Ramblings with some pictures if you're lucky.

So life lately has just benn "eh", if that makes sense. Paul is once again looking for a new job. We've both run out of patience for his current employer to hire him full time. So back to intensely searching we go. I'll be honest, I'm really struggling. I'm struggling with trying to not bank all my happiness on this full time employment business. I'm trying to not let my mind cloud with worry of things like "will he never get a new job?" Or "will I always have to work full time in order for us to make ends meet?" Or the other no good thoughts of "how come they got a good job right after they graduated and we didn't?" "Why does everything seem to be going perfectly in their lives?"

Trust me, I know that letting those thoughts in(plus a numerous amount of other types of comparison throughout the day) never helps me feel good. At all. So why is it so easy to let them in? And let them stay? I get in this horrible compare mode and feel like so much of my life is lame and frustrating and forget to count my many, many blessings.

So I'm working on it. Because I know I have a lot to be grateful for. We all do. If you're reading this and you've nodded your head because you know you've also struggled with compare mode, I would love to hear your ways on getting out of it. New perspectives are always refreshing.

One thing that's been a lifeline to me lately is listening to conference talks every morning while I get ready for the day. I have an app on my phone that has almost the past ten years of talks on it. I'm currently listening to the October 2007 sessions. It's made a huge difference in how my day starts and how I feel for the majority of the day. I'm really loving it.

And now here are a few photos from stuff lately:

Little niece Elena really liked the cake we had for mother's day at Paul's parents. She and I are friends now.

Remember how a year ago I bought an old dresser from an consignment shop that was missing two drawers and I planned on refinishing it? No? That's ok. Because now, a year later, it's finally ALL DONE. Paul finished making me the last drawer on Saturday. Yay!!

Andrea had a dance competition at Lagoon a couple weekends ago. Mom and Jodee came down to support her and so did I! She did awesome and it was fun to catch up with the fam.

And there you have it.

The Aquarium

A couple weekends ago Paul and I went to the aquarium in south Salt Lake. It was actually a really fun little outing and we enjoyed ourselves. 

I tried to take some decent pictures, but in case you didn't already know from your own personal experience, it's hard to take good quality pictures on your phone, in a dimly lit place, of something that refuses to just be still for the few seconds you want it to in order to take the picture. I took way more pictures than I'm posting, but more than half of them are blurry so you wouldn't even know what I had taken a picture of. 

Anyways, here's this little guy: 

We had to redo this picture a few times too until we got it lined up right. 

Ok, so the next two pictures were my attempt to take a picture of Paul in front of a pirate ship. Since Paul secretly wishes he was a pirate, I thought this would be appropriate. Well, once again the dimly lit area didn't turn out the best picture.

So I tried again with the flash on this time:

WHATEVER.

Some jellyfish. 

Can you see the sting ray?

This was our attempt to take a picture outside the aquarium in the bright bright sun. Turned out pretty well. . . 

I also got a pretty sweet video of an otter playing and then pooping in the water and continuing to swim around in it, but I can't figure out how to upload videos from my phone onto here yet. So. . . just imagine that in your head if you want.

Oh just some stuff

So let me do a little run down of how life is going in this little kids o' mine. First, I'm still debating if I want to go private or not. I know there are creepers out there, but I keep thinking about all the talks I've heard from the general authorities about being able to use your blog as a missionary tool. So I'm torn. I've been checking my stats and no nasty sites have been viewing it, so I really don't want to make my blog private if I can. I just don't feel like I should, even though I've said I'm going to like ten times. I know I need to be careful as to what I post on here and I try to be that way anyways. And there are A LOT of wonderful blogs out there that aren't private. So for now, I think I'm staying put. 

Anyways, moving on. Last Monday this guy had a birthday:

He wanted things really low key-a.k.a no plans really for his birthday. For some reason he really doesn't like attention on his birthday. He says it has something to do with having all this attention for not actually doing anything. Good for him because it made planning his birthday a cinch! I told him over and over again though that this was NOT a reflection of how I wanted my birthday to be-I want him to plan something because that's what I like. 

Anyways, he opened his presents on our lunch break and then we went to sushi that night for dinner. Like I said, pretty low key. He said it was just how he liked it though.

The night before we got together with his family in Kaysville. It was beautiful weather so we had a little bbq outside and ate hamburgers and chips and watched our nieces attempt to play croquet. It was pretty entertaining.

So it was fun.

Other things:

Now that the weather is finally getting nicer we have been grilling! I even had Paul teach me how to use our grill and I made us some tasty bbq chicken. We plan on using this baby a lot this summer.

I also planted a little garden this year. Since we're still renting, I don't think my landlord would be ok with us digging a big pit somewhere in our backyard, so I reused the same pots I used last summer and planted us some beans, peas, and green onions. My garden was an epic fail last summer, so this time I hope to get it right. We'll see!

And I figured I would leave you with this little treat of a picture. My siblings who already had smartphones discovered this app where you can swap faces in pictures. So obviously I had to jump on the bandwagon and here ya go!