Waiting woman...

I've been sitting in the car for about 30 minutes now trying to pass the time for my 2nd job. It's a position with the North Carolina School of Math and Science foundation. The school is a public boarding school for juniors and seniors in high school. Much of the work I'll be doing will be similar to what I did when I worked for UNC's office of development.

Today is my first day and I showed up bright and early at 8:00 since Ryan leaves the house by 7:00 anyway. Well, she told me they come in a little late, I just didn't realize how late. I sat waiting for a few minutes and thankfully one employee stopped in before going to the gym. When she said late, she didn't mean 8:15/8:30 she was talking 9:00-9:30. That's a big difference. So here I sit trying to pass the time!

This whole two jobs thing is turning out to be quite stressful. I'm not adjusting all that well to the retail life of working nights and weekends and especially being on my feet all day. I no longer have any idea what day it is or when I work next because the schedule is never the same from day-to-day or week-to-week. And the sad part is how little money I'm making. It's really depressing to start calculating your expenses in the number of hours you have to work to pay it off. It definitely makes me grateful for the good jobs that I've had in the past and Ryan's education that he is receiving so that he can have an actual career and we won't have to make a living working 2-3 jobs each just to get by. Although its not much, and may not actually be with my time, this is a sacrifice I need to be making for our family right now.

In similar news, Ryan submitted his application to the Creighton residency on Monday! After March 1 they'll start contacting for interviews which means he gets to spend a weekend in Omaha. Lucky boy!

Working Woman

I kind of forgot to mention that I got two jobs in two days.  And I accepted both.  Which means combined I will be working full time (and probably more).  That also means that Sunday I had a slight panic attack when it fully sunk in that I have to run the house while rarely being in it anymore.  My bra-less life of PJ pants and Netflix came crashing to halt!

8:00 a.m. on Monday morning I showed up for my first day of work at Joann's fabrics.  They stuck me at the cutting counter and let me loose to deal with the craziness of the President's Day Sale (because in the retail world, those forgotten holidays give cause for some of the lowest prices).  I'm not kidding when I say it was non-stop and it was 4:30 before I knew it and I was out the door feeling like I learned absolutely nothing.

Craft stores have a pretty predictable clientele, so it was nothing I haven't dealt with before.  You get the stay-at-home moms who come to the store for a social life and spend as much time enjoying it as they can before the children scream.  You get the first-time crafters or school projecters (and men) who want you to hold their hand and tell them exactly what to purchase and how to do it.  They don't notice that there are minimal employees in the store and lines of customers.  Then there are the old ladies and there are two types of them.  First, there are the sweet ones who have even sweeter husbands who follow them around the store carrying their merchandise for them.  So adorable.  The second are not so sweet.  They are the ones who have mastered their hobbies and throw an absolute fit when the current dye lot of their favorite yarn doesn't match what they have or when the cut on their fabric isn't perfectly straight.  They're feisty ones, they are.

The last ones I will mention are probably localized to this area, for Monday was the first time I had encountered them.  They are the very gay black (and most likely weekend drag queen) men.  Girl, they are a hoot.  Coming into the store with their white satin gown and needing to find the exact fabric (which is impossible) so they can make the dress longer (it was obviously for one of them) and convert it mermaid style because that's what "she" likes.  When a match can not be found, their next solution is feathers.  "Can we buy white ostrich feathers in bulk?" I think you get the picture.

After leaving work the first day, I was surprised to realized how exhausted I was! I am no longer cut out for 8 hours on my feet.  I slept so hard the first night that I didn't hear any of Ryan's four snooze's the next morning and I normally hear the first millisecond of noise it makes.  Maybe this wasn't such a good idea...

Sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices.  This is all so we can hopefully buy a house when we move back to Omaha!

Valentine's Day with the Sweeneys

So far, this might be the only resolution that we've kept.  

I tried to make the holiday a little more special, and I do believe I succeeded.

 

I started with some homemade decorations. 

(Pardon the lighting, we live in a basement with no natural light to be found)

 In the morning I made some heart shaped pancakes! New tradition?

In the afternoon, I forced Ryno to be my little model.  I'm lucky I got this shot.  He was not having it because the neighbor dogs were out playing and I was forcing him to sit and stay.  Good boy.

 Dinner consisted of heart-shaped pizza on Ryan's new pizza pan (his Vday gift... how romantic, right?), homemade bread sticks, and cranberry ginger ale in the fancy glasses, of course.

 

 

 

 Ryno knows pizza no matter how the shape.

