On A Monthly Basis*

*If you are male, this post will not pertain to you. You might just want to skip it.

I could go into a long explanation of why this website works for me but it might be a little too much. Let’s just say that if you have a hard time remembering each month why you suddenly feel like eating everything in sight or you nothing sounds good to eat or you want to take off everyone’s heads or you don’t know why you are crying at the TV commercial or you don’t know why the pants that fit yesterday don’t fit today or you don’t know why you just aren’t feeling yourself or you don’t know why…(you can fill in the blank). Then if after IT occurs, you realize that all those silly things were happening for a reason and they actually happen every month then this website is for you. It is called Monthly Info and it is awesome. My favorite feature of the website is that it will send me email or text reminders that certain monthly events are coming. I set the email duration up and then it automatically reminds me based on the systems predictions of the next monthly event. It has been wonderful. Another feature I like is the fact that it keeps a record so when I go to the doctor and they ask me when the last time I had a monthly event, I can actually pull out a spreadsheet (downloaded from the website) that has information including duration of events, standard deviation between events, etc. In December I will have a year of data. It really has helped me recognize signs earlier and it has also helped me be prepared. I know this sounds a little nerdy (I AM a little nerdy) but it really works.

Oh, did I mention it is FREE! Try it out.

Racing

Eric loves the color red and I actually think you could call it a passion for red. I have to laugh because I am drawn to the color red in almost any form. Last year I bought the books, Hello Cupcake and Hello Again, Cupcake. They are great books full of amazing creations. Most of the materials needed for the creations you can find at the grocery store. My niece and nephews LOVE spending hours looking through the book and picking out creations they would like me to make them.

Eric told me that he wanted the squirrel cupcakes or the race car cupcakes. I felt weird about eating something that looked like a squirrel and was also about the size of a squirrel so I passed on making squirrel cupcakes. I told Eric it was a surprise. Here are the result of my efforts. This creation is one of the easier creations and I am glad I got to practice some of the techniques on his cake so I will be prepared for the other kid’s birthdays which are coming up early next year.

Eric LOVED the cupcakes, the race car driver and he especially loved the fact that it was red.

Happy Birthday Eric!

p.s. Yesterday I came home late from work and Eric was playing at the table when I heard him say to himself, “I love being six! It’s my lucky number.” I told him that six was also my lucky number and explained to him that we are both the sixth child in our families. He thought that was pretty cool.

Matchmaker

In April 2009, I went on two dates with a very nice guy (let’s call him Science Guy). We actually had some things in common like the fact that we grew-up within minutes of each other, we knew many of the same people and we both worked in science labs at Universities at one point in our lives. However after the two dates, I knew that the relationship wasn’t going forward and I sensed he thought the same thing. So, we said our good-byes and we moved on. I would like to say, THE END but it wasn’t the end.

A few months later I was sitting in church and I thought, “You know what?! Science Guy would be a good match for that single girl I met at church (let’s call her Science Girl).” I then proceeded to talk myself out of the match because really what could I do? The next week, the thought kept coming to me in very strange ways and I finally decided to act upon it.

So, I called Science Guy. At first he was defensive about the fact that he hadn’t called and it had been months since our last date. I quickly reassured him that I wasn’t calling him to somehow “reconnect” and he relaxed a bit. I asked him if he knew Science Girl and he said, “No.” so I told him about the thought that kept coming into my mind and I told him that I would love to set-up a meeting/ date between the two of them. I also might have mentioned how much in common I thought they had and how I thought they would be a great match. He was so nice about the whole thing and thanked me for thinking of him. Then he said that now that I explained to him who Science Girl was, he actually did know her and her sister. He had nice things to say about her married sister and Science Girl so I tried to close the deal. I said, “Well, I REALLY think you should ask her out.” He said he would think about it and I told him that I thought he was a really nice guy and that he deserved a really nice girl and that he should ask her out (I probably told him three times, yes we can say overkill). I think I was pretty blunt and forward but by the end of the conversation I had the feeling that he wasn’t going to call her.

