Last night we watched “Blood Diamond,” a movie I wasn’t that interested in seeing. When I first saw a preview of Leo DiCaprio shooting guns and speaking in a bad accent, (WHY do people keep casting him for roles with accents? He’s a great actor, I’ve really liked him ever since “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” but he’s not very good at accents. He is constantly slipping in and out of them.) I thought it looked like a plot-less action movie about a treasure hunt. But then it was nominated for an Oscar, I thought it couldn’t be that bad then. It was a good movie. In general it was an action flick, but the parts about war in Africa were so interesting and heart breaking. I kept wishing there was more history and facts. It just could have been so much better. But I don’t recommend it if you are sensitive to violence, which I am. It was sickening watching kids shoot up a village full of people with a machine gun.

I’ve been trying to read Jane Eyre for a month. Every time I lay (this could be the problem) down to read it, I fall asleep. I really like it! I didn’t think I’d ever love that era of literature, but it’s a classic for a reason. I think after I get through this book, I’ll try for Pride and Prejudice.

Everyday on my way home from work there is ridiculous traffic because of construction and people’s lack of ability to merge. So I’ve come up with a system of merging that cuts my time by about 10-15 minutes. And thanks to my job, I’ve built a simple map to illustrate this : ) I get on the freeway at the green star (which is covered by the word “Ramp.”) I have to merge with a bunch of cars at the red star. This area causes frustration because the same lane is used for people getting on the freeway and people exiting onto I-215. At the blue star (here is where the fancy merging starts) as soon as I can, I merge from the right lane to the far left lane, thus skipping all the idiot mergers. Then at the yellow star I merge from the far left lane to the far right lane because of construction. People in the left lane slow to a stop!!! Then after right after the construction area there is an on-ramp in the right lane. So again, I merge to the far left lane. All of this with-in a few miles... my mother would scold me. But it really does cut a good 10-15 minutes off my commute. And of course I use my blinker and give the wave to people who let me in.

Natural Highs

1. Falling in love.
2. Laughing so hard your face hurts.
3. A hot shower.
4. No lines at the supermarket.
5. A special glance.
6. Getting mail.
7. Taking a drive on a pretty road.
8. Hearing your favorite song on the radio.
9. Lying in bed listening to the rain outside.
10. Hot towels fresh out of the dryer.
11. Chocolate milkshake (vanilla or strawberry ).
12. A bubble bath.
13. Giggling.
14. A good conversation.
15. The beach.
16. Finding a 20 dollar bill in your coat from last winter.
17. Laughing at yourself.
18. Looking into their eyes and knowing they Love you
19. Midnight phone calls that last for hours.
20. Running through sprinklers.
21. Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
22. Having someone tell you that you're beautiful.
23. Laughing at an inside joke with FRIENDS
24. Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.
25. Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep.
26. Your first kiss
27. Making new friends or spending time with old ones.
28. Playing with a new puppy.

