Bean, which sort of killed it for me.

So after the movie on Saturday, Dave spent the entire day raking leaves, mowing the lawn, laying down fertilizer, and other stuff outside that I wanted to help with, but was just too exhausted to pitch in with.  The lawn looked almost clear of all the leaves after about 3 hours or raking, mowing, and picking up, which Dave was so proud of.  But we woke up the next morning to a lawn covered in more leaves from our tree in the front yard.  My soul just hurt for Dave :(  It's a losing battle, really...

On Sunday I hadn't decided yet to slow down and stop trying to do everything 100%, so I was covering primary as well as doing choir and it was so much fun!  Our choir's performing this week on Sunday and it's one of my favorite pieces "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need", arr. by Mack Wilberg.  Maddie is accompanying us on the harp, and Emma's playing the viola with us.  It should be absolutely beautiful if we can just not get nervous and be able to do it like we've practiced.  I'm way excited and nervous.

Primary was a blast this week as well because 1) I miss those kids like nobody's business, and 2) all the primary presidency and teachers are being switched around right now, so I felt like a veteran in there!  We played Don't Eat Pete, and I was going to use skittles, but it was fast sunday (woops!), so I just played it with beads, but the kids still totally loved it.  They learned a new song with me "Thank Thee For Everything", which is so beautiful!  And so they got to play the game.  I think I'll do the same thing this week because it'll be easy for me, and because I can actually use skittles this time which is way more fun, right?

School this week was pretty mellow because I'd already gotten most of my projects done ahead of time.  We've now officially turned everything in for us to be approved to see clients.  Dr. Harper says we should start getting assigned clients next week!  Can you believe it?!  I'm so anxious to get started, I can't wait :)

So since school was low-key for both Dave and I, we decided to start a new show--Chuck--which is basically Dave's all-time favorite show, but I've never been able to watch it because it wasn't on Netflix until this last week.  Um, you guys, it is so so so so so good!  It's totally clean, clever, a perfect mis of humor and seriousness, and it's basically a mixture of everything I like about Big Bang Theory and White Collar without the bad!  We've watched wayy too many episodes, but I feel alright about it because I've been trying to take more time to mentally relax and physically recuperate this week.  Everyone should watch it if you haven't.  It's awesome.  

P.s. Dave told me it's totally a guy show, but I really love it,
so girls would like it too, I think!

We learned this week that Dave is getting sent to Chicago in two weeks for work!  Exciting, but it's the week before Thanksgiving, so that's just a lot of travel and kind of makes school hard :/  I'm not sure of all the details yet, but I think it'll be about 5 days that he'll be gone.  We'll see how that goes...haha.

This afternoon I'm going in to get a shot of Lupron from my doctor.  Lupron basically induces a temporary menopause in women to stop the production of hormones from the ovaries.  Ideally, this should stop my pain, but it does put me into menopause, so there's a pretty good chance (like 99%) that I'll experience hot flashes, memory lapses, intense mood swings, and other menopause-effects.  I've been hesitant to do this, but I feel like the pain is getting worse so I'm willing to do just about anything at this point to try to get the pain to stop.  Wish me luck!  I'm really praying I don't have too intense of side-effects because I'm about to start seeing clients, so yeah...self explanatory.   But I'm hopeful that this will help.  

So that wraps up our week!  We're excited for the BYU football game this weekend!  Thanks for reading :)  Oh, and also?  

This is not okay...

It's freezing!!!

Can School Just Start Again Please...?

As much as I've tried to motivate myself the past few weeks, I am so inescapably and perpetually bored out of my mind right now.  I feel like I have gone full steam for 4 solid years and this is the first summer I've ever had where I'm not working or taking classes full time.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still taking some classes, and I'm working a little bit doing research, but I can't even believe how much free time I'm still left with.  What do people do all day?!

Accomplishments so far:

- Completed three seasons of Arrested Development, and am well into the fourth.
- Discovered a new nature show called North America on the Discovery Channel on Sunday nights.
- Read lots of articles about attachment styles and attachment behaviors.
- Spent hours being pensive about potential thesis options. (No physical results to show for it)
- Successfully filled the next two months of musical numbers for our ward's sacrament meetings.
- Started a new blog about marriage and family therapy.
- Committed to living within a smaller budget, discovered that's great way to feel like a failure, so made the budget a little bigger after repeated failed attempts.
- Finally hung curtains and some wall art in the living room!!
- Read 4 Harry Potter books before I burned out.
- Made numerous trips up to Salt Lake for doctor's appointments (not pregnancy appointments).
- Scheduled minor surgery for a month from now.
- Learned some basic stats from Dave for my program.
- Gone camping twice (once in horrific weather, once in great weather)
- Rediscovered the TV show Friends since it seems to never stop playing during the day.
- Seen every great movie that's come out in the past month (hence the budget disaster).
- Sewed 2 princess costumes for my nieces and visited them so much they're sick of me.
- Spent some much-needed quality time with the sun at the pool with Annie and sometimes Russ too.
- Listened to "Scream-Free Parenting" on CD and had a hard time agreeing or disagreeing with it.
- Started learning how to code from an online course.

