JR's birthday this year fell on a Sunday which for us means it's gonna be pretty low key. I made JR a bagel breakfast sandwich before church and later we celebrated with our good friends the Carpenter's over at their place. We had a nice mexican fiesta and oreo cupcakes. Sadly, that is all. I couldn't help but feel a bit late since for my last birthday we were in Hawaii. Hard to live up to that. Not even a full year left before he joins me in the 30's club! Perhaps he'll stop making fun of me for being old by then. Nah, probably not. While we are on the topic of JR let's get caught up with him shall we? JR started a new semester in August and I'm pretty sure he over did it this time. He actually took on being a TA this semester which is great financially but has been a huge time consumer. He is teaching 3 classes at ASU and he just LOVES grading papers. Joke, he HATES it. Don't get me wrong, he loves teaching but really dislikes the grading part. It takes up way too much of his time. He also found out at the beginning of the semester that they recommend that he take his program comprehensive exam this semester so on top of teaching and classes he is trying to study for that. He also started taking on clients this semester. He has a few clients that he meets with in the ASU counseling center and he is really liking it. He's excited to start his internship next semester and start getting his feet wet.
In August I got to go on a weekend staycation with my mom and sisters. We found a groupon for a resort up in Carefree, AZ. The sisters made arrangements for their kids and we high tailed it up on over to Carefree. It was a lot of fun. I just love spending time with those girls. The resort was quite nice and we had a nice relaxing couple of days. The first day I had everyone over to my place for dinner before taking off. That first night we made these letters to hang on our doors (thanks Pinterest). In the morning we had breakfast, spent some time at the pool and out to dinner to Mimi's Cafe. We walked around at some shops nearby before heading back to the resort for more girl talk. The last day we went out to lunch and walked around Ikea before having to get back to normal life. I am so thankful for such amazing women in my life. I couldn't imagine having to move away from them again.
Shortly after this trip my sweet mom found out she has breast cancer. Most of the results were very positive but with the type of cancer it is she will still have to go through both Chemotherapy and Radiation. It's really hard to think of my mom having to go through such hard things but she has always been such a rock for me and I know she's going to overcome this challenge in her life just like others she has had. Here we are below with my mom after she had her lumpectomy. She starts her chemo next week.
Last month I got a promotion at work. This was truly a miracle promotion. Not that I'm not a good worker or anything but let me explain, I work in a call center. A call center where if each call on average is not under 3 minutes and 40 seconds you are not very good. To me, that was REALLY hard and I never met that goal once. My time was always super high in comparison to everyone else to the point where just a couple months ago I was concerned I might get fired if I didn't start turning things around. I was able to pull my time down a little which kept me out of the danger zone but was still much higher than others. Luckily, when they graded my calls my quality was always really good. Between this and never being late or missing a day of work I was able to get a pretty good review which gave me the opportunity to apply for other positions. I knew this might be my only chance to get the heck out of customer service. I started looking for postings in other departments when my co-worker suggested I apply for a lead position in my current department. That had not even crossed my mind since I had myself convinced I was not looked highly upon because of my phone time average. I thought, what the heck, no harm in trying. I was up against some people who were awesome and had already had some opportunities to get themselves "out there" in the eye of leadership. I on the other hand, had pretty much always been focused on just myself in an attempt to try to bring up my numbers. Turns out that a lot of the people who probably would have gotten the position over me were not eligible to apply because of things like attendance. Then two others got offered position in different departments that they accepted. My first interview I did not feel went well but I got called in for a second interview anyways. After this interview my supervisor pulled me aside and asked me how important it was that I not work on Sundays. I knew this could be a deal breaker but I told her I was really firm on not working Sundays. I thought I had lost the job. It's amazing what putting a little trust in the Lord can do as I got offered the position a few days later. I was seriously shocked! I went from feeling pretty much like a no one at work to becoming a lead. Seriously, I feel like this was a tender mercy. The Lord knew how unhappy I was with my current position and he provided just the right circumstances to get me out. Now, I don't dread going to work. I actually like it! And the extra money is nice too....
And last but not least, I had another birthday. Since I had to work and JR had school we went out to dinner the night before to the Melting Pot. That was quite fancy and delicious.
So fast forward to my actual birthday and JR of course was thoughtful and amazing even with everything he has going on. He got up at like 5 am and went to the store to get stuff for breakfast, make breakfast and decorate. I got woken up to this beauty:
There is a story behind this glorious waffle. When JR and I were in Vegas we frequented the restaurant Serendipity as you may remember (mmmm, frozen hot chocolate). Well, after viewing a picture of their waffles I really wanted to get some but we never made it there early enough to order off their breakfast menu. I was quite sad. So JR recreated these waffles for my birthday. He must have looked up the menu and the description and gone to town. Here is a picture from their website:
Pretty dang close huh? He even had the middle layer in there with the extra whip cream and banana sliced. It was delicious! He also gave me that little wand you see next to the waffles advising me that I was the birthday princess for the day followed by a toss of birthday confetti in the air. It's these little things that just make him so dang cute! Oh man, I love him. Then he went to school and I left for work to find this:
The day of my birthday came and went but little did I know it wasn't over. The following day I came home form work to find another present. It was a box of amaretto fudge. My favorite! The next day he surprised me with another birthday dinner at Grimaldi's pizza. And finally a couple days after that he took me shopping for some new shorts since he knew I wanted some. So my birthDAY turned into my birthWEEK. It was a really nice week and I'm thankful for a husband who always makes me feel so special.
So that sums up the last 3 months. Thanks for coming!
