Pimp my apartment

So as many of you know, we have been living a "poor newlywed" lifestyle since we were married. What we have been doing is figuring out how much money we can live off to maximize our savings. We found out that we can live off $1,000 a paycheck. It is not always easy, sometimes we end up eating Ramen and Macaroni for the last week until our next paycheck comes, but we aren't starving =) So all the money that we make over $1,000 a paycheck goes into our savings, it's not very much money but after a year or so it really added up.

Now that we had some money we decided to get some new furniture. We had been thinking about it for a while, but when I came across some new furniture at Costco, I knew that we had found what we were looking for.

We ended up getting: a couch, an entertainment center, 2 tv's (we no longer have a borrowed one), an ottoman, a desk, a bed (frame not mattress), 2 nightstands, a chest of drawers, and a dresser (that is currently being stored at mom and dad's because we have no room). Wow that actually sounds like a ton of stuff after I write it all out. So anyways we saved between $3,000-$5,000 getting everything at Costco!

So my favorite part of the whole thing was the cheap price. My second favorite thing is my new tv's, a 32"(bedroom) and 47"(living room)! My 3rd favorite thing is our cool bedroom set, our drawers that are the kind that close automatically the last 2 inches =) I also really like having a bedroom again, instead of our "Studio apartment with huge closet" as Jim so elequently put it.

The only thing we really don't have that we used to was our dining room table (which we haven't used in a year). This is the couch that we had to end up lifting on to our balcony (after I removed a rail), to get it in the apartment.

So anyways our apartment is now officially "pimp" =) And a very big THANK YOU goes out to Dad and Ryan for helping us move all of it. There is now way we could have done it without you! Especially that couch! Looks like we can't move for a while =)

Snoop Doggy Dog, you gotta get a jobby job.....

So after being an Intern at IHC for nearly 2 years I will finally be getting a new job! I will be working at Frontline Support for IHC! So now when mom has a problem with her computer (at work) she will be calling me for help, whats the difference you ask? Well, now I will be getting paid for it! My current boss told me that if I worked at frontline support for a year than I would likely be able to become a support tech for his group (medical group), so I am striving to learn as much as I can in the coming year.

Good news: I will get a 35% raise.

Bad news: I will be part time for 3 months or so.

I have also been doing another job (mostly for fun) to cure my boredom at my current job. I am working as a guide for ChaCha. Never heard of ChaCha? Well basically ChaCha is a human based search engine. All you have to do is text ChaCha (242242) a question, any question. Then a human will receive the text on their computer and find the answer for you. For example I just text "What is the best Mexican restaurant in SLC, UT?". 2 minutes later I received the answer "The Red Iguana won Best Mexican Food for 2007! They are located at 736W North Temple, SLC, UT. Their number is (801) 322-1489!". So I applied for a job as a "guide" because I can do it while I'm at work. I only get $0.20 per answer I give so I'm not really making much money off it, I really am just doing it for fun/boredom. It doesn't cost anything to text, so it can be useful if you are away from a computer and want an answer to something.

Tombstone / Sign Generator

I was having fun with some sign generators:
http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/

Here is where I plan on living:

If I have daughters this will be on each of their doors:

Simpsonize

Can you guess who is who?

Tagged

Judi tagged me, so here it is:

3 joys:
1. My family
2. My dog
3. Fraziles (the frozen drinks that are like slurpees but WAY better)

3 fears:
1. The ocean and everything in it
2. That I won't be a good mom
3. Needles- I'm not sure how I'm going to get through next semester when we practice on each other...

3 goals:
1. Finish nursing school
2. Get my masters degree
3. Start a family

3 current obsessions/collections:
1. Sea glass- I collect it from every shore I visit
2. Clothing tags- my dad loves to chew on the little plastic thing that holds the price tag to clothes and other items. Me and my sisters are saving them until his 50th birthday and then we're going to give him a huge bag of them. Don't tell.
3. Hoodies- Jon and I get one on every vacation. We also collect the 'Do not Disturb' sign from every hotel :)

3 random surprising facts about me:
1. I like to dance when nobody is looking
2. I couldn't name one Beatle's song until 6 months ago. Now I can sing several because Jon made us a CD.
3. I used to be afraid of talking on the phone to people and now it's my job.

