For the love of autism and toenails!

My family is awesome. Out of all the reasons I can find describing why they/we are awesome.....I think the one I've learned to be fondest of is the magnitude in which we LOVE things. My family doesn't just like things. And we really have a hard time even loving things. Oh no. It's a whole different deal. When we love things it's usually close to down right obsession.

When we find a good song.....it plays in our lives 25 times a day for two weeks straight. When we find a good tv show......it's all we talk about till it's over. When we meet cool people in our lives.....they are who we want to be around and talk about all the time. Etc.

Does that make us crazy? (k, don't answer that)

No, but really, that's a quality that I feel like my sister and I have learned from my mom that I love. (LOVE) It makes life so much more passionate and exciting. We aren't just partial lovers of all things good. We are intense and devout.

So in some ways I'm not surprised I broke down crying when I looked up jobs on Ogden School District's website and saw that they had a posting for the job I had last school year.

Oh my goodness, I LOVE those autistic kids! Not being able to go back next school year is SO sad for me! I grew to love them more than I have ever loved any other kids/students I've come in contact with. Geez, it was hard seeing that posting. Ha.

Sigh. But that's life, I suppose. Those kids taught me hundreds of little lessons about life that I would have never learned if I hadn't had that experience. I'm very glad I had that experience even though it is sad I can't go back.

I've been dealing with finding a job this whole summer, actually, but the hunt has become even more intense the past two weeks or so. It's been a little difficult because my school schedule is CRAZY this upcoming semester! I have morning and afternoon classes which leaves no room to find a good job, ha ha.

I've had some interviews and haven't heard back yet. Blaaaah. We shall see what happens. :)

I just keep telling myself that I'm so close to graduating and all of this part-time job working around school maddness will be done forevvvver.

In other news, Jeff and I went to Batman yesterday with my family! It was rather depressing....and I had to keep leaning over to ask Jeff what was happening (don't mock me, I'm smart in OTHER areas of life), but yeah, I can see why people love it so much! It was pretty awesome despite my lack of understanding.

Jeff and I had a funny conversation yesterday that I have to document it for my future posterity.......

Jeff and I fight about really ridiculous things sometimes. Ha ha! We were laughing throughout the majority of this "fight" so I guess it really isn't a fight.

In the end, I think Jeff won, but that's besides the point. I like to think my side of things has validity.

We went to Olive Garden just the two of us before seeing Batman yesterday and as we were eating Jeff randomly said: "It would be way fun to have twins."

Disclaimer: I'm NOT pregnant. We just talk about babies lots cause I like babies and Jeff is nice to talk about things I like.

I then proceeded to say: "I think the scariest part of it for me would be getting them mixed up."

Jeff: "I bet that has happened a lot before..."

Me: "Yeah, but I have a plan." (As if it's actually gonna happen, ha ha.)

Jeff: "What?"

Me: "Just paint their toe nails different colors!!"

Jeff: "No no no no no no!"

Me: "What?"

Jeff: "I am NOT painting my twins boys toe nails! They will wear different colored socks or outfits!"

Me: "Yeah, but socks come off easily. You want to chance getting them mixed up? It wouldn't have to be ALL their nails...just like one big toe or something. One green toe and one blue toe."

Jeff: "No. Never."

Me: "What on earth?! It's not that bad!"

So yeah...........the conversation went back and forth like that off and on for the next half hour or so. Ha ha ha, I still think it's a brilliant idea, but Jeff wouldn't ever allow it. He says we can do that if we have girl twins, which is good, I guess.

We really are never going to have twins, but I just thought it was a hilarious conversation! (and I'm documenting it so someday people will tell me I'm right and he's wrong :) )

Jeff and I have had a pretty fun summer! We went to St. George back in May with our friends to see Brian Regan. We went to Washington D.C. in June. Lots of little things this month with all three of our families: camping, cabin, Bear Lake, Real soccer, movies, holiday celebrations, and more!

I'm very grateful that I have Jeff and my family to talk to and go do fun things with. I have a ridiculously good life! I'm grateful that I can call my mom whenever about whatever for however long I want. I know lots of people who don't have that kind of relationship with their parents, so I'm glad I do.

I have the best support system ever. It's a strange time of life because I slowly see how in the next five or ten years I'll really be completely out of contact with most, if not all, of my friends. It's times like this though when I see how great my husband, mom, and sister are that make me know they are really the only friends I need. I'll always have extended family too, but it's good to know that my immediate family will always be my best friends.

I guess we will see what August brings! Hopefully a job.......definitely school is starting....and the ending an era of mowing. I will hopefully post again before school starts, but no promises. :)

Cause When It Comes To You I'd Rather Have You By My Side...

