November 30

I am thankful it's the last day of November and the last of my daily thankful posts! No, really, today I'm thankful for my little brother. I guess younger brother is a better way to put it since he towers over me and affectionately calls me a shrimp :-)

BJ is one of the handiest people I know. He is a super hard worker - at least when he wants to be! I appreciate how he helps me out when I need him, such as fertilizing my lawn or helping me move heavy furniture.

BJ is a sophomore in college and is majoring in welding. I stopped by his welding shop last week and was completely impressed with what I saw. He is in the middle of making a trailer. He designed the trailer himself and you can see in the top picture how his welding is coming along. The bottom picture is of him cutting the metal that will line the bottom of the trailer. He is also building sides, a gate, and a ramp for the trailer. I can't wait to see the finished product... hopefully sometime next month. Great job BJ!

November 29

A couple years ago, I had an idea for a Christmas present for Mandi and TJ. I didn't finish it in time for Christmas, so gave them something else instead. I have been working on the gift on and off over the last two years... it has been a lot more work than I thought it would be. Anyway, I finally finished tonight! I am thankful to be done and that Mandi and TJ will finally get their gift this Christmas :-)

Cutie Pie

I think my nephew Tanner is a cutie. I especially love his cheeks :-)

Christmas Decorations!

I love decorating my house for any season, but Christmas is especially fun. I picked up some really soft pillows and a blanket for the couches in my front room to make it look a little more festive.
I also decided on new table decor this year. I think my dishes are super fun! I am excited to entertain this season!
And I love that I have two Christmas trees... the large, pretty tree with white lights and red and gold decorations is in the front room.
And the tall, skinny tree with the colored lights and the fun decorations that I have collected over the years is in my family room.

November 28

As you know, my family has a tradition of decorating gingerbread houses each year for Christmas. The last couple years, my mom has made extra house pieces so I could invite a friend to join us in this tradition. Mandy and her son Noah joined us again this year and we all had a really fun time. I loved listening to Noah describe how he wanted to decorate his house... he really liked using "patterns" in his decor. I guess he's been learning lots about patterns in his class at school :-) And I LOVED Beki's house this year - she made a log cabin complete with a sledding hill... how creative! My house looks surprisingly similar to other houses I've made in the past :-) Anyway, today I am thankful for my generous mother, for not only making me gingerbread house pieces, but also making house pieces for Mandy & Noah!

November 27

This is the third year that I attended the Idaho Foodbank's Empty Bowls fundraiser. This year was different in that it was SO cold! The wind kicked up while we stood in line (for over an hour!), and I was very anxious to get my warm bowl of soup. As we stood in line, though, we talked about what it might be like to have to stand in line for food every day, to not have the luxuries that we enjoy. The experience was definitely a little more meaningful than in the past.

Once we made it through the line, picked out our bowls, and got our soup, we made a beeline for the car and turned the heater on full blast. My butternut squash soup was DELISH! I wish I knew which local restaurant donated that specific soup, because I would definitely go get some more :-) So today I am thankful that I can put food on the table, and that I can heat my house and my car!

November 26

I am thankful to have grandparents that live less than 3 miles from my home. They actually lived in my neighborhood the entire time I was growing up, so as kids we could easily walk or ride our bikes to their homes. I have great memories at grandma and grandpa's house, including homemade grape juice and popcorn as a fun evening snack, the basket of toys in the closet at the bottom of the stairs, making forts out of the couch cushions, homemade waffles for Saturday morning breakfasts, playing Sleuth (the best computer game ever!) on their computer, etc.

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving by having dinner at grandma and grandpa's house. It was good food in a comfortable surrounding with great people!

November 25

I am thankful I was able to get my hair cut today! I should have had my hair done three weeks ago, but of course I waited until the day I wanted my hair done to call and get an appointment... and surprise, surprise, my stylist Sherilyn was booked out until today. Needless to say, I was definitely looking forward to my cut, color, and style this afternoon. Thanks Sherilyn!

