Otter-Awesomeness

I have no idea how this picture did not make it into the Dallas World Aquarium post but I stumbled on it today and was reminded of how awesome it is.

(Yes I'm washed out but that's beside the point.)

We watched the otters at the DWA for at least an hour. They swim around lightening fast, pop their heads up in that corner for a split second, and then dart back across the tank to the other end. It makes for a difficult picture, but they were so entertaining!

Now for a little history on why I felt the need to get my picture with the otter. Way back in my EFY Counselor days, I was sitting next to a fellow counselor (ironically enough it was Jesse's best friend and roommate) in class. We were told by the teacher to turn to the person sitting next to us and tell them what animal they reminded us of. My partner turned to me and said, "you remind me of an otter."

Now how would you take that? I wasn't sure either. I asked him why I reminded him of an otter, hoping it wasn't the weasel-like head or strangely shaped body as I knew my fingers aren't webbed and he had never seen me swim. He then redeemed himself by saying "your hair is really sleek and shiny, like an otter."

Phew. He dodged a bullet on that one!

 Jesse and I have found it funny throughout the years though and even have this picture from our EFY Counselors Disneyland Trip back in 2007.

So I guess it seemed fitting to have another picture with an otter. Especially a real otter!

10 things learned in Texas

1. There are bugs EVERYWHERE in Irving. I am constantly finding itty bitty spiders living in our apartment. Lucky for them, they don't scare me, so they can live. That's my rule. I even found a little tiny lizard the other day. Maybe an inch and a half long. It was kind of adorable. Had I been at my house when I saw it, it might have become our pet.

2. People here do not have children. They have dogs. There is even a "Yappy Hour" at our complex  one day this month where they hand out dog treats. The Mormons here still have children though. I'm fairly convinced I'm the only woman in our ward of childbearing age who is childless and not pregnant. It's got to be something in the water because it is crazy how many babies and pregnant ladies are in our ward. (*Update: Since initially typing this up I have discovered that there are at least 4 other couples in the ward sans children. Out of our 300+ person ward I'd say that's not too bad. hahaha!)

3. There are toll roads. Sometimes you have to pay to drive on the road. Who would have guessed!?

4. Apparently freeways can go in directions other than North and South. They can actually go in any direction you could possibly imagine.

5. Water in TX is not good. It tastes like dirt. It is semi-tolerable after going through a Brita filter and sitting in the fridge for several hours but nothing compared to the water straight from the mountains in UT.

6. When there are no mountains to tell you which way is East, it is easy to get lost. I am constantly amazed at where I end up thanks to my GPS. I can have absolutely no idea which direction I am driving or what freeway I am on and then all of the sudden things are familiar. A big thank you to my Garmin GPS (I pronounce it Jarmin. It sounds more like a name that way) He is my best friend.

7. There is a game called Whirlyball. It is a cross between bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball. (I didn't understand how that worked at first either) It is hilarious. And awesome. And perhaps indigenous to Texas. And a bit difficult actually. But really fun! You can look up videos on youtube.

8. A majority of apartments have wood-burning fireplaces. Why you would need a wood-burning fireplace in a place that can be over 100 degrees for several months out of the year is beyond me. I wonder how many people actually use them...?

9. It is possible to go to the pool and not cool down in the water. It is so hot here for so many hours during the day and doesn't cool off to lower than 80 at night and it makes for really warm pools. Still fun but much less refreshing.

10. There isn't real grass here. There are different types of "ground covering.' Just walking down the path to our apartment you see 3 different kinds. You can see long jungle grass, some clovery intertwined mass of greenery, some pokey sparse somewhat resembles grass stuff.... I wouldn't sit on any of it though.

On the street where we live

First off, can I tell you how much I love Texas? Well I do! Although we are nearly 1200 miles from home, Texas is growing on me. I love being warm. I love the lower altitude. (It still doesn't mean I can run for more than a mile but it at least helps!) I love a pinch of humidity. I love the greenery. I even enjoy the flatness of it. I love that we are in an area with an outrageously high restaurant per capita ratio. I love that we are only 20 mins away from the LDS Dallas Temple. I love that our apartment complex has a gym and a pool. I love that down the road from us there is a lovely little river, which is the home to a whole bunch of turtles! I love everything about it. Except perhaps hailstorms and tornadoes, which thankfully I haven't had to experience first hand yet. It is absolutely beautiful, as you can see.

