McDonalds Put a Job Application in My Food Bag

I don't feel like being coherent right now so I'm just going to go ahead and throw it all out there.

Last week Reid and I went and stayed at Dad's house as Chrissy, Chris, Ben and Tiffany came up to visit. It was a lot of fun. Ben is huge and more like a toddler than a baby. He sounds like a cute little girl when he chatters to himself saying 'mamamamama' and 'dadadada'. He also learned to clap while we were there. He always yells when he's clapping and looks angry, but we all just think that it is due to everyone always clapping and saying 'yayyyy' to get him to imitate us. It's his anger clapping. Chrissy informed me that at the Denver airport he was practicing his clapping at strangers.

The last couple days of the trip I got a cold. I still have it. I really hate being sick. Reid has been taking good care of me! He even bought me 2 varieties of juice last night. V8 Splash and grape juice. I suspect the grape juice was actually for him, but I'll let it slide ;) Also I learned that blowing my nose causes my glasses to fog up.

On our birthday we went out and played putt putt golf and then the day after we had a dinosaur birthday cake with our names on it! It was so cute..and tasty too of course. I like being a big kid. For my birthday Reid bought me a Motorola Droid. It is very exciting. Reid got one for himself too of course, which is a good thing so now he can tell me how to work it. He went to the store at 6am on the release date for the phone planning on buying 2 of them. I guess they told him I didn't qualify for an upgrade on the phone since I'm not the primary person on the account and it would cost $600 for me to have the phone. He came home to wake me up to tell me that he didn't get me a phone...which he didn't. He wasn't tricking me. He bought himself a phone, though. He said he was sorry and I told him to go away as at that time I needed to mope. Anyways, while I was in the shower he had gone back to the Verizon store and found a way to change the account so that we wouldn't have to pay the ridiculous $600 for the phone. Five or six trips to Verizon stores later we now both have working Droids with cute little cases. Sorry Reid. MANLY cases.

My newest obsession has been the Pioneer Woman's blog (thanks Liz! I just REALLY needed something else to keep me online for long periods of time). Basically there is this woman who was a city girl that randomly fell in love with a cowboy. She'd never even met a cowboy before in her life. It's the true story of her life and it is addicting (and funny...overall very entertaining)! I highly recommend it. I almost wish it wasn't all true because I kind of feel like a stalker. So here is the link to her love story and here is the link to the other random blogs she posts that aren't necessarily related to the love story, but are related to her life on the farm. Barbie I really think you'd like this!!

The dogs have been really clingy since we got home. I definitely think they have developed abandonment issues. It's cute but also kind of annoying. Oh well. At least Kona only ate the one thing (poor little Zoey's bed). I don't think Zoey's noticed yet.

Oh and since Reid went to Office Depot tonight I was reliant on McDonalds for nourishment. They put a job application in my food bag. I thought that was funny.

Not much.

So I've started working full time at the Burke Museum. I really do love it. Me saying that is probably getting old, but I can't help it. We are in an interesting transition right now as our store buyer just retired unexpectedly and the museum doesn't plan on rehiring for her position (which means that her duties will probably just be spread out amongst current employees). We have also been losing employees as they are finding new jobs (full time jobs that will actually allow for them to pay bills). It will be interesting to see how we delegate things in the coming months.

Lately I've just been reading a lot. I've been addicted to the Sookie Stackhouse novels (there are 9 thus far in the series). They are fast reads and are very creative and actually keep my attention. These are the novels that inspired HBO's True Blood series. The books are a lot different from the series as they are actually funny. The show is very serious. Reid hates it. No surprise there ;) Also I've gotten Reid addicted to the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which is hilarious and I recommend to anyone that appreciates science.

Dang this is why I don't update, I don't have anything interesting to say! I think there is something fundamentally wrong with me in working only one job and by that I mean that even though I should be done with all my temp shifts at the University Bookstore this quarter I keep picking up more shifts. I am working tomorrow night after I get off work at the museum until around 10pm. Makes for a 9am to 10pm-ish day. Yes. Something is wrong with me. The event that I'm going to be selling books for seems interesting. It is a speaker named Richard Dawkins who is going to be talking about his new book about evolution. His last book I believe is called "The God Dillusion" and this one is called "The Greatest Show on Earth: Evidence for Evolution." When I first signed up for the shift the people at the bookstore told me it was a sports guy talking haha. This is just a slightly different sort of topic. It'll definitely be more interesting to me than sports, though. Oh but the sad thing is that I will miss Jim and Pam's wedding on The Office. This is of greater concern to me than necessary. Reid will save the day and record it for me.

Reid and my 3rd year wedding anniversary is coming up on October 14th. We are going to go to a lecture at the Burke Museum on the 15th about solving the mystery of King Tut's death. That will hopefully be interesting. On November 12th we're planning on going to another lecture at the Burke (meaning I'm dragging Reid to this one) about dinosaur fossils in Antarctica.

The most exciting part of my near future is that Chrissy and Chris and Ben and Tiffany are going to come up for the first week of November!! Reid and I will take a week off and go over to Spokane to be with them. Dad and Barbie are going to have a full house! Chrissy and I will be able to celebrate our birthday together which we haven't done for years. Oh and we're going to have an early Thanksgiving. I have already mentally prepared myself for coming back to Seattle with several extra pounds of winter weight added to me. It'll be worth it, trust me. If you've ever been priviledged enough to have Barbie cook for you then you can only imagine the happiness that a Thanksgiving type meal will bring.

