Return of the Dead Blogger

I should now be able to blog for reals on a regular basis. This very post is being brought to you by the very toy that is going to be responsible for this great and marvelous event. My brand new phone is kind of amazing. So... my first New Year's resolution shall be to blog regularly. And with pictures.

For the Win

So...there is this 8 year old girl. One of the two girls I nanny. She is as stubborn as they come. nd she lives in her own little world I think half the time. Quite different than her older sister. She  bounces about when she is happy, and plants herself to the floor when she doesnkt get her way.

When I asked her to do something, she instantly decided that she did not want to do it and wouldn't a lot of the time. I wasn't going to have it. So on a few occassions her father has stepped in to let her know she was to listenm Then thing is, I wanted to win her over. Get her to do things because she wanted to do them for me. So after watching and observing her for quite a while, I have discovered that she responds to games. If I dare her to do something, she will do it. The time game doesn't work well for her...but tickling does.Threats make her shut completely down. So, I have to get creative. BUT, I can't and don't want to make EVERYTHING a game. I decided to test the waters today. I asked her to put her socks in the laundry room. She started to walk away from them, and gave her a questioning look, and she turned around and took care of the socks.

Win. Hoping this keeps up! This is the first time it has taken this long for a young kid to realize how good they have it with me as their nanny.

Little Miss Lazy Pants

Apparently I have forgotten how to live without company. I took Crystal to the airport this morning and have lazed about most of the day. I did manage to stop by CVS to pick up various items I realized I should have about the house, but for the most part I seriously did nothing. It was kind of nice though...tomorrow I start back into my regular schedule. Which I should talk about on here one day, but that is not today.

I have come to realize that it is not good for man to be alone. Or without a working drier. But let's talk about this first point a bit.

It is also not good for woman to be alone either. At least not this woman. I greatly dislike living by myself. I can do it, but I function far better when I have others surrounding me. This little miss lazy bones thing might be weird for today, but in all actuality this isn't the first time I have been lazy a lot of the day. I do it on a regular basis when I am alone and have the day free from obligations. I hate this fact. Even when I have obligations on a mostly lazy day, I really despise going to do whatever it is until I get there and then feel an intense amount of relief when it's over and move as quickly as possible to my room, my pj's, and my bed.

I know. I am complaining about being a lazy bum. Big whoop. People, I need some sort of intervention, even if it is me intervening with myself. It is a miracle I actually made a decent dinner. Usually it's toast. Or plain bread if the toaster was put away. Lazy. Bum.

Anyways. I miss living with people. I miss having kids knock on my door asking for a ride. Or to watch a movie. Or to go for a walk. Or for a way to earn money. Man I loved living with that family in Utah.

Dagnabit. I want my own! I need motivation to make a good dinner. Kids are great for that. So are husbands apparently. :)

No, I don't necessarily need an intervention. I know, I need to figure out how to flirt cause apparently I have no abilities in that department to attract a guy to get a family. I need to make myself good meals so I am healthy. I need to have projects outside of work to work on, such as really learning Spanish and maybe crotcheting.

Today just was a rather introspective, lazy day.

Bioluminescent Bay

My cousin Crystal and I went on a kayaking tour of a bioluminescent bay and lagoon tonight. We got in our kayaks in the bay, kayaked ourselves into a canal, and suddenly the water started glowing whenever we touched it with our paddles! I couldn't believe it, so I tried tossing some water to see what it would do, and sure enough every drop glowed. It was beautiful and amazing. I loved it when it got really dark in the mangrove covered canal, the glowing would get more intense. The ambiance in the canal was cool too...very Pirates of the Caribbean ride-like...

The lagoon itself was amazing. As people from the tour moved along, you could see the water under their kayaks start to glow super intensely. I realized if you just looked at the water, it sparkled as the water would disturb itself as it flowed. We had some time to move around a bit in the lagoon without the pack of kayaks.

Then we headed back to the bay...and a HUGE rain and wind storm came up right as we got into the bay...Crystal was already tired from having surfed this morning, and she was a little under the weather, so I kept having to encourage her to paddle faster and with more arm strength than what she was...it was a little crazy. Up till that point my shirt had stayed dry, but it was thoroughly soaked through with the rain and the little waves that crashed against the boat. What an adventure!!