So when I write them all out it's not that bad.  If you sort of squint and look at it funny, you can find some truly productive things in between all the TV splurging, movie watching, and pool-going, right?  I just wish I had more to show at the end of my day.  I'm used to papers and projects non-stop.  I can't really get a handle on this whole "life after graduation" stuff.  I guess it's a good thing I still have two years before I have to really master it...

Also...The Bachelorette is a lot more addicting when you're bored...who knew?

Four Short Years...

The morning of graduation felt surreal.  Maybe it was because my convocation was earlier than I ever wake up, or maybe it was because my Young Adult Lit professor lost my final and I knew I still needed to retake it for him (best class ever...not), but whatever it was, I just didn't feel like it was real.  Or maybe I felt like it was real, I just didn't feel like it was a big deal.  Knowing that nothing is really changing--we're staying in the same house in the same ward, I'm starting back up in the fall, Dave's still working and doing his program--sort of took the excitement out of the day for me.  Surprisingly, the emotions I felt were a lot more sadness and sentimentality than excitement.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love school.  I love my professors, love literature, love becoming a better writer and thinker with every class, and just love learning overall.  My last final was an oral discussion with my American Novel professor and 7 other students from the class.  I was almost brought to tears when I was giving my response of what I personally think makes a great novel "great".  I was just so sad to think that I may never take another English class again at BYU.  I may never again have a professor force me to read something as challenging as Moby Dick, and teach me through the process that dedicating my time and my mind to a difficult novel is well worth the rewards.  I guess I'm just grateful I'll be living in Provo for the next 4 years at least where I have BYU's resources at my fingertips.  And I'm grateful for e-mail and professors who care about their students enough to respond to their questions or ideas.

I guess this is the part where I thank BYU for all the years of learning it provided me with.  So thanks BYU.  Thanks for teaching me to decide who I am and stick to it.  Thanks for teaching me that "who I am" will probably change as my life and experiences change--and that's okay.  Thanks for teaching me that I can do anything I put my mind to.  Thanks for helping reinforce my faith in the Gospel through your ridiculous religion classes.  Thanks for teaching me how to read--and I mean really read.  Thanks for teaching me that hard work goes a lot further than pure talent in this world.  Thanks for teaching me that it's more important to be nice than to be smart or the best.  Thanks for teaching me that you can learn from anyone at anytime--often when you least expect to be taught. I guess I just want to say thanks for the past four years, BYU.  You've been great.  Here's to hoping the next two will be just as great.

S'Mores!

So...the title of this blog auto-corrected to "Sores!" which #1, is gross, and #2 reminded me of the street name Sores and Boils Alley--anyone catch the reference? ;)

Anyway, I promise my life consists of more important things than new windshield wipers and s'mores, but I just can't bring myself to catch the blogging world up to the detailed happenings of my life right now.  I promise that some day in the near future, I will provide an explanation for my ridiculously long absence from writing ;).  Unfortunately for you...today is not that day.  Today you get to read about the college version of s'mores!  (I put exclamation points to hopefully get you excited about a less-than-exciting topic...it's a rhetorical strategy, don't worry about it.)

So a few weeks ago, Annie, Russ, Dave, and I went down to Moab to camp and climb some rocks and things (nbd), and we bought an excessive amount of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers for s'mores.  You have to have s'mores if you're going to have a fire, right?  And believe me, we were going to have a fire in 12 degree weather...So once the trip ended (don't worry, I'll write a full blog about the trip itself sometime...it was full of exciting adventures and slight mishaps), I ended up taking the left-over s'more ingredients and storing them in my apartment.  This was a bad idea.

For about 3 weeks now I have pretty much had a s'more at least 3 times a week.  "How?", you may ask, realizing that it's completely ridiculous to assume I have a full-fledged campfire every time I want a s'more.

Electric stoves!!

 

I must admit I'm guilty of hating on these old electric stoves when I'm trying to cook something carefully and can't control the temperature nearly as well as a gas-stove could, but for s'mores, they're amazing!  They work just as well as coals--without the smoky taste!