29. Road trips with friends.

30. Swinging on swings.

31. Making eye contact with a cute stranger.

32. Making chocolate chip cookies.

33. Holding hands with someone you care about.

34. Running into an old friend and realizing that some things (good or bad) never change.

35. Watching the expression on someone's face as they open a much desired present from you.

36. Watching the sunrise

37. Getting out of bed every morning and being grateful for another beautiful day.

38. Knowing that somebody misses you.

39. Getting a hug from someone you care about deeply.

40. Knowing you've done the right thing, no matter what other people think.

Thurm and I had a great weekend. Saturday morning we went on a walk, which was supposed to be a run, but we ended up having a 45 minute argument about topics such as “is it healthy to discuss every mood swing the other person has or could we just ignore some and hope it goes away,” “does everyone have a conscience?”, etc. You’d think quiet, polite, easy going Thurm wouldn’t like to argue, but occasionally he indulges. The rest of the day was just running errands, cleaning, we planted some herbs, played with the little girl who lives upstairs, played a round of croquet in the yard with Thurm’s family, etc. It was just a nice, sunny, relaxed day. It felt like a day I’d spend with my mom in the summer. It felt like home.
Church on Sunday was one of those days where I teared up over everything in sacrament meeting and felt really grateful for my life and the people in my life. I just couldn’t get over my husband all day—He is such a good man. Good like how you feel about your dad or grandpa (not that I think of Thurm like my I think of my dad). He has values, principals, morals, he’s kind, and he treats me like a queen. If I wasn’t such a prideful person, this whole blog would be me gushing about how lucky I am and what an amazing husband I have. But I roll my eyes at those kind of girls : )
We went to a choir concert Sunday night and I was inspired to work on any musical talents I might have hiding. I watched the chorister almost the whole concert, mostly because she was really entertaining because she was so animated, but also because I have a new interest in leading music. It made me more excited about leading my primary kids.
Today we had a reorganization meeting at work. Our boss is reorganizing how our work is distributed. As of right now, we just have a big pool of work and whoever has the skills and/or the time completes the project. But soon we will be on client teams so I (ideally, but it’ll never happen) will only do the work for my team. This could potentially be good for me because it could foster working my up to a higher position. However, it could be frustrating because of who I’ll be working with. In the past, it was a rocky relationship, but hopefully this won’t be a problem this time around. Regardless, it might shake up my work life, which is good, because I’m not terribly happy here.

I’m not sure why Thurm and I are so popular, but we have had lots of house guests in the last couple months: Thurm’s brother-in-law, my sister-in-law and her kids, my mom, Thurm’s brother Ben, Thurm’s brother Anthony and his two kids, Ben again, Thurm’s parents are coming this weekend, Ben still, my mom is coming again next weekend…I know we are cool, but I’m wondering if it happens to be our central location and not our engaging personalities.

I butchered my husband last night. He wanted his hair cut, just a trim. And I just went crazy and cut off all his hair. He has a very bad missionary hair cut now. I almost cried when I realized I had cut off all his beautiful curls. I don’t know how it happened, it was like I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. He won’t need a haircut for a year : ( Why is it the wifely duty to cut her husbands hair once they get married? I don’t expect Thurm to cut my hair.

"Tying the knot often leads to weight gain, a two-year study of 2,528 men and women confirms. People who married during the study gained an average of 6-8 pounds, reports Robert Jeffery, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis. He speculates that a combination of factors is to blame for marital weight gain: the comfort of being in a secure relationship, less frequent exercise and the regular sit-down meals married couples eat.
There are many reasons why marriage can lead to weight gain, but the most common include:
We are no longer trying to attract a partner
Pregnancy occurs
We cook for gratification
We eat as much as our partner
We put our family's eating preferences above our own
We become the family's garbage disposal
Our partner sabotages us
We are in an unhappy marriage and turn to food for solace
We have unresolved issues
Birth control causes weight gain"

Weekend Highlights

* We bought a silver 2002 Toyota Camry. I think we got a good deal on a good car.
*Batman showed up at our door in the form of Ben, Thurm's bro, Friday night. He proceeded to literally bounce around our walls until we figured out who the masked man was.
*My little brother has a girlfriend!!! I probably feel about the same as he did when he found out that I had a boyfriend a year ago. Very weird.
*Thurm and I were asked for the 3rd time when we were going to start having kids. We will be having our six MONTH anniversary in six days. I guess when you are old it doesn't matter how long you've been married. They are doing the math and counting backwards from when I can't have kids anymore.
*We played croquet twice this weekend and I am NOT very good at it. Which is disappointing because its a cool game.
*We watched "The Decent," a horror movie about caving. I vow to never enter a cave that doesn't have hand rails and a tour guide.
*I found out that I have three Sundays to prepare my Primary choir to sing three songs in sacrament for Mother's Day.
*We ate brownies and peach cobbler for Sunday dinner : ) mm mm