The turtles!

That Mr. of mine is pretty cute!

This is the walkway up to our apartment. I love all the red brick! Our whole apartment complex is this beautiful red brick!

I've had a blast decorating our apartment. You can find the before pictures on this post, if you care to look back. It has come a long way. 


It has been fun to actually have time this move to decorate instead of moving in the middle of the semester when there is never enough time. I've tried to give everything a place but I haven't completely decided what to do with the study so currently it is the catch-all room that I try to keep looking semi-respectable. Sometimes I do better than others. On those "other" days, I just close the doors and no one is the wiser! 

The front room.

  This chair is one of my favorite things! 

I've always wanted a cute accent chair and we were finally able to get one!

 Dining room.

Kitchen.

And through that lovely door is our little laundry room/pantry.

This is what the study looks like when it is having a rough day.

This is it on a more tolerable day.

 

I absolutely love all these shelves! They are really fun!

Our bedroom.

It's huge. And we love it.

And don't mind the Mr. eating his chips on our bed.

Alright, I kicked him off to get a real picture.

And yes one of those pictures is sideways. I really need to print up some more 5x7 pictures in the landscape direction. It's on my to-do list.

This isn't the greatest picture but I absolutely love these curtains! Thank you Ikea!

I also love our closet. It's huge! And the fact that we have a spare closet on the other side of the room 

(you can see it in the first picture.) 

We are really starting to feel settled here. We love the area, love our apartment, love our ward, and feel really blessed to have two great jobs. Although we miss everyone back in Utah, we are really enjoying our adventure here in the Lone Star State.

A couple items of importance

Things have been pretty wild around our house the last few weeks so I decided I better fill you in.

First things first, I got a job! Yay hurray! I was offered a job with a pediatric home health agency a few weeks ago and was excited about the possibilities with it.We then immediately decided I needed a car because there is no way we could survive with only one car if I have a job, especially a job that requires driving. Which brings me to exciting point number 2, we bought a car! 

We car shopped for a couple of days and then bought a brand-new 2013 Hyundai Elantra and love it! We've never had a new car so we are feeling like we are from the future driving around our little Elantra.

{This was obviously taken prior to receiving our permanent plates, but when I got those TEXAS plates it was a little surreal. I'm a Texas driver. At least according to my plates, my driver's license is a different story....} 

All in the span of 5 days I had a job and we bought a car. It was pretty crazy but we were really excited. As things progressed with the home health agency I found out that the case I thought I was going to get wouldn't work anymore. So I decided to meet with a couple of families and see if it would be a good fit. After being rejected by both I was starting to become very anxious and nervous. We bought this car with the understanding that it was my car to be paid for with MY paycheck. I was wondering how on earth I was going to pay for my car when I didn't officially have a paycheck yet.

Being the planner that I am, it started to consume my thoughts, give me anxiety, and make me feel as though I was never going to get a job as a nurse. After a few days of worrying, no news from the agency, and lots of prayers I began to feel comfort and that everything would work out. Just a couple of days later I met with a family who liked me and I was officially offered the job! I am working full time and the hours are great. I work three 8 hour shifts (10-6) and one 12 hour shift (9-9). Seriously, what nurse works 10-6? The major downfall is that the 12 hour shift is on Sundays so that leads to less than optimal church attendance, but thankfully this job will not be permanent.

I have been feeling so blessed with the way things have worked out over the last few weeks. This job is perfect for me right now! I am really enjoying what I'm doing, the hours are great, of course it's nice to make a little money, and it is SO MUCH FUN having cute scrubs! I just haven't even been able to pull out my  green UVU scrubs because everything else is more exciting! haha. 

Tubby Hubby THursday

... a day late. My work has been occupying the bulk of my time recently, so other more enjoyable pursuits have fallen by the wayside. BUT, in order to not let a good idea go to waste (as is my wont) I've decided to share a tidbit I've picked up. Those of you with smartphones know the joy of predictive text. My keyboard of choice is Swiftkey. It provides three (usually excellent) guesses at what I'm trying to say. It not only predicts what word I'm currently typing, it will try to guess what word I'm likely to type next. Don't ask me how it does this because I'll probably guess magnets. My scientific ignorance aside, it's a VERY handy tool, but it does sometimes make some odd guesses. I'd never thought much about it until I came across this comic at XKCD.com (used and modified without any permission whatsoever):

If it doesn't seem very funny it's because it's not. I've truncated the final panel in hopes of keeping our blog mostly "G" rated, but it poses an interesting question: When given the opportunity and no real constraints, what does my go-to technological sidekick think I'm most likely to say? While typing the three guesses appear in a row directly above my keyboard. In general the middle guess is the primary; if I hit space my phone will insert whatever word appears there automatically. The one on the right seems to be the next most-accurate, followed by the one on the left.


