Insidious Corruption

I can't decide what I love most about this cartoon. Perhaps it's that "Family Circus" is finally funny. Or it could be the Che Guevara shirt. Or the sickle and hammer. Or the combat boots. Or Jeffy's Fidel Castro visage. It's all awesome.

P.S. Taylor, this is for you!

Oink

I regret to inform you that David has contracted the dreaded swine flu. He came home from work on Saturday night coughing a little bit, but I figured that he was just tired and that it would be gone by the next morning after a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, it was much worse on Sunday and he had a fever of 100 degrees. By Sunday night, his fever was 103, at which point we went to the doctor (some of us more willing than others). The InstaCare doctor told us that it was indeed the dreaded swine flu, but that since David wasn't at risk for any related complications, there essentially wasn't anything the doctor could do for him. So we went home and pumped David full of Nyquil and hoped for the best.

And now it's Thursday, and I think David's been slowly but steadily improving. It's hard to tell with him, because he doesn't like to complain and therefore doesn't give me any clues as to how he's really feeling. The doctor told us that he has to be fever-free for 24 hours before he can go back to work and school, and seeing as how there's only two days left in this week, I think he should just continue to recuperate over the weekend instead of trying to push himself too hard too fast. Miraculously, I haven't gotten sick at all during this whole course of events. My mother-in-law gave us a $50 Dan's grocery store gift card, which was extremely fortuitous as it has financed all of David's illness-related medications: cough drops, Nyquil, orange juice, chicken noodle soup, saltine crackers, etc.

We anticipate that he'll make a full recovery soon; we're eating lots of pork in the spirit of vengeance. :)

Baby Shower

This past Saturday, I threw a baby shower for my former BYU roommate, Kimberly Bennett. She's having a boy, and is actually due this Saturday! She's only about 5'2", and looked absolutely adorable with her beach ball belly!

She invited about twenty people, and seven showed up besides her and me. It was nice and informal, though. I had planned a few games to play, but sensed that everyone just wanted to sit around, eat food, and talk, so we ended up playing only one game. That was fine with me; I'm not a huge fan of showers that are dominated by pointless games anyway. The one game we did play was pretty funny, though. I bought six jars of baby food, and had sets of two jars be similar colors (peas and beans, etc.). I removed the labels (and saved them so I would know what the flavors were), and had everyone try to guess what the baby food was. I was going to make people eat it to try to guess, but I don't have any use for six opened jars of baby food, and I wanted to give it to Kim.

For food, I made couscous salad with toasted almonds, craisins, and apples, and toasted poundcake with citrus cream. The latter dish was a great hit; I think everyone ate at least two pieces each. I don't blame them - the pound cake was good, but the citrus cream was A-MAZING! I've been baking all sorts of random things since Saturday just so I can put the citrus cream on them!

Kim got all sorts of adorable outfits for her little boy. The shower was not Halloween-themed, but several of them resembled costumes. She got an aviator-style outfit, a sheriff outfit, a snuggly little brown bear outfit, and (my personal favorite), a onesy covered in dinosaur print, complete with a dinosaur bib and socks resembling dinosaur feet.

After everyone else had left, Kim and Carson, another former roommate, and I just sat around and got to talk, which was nice. Carson recently got married at the end of July, I just graduated from BYU, and Kim's having a baby, so we had a lot to talk about and catch up on. All in all, I think the shower was a success, and I can't wait to see pictures of the new little Bennett!

Bunny Update

I thought I would let you know that, since writing about our new rabbit, David and I have changed her name to Nolan; she's a boy now. We tried calling her Elsa for a few days, but the name just didn't stick, and David kept referring to the rabbit as a "he" despite it's female name. So, the bunny's name is now Nolan. It fits much better. Hopefully it actually is a boy (we can't tell) and we haven't completely screwed up this rabbit's gender identity.

2 years down, eternity to go...

When I went home for lunch after writing the following, my astute and more date-oriented husband asked me if I had written about our wedding anniversary yesterday. Lost in my soliloquoy about fall and Halloween, I admitted that I had neglected to do that. So, here are the details of our second wedding anniversary.

David had school, but got work off so we could go do something in the evening. I went to work, because that's what I do now, and I ran to go get David his anniversary present before I headed home. The traditional second anniversary present is cotton, which seems like an incredibly boring gift (ie, "Happy anniversary, have some hand towels!" "Happy anniversary, here are some pocket handkerchiefs!" etc.) But David got creative. He thought of cotton in a more abstract way, like a "cotton-tail;" that's right, he got me a baby rabbit for our second anniversary. Her name is Elsa, and she's a gray Dwarf bunny. David has developed a recent love of wacky socks, so I got him four pairs of patterned socks -- three darker pairs that he could wear to work, and a pair of bright, printed Halloween socks, because Halloween is his favorite holiday.

