Wells Fargo

As of Feb 20th I officially became an employee of Wells Fargo. I was hired as a temp in July and thought it was the easiest job I have ever had. Granted it does require an hour long commute one way of 40 miles. That’s 10 hours of my life and 400 miles a week-good thing I have a corolla! With this job comes a few firsts-PTO (I’ve never gotten paid to not work) and Insurance (Hopefully won’t be dropping 3Gs at the dentist this year!). I never thought that I would be in the banking industry nor do I think I will stay in it. I do know that I typically hate Wells Fargo, but right now Wells Fargo is paying the bills and so I love them.

The date that ended with one head light

Dating stories never really get old. And since I’ve been on so many, I’ve got a good storehouse of them. This one has got to be top 5 for sure. I haven’t really been in a lot of car accidents in my life and I’ve never been in one while I was on a date. We went to dinner at Pei Wei and then headed over to see Annie at Mountain Ridge High School. Everything seemed to be going well, I was getting really tired, so he was driving me home. We were headed west on deer valley just about to cross 75th avenue when a car in the opposite direction decided to turn left right in front of us. I couldn’t exactly remember the light being green for us, but I know it wasn’t red and even the witnesses said it was green. We didn’t hit dead on, because he was turning and Clint tried to swerve but it was pretty near a head on collision. All I remember is trying to block the airbags with my hands (just like on blindside). I had never been in a car accident where airbags went off and was amazed at how much smoke/gas they produce. I opened my eyes and felt like I couldn’t breathe-clean air…so I started to try and open the door. Clint asked if I was ok, and surprisingly I was, I could feel my neck and back hurt, and my leg from hitting the dashboard. I walked over to the QT and when I came back the cops had arrived. The officer asked for my ID and then said, so are you guys husband and wife?…us-nope…officer- boyfriend and girlfriend? …no, this is our first date. Then she asked if we wanted to take a picture. We were both too freaked out to think it was that funny. The officer asked my opinion as to if the guy just made the turn or if he paused and then made the turn for which I responded, honestly I have no clue, all I was thinking was, why is this guy turning in front of us because it made no sense. Clint’s dad made it to the accident and offered to take me home. I could have stayed but I was pretty cold so he dropped me off since Clint couldn’t leave yet. It def was a date to remember, an accident-having my date’s dad take me home…those things don’t happen every day.
Clint kept asking me if I was ok, and I would respond yeah, I’m doing great actually…if only he knew how I get panic attacks and hyperventilate over nothing or pass out for no reason at all. Considering that I usually get sick to my stomach just driving by accidents like I was in, I was doing freakin awesome!
The next day I discovered all the bruises on my body from the seatbelt and hitting the different parts of the car inside. My neck and back hurt for a few days and I couldn’t move really, but all of a sudden on the third day I could move-and dance in the car again, I even mowed my lawn.

