You would think that eventually the dates of our losses would fade from our memories and we would only remember the times that we spent together with loved ones who have passed/moved on. Unfortunately, that isn't how it works.
I was only a few hours into today when I saw the date and had the poignant feeling of loss. It has now been 4 years since Andrew died. The days get easier in between, but when this day comes around each year, the wound feels fresh, as if no time has passed at all.
The tiny memories have started to disappear, only surfacing during random moments of reflection. Sometimes I remember the sound of his laugh; other times I can no longer hear it. There are days where I'm sure I can smell him and feel him there; other days when I only feel the emptiness of the absence of his presence.
It seems weird to me that I have been married for a couple years now and my husband and brother have never met. They would have been good friends. I know this, because they are both dorky enough to laugh at all, well most, of my jokes and goof off with me. Both have dared to dance all crazy with me. Both have been willing to care for me when I am sick or just plain lazy and both are my best friends.
I now realize that I sometimes took our friendship for granted, and that hurts, because I didn't cherish it completely when I had it. I always figured that he would be here with me, regardless of where life took us. I just didn't realize that life would take him away.
I'll never make that mistake again.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Phoenix, AZ
Yay- We got to visit with Todd's bro and his fam in Vegas on our drive down and I stayed with some family friends who we don't often see.
Boo- 101 degrees. Seriously. In October.
Yay- The King Fam (from my mission) lives only an hour from where I stayed, so I got to visit with them, not once, but twice while I was here. And because they know me, they remembered the ice cream.
Boo- The economy is rough in AZ, which does not bode well for sales.
Yay- For fun pranks.
While visiting the Vegas Mosher's we decided to take a dip in the pool during the evening. There were dares and cajoling and all the boys and I ended up getting in. Todd hadn't brought a swimsuit, so he borrowed his brother's. Of course, Mark was smart enough to give him the white one. Oh, did I mention that he had previously cut the liner out of it? Right after Todd did a cannonball into the pool, Mark turned to us and said, "His swimsuit doesn't have a liner, so it's see-through." Of course, Todd decided to get out of the pool right at that moment, since nobody had joined him yet, and instinctively we all checked out his swimsuit. Yup, see-through. I think I got a towel in front of him quickly enough for modesty's sake. However, it did take me a minute, because I was laughing too hard.
Boo- For dead camera batteries and missing General Conference.
Yay- Hello, both of those are things I can fix. Buying batteries and visiting the Mesa Temple to get my pic and I can watch Conference when I get home. Gotta love tivo and the BYU channel.
Boo- Sore feet from standing all day for 10 days... and did I mention the 101 degree weather?
Yay- It's time to go home! I'm meeting Todd in Vegas and then we are coming home.
Boo- 101 degrees. Seriously. In October.
Yay- The King Fam (from my mission) lives only an hour from where I stayed, so I got to visit with them, not once, but twice while I was here. And because they know me, they remembered the ice cream.
Boo- The economy is rough in AZ, which does not bode well for sales.
Yay- For fun pranks.
While visiting the Vegas Mosher's we decided to take a dip in the pool during the evening. There were dares and cajoling and all the boys and I ended up getting in. Todd hadn't brought a swimsuit, so he borrowed his brother's. Of course, Mark was smart enough to give him the white one. Oh, did I mention that he had previously cut the liner out of it? Right after Todd did a cannonball into the pool, Mark turned to us and said, "His swimsuit doesn't have a liner, so it's see-through." Of course, Todd decided to get out of the pool right at that moment, since nobody had joined him yet, and instinctively we all checked out his swimsuit. Yup, see-through. I think I got a towel in front of him quickly enough for modesty's sake. However, it did take me a minute, because I was laughing too hard.
Boo- For dead camera batteries and missing General Conference.
Yay- Hello, both of those are things I can fix. Buying batteries and visiting the Mesa Temple to get my pic and I can watch Conference when I get home. Gotta love tivo and the BYU channel.
Boo- Sore feet from standing all day for 10 days... and did I mention the 101 degree weather?
Yay- It's time to go home! I'm meeting Todd in Vegas and then we are coming home.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Lake Powell
Lake Powell...sunburns, red sand castles, laughter, wakeboarding (with a few tears), pictures, cliff jumping, lizards, sand crabs, snakes, mud fights, random underwear washing up on the sand, shredded flat boat trailer tires, ice cream sucking fish, Camp Three-Beach and campfire. It was a great trip with minimal bumps and tire changes.
