Oh Working....

THE DOWNSIDES TO WORKING:

Since it took me 6 months to find a freaking job after I graduated, I have had a lot of catching up to do in the $$$ department in order to achieve my financial goals within the 1 year I gave myself while I sat in class making plans and dreaming of a day when I would be done with homework and actually making money. So, needless to say, I have been working a TON of overtime.

1) Working this much makes you tired and grumpy. It's like you are PMS'ing all the time. One minute you are laughing and thinking "I can do this!" and the next minute you are crying in your husbands arms and saying "Why did I think I could do this?"

2) I never feel like I've gotten enough sleep. When I'm sleeping I dream of work and when I'm awake I dream of sleeping. It's a sad combo my friends. One that includes a lot of caffeine during the day, and Benadryl to knock myself out at night.

3) Nurses get the crazy schedules that don't ever coincide with anyone else's schedules. Because of this, I have missed my visiting teaching for the month (sorry dear companion who had to go alone) and I never get to see my husband :(. This makes it very tough to feel like you have a life that actually includes another human being outside of the medical world.

THE UPSIDES TO WORKING:

Yes, I complain a lot... but I promise I actually do like my job and I feel like 90% of the time I enjoy what I do. There are definitely perks to being a "working woman" haha.

1) When people ask what I do, I proudly tell them and a little spark inside me ignites and I feel like I am exactly where I've always wanted to be in my life.

2) With all this overtime, my paychecks have been huge! So of course on payday I tend to forget all my grievances and I again feel that sense of pride. (Now, keep in mind, my idea of huge is probably small compared to what other people are making lol).

3) By March I will have achieved my goal (even faster than the year I had planned on)! Josh and I will officially be debt free! We have paid off our car and with just a few more pay checks we will have all my student loans paid off!

4) Now, here's the best part! My company is sending me to Orlando, FL at the end of April for the American Nephrology Nurse's Association Annual Conference! They are paying for everything including airfare, food, hotel, etc.! And we're not talking cheapsters here...I will be staying inside Disney World at their Dolphin Resort for 5 days!!! What's even more exciting is they are letting me bring Josh along with me so we get to make a vacation out of it! I will have to go to the conference classes during the day and then by 4:30 pm I will be free to play! We're already making plans to go see the things we missed the last time we were down in Orlando. I'M SO EXCITED!!

5) And of course, there are those amazing days when I feel like I am doing good in the world with the knowledge and skills I have been given. I look at Josh and his chosen field of work and I think, "how does that field attract you?" It is a constant dog-eat-dog atmosphere and no one ever looks at you and says, "Thank you, you just saved my life." instead they say, "Where's my money A$$-hole?!" (Sadly, I'm not exaggerating here....) So I am grateful for those special moments I get with my patients when I can be there for them during this hard time in their lives. I'm grateful for every moment I get to spend with them as they cry tears of sadness because they don't think they're going to make it this time, and as they cry tears of joy because they just got put on the transplant list. All of this makes it worth it.

Now, bring on Florida!!!

A LaFeber Christmas

Ever since Josh and I started dating, Christmas was always spent in Nevada with my family. Well, we decided to break that cycle and spend it with his family this year, and it

was great! Not only did we get to spend lots of time with our cutie-bug nieces and nephews, but we also got to spend some quality time alone on Christmas morning together which was really nice :).

Here is our first tree! It's a baby one, but it was beautiful and we loved it. When you travel for the holidays you miss out on fun things like getting a tree and decorating it. I'm starting to think we might stay home for Christmas more often!

Here we are on Christmas morning. We got to sleep in (another thing that wouldn't have happened if we had gone to Nevada) and then we opened all of our presents. We scored a lot of good stuff! Thanks family for all the fun packages! We loved all the stuff you sent!

Josh spoiled me with candy and jewelry (yes, that is a pink watch....believe it!). I also got more movies to add to our ever growing collection, the Breaking Dawn sound-track, and a ton of makeup from Sephora!

Josh wanted some sports outfits (as if he doesn't already have a whole closet full) so he got some Alabama gear to get him ready to cheer them on in the National Championship! He also got Madden, a really nice new coat, cologne, and a gift card to Best Buy.

As you can see, it was a candy overload this year. It's a good thing we have gym passes!

Christmas was definitely good to us this year. We have so much to be grateful for and on the top of that list is family. We love both of our families so much. They are always the first people who call in the mornings, and the last people we hang up with at night. I can't imagine life without family, which means we must have a pretty good one! We are also grateful for the birth of the Savior. The fact that he was willing to come to Earth to die for us means he loves us more than we could ever truly understand. And what is life if there is not love? We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas full of love and fun! Here's to another great new year!

Soooo tired, but soooo excited!

Well, it's my first day off this week, and although I've only worked 4 days in a row, it feels like 10! I am sooooo NOT a morning person and so this job has been challenging in that department. My typical day goes as follows:

1) get up at 4 am and quickly get ready in time to be out the door by 4:30 so I can be at work by 5 am.

2) Spend all day working....this can be a great day or a terrible day depending on how my patients feel that day.

