Life

Well, for awhile there, we thought spring was coming any moment. Then we woke up to a bit of snow on the ground yesterday. Sad face. I was soooo ready for spring and the sunshine and flowers! But of course, Idaho has to ruin my hopes and dreams. The snow then melted away until about 5 PM, when it started to hail, sleet and snow a bit more again. It's mostly all gone today, but it's cold and overcast. :(

For those of you who don't know, I was let go from Macy's a few weeks ago. Basically, there was some miscommunication between me and my manager regarding sick days, leaving work early due to sickness, etc. I had a meeting with my manager & the store manager a few months ago that was basically a 'shape up or ship out' kind of meeting, at which point, I told them it wouldn't be a problem, etc. A few weeks later, Zak and I were both sick. But I went to work, talked to my manager about what would happen if I were to go home (since I was throwing up and it was a blizzard outside), since I didn't want to get in trouble, etc., etc. He said everything would be fine. So I went on my sick little way and lo and behold, a week later I was called in to talk to the regional HR gal. Who promptly told me I was being let go, despite me telling her how my manager had ok'd me to go home and all of that. Oh, and my manager just 'happened' to be out of town that week anyways.

So now I am collecting unemployment and taking some time for myself, which I haven't had in awhile. I've been applying for jobs every week, and even had an interview the other week (it didn't work out, oh well). But now I spend my days reading, playing video games or watching t.v., and trying not to cook or eat everything in the house. I'm looking forward to when it warms up, so I can go on walks. I'll be receiving unemployment for up to four months, so I have some time to find a job I'll like.

With that in mind, I had some kind of 24 hour flu or something on Friday. Zak had a little bug and has been fairly congested all week. Whatever he had must've transferred to me and kind of destroyed me by Friday afternoon. I ended up sleeping for 2 and a half hours until Zak got back from work. I was freezing cold and had a temperature of 101! I don't remember the last time I had such a high fever. I normally run a little lower than average as it is. My entire body ached and hurt to be touched, I had a nasty sore throat, coughs and sniffles and was so tired. After a few hours of slumping on the couch, expressionless and lifeless, Zak convinced me to take a shower while he went to get me some medicine. He got me some aspirin and theraflu, and a few more hours later, I wasn't freezing and my temperature had gone done a degree or two. He sent me off to bed and I woke up feeling a fair amount better the next day.

Now I just have a nasty cough and congestion headaches. Hooray.

Our St. Patrick's Day was nice. Zak had to close, so we got up and had breakfast. I made my family's buttermilk pancake recipe (yum) and turned them green because: 1. it's fun, 2. it's tradition in my family, and 3. it's FUN. So we had green pancakes, bacon and green-tinted limeade for breakfast. Then Zak went off to work and I got dinner started. I just cut up some scrubbed red potatoes and dumped them and some baby carrots into the crock pot. I added the corn beef with its spice packet, added in some water and let it cook on high until Zak got home. Easiest meal of all-time. Zak invited our friends Mat & Erika over after I got it started, so I fretted that there wouldn't be enough food, but there was. And everything was just delicious. They were so impressed, they asked me how I made it all so tasty. I just credited our lovely crockpot, hehe.

That is about all I can think of that has been going on in our lives for us. We have started to think about our summer plans. It basically starts next month, when my sister is coming to visit us. Then Zak's mom will be staying with us for a few days before his cousin's wedding in May. He also has another cousin getting married this summer, but I can't remember the date at the moment. We are planning on spending about a week in CA with my family when Kenny gets back from Sweden in July (!). There is also our anniversary in August, followed by Mat & Erika's wedding the next day in Seattle. Looks like we'll be spending our anniversary in Seattle, but that's just fine because neither of us have been there yet. We're hoping to be able to see Zak's sister Delaney when she comes out to Rexburg for school in later August/early September in order to help get her set up, etc. And even now as I'm writing this, my head is spinning with all of these plans! I need to pace myself. It looks like we are going to have a fun summer. But first we have to get to spring!

The hamsters are doing well. We are planning on getting some new fish soon. Zak isn't entirely convinced that he shouldn't get me a companion kitty ;) (We'd really love one, but we're not supposed to have one....but I think I qualify as someone who needs a companion kitty, right?). That's all for now, folks!

Good News

In reference to the previous post (click for it),

Zak got the position!!

The C.E.O. called him today and told him the good news! More updates will follow as we get them. Congrats Zak! :)

Zak: The Business Man

Zak wrote this post on Facebook, and I thought I'd just cut & paste it here for everyone who hasn't read it yet. Although I was sad to be apart from him, I'm glad he had this opportunity to go. I'm really confident he'll get this promotion, it's pretty much a perfect fit for him. I'm so proud of him! :) Here's his trip, in his own words.

I left Tuesday evening out of our little regional airport. I felt like a pretty cool businessman until I saw the horde of Beta Theta Whatevers getting on the plane for their spring break trip. I flew on a Bombardier Q400, which is a turboprop plane. Pretty cool. I had a brief layover in Seattle. The airport there is very cool, very interesting architecture. I had a brief jump from there to Portland, where I sat next to a man who'd had so much to drink, it was coming through his skin. My favorite! Fortunately, he was passed out for all but 3 minutes of the flight. I got into Portland around 10pm, where I was directed to get on the wrong shuttle and got sent to the wrong hotel. I eventually sorted it out and got to my room at approximately 11pm. I startled my roommate pretty badly, haha.

Wednesday was my first real day of training. We talked about colored stones, tweezers, and the minutiae of diamonds. We also spent time learning how to estimate diamond prices based on their attributes, an important skill for the custom design work.

Thursday was the first day we actually got to play around with the CounterSketch program. It lets you customize and tweak lots of aspects of a library of 3000+ ring designs. I picked it up pretty quickly, because it is a pretty straightforward program. Today was also the first day we worked with the CEO of the company, Sean Ritchie. He is the third generation of the family to run the company. He is a very nice, laid back guy. I tried to make a good impression, but you never know...

Friday was for me, the hardest part: the sales presentation. I would write more details, but it was pretty straightforward. We also worked on some of the more advanced aspects of the program. Or at least I did. Friday was also everyone's last day, so everyone went home. Except me. I got to stay in the hotel alone with only a warm pizza for companionship. It wasn't that bad. I flew home Saturday morning, and got home around 11am. It was very nice to be home.

The training was also kind of a selection process. They brought in 8 guys for the training, but they only have 3 computers. So I tried my best to apply my wealth of diamond and gem trivia, and my considerable aptitude for moving scroll bars and sliders on computers to the task. My boss, Mat, said he heard from both his boss and some of the people in the corporate office that I really impressed everyone there. So I am hoping that translates to me being selected. Cross your fingers for me, I will hear on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

TL;DR: I went to Portland on a business trip to get trained on using a custom jewelry design program.

Oh, and here is a ring I designed.