July July July.....

Hooray for July! One of the biggest hoorays for July is.....only 29 more days of work! Ha ha!

Oh my goodness, this summer of work has been so interesting. Or rather, it hasn't been interesting at all which in turn makes it....interestingly awful. I feel like I need to write about this mostly to set the record straight in my own head. Usually writing helps me figure out what I'm feeling and lately I've been feeling like I need to write about how to I feel about mowing. I think I just said "feel" about five times in that sentence. Ok, maybe only three.

I LOVE mowing. If I didn't I wouldn't be on my fifth summer of it. Over the past couple of years I've met some of the best friends I'll ever have, which is wonderful. Along with that I've learned that even in weird situations like a grounds crew you can have lots of uncomfortable politics and what not which I think ultimately is the reason I chose to be a gang mower this year.

I've had such a love/hate relationship with gang mowing. It's really fun when the grass is long, for some strrrrrange reason I've fallen behind schedule, (this never happens) and I kind of need to hurry.

And yeah, being away from the politics is lovely. :)

However, I waste so much time. Ha ha ha. I actually work for probably half of time I'm actually at work.

Ok, so normally people would be like.....what on earth, Amber, you should be basking in gratitude for the fact that you're getting paid to do nothing!

Sure.....maybe......

I'm just not that kind of person though. I think I get that from my dad. My dad is an extremely hard worker and I think growing up I just watched him, wanted to be like that, and now I am.

The other thing that has been making me pray for school to start is the heat lately. Oh my goodness. The past four years being on the crew I handled the heat fine, I think. Yeah, it got hot, but when you're weedeating or edging you don't really notice. You're just sweating out all of the misery the heat brings. With gang mowing.............

It's quite the opposite. You just sit all day long and roast. You can't move around....you just bake in the heat. Ha.

Eeeeeeek. Needless to say I'm very glad this is my last year of mowing.

Next year will be interesting. I don't really know what will happen, but something good is bound to arise.

When I graduate I get to do six credits of "work experience". According to what they are telling me I get to be given a job by a professor and do it for two months. I'm really hoping I'll be able to convince my professor to get me a job as an early interventionalist.

There are lots of programs that deal with this kind of profession, but the one I want to get into is in Davis School District. They have a program where you can work with babies - birth to three years old - who have special needs. How cool would that be?? I think I would love that job. But.....we'll see what happens. I have no idea what kind of availability there is for that specific program.

I'm kind of hoping whatever "work experience" I'm given will be open enough to actually hiring me. Ultimately I want to own a preschool, but.............my apartment and stage in life aren't really condusive to that right now. Ha ha. I can't even imagine having ten or twelve 4-year olds running around my apartment. They wouldn't fit! My harps wouldn't stand a chance. I guess we have a big enough backyard..........? Ha. No.

Another thing I wanted to talk about in this post was Jeff. Ewwwwwww....mushy, right? Ha. No, I don't think so.

Ever since my age of friends has been out of high school/gotten married etc. I have noticed that everybody is trying to outdo each other with how great their lives are. Ha ha. That's honestly probably just the time of life we are in, but it's kind of funny to watch sometimes.

A constant theme that I have seen is the comment that my friends make (I've probably made it too) about their husbands on Facebook. "Happy Birthday to the BEST husband ever!" "Happy Anniversary to Us! I have the BEST husband in the world!" Best best best. It's always best. And really, these girls aren't wrong.....they are actually right. However, even though they are right, they actually are wrong. :)

Their husbands aren't "the best", but they ARE "the best for them". :) Which really in the end means they are the best! (???)

I was talking to Jeff the other day about different couples that we experience in our lives and one thing that got brought up was the fact that sometimes people we know get kind of hyper focused on what is wrong with their spouse. In the end, they feel like they have to tell us about it, ha ha. We hear things like....I wish he/she was more like this....or....I wish they didn't do that....etc.

As Jeff and I were driving in the car I told him: "Ya know, I honestly have never thought anything like that about you. I've never been so annoyed that I've wanted you any different." .......and luckily he agreed and said he thought the same about me, ha ha.

Sure we've been frustrated with each other at random times.......we wouldn't be normal if that wasn't the case.......but nothing has ever annoyed me about him to the point where I dwell on it, want him to change, or tell people about it.

I consider myself extremely lucky for that fact. And I can truly say that Jeff really is the best.....for me. He knows exactly who I truly am. He knows how I'm feeling before I figure it out myself usually. I have an awesome husband! He will always be my better half for sure.

I think if I had a song playing in the background of my life this is what it would be.....

Keith Urban - Better Half

In fact this song played in the background at our wedding reception!

(I'm really hoping that link works! :) )