3) Come home by 6:30 (again it depends on the day) and immediately shower. I am such a germ-aphobe.

4) Kiss my adorable husband hello when he walks in the door, eat some dinner, and head to bed by 8:30 pm.

Yes, you could say we are lame....and I would probably have to agree with you! My mom called the other night and asked what we were doing for our 1 1/2 year anniversary and I told her we were watching Charlie Brown's Christmas and eating Captain Crunch for dinner and she totally laughed at me. I started laughing too once I realized how lame that sounded hahaha.

On a happier note, I am so excited for this weekend! We have decided this weekend is going to be our Christmas decorating, hot chocolate sipping, gingerbread house making weekend! Yayy!! I wanted to start decorating a long time ago but we moved last weekend to Bountiful and that kinda put a damper on things. However, we are all moved in and ready to go now! I still haven't begun decorating our apartment so it looks more like a bachelor pad than a home Ashly would live in lol, but I'm too tired to care.

CATCH UP:

I'm pretty behind on things so let me catch up a bit. For thanksgiving we went down to Nevada to see my family. We had a ton of fun eating, going rock climbing at Valley of Fire, feeding the fish at Lake Mead, checking out the Hoover Dam (I hadn't seen it since before the new bridge had been completed), and playing/laughing with family. We didn't want to go home that Sunday....especially because we knew how stressful the following week would be. We both worked, packed, and moved by the following Saturday and it was CRAZY! So glad that part is over.

Josh and I at the Hoover Dam

The girls :)

Things I'm Loving Right Now

I would have to say the first thing on this list would be my husband! He is so adorable and he tries so hard. For example, I came home last Friday from my first day at work and he had bought me pink, yellow, and purple roses and a Halloween bowl full of goodies! Some of the things in that bowl were more random/odd than others (the random Nutcracker soldier guy for example) but it totally made me laugh and that is why I married Josh.

Next on the list is my new job! I love it!!! My coworkers are so awesome and so are my patients. Getting up at 4 in the morning (soon to be 3:30 when we move to Bountiful) has been challenging but it's also nice to only have to go into work 3 days a week. Thanks Mari! I totally owe you one!

I have also been loving the beautiful fall weather we've been having here in Utah. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to go on walks for hours just thinking and looking at the beautiful leaves changing colors. Sadly, it got really cold suddenly and I'm thinking my walking days might be over for the season :(.

I love watching The Office! I always thought it was such a stupid show but then Josh made me start watching it from the beginning and now I am hooked! The best part of my day is when Josh comes home and we make dinner and watch a bunch of episodes while we cuddle on the Love Sac and laugh our heads off.

I am in love with this Green Tea HP drink I bought from the mall. It gives me energy and helps curve hunger! I just get a water bottle and pour in the little packet and off I go! My favorite lately has been the Hot Apple Cider flavor. It's perfect with this weather!

I also love my friends. Nursing school, college room-mates, high school, elementary school, you all know who you are! I adore you all and I wish we all had more time to see each other and catch up.

Life is good :).

Another Round of Updates!

Okay, here it goes. This has been our life over the past few weeks. Some days have been better than others, but overall, it has been one big party!!

1) I've been working as an Immunizations Nurse for a private company called Mollen Immunizations. It has been a good job that has helped bring in money until the long-term career appears.

2) AND IT APPEARED!!! I am now a Nephrology Nurse for Wasatch Dialysis!!!! I start on Friday and I am sooooooooooo excited! It has taken me 6 months to finally land a permanent job which is ridiculous (don't believe anyone who tells you that nursing is where the jobs are at). I have had a rough time trying to be okay with things not turning out the way I had planned as far as my career goes. It has been a good lesson learning time for me and I have learned a lot about myself and what I could do to make my faith stronger....because I'm not going to lie, it has been pretty weak lately. Josh has been amazing through it all and I am very grateful to have such a patient husband.

3) We took a trip to Virginia Beach right after we went to Florida. Josh had a job interview there and we decided to make a vacation out of it! It was absolutely beautiful and we had lots of fun in the water!

4) I have become addicted to Pinterest. It is such an awesome website! I love all the cute ideas and yummy recipes that I am constantly finding! If you haven't checked it out yet, hop to it! You won't regret it, I promise :).

5) Josh turned 27 this weekend! I've teased him a ton about being "SO OLD" but I guess pretty soon I will be up there too! I don't feel 23 and I definitely don't want to turn 24! Life is just zooming by. I surprised him on Friday with a trip to Wendover on the Fun Bus. It really was a blast! We got free buffet passes and they gave us each 10 dollars to gamble with! I ended up winning money by playing roulette (much smarter than playing the slot machines). The next day we went to Rodizzio Grill to celebrate his birthday and my getting a job. We then did some shopping where my amazing hubby bought me a pair of cute $90 high heels that were on sale for $35! Gotta love Nordstrom Rack :). On Sunday we went to my brother in law's house and ate homemade chicken parmesan and cupcakes! It was quite the birthday celebration.

6) We have decided to move to Bountiful in December. Josh's dad offered his basement apartment to us and it worked out perfectly because our lease ends in December! That will save us lots of money and hopefully help us pay off my student loans faster.

7) I've been doing really good with my work-out goals and I am starting to feel great! Since I will be working 3 days a week (12-14 hours a day) with my new job, that will leave me with at least 2 days during the week to hit the gym and we will see if I have the drive to go on the weekends. . . that's always really hard. Once we move to Bountiful, Josh and I are going to get gym passes to Gold's Gym! I am so excited!!! I can't wait to try out their aerobics, pilates, yoga, dance classes, etc. That's one part of college I've really missed. I always took a fun exercise class each semester.

That's about all I can think of right now. Life has been really busy but that always makes it fun. I would much rather be busy than bored. I hope you are all doing great as well!

Florida...lots of fun in the sun!

I realize I am about three weeks behind in posting this, but that's actually pretty good for me. After the stress of life and trying to find a job, and then getting jobs and having to decline them, Josh and I decided we needed a vacation. So we flew to Orlando, FL for 5 days over Labor Day weekend and it was incredible! We got to go to Disney World, and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. My feet have never hurt so bad after spending days standing in lines and walking around HUGE theme parks but it was totally worth it :). Florida is extremely humid so basically in every picture we are either sweaty or our hair looks funny. I didn't even bother trying to straighten my hair or put my bangs down because I knew as soon as we walked out of our hotel room the result would be disastrous.

Here is the resort that we stayed at. It was so nice! We got our own villa which is a fancy word for apartment. My only complaint was that the neighbors decided that it would be cool to throw "kegger parties" every night. It made me realize what an old person I have become. Kinda sad.... there was once a time in my life when I would have probably gone and joined them.... ok probably not but the younger me definitely wouldn't have been as annoyed and angry as the older me was about it lol.

We spent one of our days in Orlando enjoying all the fun activities the resort had to offer. Josh ended up beating me at miniature-golf (barely).

Naturally, after a hard game of golf, the next thing to do is climb into a giant swan and paddle around the lake! The life jackets were a joke but there was no getting around it. Heaven forbid some retarded person might fall out of their swan....hahaha.

Islands of Adventure was so cool! Possibly even more cool than Disney World (except the lines were much longer). They actually had a Harry Potter land! I was so excited! They had recreated everything exactly as you see it in the movies. We got to go inside Hogwarts (way awesome), visit the different shops in Hogsmeade, and of course, have a true wizard dinner at the Boars Head Pub where I got to have real butterbeer!!! I've always wondered what it tasted like and I can attest to you that it was sooo yummy :).

Another awesome part of that park was Jurassic Park land. As you can tell, it was pretty realistic and just like the movie. It was like wandering around in the real Jurassic Park! They had a really fun water ride that we went on over and over. Right before the T-Rex eats you, the boat you are in suddenly drops off the edge of a waterfall and you literally can't even scream because it catches you so off guard!!

They also had a pretty cool dinosaur museum where, again, everything was just like the movie. FYI, those eggs had dinosaurs inside them and while we were there we watched one of them hatch! Of course they were robots, but still, pretty cool! Right after this picture was taken, one of the eggs started moving and it freaked me out and I jumped and dropped it.....That happened on our honeymoon too while I was holding a sea cucumber.... classic Ashly moment I guess :).

So all in all, it was a really great trip and we would recommend it to anyone! Next time we go down there we plan on going inside the EPCOT Center and going to the other Universal Studios park. It was just too much to do in one week! Hope this wasn't too long of a blog. Trust me, there was a lot more where that came from!

 

Updates

1) This has been such a great week simply because it is the 24th of August and I'm not doing homework! For the past 18 years, school has been a huge part of my life and now it is finally sinking into my head that I am free!!!!!!!!


2) I have decided to be more crafty. I don't have school to worry about anymore, so why not pick up some fun hobbies? I'm always seeing these crafty blogs that awesome women are coming up with and I get kinda jealous because I want to do it too! So today I decided to start. For my first attempt, I decided to make a wreath for our door. I must say, I am rather proud :).

3) Josh and I have concluded that we are due for another vacation......so why not Florida? Next week we are flying first class (thanks to his dad's retirement benefits after working for Delta Airlines) to Orlando, FL where we will let the partying begin! We are going to spend every day at a different theme park. I am so excited, it is going to be so great! What better way to spend your Labor Day weekend? Pics to come!

4) Back to the gym. I've been trying to increase my cardio to an hour instead of 30 minutes in hopes that I will see results faster.....we shall see! I've noticed that being home all day doesn't do much for your figure. This isn't good news for the future when we decide to have kids.

5) Josh got an amazing management job offer in California and we were totally pumped and ready to move! But then we saw how expensive it is to have health insurance there and that basically killed it for us. By the time we paid 6,000 dollars a year for health insurance, there wouldn't be much money left! And that was the cheapest package they had! We're talking horrible coverage that didn't include dental or maternity. Once you have a child the rates increase to 12,000 dollars a year!! So it was either move to California and kiss having children good-bye, or stay in Utah and tough it out. After much debate, we decided on the second one and Josh had to tell them "Thank you, but no." That was rough and I hope we made the right decision. I guess we will see. Like they say, Hindsight is always 20/20.