Here are a few pics (OK, maybe more than a few):
Such concentration
I am supposed to inform you that Jessica was not posing...she really was just checking to see if there was sand on her bum. I just happened to catch it on film, err...digital.
No, they are not in pain. It was a brisk early morning dip.
The view from our campsite.
Here are a few pics (OK, maybe more than a few):
Such concentration
I am supposed to inform you that Jessica was not posing...she really was just checking to see if there was sand on her bum. I just happened to catch it on film, err...digital.
No, they are not in pain. It was a brisk early morning dip.
The view from our campsite.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Nashville Nightmare
Throughout my entire life, my family has always joked that we are living proof of Murphy's Law. I do not remember a vacation where something didn't go wrong. Sometimes there were only small problems, whereas other times, it was disastrous. There was never a time, however, where we didn't have a blast and make memories.
I am just going to have to chalk up this last trip to Nashville, TN to that same Smith curse. It started out badly and went straight to worse. I think that I lost my driver's license somewhere in the Portland Airport and didn't realize this until it was too late to do anything about it. Luckily, I had my passport and so could still get on the airplane. In the meantime, I had my mother call the car rental agency and attempt to figure out whether I would still be able to rent a car if I had my information and driver's license number faxed directly to the company. It wasn't until I arrived at the airport that I found out that they don't care if you misplace your information. No amount of faxing or emailing or even personal calls to the police dept. will help you out...and subsequently sweet talking.
So, I figure, alright, I can handle this. I weigh my options and do a quick cost analysis and end up using a shuttle. I'm still waiting for my credit card to be reloaded after booking all kinds of hotels and whatnot on it, so I go to use my debit card to pay for the shuttle. It is after it declines a couple of times that we realize my debit card expired the day before. Doh! I had plenty of money, but no access to it. Luckily, Todd had handed me one of his credit cards before we parted.
Once I got to the hotel, I asked the hotel clerk if there was any sort of public transportation that I could use to get to the Sam's Club where I was doing a road show. Apparently, there was one small "trolley" that nobody could find information about, nor was their any info online. No taxis were available and I hadn't been able to get a hold of a manager at the Sam's to verify a time to set up my demo. So, I swallowed my pride and asked the night clerk for a ride when he got off work. Unfortunately, he forgot about me the next morning. There was, however, a guest who had just checked out who was willing to give me and my large pelican case a ride.
I spent my entire weekend either walking a couple hours in the morning or catching rides from random Sam's cashiers/sample people. I gained an intimate knowledge of 3 miles around my hotel, thanks to some bad directions, and I gained a stalker, who later apologized for being stalkerish. I also found out, after some products I had sold were returned, that one of my coworkers was demo-ing at the Costco not even a mile from where I was. Of course, Costco sells our products for cheaper and so I lost quite a few sales to him. And to top it all off, my TV at the hotel wouldn't work. I found it sadly hilarious that Todd seemed not to stress about any of my dilemmas until he found out about my TV. His response? "Could ANYTHING else go wrong?" So after an unproductive weekend of leaving to walk to work at 6am in order to work 14 hour days and hitching rides, I am extremely ecstatic to be home.
I do have to say a quick thanks to Bob and Sam, who were driving to Florida to pick up Sam's grandparents and take them home to Kentucky, Mik and Kelsey, who both work at Sam's and are dating each other and took pity on me several times, Raven, whose husband has been stationed in Kuwait for the past year (the only time she has seen him was when he took 2 weeks leave for them to get married) and Matt, who is recently engaged and saving for the wedding of his fiance's dreams. I am very thankful for these new friends who helped me out and shared their lives with me.
I am just going to have to chalk up this last trip to Nashville, TN to that same Smith curse. It started out badly and went straight to worse. I think that I lost my driver's license somewhere in the Portland Airport and didn't realize this until it was too late to do anything about it. Luckily, I had my passport and so could still get on the airplane. In the meantime, I had my mother call the car rental agency and attempt to figure out whether I would still be able to rent a car if I had my information and driver's license number faxed directly to the company. It wasn't until I arrived at the airport that I found out that they don't care if you misplace your information. No amount of faxing or emailing or even personal calls to the police dept. will help you out...and subsequently sweet talking.