As much as all of this took planning and preparation, it was worth it.  It made the day way more fun!

Ryan's Scavenger Hunt

I feel bad. Ryan went through all the effort of the scavenger hunt and it just frustrated me.  

I'm very grateful, and absolutely love my hidden treats but the riddle part was borderline awful. 

First, I'm terrible at crosswords.  Totally not my thing.

Second, he and I don't think the same.  We know this.  

So what he thinks is a great hint leaves me completely clueless.

So let's see if you can guess his clues.  

If you click on the clue, it should take you to a new window with the treat that I got.

1.  If I want to "butter" you up while watching movies, I'd make this.

2. This has the term Utah Mormons used for "cool" circa 2004.  Put an "n" in it then make it plural with friends.

3. This is the laziest form of Italian-American food.

4.  Like you, these are slightly twisted and full of flavor. :)

5. In basketball, it's like saying you got blocked twice - this is a flavor.
This one really ticked me off because I could NOT get it!

6. The name of the third Rice Krispies elf, if he was sour.

7.  Like the commercial and like real life, these tasty little things give you a bloody nose one minute and a hug the next... they're like me! :)

8.  Sometimes we drive each other "crazy" on road trips.

9. Part of this can increase your libido, the other part can make you healthier...why wouldn't you combine the two?!?

10. Water can turn to wine and so can this.

So how did you do?  If you can't tell, Ryan and I buy each other food to show our love.  

His goal was to buy things that I like that aren't his favorite so that I would eat them to get fat and he wouldn't.  I think he did pretty well!  And if you haven't had those Chocolate Covered Pomegranate things from Sam's Club, you should.  They're AMAZING.  And sold in bulk which is incredibly dangerous.

Also, have you seen this. yet?
 

Giving Credit where Credit is Due

You know, I feel bad for our husbands.  

We wives have the wide wonderful world of Pinterest to help 

improve our marriages and they're left on their own.  

For example, a few weeks ago I found this link to "14 Days of Love" from the Dating Divas.  

Seeing that it was fairly easy and inexpensive, I decided to do it for Ryan.  It's been awhile since I've done a romantic gesture like this and I knew he would appreciate it very much.  With all the items purchased, and some colored cardstock in hand I went to work to make my own tags.

 

Simple, right? I've been giving one a day to Ryan and his reaction did not disappoint.  

He LOVES finding them!

But, there's a problem.  He now feels guilty for not doing something cute like that for me.  I told him not to fret too much because I had help (thank you, Dating Divas!).  But he won't give it up.  He's spent days at work talking to his coworkers and trying to plan fun dates and fun gifts for me. 

Last night I went to a friend's house to watch Pitch Perfect (she saw my last post and decided it was time to see it again!).  Ryan was supposed to be writing his second essay for his residency application.  I got home only to discover he hadn't.  He had once again been racking his brain all night trying to decide what to do for me.  

See, we have it so easy? 

He's now spent many many important hours trying to come up with something on his own!

Of course his hard work is paying off and I've begun his Valentine's Scavenger Hunt.

I got these texts last night as my first clues:

The first one was easy.  Popcorn hidden with our DVDs.

But I'm now going to let you guys guess #2.  I could NOT figure it out.  

I had to had lots of help (hence the second text).

Good Luck!

Interview at Joann Fabrics

If you haven't seen Pitch Perfect, you MUST.  I saw it 6 times in a matter of a month or so.  Now that I've had a break, I really want to watch it again.

 Also, thanks to my bestie, I've been listening to this song on repeat all day.  Can't get enough!

Dropping Names

So you know how Ryan goes to Duke? Well, it's kind of a big name school, in case you didn't know. We know, because we pay for the big name.  Besides hoping for a good education and great basketball games, we were really counting on that name coming in handy when looking for a job back in Omaha and trying to compete with the PT programs at UNMC and Creighton. 

I don't know if I mentioned this, but Ryan wants to get an orthopedic residency at Creighton in the fall (it's a one-year specialization type thingy).  We heard through the grapevine that they like to stick with their own graduates which makes us a liiiiittle nervous.  But we think Duke came through for us!  Ryan emailed the head guy dude with some questions and he seemed genuinely excited and honored that a Duke graduate would be applying for their residency.  He basically promised him an interview before even receiving his application.  SCORE.  Little do they know, this is what is behind the Duke name.

 

But how can you not fall in love with that face? Ryan rocks at interviews. 

It's suddenly getting real! Eek, we are so excited to come home!