Sunday, April 17, 2011

Just Livin' the Dream

This week was a pretty typical week, low key which I appreciated to recover from the performance the weekend before. My boss was out of town, so I made some good headway on big projects I am involved in, particularly the company history project.
Okay, I am so excited about this project, I am working on writing (well coordinating) the One on One's company history! This kind of stuff lights my fire and gets my creativity flowing, however, this is big undertaking and I have no idea what I am doing. Good thing I am related to Curtis... my brother who knows everything and is a folklore specialist, so this sort of thing is like no big deal for him and he can give me some great direction. Perfect.
So I met with a guy down at BYU this week and got some good ideas on where to start, to look at other corporate history examples and start gathering One on One historical data to compile and include in the history. Love it. Can't wait.

On Thursday we kicked off our Jimmy Kick's Design contest at One on One, so Wednesday night I was shopping at Macey's for 20 boxes of Kix and Wheaties for breakfast for the company. I got some pretty great comments walking through the store. One was from my bishopric member and his wife.
"wow, what's all this", "oh and while I have you here, will you teach sunday school on Sunday?"
"I am already speaking in Sacrament Meeting, but I sure, I would be happy to. "
Then someone else asked me "are these on sale?" Because if they are, would that change if you were going or purchase some or not?
"no, no special sale, just a corporate breakfast..."
So Thursday we were in our design teams and had a lunch time challenge to guess pictures of feet that were taken of our coworkers. My feet were among them and Bonnie told me later that in her group someone asked, "who's beat up feet are those?"
Bonnie: "Oh, I know exactly who'e beat up feet those are."
Ha!

Thursday night was the ABD: the Aaron and Brittany Dinner, where the Ashton family would officially meet Aaron's fiance Brittany. I was the self-appointed event coordinator and took my job very seriously :). I even set a dinner time-unheard of for our family. We had a turkey dinner with all the fixings, heard the engagement story, and just enjoyed the night chatting and catching up. Brittany is a total 10 and a 17 for Aaron-perfect fit. She is awesome, and the real deal. She thought he was cute when he spoke in sacrament meeting, and cuter when a giraffe slobbered all over him, and even cuter when he announced that he had 18 siblings, WHAT!? is this girl for real? Yes, she is. A dream come true. To say the least.
Great event, everyone had fun and it was great to get together. We don't get together very much anymore, so I savor these times. Bonnie came too and enjoyed the time with my family, that meant a lot to me, because a lot of people may get weirded out-there is plenty that is out of the ordinary. It was great!

Friday night, Bonnie and I went over and chatted with her good friend Mimi and her husband Mike. They live in the next building over and just great people. We came home and I took a candlelit luxurious bubble bath and we started "You've Got Mail" the movie, but I quickly fell asleep.

Saturday morning I went to breakfast at Magleby's Fresh for all you can eat pancakes and french toast (their syrup, mmmm...). I went with Bonnie, Adam, Sarah and Kevin (Bonnie's sis and bro in law). I went so I could meet Quinn, Adam's 5 yr old daughter, I have been so excited to meet her. And she was everything and more of what I anticipated, immediate affinity. She is darling and so much fun! It made me realize that I would be open to marrying someone who had children already. oop, did I say that out loud? Hmmm, just a thought. Anyway, breakfast was fun and I went to the temple after that, it was really good to go, I haven't been for a while. I came home to prepare my talk and lesson. As soon as I sat down my eyes started to close and I realized that this was not going to be a productive prep time, so I laid down for an hour powernap and got up 3.5 hours later. Sigh. That felt SO good, it's what I needed. Saturday night I babysat Ellis and Hugh, so darling and so much fun! They had a checklist for me for the evening !:) Love them!

