Monday, September 27, 2010

Exciting News! - for people who care where Nathaniel is going to work next summer

Nathaniel accepted an offer with Jones Day in DC!  Nathaniel loved the firm and is excited to spend ten weeks there next summer.  The interviewing process, from what I could tell, was a lot like dating.  The law students check out the firms and the firms check out the law students, while both sides do their best to impress.  Of course, unlike dating, the firms have significantly greater bargaining power.  Or maybe that is like dating if you're dating out of your league?Anyway, if they like his work as a summer associate, they'll ask him to come back after he graduates.  If not, we're in trouble!  But we won't worry about that right now.  We're just grateful everything worked out and we're excited to go back to DC this summer.  

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Thursday, September 9, 2010

Muzzle






Ready for some random thoughts?  Let’s do this.
Yesterday in WalMart, Summer wiggled out of her lap belt.  I slowly stopped the cart as she stood up.  I told her to sit down.  She promptly sat down on the back rest, out of my reach.  As I was walking around the cart to pick her up, she fell back into the main part of the cart.  Her screams were deafening.  I counted about five people who saw the whole thing.  As  I consoled Summer, I wondered how it was possible that I am allowed to be a parent.  As in, shouldn’t they have a class on how to properly strap your child into a shopping cart before you can be allowed to have complete responsibility for a human being?
Summer was fine.
I didn’t get a job I really wanted.  I’m okay with that for two reasons: first, there were 73 applicants, so they didn’t even look at people like me who don’t have bar results yet.  Even if I really wanted to take the rejection personally, I couldn't.  Second, though the hours would be flexible, it was full-time, which would have been rough.   Staying home is great in a lot of ways, especially now that Nathaniel decided to take it a little easier at school and give me a break from  Summer for a couple of hours every day.  I have the best husband in the world.  Sorry, TAMN.  It’s true.
You know how people who cook fall into two categories, bakers and, um, cooks?  Well, they do, and I decided I’m a baker.  Cooking is great because I can eat whatever I want and it provides a fantastic sense of accomplishment.  But when I measure baking powder and sift flour, when I create the perfect pastry cream or crust, when I pop something into the oven and then check it for that golden-brown color, all the craziness of life just fizzles away and my mind is clear and I am calm.  Way less stressful than, say, making lasagna. 
Speaking of suspect self-classifications, I love this article from the New York Times.  I remember in junior high trying to decide if I was right- or left-brained, and thinking that I was a little bit of both.  I think I was the only one in my class who said that.  The teacher even tried to teach to our supposed right- and left-brained tendencies.  Same for a high-school physics teacher who gave us a quiz to figure out what our learning styles were.  I just decided that I would be different from everyone else in my group and be auditory. 
We are sort of decorating our apartment, and it definitely looks better than any other apartment we’ve been in.  Of course, that’s not saying much.  I don’t have a color scheme or a theme or any words on the walls, but we do have a filing cabinet that we’re using as a side table, and I did make an ottoman.  With Velcro.  It’s ghetto.  I want to take a picture of our little living area and post it, but I want it to be “finished” before I do, and considering our moving history and how often I have days in which I do pretty much nothing, finished will never happen.  But here is a link to the sofa we bought, if you’re interested.  We paid 1/7th of the price.  And there was a big rip in the middle seam but Nathaniel bought heavy-duty thread and an upholstery needle and sewed it up perfectly and it looks awesome.  See?  I really do have the best husband in the world. 
I still like the Smashing Pumpkins.  Muzzle is my favorite song.  It has been since I was in eighth grade.  I also still wear t-shirts, jeans, and converse like I did in the eighth grade.   Luckily, I don't live in Vernal, Utah anymore.  So things do change for the better.  

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