Fast forward almost a year and a half later. I was at a basketball game last week (Go Wizards!) with some friends and Science Girl was there. She was sitting on a different row and I was sitting by a friend of mine who just got engaged (We’ll call her Bling). I was telling Bling about my Employee Referral/ Dating idea and then I told her the story about Science Guy and Science Girl (she knows both of them). She thought about the match for a second and then agreed that it could be a great match. Bling asked me to give her Science Guy’s phone number. She said that she was going to call him and let him know that she thinking about him and that she thought that he would make a good match with Science Girl. (She wasn’t going to tell him HOW she thought about the match.) The next morning I received this text from Bling, “I just talked to Science Guy. He was happy to take Science Girl’s info and ask her out. Yahoo! ……..I hope it works!” (Maybe it will just take two different people giving Science Guy the same idea that will get him to ask Science Girl out.)

So, back to my original theory of matchmaking, dating referrals can be successful and we should try and help others find matches. I think we should all keep our fingers crossed that maybe Science Guy and Science Girl might someday become a Science Family with little Science babies. (Too much?) Well, maybe we can just hope that Science Guy and Science Girl can have a nice dating experience and that this nice dating experience can lead to more confidence for both of them, which can lead to more dates for both of them which will eventually result in a marriage for both of them together or to different people. You just never know.

Employee Referral Program or a.k.a A Win-Win Situation

At work we have an employee referral program. Here is how the program works: if you refer an applicant and the company hires the applicant, you receive $250-500 (depending on the grade level of the employee) when the applicant/ now new employee reaches their 90-day anniversary and $250-500 (again, depending on the grade level of the employee) when the new employee reaches their 6-month anniversary. It is a pretty good deal. Refer good employees like yourself to work for a great company and receive a little extra spending money for yourself. I think this is a win-win situation.

Over my eleven years of recruiting and working for different companies, my best hires have been (for the most part) the hires that were referred by current employees. I think this process works for because when your employees are happy at work, they want other people to be happy with them and they refer their friends. It also works because employees are not going to refer just anyone. They are going to be careful who they refer because they think that the applicant/employee’s performance is in a part, a reflection on them.

So, my question is, if an employee referral program works so well for filling my open positions at work, why can’t it work for my love life? Ok, stay with me for a moment, take this example, if my friends, family members, co-workers happened to keep my singleness in the back of their minds, then they might know or meet someone that could be a referral/match for me. I am not saying this is about blind dates. This isn’t just a date where your friend happens to know someone single and they know you are single so therefore, they think you the two of you must be a match. (Because as we know, being single is not enough to have in common to keep a relationship going). In fact, this is about knowing two people who you think might a) have fun together b) be a resource for each other so they can each meet other singles c) be a match for a more permanent long-term relationship (marriage). Someone might say to themselves, “My single, unattached male friend likes x, y and z and I think his likes and his personality might work with my single, unattached female friend’s likes and personality.” Voila- we have a potential match!

I know this sound easier than it is and I know that this process isn’t a guarantee but we should try it. We should actually try it for all singles we know. You never know when, where or how you could make a match. Dating referrals can be successful. They say, “Every member a missionary”, why not also, “Every member a matchmaker”? It’s not a bad idea. You might not get any referral money but you will be the hero in some couple’s fairy tale story when someone asks them the question, “So, how did you two meet?” and that really should be quite satisfying. Like I said it is a win-win situation so get out there and make some matches!!

A needle in a haystack or a silver ring in……

My mom told this story at the baptism of my nephews Nathan & Jacob as an illustration of the power of prayer and the power of listening to the promptings we receive as answers to our prayers.

When my brother John came back from his mission (he was in the Philippines), he brought my other brother Dan a silver ring. Dan loved this ring and wore it constantly even though it was a little too big. One day, Dan was at school when he looked down and realized that the ring was missing. He looked all over school and even asked his friends to help him look but no ring. He came home from school and asked my mom if she had seen his ring. She said no and so they started looking for it. They cleaned his room, no ring. They looked all through the house but still no ring. My mom asked Dan if he had prayed about finding the ring and he said that he had prayed. My mom suggested that he pray again. Dan prayed and after he prayed, he saw in his head a black plastic garage bag. A few days earlier, Dan had been cleaning up after his dog, Maddie and the contents of that outdoor clean-up was in that garage bag (you can guess what was in the bag). Dan did not want to go look in the bag but he decide that he would. He opened the smelling bag and took a stick to move things around to see if he could see something in the bag. As he did that, he saw something catch his eye on the top of the pile. It was his ring! Dan knew that there is no way that anyone but the Lord would have known where his ring was and he knew that his prayer had been answered.