Wicked Night

For 3 years now I’ve been trying to win tickets to Wicked with Katie. 2 hours before the show they do a lottery for tickets. They are amazing seats and only cost 25 dollars. We went about 4 times the first year and didn’t win. This year I thought for sure we would win. I work 10 minutes away from ASU, so I planned on going almost every day after work. The first week there were hardly anyone there compared to the hundreds that came when we went. Instead there were maybe 50 people there. So of course I was sure I was going to win. But didn’t over and over again! The last week of Wicked, the crowds really started coming out. I heard someone say that there were over 180 people there just for the lottery. Even with all those people, somehow I still thought I would win, but I would go home disappointed each time.
Katie bought tickets to the last show on Friday. Her, Owen and Taryn were suppose to go, but Owen was at work in Tucson and couldn’t come. I had always thought Katie and I would see the show together. We planned on going to Oreganos before the show since it was a place we went together 3 years ago after we lost yet another lottery. Katie wasn’t going to be able to be down to ASU until 6, so just for fun I decided to go to one last lottery drawing and guess what happened?!?!?! No I didn’t win. They were calling names and you can tell when people come in groups to win. Like you’ll see these families with a bunch of kids who are just there for a ticket to go into the hat. Well, one little girl in the group wins and you see two teenage girls just scream in excitement. They were so happy and even before they got the tickets their mom was taking pictures of them etc. You could tell that they were so excited to go and couldn’t believe they won. Well it gets to the last pair of tickets that they would be giving away and what name gets called, one of those girls that already won. I was standing right behind them and could see them ask if anyone in there group wanted to go, but I guess everyone had already seen it. So I walked over to the dad and said, I’ll take the tickets…they still were standing there, and I pushed one of the girls to go get the tickets. As they are walking up I tell the dad, I will pay more than what they cost and he said, oh no no. So the girls get up there, I give them the money and they give me the tickets. I can hear other people asking to the buy the tickets from the family, so my thought was, get out of there as fast as I can before they change their mind. I went over to the dad and shook his hand and said thanks so much and he responded oh yeah have fun at the concert! And then I booked it! I checked out the seats and they were front row. I called some friends up to take the tickets and then met Katie to go to Oreganos. It was kind of whirl wind, and I mean technically I didn’t win tickets, but it felt like I did and reassured myself that “luck” sucks and I have no control over that…but I do know how to talk people into things, and it worked like a charm.
The show Wicked totally lived up to every expectation I had and actually went beyond what I thought was possible. I thought it was just going to be a play and that people loved the songs, but the songs were the last thing on my list of likes. I was far more impressed with how funny the show was. Glenda was hilarious and there were several times where Katie and I would look at each other and just be cracking up. I also was super impressed with how they integrated the wizard of oz characters into the show. It was a really cool concept and at least made me think, yeah you really can’t judge someone because you don’t know their background. I honestly thought the show was really awesome. Granted the next day I went to a high school play and thought, Wicked was nothing more than people on a stage and really couldn’t believe that people would pay hundreds of dollars to see a 2 hour show (what we paid for 2 days in Disneyland) Some seats were over 200 dollars, that was for only 1 ticket! Sometimes you have to wait years to get what you want, this was a long wait, but it made it that much more awesome! Ps- One time I was even reading my scriptures and the word Wicked was capitalized and I took a picture and sent it to Katie saying something about how we really need to see the show because I can’t read the word wicked without thinking about the show Wicked! I guess now I get to see the word and think about what a fun night we had!

Piano Redo

Picture from craigslist-BEFORE

Sanded the whole thing!

The broken keys I had to fix

I didn’t want to do it, but I finally took down my Christmas tree that had been up for over a year. Ever since I moved into my house I had a vision for this gigantic wall. I had seen these wire hangers at ikea and thought they would be perfect to hang pictures on and be able to change them up every once in a while. I must have seen a picture on pinterest of a turquoise piano, and thought that would be perfect for right underneath all the pictures. The only problem was, I didn’t have a piano. So of course that lead me to craigslist in search of a very cheap piano! I ended up emailing on a few and found a guy who was selling one for 85 dollars. It didn’t come with a bench and 7 of the keys were broken, so I asked how much he would take for it and he said 40 bucks-Now that was more in my price range. Thankfully my friends brother Andy Allen happened to be in town and a musical genius. I had him offer the guy ten bucks so that hopefully he would take 20 from me, but it didn’t work. I decided to check the piano out and have Andy come with so that he could tell me, in his words if it “sounded good”. I told him, no matter how amazing the piano is, we are not going to say we want it. Instead we would leave and then text the guy if we wanted it or not. We followed the plan and Andy said, it was def worth 40 bucks. But I responded by saying, but what if we could get it for 20? So I text the guy, Would you take 20 bucks if we picked it up tonight? And sure enough he said, sure-I just want it out of my garage! So we got my dads trailer and picked it up!
The keys were broken, so I decided to call a piano shop to see if I could fix them. I mistakenly called this piano tuner, who in the midst of talking to me mentioned, the name of the part that I would need. I went to the internet to see how pricey it would be, and found replacement parts on ebay for 60 cents apiece! I ordered them and fixed them for about 8 bucks.
The next part was finding a color and painting it. I did 3 samples and finally chose Turquoise Gem. I usually like more unique names, but it is a good color. Will wanted an oil paint that was going to cost like 60 bucks in downtown phoenix, but we settled for 40 dollars at home depot. It’s pretty sad when the cost of the paint is more than the cost of the piano. One early morning, I sewed for Will while he painted for me. It took a few coats but eventually we got it finished.
This piano project is not exactly finished…the part that holds the music is kind of broken and I still need to fix that. I obviously need to get a piano bench and I really want to replace the gold knobs with like clear crystal ones, but haven’t found any pulls that will work yet.
As for the wall, I’m getting closer to finishing it….stay tuned for more updates.