I got a speeding ticket on March 21st while trying to make it to the airport on time to pick up my sister-in-law and nieces. And the reason I was late was I was helping my husband with some finance stuff. I was trying to be a good person and I got charged $97 for it. But whatever, I'm over that. The thing that kills me is the Justice Court! They COULDN'T make it any more inconvenient to deal with tickets. First of all, they don't put an amount owed on the ticket. I'm still unclear as to how I was supposed to find this information out. I assumed I was supposed to get something in the mail, but when I didn't get anything about a week later, I called. I was transferred to a million different people who finally told me that I wasn't in the system and to just wait until I get something in the mail. Yesterday I got a "FINAL LETTER" in the mail telling me that if I didn't pay $148 that I would be arrested and would have to show up in court, blah, blah. REALLY? Over an three week overdue speeding ticket!? It was too late to deal with it last night, so I woke up an hour earlier than normal thinking about it. I thought about it till I was so mad I couldn't sleep anymore. I had all sorts of righteous arguments and rants that I was going to lay on the "justice" court person. I'm not paying for THEIR MISTAKE! I'm not taking off work to go into court to defend my case! This is JUSTICE? So I got out of bed and called. While I was on hold a recording came on that told everyone they don't have parking at the justice court, so you'll either have to walk or pay in a public parking lot. That's how inconvenient we try to make this for you. Oh and by the way, we are only open for 7 hours a day while you are at work.
I got through after a minute and the woman told me it was their mistake, was very nice, and took care of it and it was all over with in 5 minutes. What a waste of all that self-righteous anger.

A few days ago some co-workers were gossiping about two different affairs that were going on in the office. My comment was “That’s horrible, I can’t believe people really do that!” My co-worker’s comment was “even if you think you aren’t that type of person, you can’t say that you would NEVER fall into that. It could easily happen to anyone.” I didn’t respond because I don’t like to argue with this particular person. She is very “Type A” and would argue her opinion to the death. I think the girls at work think I’m dumb because I don’t add comments to the conversation very often and when I do and someone (which invariably happens because they are all very argumentative) argues with me, I don’t argue back. I drop the subject. I think this is viewed as weak or like I don’t have any opinions. But the truth is it’s a really arrogant thing to do. (I think I’ve learned it from Thurm : ) I have a million opinions and I usually disagree with the girls at work, but I don’t want to waste my time trying to convince someone that won’t be convinced. And I’m afraid I’ll say something mean and I want to have a nice working relationship with my co-workers.
Back to my original thoughts… I can say with 100% confidence that I would NEVER have an affair. I have very strong feelings about adultery. I wouldn’t have an affair on principal alone. Doesn’t anyone have integrity anymore? The world has become so “open minded” and politically correct about everything that people are losing their values and morals. I believe in having an open mind, accepting people who aren’t like me, etc. But I think I can do that without giving up my values and principals. I can still hold beliefs and love someone that contradicts my beliefs. We should all be able to do that… that’s exactly what Christ showed us. I’m not perfect of course. It’s just been bothering me that horrible things are becoming acceptable because no one wants to be thought of as close-minded.
In other news, Thurm and I drove three cars last night and will probably make an offer on two of them. One is a 2002 Toyota Camry 57,000 miles on it for $11,000. The other is a 2000 Subaru Legacy 100,000 miles on it for $8,500. They both have pros and cons… and it’s a hard decision to make, so I think we’ll offer about a $1,000 less on both and see if our decision is made for us.
And tonight our realtor is showing us three different homes. While all of these new purchases are fun, I can’t help but stress about the commitment, debt, and potential of making the wrong decision. It’s nice that Thurm doesn’t stress too much in life. I love his happy attitude.

