A mouse in the house...or three

I thought we had a mouse. Actually, I knew we had a mouse, because the last few times I have gone into our food storage room, there he is, sitting on top of the cans. Watching me. I would have taken a picture, but apparently I inherited my mom's scaredy-mouse gene, and each time I've seen him, I've started screaming, paralyzed in fear. Oh brother.

We put out a humane mouse trap, and he has not touched it. So today, we're going to Wal-Mart to buy the real mouse traps - the ones that snap down on them and most likely break their necks. Ick.

Andy told me he saw two mice sitting there yesterday, and heard a third somewhere in the corner.

Looks like I won't be going into the food storage room anytime soon.

Why the heck I changed my blog

For starters, I wasn't crazy about the name of my original blog, lemonbeans. It was okay, but it didn't really reflect me. Plus, I was a blogging slacker! I started it and did not follow through.

I have moved all my posts over (I'm sure there was an easier way than what I did), but from here on out, lemonbeans is dead.

I chose Type:A for my blog name because I love the letter A. I realized there are so many cool words that start with a (including my name, first and last), and wanted to share some of my favorites. Plus, I like printing and typefaces, and okay, maybe I exhibit a few of the type A personality traits...

At any rate, Type:A blog is launched. Read away!

I just got double-sacked and begged for my job back

How lame is that?

I had a big misunderstanding with my boss, who told me I could work from home for my remaining two weeks. So this week I worked from home. She called me yesterday, furious, because she didn't know where I was. Hello! I'm working from home. So I go into the office, apologize, and continue working.

Today, she told me to meet with her boss, who told me that this 30-day time period between being laid off and starting my severance was not working out, and that I could begin transitioning out today. I explained that everything was a misunderstanding, and asked if there was any way I could continue working for the remainder of the 30 days.

She said no. It was a done deal.

What's really crummy about this is that when I talked to my manager about it, she said she was sorry, she made a decision when she was angry, and it could not be undone. Now I left this company with them thinking that I'm a slacker, don't communicate what I'm doing, and have a bad attitude. What a way to leave a job you loved...

I'm sure something will turn up, things will work out, blah blah blah. It still sucks.

Um, I didn't really want this job anyway...

After having a couple of really good weekends, I went back to work after Labor Day break and got laid off. Not only did I get laid off, but I was told that I had to keep coming into work for one month. Seriously? Yes, seriously.

I'm upset for a couple of reasons. One, I really liked my job. If you know me at all (which you do if you are reading this blog), you know I have never really liked any of my jobs as an instructional designer. I had finally found one that paid well, offered great benefits, took great care of their employees (except that thing where they lay you off), and where I loved the people I worked with. And two, I was only looking to settle into this job for a couple of years, and now I am starting all over again.

Ugh. Quite a bit of who I am is wrapped up in this career I don't even like, so I'm thinking maybe now is the time for a change. What do you think the change should be?

Labor Day Weekend

Andy was working at the Telluride Film Festival all weekend. Boring for me! I looked into going, but the cheapest place to stay was around $1200 a night. Plus, I wouldn't have anyone to hang out with and all the movies were sold out. Boo. So I stayed home and cleaned up the house a bit so we can move out once and for all.

I mentioned earlier that I am terrible at taking pictures. So I started working away and realized I never took before pictures of the really messy room. But here is an after picture of the big, empty room off of the kitchen.

This room was filled with boxes of junk, paint cans, baseboards that needed painting (which I also painted over the weekend). I set up the shelves you see on the right and I think I mopped that floor about five time, but it looks great now!

We still have a lot of work to do in here, but it's slowly coming. I think Andy's parents will be happy because the last time they came over, his dad asked if we were ever going to clean up this room.

After that I tackled one of the bedrooms, which I am trying to turn into my craft room. I actually took a before picture of this room, and it was a mess! We pretty much were just throwing stuff we didn't want to find a place for in this room.

I cleared out all the junk and piled it in our living room. I can't believe how much junk we have! Okay, probably 90% of it is my junk, and I am slowly getting rid of it. Can you believe all this? We have since loaded it into Andy's van, and hopefully he has taken it to Goodwill. Here is also a picture of the room after I unloaded all the junk.

Andy brought home a huge flat of gorgeous peaches from somewhere in Colorado. Again, I suck at pictures and should have taken one. They were delicious! We made two dozen peach turnovers - yum yum!