AFTER

My personal painter

Will.I.AM

Andy testing the piano out-making sure it sounded great.

Disneyland

At the airport super early!

First airplane ride with other people-I always fly alone

Shuttle

Screamin Cali

Tower of Terror!

Killing each other

Fighter

Ferris Wheel

Bugs Life

Splash Mountain

One late night I received an email from Southwest Airlines saying there was a special half off deal to fly on Jan 31 and Feb 1st. You had to order that day. Without even thinking I started booking flights! I booked 8 for what I thought would be a fun and quick mother-daughter plus aunt trip to Disneyland. Once the flight was booked, a good deal on Disneyland tickets was the next goal. A great friend-Waddie-tried everything and even went to Disneyland to get us tickets, but it didn’t work. Finally one of Shelly’s relative’s relative was able to go to the Disney store and got us a deal on tickets.
A day before our trip my mother got deathly ill and couldn’t drive to Vegas to fly with my aunt and had to miss the trip L We went to California Adventure the first day so that we could see world of color which did not disappoint-though it was a lot longer show than I thought. The “adults” (not me)wanted to go on every ride. I basically just wanted to go on Screamin California and tower of terror over and over again, but I guess it was a good thing, because the toy story ride was actually pretty cool- obviously because it involved shooting and I was a pro. At the very end, we broke out running from ride to ride so that we could go on it one last time before the water show. It did involve getting yelled at by some employees, but hey I wanted to take advantage of every second! World of Color was pretty awesome too, it was way better than I thought it was going to be. We walked over to Mcdonads and had dinner at 9pm. I don’t remember a fish sandwich being 5 bucks..but I guess that is Disneyland for ya. I thought for sure we would have time to go down to the hot tub, but turns out California Adventure is exhausting oh and getting up at 4am so we could make it to the airport on time didn’t help either!
Day 2 was devoted to Disneyland. So if you’re not like 8 years old, all the rides at Disneyland are pretty boring compared to California Adventure. The first ride we had to hit was Indian Jones, I usually like to pretend that I am on a bull while on the ride, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as usual. The ride seemed so jerky and was rough on my old body. Haunted Mansion was closed, but thankfully only for a little bit and we were able to ride it later in the day. We hit, pirates, some Alison and wonderland ride, Toon town, autotopia..took the train a bit. I was looking forward to two things-dole pineapple yogurt (5 bucks, but so worth it) and gumbo. The gumbo was incredibly spicy and if only I had a take home box, I couldn’t finish it at all, or even come close. Again, I always thought space mountain was a little fun, but compared to the big rides in California adventure it was child’s play. Last time I was at Disneyland the Star War ride was closed. This time it was open, and easily my favorite ride there…atleast for the first experience. I guess they updated all the graphics and there are like 54 different rides. I think it was so awesome because you didn’t know what was going to happen. My favorite part was the lizard and we also had a really fun group of people that were yelling and stuff. The night ended trying to find a bear hat, which was semi unsuccessful.
We left the park, got in our rental van, almost died on the freeway going back to the airport and made it safely home around midnight. Too bad I had to work in the morning!

Highlights from the trip include-driving on 4 different freeways at night without having my lights on, star wars ride (so amazing), pinkberry and my all time favorite yogurt flavor-blood orange- Gumbo and pineapple yogurt juice, the best weather ever, tower of terror and making up different poses, the beginning of screamin California and making our flight home (I was freaking out for a minute)

Hailey in AZ

Oregano's!!!!

My guy for the night

This is when we found out Bryan was pregnant with a food baby

My new years eve didn’t turn out exactly as planned, but maybe that will be the theme for 2012! A few days later one of my roommates came down with her boyfriend for a wedding. I had to work, so I only got to spend the evening with them, but it was so much fun! We went to oreganos where Bryan asked if I owned a midget that was going to come out from one of the tables. After dinner we went over to the wedding and danced the night away. It was a blast and as I drove home, I totally wished my roommates lived closer!