Church was lovely. We fasted, testified of Christ, had a few lessons, and then came home. Unfortunately it seems my cousin Crystal (who came all the way from California to see me and venture about with me) seems to have caught a cold, so we kept it low key this afternoon and evening. Miraculously I had all the ingredients I needed for a very basic chicken soup. We had that with my lovely toasted water bread, and then she went to bed at 7 hoping that by morning she will be feeling well enough to do the surfing lesson she signed up for.

In the mean time, I discovered that suddenly I am able to upload pictures from my phone to facebook. It didn't used to have that ability, so I am a bit baffled by this new trick. Grateful, happy, ecstatic by it though. Perhaps my phone did a magical update without me looking? It was totally a random thought I had to attempt it, and glad I am that I did. Unfortunately the magic trick that works on facebook does not work on blogger from la cellular...or is it el cellular? Whatever it is, it ain't happening today. Sorry.

More tomorrow. Night!

Today was an amazing day. We did what I think is the typical Carribbean thing to do...we went to an amazing crystal clear water perfect sand beach. and we snorkelled off another beach and swam with sea turtles, sting raysn fish, and saw lots of coral. it was incredible to see.

The beach we went to is called Flamenco Beach. It is regularly rated one of the top 5 beaches in the WORLD to go to. So basically, it is going to be extremely hard for me to find a better beach without some extensive travelling. It was huge, not overcrowded, had loads of people renting lounge chairs and umbrellas for $5 each AND they set them up for you, and the water was just perfect. Had waves to play in and boogie board on ( rentals were available for everything beach related), or if you swam out a little you you swim/float in relative peace. GORGEOUS!

The ferry we took to get here was nice, but the line to get tickets was ridiculous. They haven't automated anything, and the tickets, for the most part, are relatively simple to get, and yet the line took so long to move...There is no option to purchase them online, nor is there a kiosk to purchase them with a credit card. You must purchase them from the ticket office.

However frustrating it was to get the tickets, the ride and boat were amazing. And the best part was on the way back to the main island...we watched pirates of the Carribbean. While we were boating on the Carribbean. :)

And there you have it. Now to treat this blasted sunburn!!

apparently capitalization is not possible on my phones browser...and apostraphes...oh well.

hello world. i am still in puerto rico. and...i like it! it rains a lot but i do not mind...cause it is warm. all. the. time. which is lovely. i find it funny though that i need to keep my walking on ice legs due to slippery algae laden steps and sidewalks and such.

i am slowly but surely learning spanish. i am terrible at it. but dang it i am going to learn it.

commas are also not a reasonable option right now. need. internet. ack.

k. thats all. hopefully internets become a possibility soon. day one nablopamo...check!

(So, I discovered that my keyboard on my phone is working like a normal keyboard for a computer...y'all are just gonna have to deal with all the typing awesomeness above though, cause ain't nobody got time for fixin' it all...:) )

The First Week

Warning: This is not a well put together post. Just a bunch of nuggets put together. K, ready....go!

I haven't quite been here a full week, which is quite surprising for me. It feels like this week has taken a month to go by. This may partly be because I missed Sunday night somehow due to the red-eye and then I have been in a whirlwind adventure the rest of the time.

So, to recap. LAST week I moved in with my parents. I put all of my stuff into my old bedroom. I am happy to report that I have a dresser, a two level bookshelf, and one very tall stack of boxes worth of stuff. I think I have a few boxes of books in storage somewhere too. But that plus the instruments are taking up a wall in my old bedroom. Keeping the hoarding gene at bay! Hooray!

Sunday night I flew at 11:45PM to JFK and then from JFK to San Juan, PR. Landed at around 11:00AM. Understandably, I was a bit thrown off when I landed. Felt like I was in a dream when I got here. Good thing I wasn't asked to drive that day.

Went to the mission home, mission office, toured what will soon be my apartment, got the key to my car, met a bunch of people and remember only two of them by name...

Then she brought me to the house to stay for a while, and I tried to crash. I needed to crash. I only kinda crashed. I really crashed that night when I fell asleep and woke up the next afternoon. Yeah.

I slept in the next day as well. We didn't do anything truly remarkable Wednesday.

Thursday morning I cleaned the upstairs. I did a deep clean of the bathrooms...those shower heads were gross!!! They'll be way easy to manage now though. Next time I clean upstairs it will go waaaaay faster. Plus I know where all the important things are now, like plugs.