What I did the last week of August

I am terrible at taking pictures, which is why I don't have a scrapbook. And I'm even worse at writing in a journal, so I thought keeping a blog would help that, but it turns out that blogging is pretty much the same as writing in a journal, only it's electronic. Which means I don't blog very often. I am resolving to get better!

The last week, or actually weekend, of August was pretty great. Lara came from Utah and Megan came from Wyoming to have a girls weekend in Denver. We stayed in a hotel, ate lots of great food, went shopping, saw Hairspray, and had our nails done.

And the only picture I got was this:
Just as I was dropping them off at the airport, we asked someone to take our picture.

Yay Lara and Megan for helping me keep our friendship going! It is so nice to have such good friends who fly all the way out here to spend time with me.

This is our second time getting together for a girls weekend, and I think we need to make it a yearly tradition.

I Heart Andy

Being married is fun! I feel so lucky to have the chance to be married to such a thoughtful, delightful husband. Being Andy's wife has been such a great experience for me, and I wanted to share a few reasons why I love him, and love being his wife.

1. He is always thinking of me before he thinks of himself, and he shows it in little ways every day. For instance, each Sunday in sacrament meeting, he takes the tray from the deacon and passes it to me before taking some for himself. He also opens my car door for me getting into and out of the car. He's spoiled me so much that when I ride in the car with anyone, I sit there for a minute, waiting for someone to open my door!

2. He enjoys my family. Now I think I have a pretty great family, but Andy enjoys them so much that he suggested we spend a whole week in Utah for Thanksgiving. He's the first person I have seen succeed at getting most of my family around the table to play games.

3. He does what he says. I have never made a request of him that he has denied. It's wonderful knowing that if I need something and ask him for it, he will find a way to make it happen.

4. He is creative and resourceful. This is a guy who used to work in theater and now works in television and movies. He can imagine, design, build, and execute any type of production, using very few materials and a little elbow grease. He has pulled off some great productions in short amounts of time, using very few resources.

5. He is a devoted friend. Andy has so many friends, and he makes friends so easily. He has given friends a place to stay, helped them get jobs, created amazing wedding videos for them, been a good example to them, among many other things. And all because he knows they are worth it, and because he loves them.

6. He cooks! What more can I say? Andy makes a mean fried chicken, and I love his breakfast burritos. He even bakes - last night he made some flipping awesome mint cookies. And not only does he cook, but he even cleans the kitchen.

7. He has great hair. He would tell you otherwise; in fact, most days he curses his hair as he gets ready, but I love his hair! When it's long enough, it looks like an afro. You don't see too many Japanese guys with afros...

8. He gets excited about what I'm excited about. Whenever I tell him about something I'm interested in, or share a story about what went on that day, he listens and supports me 100%.

9. He works so hard for our family, and I do mean hard. My job is so cushy - I sit at my desk all day in an air conditioned building, working on my computer. Andy carries heavy lighting and camera equipment, usually up and down flights of stairs. Sometimes he works outside in the heat. Sometimes he gets yelled at by editors who think they know everything. I went to work with him one day and he had to lay on the dirty floor of a hospital so he could get just the right shot. And he does this sometimes 12 days in a row, with no days off for a break! He travels (and traveling is not his favorite thing) just so he can make enough money for us.

10. He touches my feet with his feet when we're lying in bed. This is one of my absolute most favorite things in the world!

What are your top five favorite movies?

Andy has this parlor trick where he can tell all about your personality based on your top five favorite movies. Mine are (in no particular order):

1. About a Boy

2. Stranger Than Fiction

3. Waking Ned Divine

4. O Brother Where Art Thou

5. Singin' in the Rain

Runners up include: Finding Neverland, Millions, Better Off Dead and Thoroughly Modern Millie. What are yours?

And speaking of movies, I recently discovered that they are making a full-length animated film of one of my favorite books - The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. The voice of Despereaux is going to be Warren Cheswick from the TV series Ed. It's a star-filled cast: Christopher Lloyd, William H. Macy, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, and Dustin Hoffman. Can't wait for December 2008!

I got married!

Granted, it was almost seven months ago at the beginning of February. Nonetheless.
I figure I'll start out this blog with some wedding pictures. Oh wait, we haven't done anything with them yet. We've been married almost seven months and haven't done anything with our wedding pictures. Hey! At least we sent our thank-you cards.

I'll give you a couple pictures of Andy and me. (Isn't he handsome?) The rest will come who knows when. When we're not working so much. When we don't have a house to remodel. When we're not so tired...will any of those things ever happen?