"I Want to Put a Cloud In My Mouth"

[The title of this post has nothing to do with what I'm actually going to write about. It's something a friend of mine said when we were talking about how whipped and smooth we like our mashed potatoes to be.]

Art and I returned a few hours ago from a "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage" conference. If one every comes to your area, you should go. Both Art and I commented that our faces hurt from smiling and laughing so much.

There are a million marriage books and conferences out there, and they all have great things to teach you. What's different about this one is that Mark Gungor does it with humor. He's just a funny guy! Even when he's being serious, he's funny. I also like his style of being straight-forward. He doesn't tiptoe around the issues. He did a full hour on sex, and he was almost....graphic? Not graphic. But he speaks more plainly about it than any other pastor or speaker I've ever heard.

I like pastors who are willing to tell it like it is, even at the risk of offending people. Because if it's truth, it's truth, and they're not going to soften it for the sake of those who might get upset.

So yeah, we really enjoyed it. And not only was the conference great, but it was in a beautiful location. We had to drive a couple of hours to get there, and the conference was Friday evening and Saturday morning, so we booked a hotel room with a gorgeous view. We were actually going to make a weekend out of it (stay through until Sunday), but when we heard the forecast for snow, we changed our reservations. It's kind of too bad, because we haven't really gone away, for the sake of getting away, since our honeymoon.

But with the money we would have spent on that second night, we instead went out for a really nice dinner on Friday evening. We ordered a rack of lamb. I have never had meat that tender before. It was better than steak. There's a reason it's so pricey!

The other good thing about only staying one night is that we'll get to go to church tomorrow morning, and the Thanksgiving potluck afterward. Since we've only been going to that church for a little more than a month, we still don't know people very well. I thought the potluck would be a great opportunity for that, and I didn't want to miss it. And now we won't!

Okay, let me show you some pictures from this weekend.

This was our room. I only remembered to take pictures right before we checked out, so that's why the bedding is all crumpled.


On the other side of the wall from the bed was this room!


It had a TV (there were actually two TVs in the whole suite), a fireplace, couches, and a kitchen area. Pretty sweet huh?


And this was the view from our room:


Same view, but taken from the ground, later in the day.


The conference was right down the road from where we stayed, so we could just walk there. But oh my word, was it COLD and WINDY!!!! I haven't felt that bitter icy blast since living in Manitoba. It even affected the room we stayed in. We were on the fourth floor, and when we first got to the room, we cranked up the heat as high as it would go. And we turned on the fireplace.

An hour later, we were both still wearing our coats. In our room. Thankfully, by the time the evening session of the conference was over, our room was toasty.

The wind and snow and ice followed us home though. As I'm sitting here typing this, I can hear the wind howling outside. It's unusual for this part of Washington to get this winter weather so early, and it isn't usually accompanied by arctic blasts. Thankfully, this is supposed to be short-lived. It's going to get a little warmer during the week, enough to make the roads less treacherous.

So, in summary: Mark Gungor makes people laugh while teaching them things that will enhance their marriages, we still got to have a romantic getaway, even if it was only for one night, and the weather outside is frightful, and I hope it goes away soon. Although, I do love the snow. But I don't love the wind or the ice.

Breaking News

There have been a couple of major changes around here recently. The first involves my job. I don't think I even mentioned anything about this, which is odd, because it wasn't something I had to keep secret.

There has been major restructuring where I work. Normally, the word "restructuring" is a different way of saying "downsizing" or "pink slips", but in this case, it's actually just restructuring! I won't go into the details of how it all works, but the bottom line is that it is supposed to improve communications and make processes faster, because the people at Step 1 and Step 2 and Step 3 will all be working closer together. Literally closer.

My whole department moved to the other side of the building, and the people on the other side of the building stayed there, but got shuffled around, and now we're all mixed together. It's interesting. I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. My department is used to being in our own room, where it's really quiet, so that will take some getting used to. It's louder out here, with people on the phones, people chatting between cubicles, people walking by my desk because I'm pretty close to the bathroom.