November 24

Last month, we rolled out two very large projects at work. I'm not sure what I was thinking setting the same go-live date for both projects, but that's what we did. Of course I wanted the roll-outs to be smooth and for everyone to love the changes and for the projects to be successful. Overall, I do think we had successful roll-outs of both projects, but they weren't perfect, that's for sure.

One of the projects we rolled out was waitlisting - allowing a student to get on a waitlist if a class is full, and then moving them into the class as seats become available (either because a student in the class drops or the department increases the capacity of the class). Pretty cool if you ask me... much better than continually checking back to see if the class has opened up. Throughout the last month since we went live with waitlisting, over 1650 students have been moved off a waitlist and into a class, and there's still almost two months until school begins. I know we'll see a lot more movement.

Anyway, I've been stressing out over the last couple weeks because we discovered a flaw in the process that we somehow missed in our testing. That's the hard thing about software testing - trying to think of each possible scenario. We spent hours coming up with a manual work-around for this semester, and I begged Jim (our development manager) to get a project scheduled in January so we could address the issue prior to Summer registration (which begins in February). We had a meeting yesterday with Jim and one of our very favorite developers ever, Greg. Greg used to be a dedicated Student Records developer prior to a reorg that happened amongst the developers in January, so we were excited to have him assigned to help with our waitlisting problem. He had done some research and offered several suggestions. We agreed to try one of the solutions, which both solved our problem and wasn't a very invasive code change. I think Greg had the change made in a test environment in like 5 minutes, and it looks like it will work for us! We will do some more testing over the next couple days, but I'm hoping the fix will be in our production environment as early as next week. Today I am thankful for Greg - for his knowledge and his expertise and for being a super star developer. He made it so I will sleep better tonight, and tomorrow night, and the next night... :-)

November 23

Today I am thankful that I own my home. Well, technically I'm still paying for it, but it's mine and I love it. It's funny to think how different it looked almost 6 years ago when I bought it. I've really changed almost everything... the paint, counters, cabinet hardware, lighting, bathrooms, floors, kitchen counters, appliances, blinds, landscaping, etc. When I come home at night, I am happy and completely comfortable in my home. It is warm and inviting and has a good feeling about it. And it's 100% me.

November 22

I'm thankful it's a short work week! I am taking vacation Wednesday afternoon for a hair appointment, and then have Thursday and Friday off work for the holiday, so that means only 2 1/2 days of work this week. Lovely!

November 21

Today I am thankful for a winter-ready yard! It's amazing how much work keeping up my tiny yard can be. I have just under 1/5 of an acre, but with all my mature landscaping, that means hours of work each fall to rake all the leaves, trim the bushes, cut down the perennials, etc. After today, however, the snow can come... my yard is ready. Thanks to the Bradleys for helping me get it that way! I think there were 13 bags of leaves, trimmings, and lawn clippings in total.

November 20

I had been looking forward to the Boise State vs. Utah State football game for a while now... not because I thought it would be a really great game, but because some of my coworkers and I had planned a road trip to Logan to watch the game. I am thankful to Mandy and Mike who let me bum a ride to Logan with them. I loved seeing all the cars traveling down with Boise State car flags and car magnets. Other people donned in blue and orange waved as they passed us on the freeway or gave us a thumbs up. At the rest stop and the gas station we chatted with other Bronco fans headed to the game like we were all old friends.

I was totally impressed with what a $40 dollar a night hotel room looks like in Logan. Can't get much cheaper than that! We stayed in a Super 8... complete with a microwave, refrigerator, and free continental breakfast.
The game was a blast. We all thought it was going to be freezing, so dressed in tons of layers and came prepared with blankets, hand warmers, foot warmers, mittens, etc. It ended up being much warmer than we thought and we were all comfortable throughout the game. In fact, I don't think we ever even zipped up our coats (granted we had on several layers under our coats)!

It was also fun to see my college roommate Emily, even though it was only for a few minutes before we headed to the game. Emily was so sweet and brought us some popcorn for the game. She also took our picture... Here's some of the crew: Mike, Mandy, me, Jami, and Jason.
And here we are at the game - Kim, me, and Mandy. Our Broncos rocked once again and crushed the Aggies 52-21.