I think this experience is not only about the love the Lord has for a sad teenager who lost something of importance to him but it is also about the fact that nothing is lost to the Lord. If it is his will, he can lead us to all things; things as simple as a silver ring to as complex as a lost soul. All things can be found-no matter if it is in a haystack or in a black plastic garbage bag full of doggie doo-doo.

Oh! The Place You'll Go.....

This year has been the year of airplanes, airports, air mattresses, packing and unpacking. Since January 2010, I have been to the following places.

(On my last plane ride to go see Dan & Ellen in Ohio)

• Rochester, New York (& surrounding area): 8 times (previously mentioned previous boyfriend lives there)

• Niagara Falls & Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada: Once while I was in Upstate New York

• Columbus, Ohio: 3 times (Visiting my brother Dan, his wife Ellen and their adorable children, Amelia & Luke)

• Salt Lake City, Utah: Once in April for General Conference and to see my family and I am going to Utah for the 2^nd time this year for Thanksgiving in 2 ½ weeks (YAY!)
  

• Houston & Austin, Texas: Once (To visit my brother John and my cousin Rob & his wife Liz and their adorable children)

• New York, New York: Twice (By bus with my old roommate Maria)

• Santa Ana, California: Once (To visit my sister Liz, her husband Kent and their twin boys, Nate & Jake)

If you were counting, this means that I have been on an airplane 14 times so far this year (I have one more ticket purchased which will make 15 airplane trips and I am still considering a trip for Christmas (maybe Texas & maybe #16)). This much traveling has made for an exhausting and exciting year and I would not have changed it for anything! In fact, I am looking forward to what 2011 will bring, maybe Europe?!

I don’t know what it is about this city but I love it! I spent a total of 2 ½ days (over 2 separate weekends) in NYC helping a friend move and it was exhausting but it was also a lot of fun!

Here are some things that we did in our 2 ½ days:

Weekend #1:

• Took the Vamoose Bus to the city and arrived by 11:30 a.m.
• Ate lunch at a Farmer’s Market across from the temple

• Took pictures of the Manhattan Temple and the cute newlyweds

• Met two Canadian Missionaries (Apparently they are the only 2 Canadian missionaries in the NYC mission and they are also companions!) They were also nice enough to give us their cell phone number in case we got lost.
  

• Look at an apartment in Spanish Harlem
• Caught a bus to our next appointment on the upper Eastside

• Took a subway to the financial district for our finally appointment which was a “loft”. It wasn’t as exciting as it sounded.
• Met some amazing people on our journey.
• Caught the last bus and headed back home.

Weekend #2:

• Drove to NYC with a car packed with my friend’s belongings.
• Arrived to the apartment (the upper Eastside apartment) by 11:45 a.m.
• Unpacked the car
• Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned and organized the apartment.
• Headed to the coolest Costco. It is a huge complex that looks like a mall but the first floor is Petco, the second floor is Costco, the third floor is Target, the fourth floor is Marshall’s, Old Navy and some other smaller stores. When we got to Costco we saw a huge line of people with the carts full of food waiting outside. It wasn’t until we watched for a few minutes that we realized that the people in line were waiting for taxis. Only in NYC.

• Unpacked the car for the second time.
• Showered. Headed to Papaya King for a hot dog.
• Took the subway to Broadway and ate chocolate shakes at Ellen’s Stardust Diner.

• Slept very soundly.
  
• The next morning as we headed to church, we saw the lead female runners running the NYC Marathon.

• Attended 3 great hours of church.
• Ate lunch, grabbed a bus, took a subway and ran to make my bus back to Bethesda.
  

Did I mention it was exhausting??? It was an interesting experience helping someone move to a new city because I heard myself saying things that had been said to me so many times before.

When I was in college, my mom always helped me move into my new apartments and she made sure before she headed back home that my space was organized, clean and that I had food in my refrigerator. I hope I was grateful at the time for her hard work and her dedication to making sure that I had as smooth as a transition as possible. I really tried all weekend to have a positive attitude even when things were bleak (all the cleaning and my friend was struggling to not just give-up.)

So, thank you MOM, DAD and all those who have ever helped me move into a new place. Thank you for being positive and helping me have many smooth transitions. I know I will be moving in the next few months (don’t know where) so if any of you are up to it, you can come help ME move.

So, NYC was wonderful. There was so much more I wanted to do like see Mark & Kathryn’s new little one but that will have to wait for my next bus trip to the big city.