Employed!

That's right, I will no longer be sitting at home eating bon-bons all day like some people thought I was doing. ;) I was really applying for anything and everything, HR or not, in hopes of making myself useful somehow. And lo and behold, I ended up with an HR job! As much as I really wished for a job from the minute we got here, I feel like it was a little blessing in disguise that I didn't get one until now because my body still majorly felt the aftermath of the surgery up until a few weeks ago. But I prayed a lot and had faith that everything was working out the way it should... and it has!

So, that being said, I am now in the Office of Human Resources at The Ohio State University as a Talent Management Program Coordinator. I can't wait to start and have something to get up and go do everyday. Speaking of....

why is it sometimes hard to appreciate what your life is like sometimes? Like how I complained for so long about being at home with nothing to do, and now I'm getting nervous about how I won't be able to sleep in, and wondering when I am going to make dinner and do laundry, etc. (and yes, I realize that this is nothing to really stress about and that tons of people do it everyday- I'm just not used to it). I guess the whole "joy in the journey" thing is a work-in-progress for me sometimes. But when I think about it, I really have enjoyed each step of the process!

I start the new job as soon as I buy a car to drive myself to work with (seriously). haha. Any suggestions?

We celebrated with some tasty shakes and some BYU Basketball! We were actually waiting in line at Coldstone, but the line was long and slow and we didn't want to miss any Jimmer action, so we opted for a drive-through with no line. :) And we were too busy cheering to take a non-blurry picture... haha.

And speaking of employment, Ryan's current place of employment was handing out t-shirts in the shape of a dog bone to announce a big meeting. It makes me wonder what he would get if he worked in the chocolate division of MARS. Someday maybe....

Pizza! Pizza!

Yesterday was quite a busy day and all of our original plans had to be moved around. By "original plans" I mean we had to run home in the middle of said business to record the BYU game that we would have otherwise missed. Priorities.

So, by the time we got home for the evening, our stomachs were begging for food and our t.v. was begging to be watched. What do we do now? Why, order pizza, of course! Luckily we had a coupon for a free pizza at a local place that we hadn't yet tried. I called in our order and after waiting for 15 minutes, I looked up directions and headed off to get it.

Problem numero uno: there are no mountains in Ohio. What does that have to do with pizza? Well, how do I get to this place when I left without actually writing down the directions and I can't even tell which direction is east and which is west? It's more impossible than you think. Even Ryan can't figure it out and I swear he comes with a built-in compass. So of course I got lost.

When I finally got to the right intersection, I immediately recognized the pizza place, ran inside, and asked for my pizza. Problem number 2: they don't have my pizza ready, OR my order... at all. They looked for it by my name, my phone number, and even by my address that they didn't ask for when I ordered the pizza so how would they know anyway?! Still not there. So after 15 minutes or so of huffing and puffing and blowing roofs down, I impatiently demanded to know where my darn pizza was, how they could have lost the order, and if they even knew who Jimmer was?!?! The patient pizza man responded by asking what number I called to place my order. I gave it to him, he called it, and then pointed directly across the street to the other pizza joint. Don't even tell me that I should have at least noticed the name of the place was wrong.

Problem three: I finally made it to the right pizza place, they got my order that was now cold, and when I went to pay, I realized I did't have the gift certificate and there was no free pizza without it. Of course. So I drove all the way home (which, with correct directions is only 4-5 minutes away), got it, and drove all the way back... this time WITH pizza.

So the point(s) of this story: at least the BYU game was worth it, because the pizza wasn't. Also, I was sick of looking at that ginormous hot dog headlining our blog.

Eat your heart out

This bad boy was a full pound of hot dog (a.k.a. the Dawg pound)... good thing we split it and didn't order any sides because we couldn't even finish the whole thing and we left stuffed! I would have been just fine with the kid-sized hot dog at this place, but it was fun to try something new around town. We actually didn't have our camera with us but anyone who orders one of these gets their picture on the wall and on their facebook page, which is where I got this one from. It's truly an honor to be recognized for our unhealthy eating habits. :)

Exploring Columbus

For the first time in a while, it wasn't snowing, raining, or less than 30 degrees, so Ryan and I decided to go out and explore a little bit of Columbus. Even though the sun was shining, the wind made it a bit chilly still, so we took a driving tour around Ohio State. It's a pretty campus now, but I can't wait to see how gorgeous it is when it's not winter and it's actually green and all of the leaves are on the trees!

While we were downtown, look who we ran into at Barnes & Noble. That's right, Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman herself... who is so incredibly nice!

And then we tried a new hot dog place because it looked like a J-Dawgs of sorts, where we ate the biggest hot dog of our lives. So big we actually just shared one and were both full by the end. We even had to use a knife and fork to eat it. Then we came home and watched BYU beat TCU. Go Cougars!

"B"... for Brittney

I know, it looks like I'm giving myself a mustache, but really I'm pointing to the "B."

Visitors!

Thursday night we had the privilege of having Tyler, Nicole, and Caleb Johansen come stay with us! Nicole and I go back to August 2007 where we were put on the same team in our MPA program. We quickly found out that I had just moved into her and her husband's (then boyfriend's... or fiance's?) ward and that we had a lot of mutual friends. Needless to say, we had so many things in common that we were bound to be friends whether we wanted to or not. Luckily, we wanted to.

Soooo, long story short, Nicole went off and married Tyler and together they moved to Pennsylvania for dental school. And it just so turns out that their assigned temple is in Columbus, where I now live, thus forcing them to see us once in a while. There's just no escaping me.

Anyway, they came in on Thursday night and after dinner we played games, talked, watched American Idol, ate 22 cookies (you think I'm kidding, right? :), and talked some more. It was a blast. Then, on Friday morning, I got to play with baby Caleb while they were at the temple. While they were gone, the baby and I barely escaped getting kidnapped or mugged or something (true story). But that's another story for another day. Anyway, it was so fun having them here and we look forward to taking a little visit to tour Pittsburgh sometime, too!

It was a bit windy this day, so please don't mind our wind-blown-ness. I also love that Caleb smiled for the picture as well.

Blog printing question

Has anyone printed their blogs? If so, what program did you use? I know lot's of people who have used Blurb and love it. I tried Blurb, and it really is a great program, but it takes SO much time and effort to organize it and make it look the way you want it to... and let's be honest, the book I started almost a year ago is still sitting exactly how it was almost a year ago.

I recently checked out blog2print and when I uploaded my blog to book form, it did it really fast, in a form that looked just like my blog, and after personalizing the things I wanted to, my entire thing was done in less than 10 minutes. That being said, I have never heard any opinions from anyone on blog2print. So, if you've used it, please let me know what you thought!

I'm not stressing too much over this though, and will probably end up ordering it from blog2print since it seems the easiest, but I just thought I would throw it out there to see if anyone has had any experience with it. I'm also open to any other blog printing suggestions.

Thanks!