I've run three tests, one each for the guesses on the left, right, and middle. All I'm doing is mashing the next predicted word that comes up in that slot until I hit a period or it continues into an infinite loop. 


Middle (main): "I am a beautiful person."


Right (secondary): "If you're a star, but the best of all time to meet your family and I have to say."


Left (tertiary): "The following item is in a bit more about it, and I am not a bigger club, or the information you have a look."


Well there you have it. Jesse's three "typical" sentences. I don't know that I've ever uttered or texted the phrase "I am a beautiful person," but my phone seems to think I need some self-affirmation from time to time. As for the others, I didn't say they'd make sense. I only said magnets.


NOW, comes the audience participation: If you have a smartphone with a predictive keyboard like this, please post a comment with what your phone thinks you'd like to tell the world. I'll be interested to see what comes up. Feel free to offer interpretations/explanations/excuses/apologies along with your sentences.


If you don't have a predictive keyboard, Swiftkey is the best one I've found and only costs a couple bucks. That's less than the cost of 30cc's of gasoline, so pony up. Click here to download it for Android. Sorry, no iOS/WP7/BB love, but go see what you can find and POST THOSE COMMENTS! Check back every so often. There could be some good stuff.


PS: If any of our MANY (i.e. 3) readers is wondering what happened to "The Retroactivity" post from last week, I got to doing it and realized I have almost nothing to say (and certainly nothing entertaining to say) about past events. For whatever reason it didn't seem worth pursuing. If you'd like me to do it, post that in the comments as well and I'll be happy to oblige. Otherwise onward and upward.

The Retroactivity

Jesse says:

This week's Tubby Hubby THursday feature will come in the form of a retroactive Husbaught-insertion. I invite you to step into my time machine. I'll be going back and adding my Present-day Husbaughts to several of our old blog posts over the next few days.

Join me, if you will, and enjoy a romp through the last three or so years of my marriage. I suggest you start from the beginning and read until you can't anymore. Or don't. The choice is yours.

Her name is Ruby

We love her so much already.

Since the minute she was placed in my hands.

She really is a joy!

As you can see she is bald as can be, has rosy cheeks, and a battery life that could keep us up all night. 

All day too.

It all began with an envelope. I started saving my money months ago and I finally accumulated enough to seriously look into cameras. Hubs (this guy) was so kind as to do some research and took me to a couple of electronics stores to handle some cameras. I became mesmerized. I wanted one. Now.

We finally found the perfect one and jumped on the deal, once again, thanks to hubs. (Props!) We purchased this beaut and hurried and got ready while anxiously waiting for the email to arrive telling us she was ready for pick up. When that email arrived we (or more accurately, I) hurried and got ready to race to the store and pick her up! (Ok, need to clarify here. When Danielle says "hurried," we're talking "wife-time." The conversion rate is 1 Wife-Time hurry = 17 Are-you-ready-yets in husband [or what I like to call ACTUAL] time. For reference, 1 Wife-Time NON-hurry = 2 Husband-time naps.)

When she was placed in my hands, my heart stopped. She was beautiful. I didn't have a clue what to do with her, how to change her lenses, how to clean her, or all the features that she came with, but I was in love. We  (SHE) named her Ruby. I was hoping for the name Blogtar the Destroyer, but since this was Wife-money being used I kept my yap shut.

We've now had her for almost two weeks, still don't know what we're doing with her, but are sure having a lot of fun.

Jesse's Final Thoughts: Special Husbands-only edition.

Women, look away. Seriously this is just for the husbands.

Are they gone? Good.

Guys, if your wife says she wants something that you also want, play it cool. Be super supportive. Encourage her to save her money, help her research, give suggestions, look for deals, etc. Then, when she's ready to pounce, you get a free whatever-it-is! Also you get husband-points for being all supportive and whatnot. Now I just have to get my wife interested in motorcycles.