I pledge MY allegiance to

TARGET

Why after my extended absence would my first post be about Target? Well, I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Target, but I forgot, at least until Target reminded me why I have a love affair with her. Picture it Saturday night, and we are out of diapers. How does that happen? Michael is a Pampers baby. Every other diaper he wears make him leak. I HATE leaking diapers. It is disgusting. So I have a coupon for Pampers diapers at Target. I have not been to Target since we moved here. Wal-mart is a lot closer (and the customers can be scary, dirty, frightening, etc), but I have decided Target is worth the drive. So I enter Target and I feel myself center. I am calm. My senses take in my surroundings, I feel excitement and I feel as though I am home. I find the diaper aisle. Next to my beloved Pampers (you know the company that should pay me because I have spent an insane amount of money purchasing their diapers over the years, remember Tori refused to potty train until she was 3 1/2 years old) I see it. A gold box. Target brand diapers. They are significantly cheaper and have more diapers in the box. I seize the opportunity. I decide to buy them, if they leak I will return them for a refund.

Guess what my long-lost friends (due to my blogging absence)? They DON'T leak. My life is complete. Michael, all furniture, clothes and beds are dry. I am a happy woman who has an extra $6.00 to spend on something else.

Target, I pledge my allegiance to you. You have never failed me yet, and when I visit you I come out poorer, but it is worth every retail therapy penny.

Coming Soon to my blog:
Farm pictures
Anniversary Pictures
Michael's birthday celebration
New toys
and a whole lot more.

It has been a long time and so much has happened.

BEWARE THIS IS A LONG POST.

So when I last blogged we had decided do to graduate school in Utah. As I looked for a job in Utah it became clear that I would not make enough money to support a family of four above the poverty line. I was very frustrated. Jared was trying to schedule his GMAT exam and was having difficulty. Prior to the graduate school idea we both were submitting resumes to perspective employers in New York. The current economic conditions make it hard next to impossible for recent college graduates to find job in the business field, but the field was "white and ready to harvest" for those of us with a masters' degree and six years experience under their belt. Jared and I were ready to be done living in 650 square feet with two small children. We were ready to go and live a "normal" non-college life again, but every door kept shutting. Jared really wanted to be able to support our family, and have me raise our children, in short this was a very frustrating period of time. Out of the four resumes' I submitted I had three call me back and wanted to interview me. They wanted to know when I would return to New York. On March 25th a woman from a local New York hospital called she wanted me to fill one of her three open positions, she also wanted to know when I would return to New York. After my phone call it became clear that in order to get a job in New York we needed to live in New York. We decided it was time to move and we left on March 28th. We are so grateful to our amazing friends who helped us complete this feat. We managed to FILL a 22 foot moving truck and then we filled it two more times in New York moving our belongings out of storage (we have a lot of stuff).

Our trip across the country was uneventful. We saw no precipitation, it was windy, but not bad. The kids were perfect (thank you portable dvd player and big moving truck). Jared drove the truck I drove the car and we changed kids as needed. We arrived in Albany on April 1st.

The house was a bit more challenging than expected, but Jared can fix anything and he did. We stayed with family until we had heat, hot water, running water and the house had its first of multiple cleanings (it has been empty of almost three years). We are really starting to get the house together as we have found many treasures that have been in storage since 2006.

So as for my job offers the woman from the hospital did not return my phone calls, nor did the man from the local agency who wanted to hire me. I have been really nervous. We felt so prompted to move when we did, it was miraculous how quickly we moved, but the jobs that I had lined up fell through. Jared kept telling me things would work out and be fine. So I decided to trust him and he was right. I was offered and accepted a fabulous job making twice as much money as I expected, with excellent benefits, four weeks vacation, and it allows me to be at home until 4pm every day and a $3000 sign-on bonus. I am working as a clinical social worker for an insurance company making sure that people receive the appropriate treatment for their psychiatric and substance abuse problems. This job is perfect for our family. It allows me to do all of the things that I wanted to do, and gives me flexibility. It allows Jared to pursue the things that he would like to do and we can parent our children together.

So the last month has been crazy, yet peaceful. I have had the chance to organize my home before I go back to work. I have had time to reflect on my BYU experience. I have been surprised how much I missed check-outs, my RAs and my students. I felt as I drove from Utah that I was entering the lone and dreary world (the real world is not so bad). I am helping my children adjust to our new life, and have established some good habits. All in all it has been a month of growth.

Life is good on the farm ( I like to think that I happen to live in the house that has three huge barns next to it). I will post pictures when I finish my projects...the transformation will be amazing. Michael and Tori are happy. Michael's first word every morning is tradu (tractor) and today Tori sobbed because her dad mowed her beautiful garden of yellow flowers (dandelions).

Decisions....Shoes....Bad parenting....

One of my favorite lines from the movie The Little Mermaid is said by Ursula, the sea witch, when Ariel is given the choice between getting human legs in exchange for her voice. Ursula says to Ariel "life is full of tough choices isn't it?" Yes life is full of tough choices. For this reason I have not updated our blog recently. Jared and I have been making some very tough choices, and although we feel as though we have made the right choice the truth is that with any choice made there are trade-offs. So we are headed to graduate school, mostly likely in Utah. Graduate school applications are due in June so we have a few more weeks of the unknown. Although we are disappointed that we are not going back to New York right now, we feel so much peace about our decision.