November 19

I am thankful for friends that are crazy enough to join me for midnight showings of popular movies :-) Tonight Kris and I endured high-pitched squeals of delight from the teenage girls who joined us in our theater for the movie New Moon. They especially got excited whenever Jacob was on the screen with his shirt off :-) The movie was great, but now I'm off to bed... gotta get a little sleep before boot camp in the morning!

November 18

Today I am thankful for my good health! Each year, Boise State hosts a Health Fair for students, faculty, staff, and community members. I took some time to drop by the Health Fair today and it was really great... there were lots of booths with excellent information. I always love the Idaho Dairy booth - probably because they give out free chocolate milk and string cheese :-) I was also excited to see Brett Adler there, organizer of the Boise Rec Fest. Brett is creating the Rec Fest to fill the void left by the River Festival and as a way to celebrate and promote the recreational opportunities we have here in this great state. I am definitely looking forward to the Rec Fest and hope to become more involved.

My favorite part of the Health Fair was the free chair massage I received! I had actually been thinking I needed to schedule a massage because my muscles have been sore and tight (probably because of my killer boot camp classes). Anyway, it was so nice to relax and have someone work out the knots in my back.

November 17

I remember trying to change the oil once in my 1980 full size Chevy Blazer when I was younger... I was definitely not a fan. From the pictures, you'll see that I probably wasn't really much help, and that my dad and BJ did most of the work...
Anyway, today I am thankful that there are places I can take my car to get the oil changed so I don't have to change it myself! I used to take my car to WalMart to get the oil changed, but anyone that knows me knows that I am not a fan of WalMart, and I really didn't like walking around that store for an hour while they changed my oil. So I started taking my car to a shop close to my home and would just read while they were changing my oil. Well, three months ago, I got smart! I realized that I can get my oil changed at Sears, and then I can spend the 30-45 minutes walking around the mall :-) Definitely the perfect scenario. Oh, and look what else happened today - my Blazer hit 100,000 miles! It was actually at 99,999 when I got to work this morning, so I drove around the parking lot until the odometer clicked over so I could get my picture!

November 16

Both my college diplomas hang on the wall in my home office just above my computer monitor... I think about all the years of hard work that I put into receiving those two pieces of paper, and I am glad that I stuck it out. Believe me, I had a break down or two when I thought I wouldn't get the grades I needed, but I somehow pulled through. I have always believed education is important, but think so even more now that I work at Boise State. So today I am thankful for my formal education... and I hope to have the opportunity to further my education in the future.

November 15

I can't wipe the smile from my face right now. I love my baby sister Beki! Okay, so maybe she's not really a baby (she's a sophomore in college), but I remember when she was a baby :-) Thinking of her makes me smile. She is one pretty cool girl - I often wish I was more like her. She is so fun and easy-going. She's got the yellow personality, whereas I'm all red with a little blue in the mix. Anyway, we were texting back and forth tonight, and I'm so excited for her to come home next week. We've got some fun plans... hitting Empty Bowls, going to the Boise State game, etc. I am thankful that Beki is my sister. I found this picture on Facebook, and it made me love her even more :-)
That made me realize I never blogged about going to visit Beki and Sunny in Rexburg a few weeks ago! I think I didn't blog because I was bummed that somehow my camera ate my pictures :-( I loved my visit with them. Not only did I take a much needed break from work, but I completely enjoyed eating Thai and cupcakes with Beki and my cousin Katie (who I've only seen a handful of times in my life!), going jean shopping with Beki in Idaho Falls, and chatting and watching Gilmore Girls with Sunny. I also oooohed and awwwwed over Sunny's amazing food storage. She's got this great storage room with shelves and shelves of food, much of which she grew in her garden and then canned herself! I was totally impressed. I'm hoping to spend a week with Sunny learning the ropes of canning.

November 14

I am thankful for Costa Vida :-) I know I've blogged about Costa before, but I really think some days I would starve without it. I love those delicious sweet pork salads with the vinaigrette dressing. Mmmmm... I could seriously eat them every day. Good thing that Costa is only a mile from my house so that I don't have to drive far for my sustenance!