I don't know why I've enjoyed these s'mores so much...whether it's because they remind me of camping--something I love to do, despite popular belief--or simply because their chocolatey-marshmallowy goodness is the epitome of comfort food, but I've been really grateful for these little s'more moments I get to have after long days at work and school the past couple weeks :)

Poor Guy...

We've all done it. I won't pretend I'm exempt. Every one of us has experienced the humiliation and the shame that accompanies the intense confusion when one tries to enter the bathroom of the wrong gender. It has been a while, however, since I have witnessed one of these precious moments since most of us here at BYU have particular restrooms we like to use and have gotten used to the location of the doors.

But while I was spacing off procrastinating writing my paper about Herman Melville and his commentary on American Society, my eyes wandered to a secret bathroom on the fourth floor of the library! Now, just as I was contemplating the shock of finding a second bathroom on this lovely floor, a boy walked up, put his hand on the door of the girl's restroom and then quickly jumped back as if burned. He looked around quite confusedly for a moment, and then proceeded to hang his head in shame and enter the boy's door.

...poor guy...

In his defense, the girls' side has 2 doors! Why would anyone do that? It's as though they intended for people to get confused by their poor design. I propose that bathrooms never have two entrances, that is just ridiculously and unnecessarily confusing...come on, people, really? Give us a break...will ya?

Haha, he just walked out of the bathroom texting...trying to play it off totally cool...nice one, guy. I saw it...don't worry :)

Give the man a glass of Malk!!

Sometimes I forget I'm a college student.

These are great times. I feel like I'm all grown up and really doing something with my life.

Other times, the harsh reality of my status as student at BYU is thrown back into my face.

Like this week......................

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I've been out of my precious 2% milk for about a a week now and since my roommates are all convinced that skim is the way to go...my fridge has been completely unproductive for me in the milk department. As much as I hoped that by pouring a bowl of dry cereal and opening the fridge three times in a row, milk would magically appear in my time of need...the milk shelf remained barren for me.

So...why does this remind me that I'm a college student, you ask? Well, the lack of milk itself is one thing...that never happens when there's a mom around, but mostly, I think my response to this desperate situation qualifies me as a bona fide college student...

Vending Machines!! Instead of simply driving up the street to the grocery store to buy a new gallon 7 days ago, I have been making daily trips to the vending machines in the basement of the JFSB every day or two after class buying these cute little pints of 2% BYU Creamery milk. I average about 3 bowls of cereal per bottle :) I thought it was a clever solution.

Probably not the most effective use of my money, but it's just so darn convenient to have vending machines that replace my need for a grocery store--how can I not take advantage of that, right??

Note to Self...

DON'T fall asleep at 7:00 pm unless for some absurd reason you WANT to wake up at 2:00 am more energized than ever before.

I'm Turning Into My Mother!

It's happening...It's finally happening. I'm turning into my mother!! But, I hope you read that in the most positive way possible because I am not ashamed or scared or worried or any of the other emotional connotations that typically go along with this phrase. No; I say I am turning into my mother in a proud, almost defiant way today. I am proud that I was able to make chocolate covered strawberries that people thought were wedding-worthy :) I am proud that I was able to defy all odds and get people to come to choir and sound incredible and have fun while doing it. I am proud that people have judged my age to be older than it actually is based solely on said strawberries :). Overall, today was just a happy and proud day for me.

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling the urge to make something for our ward choir (because I have learned that treats are the only thing that get results here), and I also wanted this treat to be Valentine's-ey, so chocolate covered strawberries were what first came to mind. At first I thought they would be impossible because they just take so long and I have no idea what I am doing here in a dingy little run-down apartment with electric stoves that are known to start fires somehow...still haven't figured that one out...but I called my mom and had her walk me through the process of how to dip the strawberries. It sounded doable and I figured the worst that could happen would be them not turning out, which would not be a big deal.

So I set to work borrowing random pots and bowls from my neighbor friends to create a makeshift double boiler. See below :)
I had a fun time at the store finding different kinds of chocolate and chocolate chips to decorate them with, too!





So I spent a while sorting the strawberries to find the biggest and most ripe ones since Utah's fruit supply is desperately lacking seeing as it's the middle of winter...

And then I just dipped them and had fun with it! It was surprisingly fun and my roommates were pretty impressed with the designs that came out :) I was surprised they worked as well as they did, too. I felt like my mom because the only time we ever have chocolate covered strawberries at home are when she makes them for the choir or for weddings.


...but something I have learned here at BYU is that when I say I am turning into my mother because of something I have done, it's always associated with a good feeling and sense of pride. So I guess I just wanted to take the time to thank my mom for teaching me the things I've used here in college :) Thanks, Mom!