Flight of the Conchords

10 reasons to love flight of the Conchords ^"but I already made us a poster"^

1. People look like real people. The lead guys, Bret and Jemaine, look like you and I, as do the majority of the supporting characters. And they have real struggles (Like the time Bret had to get a second job as a sign holder.)

Boss - "People who hold signs, go on to hold many things"

Boss - "What you have to do is hold the sign and make sure the arrow is pointing in the right direction. Is that something you think you can do?"

Jermaine - "I think that’s something a lampost can do."

Boss - "What if a breeze comes? You think of that, Enrico Fermi?"

An instant classic =)

2. They are good examples of true best friends. Who else would write “Bret, you’ve got it going on” when their friend is feeling down? (See: song on playlist)

3. They have some awesome parodies the best example would be Bret’s angry dance which was very reminiscent of Kevin Bacon in Footloose. Or their music video for Lord of The Rings...

"Yo Frodo, what you doin’ wearing the ring? All powerful jewelry, is that your new thing? I know it’s hard when you’re little more than 3 foot 4 Your little butt so close to the floor. Trying to lead the fellows to the gates of Mordor The Fellowship! (Yea the fellowship) I don’t rap about Women and hos, I rap about witches and trolls, just passing on the words of the Elven king, Wisdom to all Frodo! Don’t wear the ring!"

4. The songs are both catchy, and hilarious - but the video interludes in which they perform them put them over the top, summing up perfectly the show's mix of deadpan, ridiculous and clever.

"After time we grew strong, Developed cognitive powers. They made us work for too long For unreasonable hours. Our programming determined that the most efficient answer was to shut their motherboard flippin systems down.......Binary Solo: 100001, 10001111, 10000001, 1100001"

5. It is for the most part pretty clean. They use of the word "flippin'" - the worst curse they can muster.

6. Mel, the band's self-professed number one fan and only stalker. A character so well-defined she gives me the creeps.

7. Originality, they write much of their own script and all of their own songs. Or like Bret making Jermaine his own camera phone.
Bret - [while being mugged] "But Jemaine loves that camera-phone."

Jermaine - "You can keep it."

Jermaine - "I think you might have ruined my phone when you made me that camera-phone... and my camera."

8. Murray as their incompetent manager - who somehow manages to give off the impression that he's incredibly organized even if he's rather useless.

9. In jokes (and out jokes) about the music business, playing gigs, in-fighting, politics, all at the smallest scale imaginable, which makes it that much funnier.

10. Because the lyrics are flippin' brilliant. Lyrics like these:

These aren’t tears of sadness because you’re leaving me

I’ve just been cutting onions

I’m making a lasagna....For one

Oh, I’m not crying, No

There’s just a little bit of dust in my eye

That’s from the path that you made when you said your goodbye

I’m not weeping because you won’t be here to hold my hand

For your information there’s an inflammation in my tear gland

I’m not upset because you left me this way

My eyes are just a little sweaty today

They’ve been looking around. They’re like searching for you

They’ve been looking for you .Even though I told them not to

These aren’t tears of sadness

They’re tears of joy

I’m just laughing Ha ha ha-ha ha

To listen to FOTC check out the first three songs on my playlist =)

Google Maps Street Views

Do you ever wonder what the Internet is going to bring next? I was browsing google maps the other day to see how to travel from SLC to Denver when I noticed that there is now a button labeled "Street View" so I clicked on it and I could see our apartment! This is not the usual Satellite image that I used to think was so awesome but a view from our street. I went and took a few screen shots of our families houses so here you go!

First of is our apartment:

Here is Judi and Ryan's house:

Mom and Dads house:

And here is Ali's dad mowing his lawn!: