happenings

hello people of my blog.

I'm just here to share a few thoughts this morning.  without theme, direction, purpose, or pictures.  Just warning you.

Today is my last day of work and I am thrilled.  By 1:00 p.m. today I will have told someone for the last time that their call will be recorded for quality assurance.  At times, this job has been great for me, but right now I am done with it.  I've kept it this long mostly because it was so convenient to be able to work from home (definite perks including but not limited to working in my pajamas, setting my alarm for 6:55 and still being on time for my 7:00 shift, no commute spent cursing UDOT for 30 whole minutes, I can still breastfeed my baby and don't have to pump) but it does remove the main good thing about my job which was being friends with my coworkers (and about 50% of my friends at work were pregnant at the same time as me and are gone now anyway.  there was a whole row of us.  kind of awesome)
So yay! I'm done.  And we are going to be super poor and I'm not even going to tell you how much money is not in our bank account, but we'll work it out.
I'm really excited to be a stay at home mom.  slash writer, I'm going to start writing a lot.  And biking and cooking and reading and yoga practicing and cleaning a lot.  Oh, the things I will do with my time.  Mostly spending a lot more of it with my baby!  Which I really want.

Can I just say baby gifts are one million times easier and more fun to shop for than wedding gifts?  Firstly, they are adorable.  Secondly, there are a billion things that you need for your 1st baby, so it's unlikely you'll give a duplicate gift, and most things, it doesn't matter how many duplicates they get, they'll still use/need them all (diapers, wipes, clothes, toys, blankets, and you can never have too many bouncy/hanging/swinging play mat zones/devices).  Besides that you can buy a perfectly acceptable small gift for a few dollars, or you can go all out and spend as much as you want--whereas wedding gifts can be really pricey and if you want to spend very little money, you're only option is something really lame like. . . one spoon.

We got home on Wednesday from a lovely vacation to Zions National Park.  We had a few days off for a family reunion that got cancelled and decided we'd do our own vacation instead.  We almost bagged the whole thing though because it's really hard to plan a vacation that's long enough, cheap enough, and close enough for us to maintain sanity with a baby in her car seat that long.  And since we live in Utah, most of the locations that fall into that category are places where the main attractions are camping and day long hikes.  We love camping, but 3 days straight with a 6 month old? no thank you.  So we opted for hotel in Zions and had to be content with the scenic walkways and mile-long hikes in the park.  Which was plenty awesome.  And also dreaming about the days when our kids our old enough for hiking through the narrows and to Angel's Landing.   And we spent a whole lot of time just being lazy.  Ooo i love that place.  If you haven't been, go.  It's really interesting when you're there how many people are not only from across the country, but across the world.  Tanner and I were talking about this, and if you were from Europe and wanted to take a trip to America and see what there was to see, where would you go?  New York probably.  California.  And . . . national parks!  Zions is right up there on the list of amazing national parks and it's just 4 1/2 hours from good old Provo.   Now, just a few days of laundry and recovery until our next vacation with the Staples family to Jackson Hole!  I feel kind of funny that all my summer activities and plans are right now and all I keep seeing and hearing online is how people are so excited and so ready for fall.  Not yet, please.  I've barely even touched my swimsuit.

On a more serious note, one of Tanner's aunts passed away last night (his mom's sister). She's been battling cancer for years now and has been hospitalized recently.  She has 6 children and 2 living parents.  We will all miss her and our prayers go out to the Pederson family.