Neglect

This poor blog it suffering from neglect. To all 3 of you that read this, sorry. I have been trying ot get out of the negative frame of mind I have been in, so instead of indulging it, which I tend to do here, I supressed it. Anyway, I will try to post again soon. Anything you are dying to know about?

I have been enjoying the sequel series to Percy Jackson. The 4th of 5 books comes out the beginning of October. Andy, Marcus and I are all reading it together and it is fun. Marcus wants to be Leo for Halloween. We think we can make an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and get him a tool belt. Then, he should be all set.

Marcus also read the first book in the Spirit Animals series. It is by Brandon Mull. He said it was for younger readers (3rd and 4th graders, I guess), but he still enjoyed it. Brandon Mull has a new book series coming out in March 2014 that Marcus is waiting for.

On the job front, we are still waiting for the job at BYU Idaho to actually post. Andy has all his materials ready and every week we check on it. Today I found a job in Kentucky that wants an English teacher pop culturist that knows how to teach remedial courses. (Andy is teaching 3 right now.) It seems perfect, so we are excited to see how that works out. We would be an hour away from the Louisville temple if we lived in town, plus there is a ward building there.

That's about it. I am trying to enjoy my children and support my husband. I also started indexing which I tend to do instead of facebook now. Andy says it is my new addiction. Our stake president asked us as a stake to index 1 million names by next August. I have done over 1200 since the end of August.

12 Days of Anniversary/Love Part 2

My printer broke. That meant that I had to do everything on my own. It took a long time. Here are the last 5 days.

On the eighth day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

A memorial to the many places we have lived.

(It was supposed to look like the picture below, but it failed. I will do one like this eventually though. It ended up being the states we were born in and a star on the birth places of the six of us.)

On the ninth day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

A game to play when you are feeling blue.

(I never found a Monopoly game I could use so I did it all by hand. A long time without a computer. Each section was things like jobs, schools, cars we have owned, etc. The "railroads" were our children.)

It was too big for a game board, so I had to use the card table.

Yep, I called it Bahlmann-opoly. The playing pieces were old earrings I have been hoping to find the matches, a tulip, moon, feather, heart, and a bomb looking thing.

On the tenth day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

Ten razors to feel soft and smooth.

(He uses a safety razor and is having a hard time finding good replacement razors.)

On the eleventh day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

A couple of things she thought you would like, too.

(I got him a Hunger Games belt buckle from District 12 and this picture. It is a wedding photo made from the words of our song.)

On the real day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

12 and 12 and 12 for our 12^th on the 12^th (plus a date, too).

(He got 12 balloons with a favorite memory from the past year in each, 12 Almond Joys and 12 pictures of me like the one below hidden around the house. The kids made the sign and took the pictures. Also, helped a hide a few.)

 An added bonus was the lunch our children put together for us. They made a paper candle for the center piece and a menu. I was not feeling well at all, but it was very fun. 

The night of our anniversary we tried out a French cafe and went to see Les Miserables. I didn't realize we had a theme until just now. Andy got me a Cinderella snow globe and then this week he remembered he also got me a Cinderella journal. 

Sorry it took so long. We have been prepping for our trip, I have been sick and I just started watching a 5 month old and we are getting used to each other.

12 days of anniversary/love

My husband and I will be married for 12 years on the 12th. We started doing a combined Valentines and anniversary calling it a "Valiversary". We also take turns being in charge. Andy does odd, I do even. I could not come up with anything fun to do this year. Last year my husband gave us a couple nights away and even got a babysitter on his own! We are going on a trip and are saving for that this year, however. But, then, I kept hearing about people doing the 12 days of Christmas and I knew what I wanted to do. 

Starting January 1st he has gotten a little something every day. It has been so fun to come up with things. Most people that do this are not creative and spend a bunch of money. This meant that I was on my own. I gathered ideas and tried to not be too cheesy, but I think they are. They get better as the days progress. Another note - Our wedding colors were dark purple, and dark green with yellow accents. I did that because purple tulips are my favorite and our theme was Starry Night. Anyway, everything is purple and green in remembrance of that. 