Irrational International Disposition

I’ve been wanting another adventure as of late. While we have been looking for a new car and a house, I’ve been looking for an exciting international job with the government!... or something along those lines. Ideally, it would be a company where Thurm and I could both work, based in Europe, have amazing benefits, allow me a year off to have a baby and after that let me work from our villa on the coast. Every few years they would move us to another exotic location and, of course, buy us a home in each new local. Does anyone know of a job like this? Where do I send my resume?
We didn’t tell our families (uh oh!) but we applied for the Peace Corps before we got married. We had our interview and were accepted the week between our wedding and honeymoon. The problem was they couldn’t place us until Spring 2008, which meant we wouldn’t get home till Summer 2010, which meant I would be 31 when we got home, which meant Thurm would be JUST starting a career and I would be JUST starting to have babies. It just seemed like too big of a commitment.
So my new plan is to have an adventure and get paid. That or buy a house.

I forgot to mention that Thurm is borrowing his uncle's car for a few weeks until we find a new one. It's a Cadillac Deville with (here's my favorite part) a license plate that says "LARUE." It just makes me smile to think of Thurm driving that down the freeway : ) haha.

I took a 3-day weekend to attend the Sissy Reunion 2007. They got the party started Wednesday night, but I couldn't attend until Thursday afternoon. I met up with them for manicures and pedicures. After that was making dinner, playing games, and talking late into the night. The next day we went to the Joseph Smith movie on temple square, ate at Olive Garden, went to "Little Women" the musical, ate at El Ferroll, got waxed by Lynette, watched "Miss Congeniality".
In the middle of all that I talked to Thurm and he told me his car broke. His engine seized up and its $2,000 to replace it. Needless to say, we will be purchasing a new car soon. It put a damper on my mood. But we just both recently paid off our cars, so at least we don't have any other car payments. So if anyone has a good deal on a Toyota or Subaru, let me know.
It was fun spending time with Thurm's family. It gave me more insight into "why Thurm is the way he is." I'm sure he feels the same when he spends time with my family. We are a product of our surroundings. It made me miss him, being with people like him, but not him.

Weekend Update

My mom, sister-in-law, and nieces stayed at our house on Saturday. We ate at Cafe' Rio (a mandatory stop for my Pocatello family) and then went to Wheeler Park. Its a really cool farm/park a block from our apartment. Then we left Thurm to go biking with his cousin, and we went to Gardener Village to shop. I didn't realize I left my keys at home because we were driving Florecita's car. When we got back, we were locked out for about an hour. Thurm finally rode up and informed us that there was a key under the mat : (
I don't think I've mentioned that I was called to Primary Chorister. I was called more than a month ago, but yesterday was my first time. The old chorister was having a hard time letting go and told me I could just watch and "train." Which turned out to be nice to see how things are run in primary. I haven't been in primary since I was 11, so it was a little foggy. I was pretty nervous, not because of the kids, but because of the teachers staring me down. I didn't know the songs, so I fumbled through a few and managed to do a decent job for my first time.

Everyone keeps asking Thurm and I what we do for fun and I always blank because we don't do anything notable. I think people ask us that because we don't have a TV. And I think they ask us that because we don't talk about our lives that much. So being the Research Assistant that I am, I wondered, "how do other people spend their time?", and I found what the US Census had to say about it:

"On an average day in 2005, nearly everyone (96 percent) age 15 and over reported some sort of leisure or sports activity, such as watching TV, socializing, or exercising. Among this group of participants, men spent more time doing leisure activities (5.7 hours) than women (5.0 hours). Men were slightly more likely than women to participate in sports on any given day, 19 versus 16 percent. In absolute terms, individuals increased their TV watching and socializing times by about the same amount; they watched TV for 42 more minutes and socialized for 35 more minutes on weekend days than on weekdays. Employed adults living in households without children (under age 18) engaged in leisure and sports activities for 4.5 hours, about 50 more minutes per day than employed adults living with a child under age 6. Almost half of their additional leisure time was spent watching TV. Adolescents and adults now spend, on average, more than 64 days a year watching television, 41 days listening to the radio and a little over a week using the Internet. Among adults, 97 million Internet users sought news online last year, 92 million bought a product, 91 million made a travel reservation, 16 million used a social or professional networking site and 13 million created a blog."