And today, Sunday, the lesson was....underprepared. I was 2/3 of the way through my lesson when I looked at the clock and saw 20 minutes left, Yikes! The end felt a little drawn out and people were not in to commenting today. Oh well, I did my best. It tuned out alright.
And my talk, I was worried about filling the time because I actually was left with a lot of time as the last speaker. I was writing my talk during the sacrament, well just beefing it up not knowing the time I would have. I ended up cutting out some stuff and spoke for about 15 min. It went great, I really like speaking in church. I talked about simplifying :), in connection with Elder Scott's talk about faith and character from October's conference. The essence: the most important thing I can be doing with my time and energy is building my relationship with Christ, everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else is secondary to that. Wow, studying quotes that back up that statement was pretty powerful and reminded me to stay on track with getting out of debt and preparing financially for the future, in addition to building my lifestyle to be prepared for home and family. Hooray, I am on track and it feels good. Sigh, so no pedicure for Mere even though it was payday. :) Good job Mere.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

April Happenings-Fool's Day, Performing, and just life.

The morning of April 1st, Bonnie and I got a text from Joe Partridge (our coworker and good friend) exclaiming that his baby came that morning, and no april fools. Honest.
My reply: Do you swear on everything that is holy that this is for real? (because he would totally pull that on us)
Joe Pa: I swear on the love I have for my wife. Room number 1008, visitor key code is...
AAAAHHHHH!!!! Baby Jaden Partridge is here!!
So Bonnie and I went during lunch to meet Baby Jaden and introduce ourselves as his favorite surrogate aunties. :) He is so cute.


He loves us.
Joe Pa, Shauntell, and Baby Jaden (Jay Pa)
Bonnie and I had an April Fool's of our own. I suggested that she wear her old wedding ring to work and announce her engagement to this Adam guy that she has been dating.
She is in the perfect set up, people know she has been dating a guy and it could logically happen.
It was hilarious, we got some people, most people were skeptical, and some saw right through it.
It was General Conference weekend, so lots of gathering at the folks house with all the kiddos. Lucy was loving holding baby Jonathan
And Annabel is growing up so fast. I tried to convince Stu and Lisa to enter her in to a baby modeling contest. Hello, have you seen her face?
She gets so much love from her siblings, they just pick her up and pack her to wherever they are playing and wrestle with her, no big deal. She is a good sport.
And Buddy gets cuter the more I see him. Priceless smile, right here.
My neice Kate, in Washington, is getting baptized in May, actually there are 3 nieces getting baptized in May, July, and August, so my mom pulled out 'the baptism dress'. This dress has been in the family for years, all us sisters, cousins, nieces, etc have worn it, so lots of sentimental value.

My mom has been collecting dolls, well she has been collecting dolls all her life, but she has been seriously working on her collection these last few weeks. We pulled them out and the kids had a ball with them.
oooohhhh, baby Jonathan. He loves me. He looks totally like Sean. And this is me after my final rehearsal for the Body Logic Show-this upcoming week is concert week!
We celebrated Bob's birthday on Saturday night after the priesthood session.
I love my Bobby!
He is the greatest! :)
Sunday morning I went to General Conference with Graden and Bonnie and Adam. The Music and the Spoken Word was fantastic and the session was incredible, of course. The theme of that session was blaringly about welfare and preparing to live the law of consecration so we can take care of each other. It reaffirmed to me the most important thing I am doing right now is getting out of debt and preparing financially to be in a position to give back and consecrate my life to the building of the Kingdom. Perfect, I am on track.
I hung out at Graden's house for the second session of general conference on Sunday and it was SO interesting. Lots of different feelings. It was great to get to know his family, meet his friend Tyrell, and see his brother Jamen again. Jamen, Graden, and I were all in the BYU 56th ward Fall 2010. Graden was my Home Teacher and has remained my home teacher for life. He will call and check in every once in a while. He's great!
Max.
My mom in her 'natural habitat'. :)
She has always said that her place in the kingdom is in the nursery.
She loves children and always has, she has devoted her life to her children and it is inspiring.
Sunday night, my aunt Laneth (mom's sister, can you tell :)) and uncle Jim stopped by for a visit, they were in town for General Conference.
Okay, my aunt Laneth is hilarious and I know that, but this visit was the funnest conversation I have ever had with her. She was telling us about her calling as ward music chair and pianist-she has no real musical talents, but participates in choir as a faithful member of the ward. So she accepts the calling and the musical numbers she arranged went off, but underneath she is just laughing to herself. It is way better when she tells it because she embellishes it just at the right moments to to get us rolling. Holy Cow!
The dolls.