Better than Miley

For anyone that's heard the Miley Cyrus ('Hannah Montana' from the Disney channel) song that made it on to normal radio play "The Climb", this version is better! Same song, just Kelly Clarkson and her backup singers playing around doing their version.

I Got the Job!!

As most people that would be reading this already know, I will be starting full time at the museum on September 30th. I am ridiculously excited about it! I've been wanting this since I first started working there over two and a half years ago and it finally happened. It didn't happen before this because a full time position didn't exist. Creating a position on the University of Washington campus is not a one step process as one might imagine. Anyways, it came to existence and I got it! I will be working Wednesday through Sundays (as they need someone to be working the weekend) and hours will be something like 8:30am or 9am to 5:30pm. The job I will be doing is pretty much the same I do now, but possibly more integrated with PR and membership. The only unfortunate thing about taking this job is knowing that I am taking most of the other hourly employee's hours for the week :-/ Basically they were cutting back all the hours so that it was taken by just the one position and they'll have hourly people on my days off and on weekends and busy days (first Thursdays). Obviously I'm happy that I got the job or it wouldn't have looked good for me! I really do love the museum and I know I will be great at the position.

This also means that I get to quit Office Depot! I only need one job now. ONE JOB. What am I going to do with myself?? I gave my notice already at Office Depot and I've already begun to train a new person in the cash office. It's a bit tricky as I am not the most easily replaced person in the building, but really it won't be my problem. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true! I am training the best I can and the person I am training is competent, but it still won't be the easiest transition for the store. There are a lot of things that I do that ONLY I do. I have people that cover me for my days off, but they don't get a chance to do everything. Not that they're missing out on fun or anything. It's strange to be leaving Office Depot as I just hit my 5 year anniversary a couple of months ago, but I also got gyped on my raise so the store could save money so my sadness is not at its full potential. Under appreciated? Yeah, pretty much. Could have been worse, though as it has been in the past with the first Office Depot store manager I had to work with.

I'm still toying with the idea of remaining on the temp employee list for the University Book Store for some extra money around the holidays (gift wrapping) and things like that. But it's nice knowing that I don't HAVE to.

Other things that have been going on: Not much. Well actually I had to get permanent glasses instead of the part time glasses with an upped prescription. I got different frames as my old purple ones were heavy and the nose pads hurt my nose. Now I have navy blue plastic framed ones with no nose pad that just carve a nice line into my nose, but it's still less painful than the nose pads. I like the way my old ones look a little more than the ones I have now, but being in less pain and being able to see better is nice and not overrated.

Reid's parents came to visit this week which was nice. It was nice to see them and also Reid cleaned his room (the spare room that serves as his giant laundry pile).

Also Chrissy, Chris, Ben and Tiffany will be visiting in Spokane in November and Reid and I plan on being there!!!!! Something to look forward to.

I put this link on my facebook, but here it is again! The super cute song about being a paleontologist that will be stuck in your head all day as it is mine. Enjoy!!

Moving Rocks!

And not 'rocks' as in another word for awesome. Basically the Burke Museum geology dept. has a huge moving project going on so they can get new and earthquake safe storage. The Burke Museum blog posted a video that they made starring Ron Eng (the collections manager for geology...he's awesome!). He can explain it better than I can. The rooms they show are rooms that I don't get to go into too often (as it is not part of my job to be in there), but I love to get in there and play whenever I can! There is also an older woman shown wearing a green shirt pulling out a specimen drawer. That's Ruth! She's a grad student and is also awesome. These are two of my favorite people at the museum! Ruth was also a TA with me when I TA'd the Dinosaurs class at the UW a couple of years ago. We have also done little excursions (one in which I obtained my mammoth tusk). She can climb a cliff wall better than me! It's ridiculous... Anyways, you should watch the video! Only 2 minutes and this one is much less likely to be removed from YouTube for copyright issues as all of my So You Think You Can Dance videos are.

Yay!!

Yeah, not feeling creative with the title today. So the other day this magical new job listing at the museum showed up. It is basically the exact job that I already do, BUT full time!!!!! Of course I applied! I'm so excited and obviously really hope that I get it. I LOVE the Burke Museum. Maybe I would only have to work 1 or 2 jobs instead of 3 in the near future! The job starts September 28th and goes Wed through Sun. The job seems too good to be true, so I'm trying (unsuccessfully) not to get excited about it. The wonderful thing that the museum did when setting up this job was to only allow applicants that currently work at the Burke Museum and have been there for at least one year. This way me and the few other people that will apply don't have to compete with hundreds of applicants. Very exciting potential here. The really sucky thing would be if I DIDN'T get the job because basically come September when this new job starts, there will be pretty much no hours for anyone. They created this new job to cut down on hourly positions and money so most of the hours goes to this new position. There will be a couple of other shifts available here and there, but barely anything. Very scary. I'm trying not to think about that particular 'what if'.

On So You Think You Can Dance this week was one of my favorite dances ever! It was so hot! Even Reid agreed with me with my use of the word 'hot' and he never uses that word unless he is describing the weather (like today at almost 92 degrees) or me of course haha. See it below!! 1 minute and 58 seconds of your life. :)

Pennies!

This morning when I was counting cash I came across a penny that I had never seen before. It was a 2009 penny with a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the back of it sitting on a log reading a book. It really threw me off as I had never seen a penny that was different on the back except for pennies that were made before the 1950's in which it just says 'one cent' instead of having the Capital Building. I looked it up and found that they released 4 different penny back designs for the celebration of the bicentennial of Lincoln's birthday and the 100 year existence of the one cent. This is really going to ruin my ability to quickly spot and separate out Canadian coins...