Here is what I have done so far.
On the first day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you
An accounting of 12 years together.

 On the second day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you
An alphabet document that she made about we two.

(I made the ABCs of Us. I put words by each letter that were significant to us in some way.)

On the third day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

12 ways to say the best 3 words.

(I made a list of I love you in 12 different languages. I tried to use those that were significant to us like Spanish, German, Dutch, even Elvish and Old English.)

On the fourth day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

4 special pictures to adorn your work walls.

(I had each of our children draw him a picture.)

On the fifth day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

5 hands for remembering.

(I made this.)

On the sixth day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

½ dozen of your favorite treats.
(This was not nice for fast Sunday. But, I gave him a chocolate orange, 6 Almond Joys, and I made homemade hot chocolate and whipped cream, peanut butter blossoms, lemon bars and mint brownies.)

On the seventh day of our anniversary your true dove gave to you

A tie to wear to work away from her.
(The tie is green, one of our wedding colors. However, it still has not come in the mail and might not even come until Friday. So, fail for today. Anneke told her dad before he found the note and I was kinda bummed.)

5 more days. I will keep you posted, but my husband reads the blog so I can't just post them all. 

Rejection

We got our first rejection letter today. Though it was expected, it was still depressing. 

BYU sent a form letter and then took the time to write a personal note on the side. Obviously, he did not get an interview. The note said, "Your specialty just isn't a good fit for our department, but we appreciated your application and learning about your work." Andy is afraid that this will be a trend. He is afraid he is too "cutting edge" in his field right now. 

Once again, good thoughts and prayers sent our way, please.

Jobs we have applied for lately - Alabama, Arkansas, New Jersey, Tennessee 

This week on the job market...

For any interested parties, this week Andy is applying to 2 schools in Texas, one in Pennsylvania and possibly one in Nebraska.

Last week he forgot to apply to the Illinois school.  However, our good friend told him about a job opening for BYU Idaho.  After researching it he is quite excited.  They are doing things for which he would love to contribute. He quickly sent off the application and is trying to gather transcripts. (That is harder than you may think considering he has attended 4 schools.) This is the one Luke is praying he will get. We are trying to be open minded and go where the Lord wants us to go. The schools in Texas would be nice, but one has a very heavy workload and the other has very specific classes so he would not get to grow. Pennsylvania is perfect for him with the description and Nebraska is just a community college. Anyway, keep us in your prayers. We just want a job. This job hunting thing is overwhelming.

Applying for Jobs

Every Monday for the next 6 weeks (about), Andy is going to apply to 3 schools. This week's schools are in Illinois, Georgia and Utah (BYU). I am not sure people are truly interested in the actual schools. If you are I can tell you. Last week he applied to a school in North Carolina. I will keep you up to date on the actual schools each week. If you don't care, then skip it. I am doing this as much for me as anyone. This way you know where we could potentially end up.

Batman

Anyone that knows us well, knows that Andy is a big Batman fan. This last movie installment has him worried, though. Basically, he doesn't want them to change his super hero. (Which is why I am having a hard time wanting to see the new Spiderman. But that is a whole other story.) It looks really dark to me. One of our friends went to the midnight showing. Andy briefly thought about going, but for many reasons stayed home. The next morning we heard about Colorado...


I realized a few things as I pondered the situation. Colorado has more than it's fair share of mass shootings. When we lived there, for only 2 years, there is 1 that I can think of for sure but I thought there was another. Plus, they have had a rough summer with fires, too. Poor state. It really is a lovely place. It is where Andy and I consider home to be. 


I also realized that if Andy had been in that situation whether with me or someone else he would probably be dead. He would have charged the guy or tried to protect people. It is who he is. That realization made me both happy and sad. I am married to an amazing man, even if he isn't a "super" hero, he is my everyday hero.