Friday I cleaned the downstairs. I am considering buying the home a Swiffer WetJet. Mops only work so well. Swiffers actually remove the dirt and leave a streak free clean AND make the place smell nice. I'll be going through a LOT of juice if I do get one, since every room besides the bedrooms are tiled. I am weighing my options, but really...I greatly dislike mops. Even nice mops that are electric steamers, which the house has. Swiffers just work SO MUCH BETTER.

I have picked the girls up from school, taken them to school, and babysat them.

Light first week of work. I'll be helping out with mission things as well, but really, I'm here to help with whatever needs to be done. So if babysitting is it, so be it. :) And I am having kiddo withdrawals after living with the Rogers (I will have to update on that part of my life) and having a week with my nephew, so I really kinda love hanging out with these girls.

Went to Institute Thursday night, which was a little adventure. It's held at the stake center, (which is a square of a building with an atrium in the middle, never seen that before) and is in Spanish. There were 10 people there, one was from the States. I believe all of them speak English, some better than others. There will be another one from the States there next week as well.

There is one English speaking ward on the island and I am lucky enough to be in the ward boundaries. Hooray!! There is a YSA group for the island, but there aren't any branches or wards. Which is how I prefer it, to be perfectly honest.

My calling for the mission is the Mission Staff Coordinator...I think. Basically I will help with meals and whatever needs to be done to make zone conferences, trainings, welcomings and sending aways more friendly. We think I will be officially an employee of the Church, but we are having to work all of that out. That would be nice if I was, because then I could get full insurance benefits through the Church and then life will be WAY awesome. Cause the Church's benefits are kinda amazing.

One of the zones is called the 'Islands of the Sea'. It's my favorite zone title. The mission covers Puerto Rico, the British and US Virgin Islands, and a bunch of the other little islands that complete the Eastern?Lower? Antilles, but not all of them. The French speaking islands for example are not a part of our mission.

The mission office is in the oldest Church building on the island. It was built in the 70's I believe, and now serves only as the mission office/employment center/CES administration and I believe Bishops Storehouse...

Not a very interesting post, but I did want to get that all out there.

Good night and Roll Tide!

Well Hello There

And I am making my grand return to the blogging world.

So...where were we? In the middle of my Utah adventures when life got too busy and tiring to make staying up late to write blog posts worth it? I know, all y'all for the most part have multiple children, careers, husbands, are Relief Society presidents and everything else going on in the world and you still find time to write your blog posts everyday. I stand in awe of every.single.one of you. I really have no good or valid excuse for not blogging about my life and adventures in Utah. I hope to write about some of the things I had the opportunity to do while I lived there...

WHAT'S THIS?! Past tense? Yes, as of today I am no longer a resident of Utah. I am temporarily in New Mexico (not to be confused with Old Mexico) for the week...and then I fly out to Puerto Rico...my new home for the next three years...well, at least that's the current plan. I'll be working for the new mission president in San Juan. He offerred, so totally out of the blue, and it was just too good of an offer to pass up! So, I'm off to the Carribbean in almost exactly 7 days.

And there's a nice little bit for you to chew on. Off to bed. Moving is a draining and tiring business.

Yeah, So...

NaBloPoMo did not happen. I am sorry about that. There are good reasons why it didn't, but I won't bother you with them here.

Christmas Break was lovely. The few weeks before that were not. Why? Well, this I will explain in a little detail.

One week into December my landlady announces the rent is going up and I have to pay for the entire apartment. A $400 difference in cost. Yeah, not happening.

a) I am poor
b) The apartment is SOOOO not worth that amount
c) well, I am poor.

So, the journey began looking for a place. Lucky me, there were lots of options. Yay insane number of girls going on missions from Mormon Mecca (aka Provo).

But the apartments/rooms were small, I couldn't handle the cost of downpayments (hello, Christmas!), and other little problems were popping up.

Biggest problem: I would need to move by December 23rd. Why? Because I was flying home for Christmas and flying back on the 1st of January!!

The weekend of the 23rd became the weekend from you know where...it was awful. Too many things. Packing, moving (I found a place), recital, End of the World Party (at moments I wish it really had been), and many other little things.

Tell you what, I was soooo glad to be on the plane finally.

It was so stressful. And it was so nice to have a 9 day break to recoop and to enjoy the loves, hugs and kisses of my adorable nephew.