So, I figure, alright, I can handle this. I weigh my options and do a quick cost analysis and end up using a shuttle. I'm still waiting for my credit card to be reloaded after booking all kinds of hotels and whatnot on it, so I go to use my debit card to pay for the shuttle. It is after it declines a couple of times that we realize my debit card expired the day before. Doh! I had plenty of money, but no access to it. Luckily, Todd had handed me one of his credit cards before we parted.
Once I got to the hotel, I asked the hotel clerk if there was any sort of public transportation that I could use to get to the Sam's Club where I was doing a road show. Apparently, there was one small "trolley" that nobody could find information about, nor was their any info online. No taxis were available and I hadn't been able to get a hold of a manager at the Sam's to verify a time to set up my demo. So, I swallowed my pride and asked the night clerk for a ride when he got off work. Unfortunately, he forgot about me the next morning. There was, however, a guest who had just checked out who was willing to give me and my large pelican case a ride.
I spent my entire weekend either walking a couple hours in the morning or catching rides from random Sam's cashiers/sample people. I gained an intimate knowledge of 3 miles around my hotel, thanks to some bad directions, and I gained a stalker, who later apologized for being stalkerish. I also found out, after some products I had sold were returned, that one of my coworkers was demo-ing at the Costco not even a mile from where I was. Of course, Costco sells our products for cheaper and so I lost quite a few sales to him. And to top it all off, my TV at the hotel wouldn't work. I found it sadly hilarious that Todd seemed not to stress about any of my dilemmas until he found out about my TV. His response? "Could ANYTHING else go wrong?" So after an unproductive weekend of leaving to walk to work at 6am in order to work 14 hour days and hitching rides, I am extremely ecstatic to be home.
I do have to say a quick thanks to Bob and Sam, who were driving to Florida to pick up Sam's grandparents and take them home to Kentucky, Mik and Kelsey, who both work at Sam's and are dating each other and took pity on me several times, Raven, whose husband has been stationed in Kuwait for the past year (the only time she has seen him was when he took 2 weeks leave for them to get married) and Matt, who is recently engaged and saving for the wedding of his fiance's dreams. I am very thankful for these new friends who helped me out and shared their lives with me.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Portland, OR
My first official trip to sell ladders was to Portland, OR. I really enjoyed being there and I learned a lot. There are a lot of great people who live there, and I made quite a few new friends while working. It was also fun to see some friends who moved there a few years ago and their new home.
Here are a few things that I learned while in Portland:
1. When buying cases of beer, you must purchase either 1 or 3. I don't know why, but I was positioned across from the alcohol section and watched as people loaded their carts up with beer.
2. On that note, $300 for a ladder is a lot of money, however, $300 for wine isn't. I'm a little confused by this considering that the ladder has a lifetime warranty and the wine...well, a moment on the lips and all that.
3. Apparently, there are a lot of people who eat fish. This is a phenomenon not seen in Utah and definitely not appreciated by me. I mean seriously, why choose fish when you can have a good steak or something?
4. Rain gutters have to be cleaned out regularly. Of course, you have to have foliage for this to be a necessity.
5. Babies love to be in backpacks. Now, I have seen this before, just not in such high numbers. It seemed like every baby I saw was in a backpack on a parent's back.
6. The whole athletic clothing in the morning while running errands after your run isn't just for mornings when you are in Oregon. You can wear your workout clothes all day long. I often felt quite overdressed in my polo and khakis.
7. Lemon pudding cake is my favorite dessert ever. Previous to this, I had always thought it was my mom's pie. I must have been misinformed.
8. If you make friends with the sample ladies they will give you as many samples as you want. This is really good when it is steak and cheesecake day...I don't want to talk about it...
9. Days Inns do not have complimentary conditioner. Their target market must be men with short hair, because women understand how important hair conditioner is.
10. I have also had it reaffirmed that people outside of Utah find my sense of humor charming. In Utah, people stare at me blankly when I am trying to be funny. Elsewhere, they think I am freaking hilarious. I would move to a different state, but being in Utah keeps me humble.
I also found a new Italian restaurant that I love, visited the Portland Temple (pics will be up later), and realized that, yes, I can do this whole being a salesman thing. In fact, I quite enjoy it. Now off to Nashville, TN.