So what I've concluded is that alot of people waste alot of time watching TV. And I think we are included in that group. We don't watch TV, per say, but we watch occasional movies on our computer, which is basically the same activity. And we spend alot of time cooking dinner every night and cleaning it up. We usually take a walk or go exercising. The rest of our time is spent just interacting with each other. I'm amazed at how much time we "waste" just BSing, bugging each other, being silly, chit-chatting, etc. I would say that 60% of our off-work time is spent doing that. So pretty much, we do what every other person does. Maybe we should get some hobbies... join a bowling league?

Passive-Aggressive

Passive-aggressive behaviour refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations. It can manifest itself as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is assumed, often explicitly, to be responsible. It is a defensive posture and, more often than not, only partly conscious. For example, people who are passive-aggressive might take so long to get ready for a party they do not wish to attend, that the party is nearly over by the time they arrive.

Common signs of passive-aggressive personality disorder
There are certain behaviors that help identify passive-aggressive behavior. [3]
Ambiguity
Avoiding responsibility by claiming forgetfulness
Blaming others
Chronic lateness and forgetfulness
Complaining
Does not express hostility or anger openly
Fear of authority
Fear of competition
Fear of dependency
Fear of intimacy
Fosters chaos
Intentional inefficiency
Making excuses and lying
Obstructionism
Procrastination
Resentment
Resists suggestions from others
Sarcasm

We watched a really good french film last night called Les Choristes. We tried watching it in Taiwan one time, on Adena's recommendation, but it was in French with Chinese subtitles. It was along the lines of Mr. Hollands Opus, but more French. I recommend it : )

Thurm and I decided we should buy a house when our lease is up in October. So we've looked around a little, talked to a mortgage broker, etc. So our realtor sent us a listing for this cool old mansion that someone made into a tri-plex. Its a little out of our price range, but its AWESOME! We drove over to it last night and walked around and looked in the windows and fantasized how we'd fix it up.

Tonight we are going to the opera, Lucia di Lasomething. Its in Italian with English ''supertitles." I am excited to see how they have subtitles at the Capitol Theatre. Its so cool that my husband is willing and excited to go to the opera with me : )

Swallowing Tears

I have watched, IN AMAZEMENT, my little niece, Isabell, physically swallow her tears. Her huge eyes will well up in tears, sobs will start coming from her mouth, her face will get all scrunched. Then she'll get threatened by her mom to stop crying or else... some consequence. And amazingly, she can just stop. Stop the tears. Stop the sobs. Her face will suddenly be angelic again. How does she do this?
I've decided this is how marriage has to be. I get my feelings hurt and I dwell on it and dwell on it and can't get over it. Thurm trys to make it better, apologises, hugs and kisses me, and I am still prideful and don't let it go. Why can't I be like Isabell and just GET OVER IT! I am going to try to be more like her.

Saturday morning Thurm & I were being passive-aggressive over hurt feelings and mis-understandings. Mostly it was my fault. By afternoon we had talked it out, kissed, and made up. That night we went to a party of some mutual friends. We were the only married people there, it was made up of mostly LDS-late-twenties-singles. Just a year and a half ago we were in this category... and now we are in the married category. Now, not to minimize the single life, because I had a good time and I'm really glad I had those years to be irresponsible, to travel, to develop tight friendships with people who will always be apart of my life, to blow my money on entertainment and dining out.... but MAN am I SOOOOOO glad to be married!
At some point during the party, Thurm leaned over and said something to the affect of what I just explained above. And I looked around the room of people dancing, I thought about our morning of fighting, and I was just so thankful to have finally found the love of my life. My 27 years of singlehood are full of good memories and fun times, but I would hang out with Thurm on the couch in our tiny apartment talking about nothing, over going to a raging party any day.

The Prom

This is our picture from our company prom. It's really our company party, but since everyone gets REALLY dressed up, its referred to as "the prom." Thurm & I look like we were crying because we were laughing that it took the photographer 4 takes to get both of our eyes open. This was actually a pretty fun party. They had drinks and dinner at the Grand America downtown, very swanky.