After giving each other our respective presents (and playing with my present for a while), we went out to eat at the Training Table. We go there every year on our anniversary because it's where we had our first meal together as a married couple. After taking pictures with us around the temple following our wedding, my mom handed us $20 and said, "Go find some food; you're going to need it." And we picked Training Table. After dinner we went and got some supplies for the bunny. I think her previous owners fed her only pellets; she devoured about a cup of fresh vegetables yesterday. She's still very tentative about life; curious, but cautious. She bounds around our bedroom, pooping every few seconds/feet, stopping to get a few more bites to eat to give her a few more minutes of energy. The cats haven't seen her out of her cage yet. She's in our bedroom and we keep the door closed, which the cats don't like because they love to go lay on the bed. After I put her in her cage for the night, I let the cats come in to just look at her in her cage for a few seconds. I didn't let them in for very long, though, because rabbits are easily frightened; I didn't want Elsa to have a heart attack from the sight of the cats. So far she likes David the best, but that's probably because he's the one that brought her home and set up her cage. And he did fall asleep on our bedroom floor for about three hours while she ran around the room. I'm pretty tired; I might consider doing that myself when I get home from work.

So that was our second anniversary celebration: socks, a rabbit, and the Training Table. Here's to many future anniversaries!

New Job and Other Musings

Man, I have got to update my blog more often. And with more pictures, too. Not that anything too exciting happens in our lives, but I suppose the purpose of blogs is not to write only about the highlights, but the everyday, mundane occurences of life. So here goes.

I found a full-time job around the middle of September; my first day of work was the 14th, actually. I am a teller at a bank called Washington Federal Savings; if you haven't heard of them either, don't worry -- they're an exceptionally low-profile bank. But I work at the Foothill Branch, which is about ten minutes from my house up Emigration Canyon. 8:30-5:00 with an hour for lunch, no weekends, no holidays. It's fabulous. I can't say I'm getting paid as much as I would like, and after they deduct money for my 401(K) contribution, health insurance, and dental insurance, I'm sure I won't even be making minimum wage. Welcome to life, I suppose.

David is still plugging away at school. We've been begging IZOD, where he works, to give him less hours for several weeks now, and only now as the company is facing the possibility of going under do they cut his hours. He still has to work 4-5 days a week, but now for just 4-5 hours at a time. David hates short shifts; he thinks they're a waste of time. He has a point, though, at least in this instance -- he has to drive half an hour to Park City and then half an hour back. It does seem like kind of a waste to drive an hour only to work for four hours. Oh well, whatever pays the bills. The good news with him working less is that school will be a little bit easier to manage. I wish he didn't have to work at all and could just focus on school. Maybe when he transfers to the U or to Westminster he can get some sort of scholarship that will take care of school and perhaps some of the income he would have to earn otherwise. But he wants to go to medical school, so perhaps we should be working as much and saving as much as humanly possible.

The trees are changing colors up the canyon, it's so beautiful! I'll make sure to take some pictures of the gorgeous colors and post them soon. I love living up the canyon, where it feels like fall when it's supposed to. Although it's supposed to be 40 degrees and snowing tomorrow in the mountains; it's much too early for snow. That's one of the disadvantages of living in Utah: all of the seasons come earlier than they're supposed to. There's snow by Halloween and there's still snow at the beginning of March when a certain someone wants to wear all her new spring clothes for her birthday. You learn quickly here as a child that you shouldn't set your heart on wearing any Halloween costume that you would object to covering with a winter coat. No Jasmine, no Ariel, no Tinkerbell, although I suppose all of those characters come either from tropical climates or tropical waters. Mulan knows how to handle snow and cold temperatures, but by the time that movie came around, I was a little too old to be dressing up as Disney leading ladies. I think Halloween improves as you age, however; now you don't have to worry about your costume being weather-appropriate -- you just throw an indoor party and stay inside and eat candy!

Yes, we're still alive

Judging from the tone of my last post, you might have thought that I had quit school/jumped off the top of the SWKT (the tallest building in Provo, on BYU campus, by the way). But no! Against all odds, I did in fact graduate from BYU on August 14th. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.

Now, the job hunt is on. And when they say that we're in the worst recession since the Great Depression, as far as employment is concerned, they're not kidding. I apply for 5-6 jobs a day, and have applied for at least 100 positions; I've had four interviews in two months. It's rough. It's also rough because I have a BA in Humanities (I love typing that!), and not many people know exactly what a Humanities degree entails. But, by the grace of God, I had two interviews today, and got a call today from one of the companies to come in for a second interview! So I now have a follow-up interview on Wednesday as well as another interview that day.

David started school at SLCC this past week. He's really enjoying that, because it means that he doesn't have to work as much, poor boy. He's taking U.S. Government and Politics, German, Humanities (guess who signed him up for that one), and Scuba Diving. I didn't realize the effect that two years of Provo in an academic environment and not in school would have on him. He called me after his first day at school to tell me in a much-too-excited voice that he was doing homework. The thought of being thrilled to do homework so soon after graduating makes me kind of sick to my stomach. But David's really motivated to do well in school, and more power to him.

Well, there you go. We're both alive and well, looking for employment and enjoying school, respectively.