I have been telling Jared for weeks that I thought Mikey needed new shoes. He said he thought they were fine since his foot still went into the shoe. So I measured his foot and he wears a 7 1/2 and his shoes were 5 1/2. Obviously we bought him new shoes we put them on his feet and the kid ran through Dillard's. He admires his shoes daily.

Have you ever felt like a bad parent? You know the days when you feel as though you are not as patient as you should have been with your children? Ok maybe that is just me, but I was in Wal-Mart the other day and realized maybe I am not so bad. There was a mother and daughter shopping together. The daughter was about 7-8 years old and is trying to put her hat into the cart and the mother says "if you put your hat in the cart I am going to hurt your dog." Seriously I was stunned. I have not heard anything like that sinceI was a social worker. So maybe I am not so bad.

Next post pictures...I promise. I have some cute ones..

My Daughter and her ring

In the beginning of January my daughter came home with a ring. She was so proud of her ring. She admires her ring like most women admire their engagement ring. She wears her ring every day. She refuses to take the ring off when she sleeps or bathes. This ring has become part of her. When she came home from church with her ring I quickly went to the Distribution Center and bought five more just in case one was misplaced. Well seven weeks later she still has the same ring. She loves it! I love that she knows what it means.
When Jared picked her up from her Primary class she explained to him that CTR means Choose The Right. Meaning to do the things that Heavenly Father would like her to do. Then she asked how to spell wrong. You see Tori has a sense of humor. She thought it would be silly to wear a CTW ring.

As I watch her admire her ring on a daily basis I realize how much she loves Heavenly Father. How much she wants to be a good girl. I love watching her read the scriptures. I love that she loves the Bible stories. This week's favorite is Abraham and Isaac (I sick).

Last week we took the children to the Draper Temple Open House. I was amazed at the reverence that both of them showed. They were so happy to be in the temple. Tonight as Tori and Jared walked the grounds of the Mount Timpanogos she kept asking questions about faith, repentence, baptism and gift of the Holy Ghost.

Once again I am reminded that when we follow the prophet's counsel and teach our children the gospel, even when we think they are not paying attention we are blessed as a family. My fear of Kindergarten lessens each time I see her grasp the gospel in her heart.

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY TORI

The cake (I ordered it, I know where my talents are and are not). Tori picked it out. She LOVES Ariel. Her day was perfect. We decorated the house last night and so when she woke up this morning she woke up to a banner, balloons and a dozen pink roses. We sang to her. We had her pictures taken. She asked if her BFF, Kaylie, could go with her to McDonald's Playland for lunch. They played. Red Lobster for dinner (thanks Grandma Judi and Grandpa Bill), and then a small party. Tori had so much fun. She received a TON of presents, and now she is sleeping soundly.

I cannot believe that she is 5!! Where did the time go? Kindergarden in September? I have loved watching her personality emerge. I love her intelligence. I love her zest for life. I love her kindness. I love her creativity. I love her persistence (sometimes). I love everything about Tori. She is an amazing little girl.

*I cannot find where I copied the pictures that documented her day. They are somewhere on my computer. The only one I could find was a picture of her cake--LAME.

Michael

He is the sweetest little boy. He is so good. He is easy to correct. He is happy. I love when he runs up and gives me hugs. His speech is amazing, he speaks in some sentences. He loves to be read to. We cannot teach him enough about cars, trucks, and machines. He is all boy. Jared is excited to have someone that enjoys the things that he enjoys. I love how much he loves his sister. Their relationship is priceless. Every day I am grateful that he became a member of our family.

TIPPING

This has been a topic of great debate throughout our marriage. Jared is in my opinion overly generous with waiters, hairdressers, taxi drivers, sky cap at the airport. etc. He always gives them a tip. I view tipping as a way of thanking a person for doing a good job. I do not feel as though because they served me that automatically means I give them money. I do not feel as though I need to give them a paycheck in addition to what their employer pays them. Sometimes I would prefer to give them advice instead of a monetary tip (ie. you would have received a tip from me if it did not take you 20 minutes to take my order...). I think the practice of tipping is interesting. A professor from Cornell Michael Lynn has studied tipping for the last 20 years. Can you believe he studied this for 20 years??? Now you all know why I never pursued or want to pursue a doctoral program, I simply could not study the same topic for the rest of my mortal existence. I digress.. In his research Dr. Lynn found that the major reason people tip is to avoid social disapproval, it is not a reward for good service. As you can see he never asked me.

Over the years I have found that people use different methods to decide about tipping. I have divided them into groups.

Group A (Jared): No matter how bad the service is I will tip AT LEAST 15%.
Group B: 15% if he service is adequate 20% if the service is good
Group C: Outrageous tips ("we gave the waitress $1000 tip because we felt sorry for her--we have all read/heard those stories)
Group D: 15% if the service was good. If the service was bad nothing and I might leave a note depending on how bad my experience was.

My friend's dad is one of my hero. When he sits down at a table he writes down 15% on a piece of paper or napkin. Depending on the service he crosses out the number and either goes up or down. I wish I could be that bold. For me the biggest factor is I should never be thristy. In other words my Diet Coke should be free flowing.

So I did a little research. Found out that I am wrong in my opinion, but let's face it I am not going to change. I am not going to pay someone for poor service....EVER! I have other places that I want to spend my money. Oh and when my mom and Jared try to pay people in cash on the table after we have had a bad experience I have been known to take the money as we leave. In case you are interested here is the article.

So what is your opinion? Oh and before I forget the tip jars at the ice cream stand, Chinese restaurant, pizza place, I am sure by now you know my response to those things....