Bloom Where You're Planted

The last few weeks have been a little overwhelming. We decided to move to a bigger apartment. In the course of two weeks we applied for several apartments, went to a few open houses, looked at a million different apartments for rent online, and then finally, last Monday found one we liked that we could also afford. We filled out the applications on Monday, got approved for the apartment on Wednesday, packed all of our belongings Wednesday and Thursday, moved on Friday, and cleaned our old apartment on Saturday and Sunday.

Apartment hunting and then moving is awful!

But we are here, and all we have left to do is unpack everything.

We've loved our first home as a married couple and we are so sad to leave it. If there was a way to just add a bedroom for Rose onto it, we would have done that, but we've had too many late/sleepless nights to stay there for much longer.

We now live in the top floor of an old old house (it looks haunted from the outside, and I'm pretty sure the bottom floor is empty). ((Perfect for Halloween, except I won't let Ryan decorate it extra creepy, because I don't like creepy/scary Halloween. Sorry Ryan.))

But, the inside is more cheerful. :) It has such charming windows and pretty hardwood floors. There is a little bit of stained glass in our bedroom and in one of the bathrooms there is a claw foot bathtub!

This door leads onto a small balcony that's off our living room. 

There are a few issues with the new apartment.

For one, our kitchen is teeny tiny. Our table for four won't fit in it, so we are trying to get rid of that. I'll also have to adjust to having very little counter space, and a little oven.

Another thing, we have a little rickety staircase, with two turns, that leads up to our apartment. Just getting our smaller furniture into the apartment was difficult. We were already planning on getting rid of our couch, but now we aren't sure we'll be able to get ANY couch up those stairs. So, any suggestions on other (cheap) seating arrangements for a living room are welcome.

You may have noticed that the title of this blog post is "Bloom Where You're Planted." I am super bad at doing this. It took me almost a year to really feel comfortable and useful in our last ward. I also never really got around to decorating our apartment the way I wanted it.

This time around, I am determined to make this apartment one that I enjoy being in. I'm also determined to make friends quicker and to start being a part of the ward as soon as possible.

All in all, I'm super excited about our new apartment, and I will continue to post pictures as we progress in the decorating process, we already bought two rugs, which is huge for us! It took us 4 months to find a table when we first got married.

Lucky for us, even though it will probably take some effort for me to "bloom where I'm planted", I have a sweet little Rose that is blooming wherever she goes. (Except for right now, as she is crying out to me because I've been trying to get her to take a nap for the last two hours. This is my 3rd attempt. The little stinker.)

Back to Reality

In my last post I mentioned that reality came crashing down around us when we came home from Lake Powell. It's lovely how that happens, isn't it?

We would prefer to just take naps instead of doing adult things. 

Lake Powell was this beautiful bubble that blocked EVERYTHING out. No cell service, no wi-fi, no phones, nothing. We were forced to relax and enjoy the water and sunshine. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we left our phones started buzzing, our emails popped up, and our "don't worry about until after Lake Powell" to-do list came into focus. It's really a bummer how life does that.

Ryan had to start school the day after we got back, go back to work a week later, and I had to start thinking about looking for a job. We had bills to pay, and we realized that we should probably start looking for an apartment with another bedroom so that we don't have to get ready for bed in the dark every night hoping not to wake Rose up. (Also, I have lots to catch up on for my blog! SO many pictures!)

Anyways, so all that just to say that the last few weeks have been a lot of adult stuff.

I'm feeling awfully proud of myself because one of the adult things I did was research car insurance and I found one that would save us $360 a year! In one day, I cancelled our old car insurance, signed up for this new one, took our car to Jiffy Lube for the emissions test, AND registered the car. (This is all Ryan's stuff, to make it up to me he bought me chocolate raspberry Magnum bars.)

I still haven't found a job, but I have an interview on Monday, they said it could potentially be a job I do from home, so we'll see. (fingers crossed). It's difficult to find a job that I can do from home while watching a baby. There are jobs where you teach English to kids in China, but I found out when I started applying to those that the camera on my computer doesn't work. So, until I get webcam or fix that, those jobs aren't going to work. If the job interview works out, then I'll be set. But if it doesn't, I'm probably just going to do small jobs here and there to help supplement Ryan's paycheck.

Is it too much to ask to find a job that allows me to get out of the house for 4 hours a day, that is helping families (so it uses my bachelors degree in family studies), pays a salary instead of by the hour (because why else did I pay for college????), and allows me to take Rose with me??? (Probably, but one can dream.)

We aren't seriously looking at new apartments until I can find a job, because 2 bedroom apartments in Utah County are pricey, and we really like our ward and our apartment.

It's a bummer that Ryan is back at school and work again because we really enjoyed spending all day, every day with him. I am hoping that we will be more creative with the way we spend his time off now though because it is so limited. We went to Mount Timpanogos Caves with his sister on his day off last week.

That view!

  It was actually super fun, and it's way more affordable than some of the other cool attractions here in Utah County. (I'm looking at you Thanksgiving Point!) The hike was a little painful, and my husband, Mr. Long Legs walked as fast as he possibly could because he didn't want to be late for our cave tour. Me, Mrs. Short Legs nearly died and keeled over, off the mountain. Also, we were 35 minutes early. Lucky for him, I didn't actually die, otherwise he would have felt bad.

The caves were beautiful and exciting! For me AND for Rose. Rose loved looking around, I could tell it was one of the most exciting moments of her young life. The tour guide was impressed that she was so calm, she said that normally babies cry in the caves. One really cool part was that when you get pretty far in, they'll turn all the lights off and it's completely black. You can put your hand right in front of your eyes and still not see. In the Book of Mormon, when Christ dies and the world is black for 3 days, I imagine that's what it was like, and now that I've experienced it, I can understand why they were so devastated! Pure darkness would be miserable and terrifying!

It was a really fun experience, I'm glad we did it. Next Summer, Ryan has decided that we should hike Mt. Timpanogos caves every day for exercise. (I think he's slightly delusional, but if he really wants to do it, I'll do it too, as long as he carries Rose.)

Fun Fact: Tressa is in the MTC now preparing to go to the Tacoma, WA mission. (The same mission that Ryan and I served in and where we met!) 

Side note: Writing the caption for the picture of Ryan and his sister reminded me that I am upset that both my sister, Emily, and Ryan's sister, Tressa, will be gone for the next 18 months on their missions because they are the two who would be the most excited/willing to babysit for us for free! How rude is it of them to just up and leave like that?! (I'm mostly kidding, it's so awesome that they are both on their missions right now. Serving a mission was one of the best experiences I ever had and prepared me so much for what I'm doing now. We will miss them though.)

Rose is waking up from her nap so I'll have to finish this up quick. Pretty much, since Ryan started back up at school two weeks ago, we've just been playing catch up and trying to get back into the swing of things. I miss vacation, but it's always good to be home.