Here are a few things that I learned while in Portland:
1. When buying cases of beer, you must purchase either 1 or 3. I don't know why, but I was positioned across from the alcohol section and watched as people loaded their carts up with beer.
2. On that note, $300 for a ladder is a lot of money, however, $300 for wine isn't. I'm a little confused by this considering that the ladder has a lifetime warranty and the wine...well, a moment on the lips and all that.
3. Apparently, there are a lot of people who eat fish. This is a phenomenon not seen in Utah and definitely not appreciated by me. I mean seriously, why choose fish when you can have a good steak or something?
4. Rain gutters have to be cleaned out regularly. Of course, you have to have foliage for this to be a necessity.
5. Babies love to be in backpacks. Now, I have seen this before, just not in such high numbers. It seemed like every baby I saw was in a backpack on a parent's back.
6. The whole athletic clothing in the morning while running errands after your run isn't just for mornings when you are in Oregon. You can wear your workout clothes all day long. I often felt quite overdressed in my polo and khakis.
7. Lemon pudding cake is my favorite dessert ever. Previous to this, I had always thought it was my mom's pie. I must have been misinformed.
8. If you make friends with the sample ladies they will give you as many samples as you want. This is really good when it is steak and cheesecake day...I don't want to talk about it...
9. Days Inns do not have complimentary conditioner. Their target market must be men with short hair, because women understand how important hair conditioner is.
10. I have also had it reaffirmed that people outside of Utah find my sense of humor charming. In Utah, people stare at me blankly when I am trying to be funny. Elsewhere, they think I am freaking hilarious. I would move to a different state, but being in Utah keeps me humble.
I also found a new Italian restaurant that I love, visited the Portland Temple (pics will be up later), and realized that, yes, I can do this whole being a salesman thing. In fact, I quite enjoy it. Now off to Nashville, TN.
Friday, July 16, 2010
The End of the US Census
Now, as the Census slowly draws to an end and the temporary Census workers put on their job seeking hats, I have to think to myself how thankful I am to have already been placed in a position at a different company. I will forever be thankful that I was able to work here and save my sanity (I don't do well being at home), as well as my financial situation. I have made some great new friends, but I am ready to move on.
This may sound snobbish, but I didn't go through all my years of schooling to work in a position that won't even compensate me enough to pay off my student loans. Instead, I spent the time earning an MBA so that I can be a ladder salesperson. Yes, I see the irony in that statement. I will be working as a salesperson for Little Giant Ladders, the same as Todd.
There are quite a few pros for the job:
1. This will put me on the same travel schedule as Todd and we will have every 0ther 10 days together, without me having to go to work while he gets to sleep in.
2. There is a pretty decent upside to the payscale (although it is 100% commission, which can be good, but also can be bad).
3. I will be working with a company that has integrity (and surprisingly, this is not an oxymoron) that I can believe in and who has a superior product.
4. Spending a few years working in sales will help me bolster my resume, which will enable me to truly utilize all of my other preparations for the corporate world.
5. Oh yeah, and did I mention that I will have every other 10 days off? I will have time to work on all sorts of projects that have been put on the back burner until a time when I have, either more time, or more money.
I am quite excited to see this chapter in my life end and the new one begin. You never know what could happen next. Maybe I'll actually learn to cook or sew or something...probably not.
This may sound snobbish, but I didn't go through all my years of schooling to work in a position that won't even compensate me enough to pay off my student loans. Instead, I spent the time earning an MBA so that I can be a ladder salesperson. Yes, I see the irony in that statement. I will be working as a salesperson for Little Giant Ladders, the same as Todd.
There are quite a few pros for the job:
1. This will put me on the same travel schedule as Todd and we will have every 0ther 10 days together, without me having to go to work while he gets to sleep in.
2. There is a pretty decent upside to the payscale (although it is 100% commission, which can be good, but also can be bad).
3. I will be working with a company that has integrity (and surprisingly, this is not an oxymoron) that I can believe in and who has a superior product.
4. Spending a few years working in sales will help me bolster my resume, which will enable me to truly utilize all of my other preparations for the corporate world.
5. Oh yeah, and did I mention that I will have every other 10 days off? I will have time to work on all sorts of projects that have been put on the back burner until a time when I have, either more time, or more money.
I am quite excited to see this chapter in my life end and the new one begin. You never know what could happen next. Maybe I'll actually learn to cook or sew or something...probably not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)