Okay, so this week I took care of my car with the utmost TLC. The check engine light was on and I responded immediately (good job Mere) to find that it desperately needed new spark plugs, but the O2 sensor was okay....who knew there was an O2 sensor. I am learning more about cars every day. But everything else looked good. Hooray, I am not driving a lemon!
So after I got it looked at I scheduled a detailing appointment for the upcoming week.
Side note: my friend Jordan from work drove me to pick up my car after work one day (Bonnie was headed up to hang out with Adam :)) and he showed me his sweatshirt for his quesadilla business, "Paco's". Super great guy with this quesadilla business, it is brilliant, and it cracks me up when I think about it....anyway...
So here is my car, spic and span. One thing I love in this world is fancy car wash places. They shampooed the carpets, washed all the vinyl, waxed the outside, cleaned the tires, the whole works! It was beautiful, I hardly wanted to drive it. And it was raining that day, so I ended up parking it in the parking garage at work for the night so it could totally dry.
Before I got in to drive it out of the garage, I indoctrinated it with the O's... Go One on One!!
It's official.
You can see the vacuum lines and my happy smiling face :).
I love clean cars! The splurge was worth it.
The next day I had the vinyl doctor come and do a couple repairs on the inside vinyl. It looked great when he was done, can't even tell there was a big burn hole on the back door handle and a huge rip on the dashboard. And who knew there was a vinyl doctor-pretty specific niche, he was great!
So my car is as good as new and loves me, a lot!!
This week was my concert!! Body Logic Dance premiered their first show!! We performed up at the Sugar Space in Salt Lake on APril 8th and 9th, 2011. So every night this week I was either polishing up my solo with Laura, shopping for my costume, or teching and lighting our dances, or performing. It was really fun, and very empowering to say "We did it!!" This is what professional dance is all about. It was really good to see that and ask myself "do I really love this? Does this really interest me?" Hmmm... always introspective, some good thinking about my life this week.
Mom, Dad, Jules, Mags, Nate, Bonnie and Adam came to support on Friday night. Nate graciously videoed and took pictures of our show as our official camera man.
Very intimate performing space, Margaret said the audience could easily hear us breathing and see the sweat flying off our faces. Kind of gross, I know.
But it all went really well, it was nostalgic to perform again and like I said, kind of empowering. I also realized that I don't think I would be totally satisfied as a full-time dancer, but I know that I love the field of dance and see myself continually connected to it throughout my life, after all, I am a professional dancer! It feels really good to say that and at the same time, it's really not as glamorous as I dreamed, it's full of hard work. Ha ha, just like every other worthwhile thing. Good job Mere. :)
So after the concert on Friday, I went and hung out with Mag and Nate at Jules' house. I just slept in my clothes I was so tired. Then Saturday, I just hung out at Jules' house with Simon, Joanna, and Tabi. It was different to not have a commitment on Saturday morning-so nice. For the past 6 months, we have been rehearsing for this concert on Saturday mornings from 8-1. So it was a treat. My alarm still went off at 6 am and scared Jules in the middle of the night. I didn't hear it, of course.
We watched 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, ate pizza, took naps, and played-it was a GREAT day!
It was really great to bond with the kiddos, over the past while, I have felt an extra draw to spend time with my family, just hinging out and spending time with them and their kids. I think I am in a place where I am not so consumed in my own life to be able to reach out and give and that feels good. And I am feeling good about continually connecting with my family members and strengthening those relationships. What? I am strengthening Home and Family? Perfect. The bonus is that it is really fun. I really like my family members and I am falling in love with my nieces and nephews more each time we hang out.
And eat graham crackers together, as the case may be with me and Tabi...

Friday, April 1, 2011

UV50 Gala

One on One was named 4th in top revenue and 2nd in fastest growing companies in Utah Valley by Utah Valley Business, here are pics from the UV50 Gala. I pulled out my black and gold for the event, I am a total girlie girl when it comes to events like this, they make me smile really big.