63 to 25 = Domination

That's right, Boise State creamed the Idaho Vandals in today's game. The dominance was partly due to an excellent BSU offense and defense, and partly because of the SEVEN Idaho turnovers. Yep, seven. Sorry Vandals, but you were no match against Bronco Nation. Even though it was freezing cold (with highs in the 30's), Jarom & I had a great time watching our Broncos score, and score, and score again. Can't wait till next week's game!

November 13

Every other month, I get together with some friends and we make scrapbook pages. I know it sounds silly, but I am thankful for these evenings that we have to spend together. I used to really be in to scrapbooking. I would think in scrapbook - ya know, taking a bunch of pictures at each event and imaging the cool layout I would be able to put together. Well, for the last three years, I've thought in blog. It seems like so often now, I only take one picture at each event, because I only need one picture to post on my blog... But when we together and create a page layout, I remember how much I really enjoy scrapbooking as a creative outlet. I've been having fun taking lots of pictures and actually getting them printed. I've even put pictures on some of my scrapbook page layouts :-) I'm really hoping to get back into scrapbooking this winter and finally get through some of my boxes of pictures. Wish me luck!

November 12

My Blazer is cured :-) Today I am thankful to have my Blazer back and running... and I'm thankful to my mechanic who, even though he is retired, replaced my alternator the day he came back from vacation!

November 11

I am thankful for all the men and women who serve and have served this country so that we can enjoy our freedoms. Happy Veteran's Day!

November 10

My sister Mandi and her family moved to Boise a few months ago. I don't think I've lived in the same town as Mandi since college. Tonight Mandi invited me for a delicious dinner of ribs, mashed potatoes, and salad... she knows me well! The food was great and so was the company. I got to learn about Mandi's latest coupon adventure (she saved over $40 and only spent $3!) as well as TJ's adventures at the hospital (he's in his 3rd year of medical school). I am thankful to live close to Mandi, TJ, Hailey, and Tanner and look forward to spending more time together.

November 9

I love Fall... I love the changing leaves and the cooler weather. I love the colors of fall - the oranges and reds and yellows and browns. Fall is definitely my favorite season when it comes to decorating my house :-) I am thankful to live in an area where we get to experience all four seasons!

Here are a few pictures of my fall decor...

My table - same as last year!

Sprucing up the living room

On top of the armoire
Entry way wall hanging

November 8

I'm not really sure why, but today was kinda rough for me. There wasn't anything particularly wrong, I was just kind of down. Jen and her dog Tucker dropped by tonight to cheer me up. We sat and visited and went for a walk... simple, but it really made a difference in my day. So today (and always!) I am thankful for Jen and for her friendship.

November 7

I have really struggled to get to the gym over the last few months, and I have been feeling really out of shape... I'm hoping to remedy this by attending boot camp up to 4 times a week (as well as hopefully making it back to the gym on my lunch breaks). Today I am thankful for my trainers at Fit Physique - for their encouragement and for helping me to get motivated! That external support really makes a difference for me!

November 6

I am thankful the Broncos pulled out a win over La Tech... otherwise I might have had a heart attack or something. I seriously almost had to stop watching the game. But I'll take a 9-0 record!

November 5

My car died this morning on my way to work... I think it might be my alternator. Bummer. And of course it died right as I turned onto Ustick out of my subdivision. I was able to get into the suicide lane just as my Blazer came to a stop, but it was no fun because that's right where the road widens and the middle lane begins, so it's a pretty narrow suicide lane. I am SO thankful for my cell phone! I called my dad, who immediately left work to come rescue me :-) What did we do before cell phones???

