Flashback Friday: My birthday 2010

I turned 24 a month ago (that is long enough ago for a flashback right?) and I took a couple photos that day and never posted them so here you go. Brad and I decided that we would go to a Hindu festival that was being held that day. I thought I might learn something cultural or find something cultural to buy to put into my classroom, and Brad was hoping for some good Indian food. I called my friend Heather (the other geography teacher at my school) and the three of us went to the Sri Ganesha temple near our home for the celebration. We were approached by a man as soon as we got there who offered to help us purchase some food. It was greatly appreciated because the names of things on the list were all words we had never seen before. I feel like it is safe to say that while we were there we were the only white people who weren't accompanied by an Indian friend or someone who knew what was going on. It wasn't a very large festival and there were only a couple of tents. One for food, one for the entertainment (small children's dance class recitals) and one for Mehndi, the art of the Henna Tattoo.

Most of you know that I have a tradition that started with college roommates and has continued with Brad once we were married. When we go on road trips we get fake tattoos. I thought it would be fun to get Henna but any time I've seen them they are super expensive. These tattoos were only 3 dollars so I figured W T Heck. (yes I say that. small inside joke with my students.)

A close up of the Design I had....

And Brad played too!

Some people have asked why I did it on my palm. There are several reasons. The first being that in Mehndi it is traditional to use the henna on your palm. Don't believe me? Google image Mehndi and tell me what you think. Henna is used to decorate bodies for any special occasion. But it is very common to see Henna used as part of the celebration at weddings. In fact since most of you didn't go to google here is a picture of some traditional bridal mehndi.
The palms and feet are used because the skin absorbs the color better and holds onto it for longer. Anyways.... my other reason was that Brads sister was getting married the next weekend and so I didn't want a large tattoo on my shoulder or ankle or somewhere visible so I put it on my palm.

So I learned about Mehndi and I got a sweet henna tattoo and that is what I did for my birthday.

Jobs

I am bothered. I have had several job interviews in the past couple weeks, which is exciting since I have a job but would like to work closer to home, full time. I am not worried about not getting these jobs because again, I have a job. I had 2 interviews last week. I expected to hear from one on Monday and one on Tuesday. I was assured by the interviewers that I would hear by those days. When I hadn't heard from either one on Wednesday I already knew I didn't get the jobs. If they were going to offer it to me they would have called me asap.

I finally heard from both today. What really bothers me is how I heard. They sent me letters. Like I didn't make it into a college or something. Like they had 2000 applicants for one position and couldn't be bothered to call them all back with the bad news. What REALLY bothers me is that the letter from the job I was really hoping I would get is full of lies. First of all they are both completely form letters. "I regret to inform you that we have decided to go with another candidate." But this one is signed by the principal... who wasn't even at my interview. He was "out of the building" during the interviews and so to get a letter, signed by him, telling me "you interviewed very well" and that "it was a pleasure meeting with you", that just really irritates me. Just call me. I would rather you would call me the second I walked out of the interview and tell me "we're not even going to continue considering you because you just didn't feel right for the job." They didn't even call my references. If you feel that strongly about hiring someone else then let me know so that I can move on with my life and start revamping my lesson plans for the job I DO have.

That being said I'm going to stop telling people about any interviews I have at all. I feel like such a loser when I have to admit I didn't get the position. I'm a good teacher. I promise. I think these schools are just so intimidated by how awesome they can tell I will be that they don't know how to move forward with hiring me. That or they are all just prejudice against midgets. Is there a lawsuit I can file for this?

Awesome...

One more reason that we are excited to move into a townhouse... When your trees fall down someone else will take care of it! Luckily we have awesome neighbors with chainsaws and big hearts! (And maybe they also love cutting big trees up...)


Oh South Jordan wind...

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day and while I know several members of the current armed services (We Love You Jess! Be Safe!) they are all alive and kickin' so by definition they don't qualify to be memorialized. My grandfather Fleming is probably the closest relative that I know that counts. He fought in World War 2 and his name is on a really neat War Memorial in Richmond, UT. If you are ever in that city you should go find it. Because he is buried in Richmond I wont be able to go to his grave so this is as close as I will get today.

The Sink

When we ordered our counter tops they came with our choice of three sinks. We could choose the 50/50, the 60/40 or the Smart Sink. The 50/50 is just what it sounds like. A sink with 2 even sized tubs. The 60/40 has one tub slightly larger than the other side. We have one right now with a tiny side and a huge side. We don't love it. So the obvious choice would have to be the Smart Sink. Hello, even the name just proves that it is the right choice. The Smart sink is a deep sink with 2 even tubs and a divider that only rises half way up the sink.
Like so:
Now I can put large pots (or maybe someday babies....) into the sink and it wont matter if it fits into one side or the other side. The divider comes up 4.5 inches and so if we wanted to fill the sink with some water to do dishes we still can and if we want to fill the whole thing up and have a pool party in our kitchen we can do that too! It's almost deep enough for a diving board.

We knew we needed an awesome new faucet to go with it, none of my DIY blogs had a homemade faucet craft, so we went and bought one of these:
We were really excited about the pull down sprayer. It was going to be like getting to do lunch duty in elementary school every day! The night before the counter tops were to arrive I had this terrible feeling. I was afraid that the beautiful plantation shutters wouldn't be able to open with the taller arc faucet. We went over to the house to measure and, wouldn't you know it, it was tall enough to be in the way of the shutters. So we got another awesome faucet that has a wand instead of the pull down. Still very nice. No interference from the shutters.

The first big change

I'm so excited about our new home and we have already begun the process of making it our own. We liked this house when we first saw it but there was one thing that we felt like didn't match the rest of the house. The counter tops.

We've been getting some flack for talking about how much we don't like these counter tops. They could be fine. If they were in a different house. The pink color would be better in an adobe house with cactus and sandstone surrounding it. But that wasn't our house. Our house was built in 2004 and it has the standard cream with white trim walls and, as you can see, it has brown and tan flooring. We talked about putting in laminate flooring but decided to wait on that project and we'll see if it happens. It turns out once we removed the pink counters the flooring doesn't look so out of place. We found a killer deal on granite counters and we paid as much as we would have paid for laminate at any of the chain stores.

The color we got is called Venetian Gold. In the words of my uncle/Realtor it took the room from Grandma to Yuppie. I don't know that Yuppie was what we were going for but we got it away from Grandma and that was the hope! Unfortunately I've caught the bug and so even though Brad thinks we're done with the kitchen I think that maybe I've only just begun.

Becoming an addict

I've always loved looking at peoples houses. Buying our home has given me the chance to walk through lots of peoples homes and I loved it. Since the touring portion of the process has ended I have found a new way to continue looking at peoples homes. Blogs. I love looking at Design Blogs. I may have to quit my job so I can sit and look at all the crafty things other people are doing. I don't even have time (or the real talent) to try to make the crafts myself because one blog leads to another and there are so many cool things to look at.
But despite the lack of time and talent I've been trying some of these projects and I'm excited about the outcome. I'm going to keep trying things (I've got to have something to do during the summer vacations) and I'll be sure to keep you all updated, whether you like it or not, on how those projects go. I will also be updating the house with new things that I wont be making myself because there are people who make things, that I like, for a living that are willing to sell said things at stores for people like me to buy.