I also have a desk mate now, but at least it's someone I know, from my department. And not only is she from my department, but she's one of the more skilled and experienced from my department, so that will make training a lot easier.

For me, one of the reasons this restructuring is such a big deal is because my "job" was actually given to someone else. The duties I used to perform will now belong to another group. When I first heard this, I was worried that I would be let go, but my manager assured me that I would be doing something different. Of course, that means that right now I'm in limbo. My old job is no more, but I don't yet know how to do my new job, and since the big move, I haven't heard anything about training.

I realize that there is a lot going on, and a lot of things still need to be figured out, but I don't like feeling as though I've been left behind, like they've forgotten about me. I feel somewhat useless, but my coworkers assured me that as long as I'm learning (because I spend my days watching them do what I will eventually do), I'm not useless.

Plus, this is a great excuse for me to get an iPod! I've been wanting one for a long time, but I could never actually justify the purchase, because I've never felt as though I needed it. Now that there are so many more distractions around me, I'm going to need a way to shut it out. A fun way. Earplugs are not that fun. They don't play music.

So that's one big piece of news. Another major recent event is that we bought a car! I still can't believe that it's our car, because Art is the one who is driving it, and he's making all the arrangements with the payments and insurance and all that. But it's ours!

I don't remember if I wrote about this, but back in May, Art's car broke down. Stopped working completely. And it's so old, it's not worth fixing. So we've been borrowing Art's dad's truck since then, while looking for another vehicle to buy. Art wanted to get a jeep, but of course, we know now that we need a family-friendly vehicle. And we can't keep borrowing the truck, because we can't put a car seat in it. It's a small truck.

I don't know what year the car is, but it's a Honda Accord, and it's in pretty good condition, so I have no doubt it will last a long time. Our friend hasn't had any problems with it thus far. At some point I might actually take some pictures of it to show you!

What's really funny to me is that I'm not so much excited about the new car as I am about the fact that for a little while, we have two vehicles! We need to find a time to return the truck to Art's dad, so in the meantime, I get to DRIVE! I don't have to take the bus to work! I don't have to walk home! I can go grocery shopping without Art! This is a really big deal to me. I had no idea what I was missing. We've just gotten used to only having one vehicle. We've made it work. And we'll have to go back to that, probably in a few weeks.

But right now, I have transportational freedom and independence, and I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest.

And speaking of family vehicles and car seats (a few paragraphs back), a friend of ours gave us a car seat! His one-year-old outgrew it, and they asked us if we had one, and we didn't. So he brought it over yesterday, and I'm equal parts grateful and confused. Maybe confused isn't the right word. He explained to me how everything works, but it was a really quick explanation, and after he left, I thought to myself, "I still don't understand how to work this thing. How will I know if I've placed it in the car correctly?"

I'm totally going to look up a How-To video on YouTube.

So those are some exciting things that have been happening lately. The end!

Queue The Crazy Dreams!

I've heard that one of the MANY odd and unexplainable symptoms of pregnancy is strange dreams....

It all started with my being back in high school. I had to lead my younger cousin through a maze of lockers and hallways so she could locate a teacher from a higher grade. I had to hold her hand, because she was so scared of the older kids!

And then suddenly, I was on a train. I don't know where I was going.

Then we had some people at our house. They were all sitting around on couches, and we were kind of watching TV. There was a really inappropriate music video on, but for some reason, nobody changed the channel. My sister got mad at me for watching it. I tried to tell her that I was looking out the window instead, which she could see, because she was right beside me.

Then I was at the beach, and there was a huge gathering of people, mingling and eating. Everybody finished their meals at the exact same time, and started using their dishes as musical instruments. A huge party broke out, and everybody was singing and dancing.

Except my sister-in-law, who was trying to impress a guy by speaking a foreign language to him. He wasn't really interested.

Then I was back at home, trying to clean up after the people had gone home (the ones who were visiting and kind of watching TV). Art was getting impatient, because it was getting late, and he wanted me to stop cleaning and tidying and just go to bed.

When my alarm went off, I had a difficult time waking up. For some reason, I didn't feel very rested, like I had had a busy night!