I turned on my hazard lights and waited patiently for my dad... While I was waiting, two nice men pulled over and helped me push my car out of the middle lane and into the subdivision across the street from mine. A couple minutes later, one of my neighbors (Robert Zufelt) pulled up and offered to jump my car. His wife Anita had seen me stuck in the middle lane while on her way to work and she called him and asked him to come help me. When he didn't see me on Ustick and didn't see me in our neighborhood, he stopped by my house to see if I was there. When I didn't come to the door, he drove around until he found me. That was so nice! It took about 10 minutes charging my battery before I could drive home on my own... where I met up with my dad. We hooked my Blazer up to a battery charger for the day, and I was able to borrow a car from my parents to use until the mechanic can fix my car. So today I am thankful for all the nice people who came to my rescue when my car broke down!

Halloween

I was a vampire for Halloween this year. My favorite part of my entire costume was my teeth. I actually got these cool vampire teeth and made a mold so they fit in my mouth and they looked pretty real (although I kind of talked with a lisp when they were in!). For Halloween night, we went to a party at Jared's house... Jen had helped plan and decorate - Jared's house was completely decked out with large bats, spiders, cobwebs, fake body parts, blood, a fog machine, etc. We had a lot of fun watching the USC v. Oregon game, eating lots of yummy food, making caramel apples, playing a game, chatting, etc. Thanks for a great party Jen & Jared!

November 4

Yesterday I had the chance to serve as a volunteer at the cannery. I love that it's pear season - the cannery smelled delicious! I had a different job this time than I've had before - I worked toward the front of the line. Once the pears were washed, they came to my area, where we put the pears on a machine that would peel and slice them. The machine would grab the pears every few seconds, so it took a little more concentration than the quality control jobs I have had in the past, but it really was a lot of fun.

I read that between the 14 LDS canneries across the nation, 1 million cans of food are processed each year... that's a lot of food! Today I am thankful to have a good job and that I can put food on the table. I am thankful for the opportunities I have to serve others who are down on their luck or who are in need at this time.

November 3

I am thankful that I live in a democratic country where we can vote for who we want to represent us and lead our cities and our nation. Today is election day, so I took the time this morning to stop by the polls and cast my ballot. The only elections going on are for three city council seats, but do you realize how much the city council affects us? Most of the laws and policies that affect our daily lives are at the local level, not the federal level. Policies surrounding urban development, parks, libraries, utilities, etc. typically fall under the city council's pervue... so don't forget to vote!

Still Going Strong!

I love my Broncos. Saturday marked the 8th game of the season, and the 8th win of the season... yep, still undefeated. Jen joined me for the game - it was her first Boise State game! Oh, and notice my orange coat :-) I now have an orange coat and a blue coat, so I'm set for whatever color I am supposed to wear to the game!

November 2

Today I'm thankful to have a full staff again! Diana left our office in August, so we've been short-staffed for over 2 months... And Diana is a super star, so it has felt like we've been down at least two people. Anyway, with the implementation of two giant projects over the last couple of weeks, we've all felt the extra pressure and have been working longer hours. I am happy to report that Soni joined our team today, and I think she might even come back tomorrow :-) Welcome Soni!

November 1

A couple weeks ago, my college roommate Heidi started blogging about what she was thankful for. I decided to try something similar for the month of November. We'll see if I can keep it up.

Today I am thankful for Marie Callender's Chocolate Satin Pie and October pie month (where any pie is $6.99). Gotta be thankful for the little things in life, right? I think chocolate satin pie is a little piece of heaven :-)

BYP Annual Gala

Last weekend was BYP's annual gala. Isn't gala such a cool word? Anyway, the event was held to celebrate BYP's third birthday and to recognize some of the most outstanding BYP members. The gala had a theme of Hollywood, complete with the red carpet, photographer, awards, etc. The Social and Networking work group sure put on a fancy and exciting evening! We got all dressed up for the occasion and enjoyed delicious appetizers and a catered dinner (mmmm, steak), a silent auction (I won 4 Steelheads tickets and a $250 Dillards gift certificate!!!), fun swag bags, live music, and a great presentation. Tyler joined me at the event & I think he had a good time too - I think I see a BYP membership in his future :-)

Here I am with some beautiful women. I have had the pleasure of getting to know Michelle and Kimberly over the last year through the Community and Civic Involvement work group, and they truly are amazing. Congrats to Michelle for winning not only CC&I volunteer of the year, but also BYP member of the year!