whirlwind

This morning was pretty exciting. Everyone woke up pretty early, so by around 8:30 we were starting to look for things to do. I put away all my maternity clothes and got out all my "regular" clothes; then we went to the playground for an hour and a half and then to the grocery store after that. It all went well, but it was definitely a bit stressful with both girls.

It's kind of weird for me not to be working right now--this is the first fall that I haven't been doing something school-related since I was five years old, and I definitely miss it. Last night when I was at the gym I was listening to all the students talking about all their new classes, and it made me a bit nostalgic (well, more than a bit). Not necessarily for being in school, because it's nice to not have to worry about homework and tests, but just kind of the student lifestyle and the freedom that Neil and I had when we were first married and didn't have too much in the way of responsibilities (although that also meant we didn't have very intense jobs, which meant not much money, so there were definitely drawbacks!) It's sort of weird to realize that I'm just barely 24 and I have two college degrees and two kids, and I'm actually a full-time stay-at-home mom for the first time in quite a while. Granted, I'll probably teach again during winter semester, but for now I can definitely see the energy that I put into teaching getting sort of frantically directed towards other things...here's hoping my little family survives my frenzied "we must do things!" attitude.

And also, because Juliet cries whenever I'm not holding her but will stop crying if I sit in the rocker at the computer and hold her in my lap, I'm taking Andrea up on her blog tagging thing, since I apparently have a yet-to-be-disclosed amount of time where I am stuck sitting here! So here goes...

Jobs I've held:

• envelope-stuffer for my dad at various different companies
• eyeglasses lab gopher: I washed lenses, worked in the mailroom, tagged frames, etc.
• insurance person (I don't know what to call it)--I typed in insurance info or called collections, etc.
• teaching assistant for an honors science colloquium at BYU. basically, it was a 9 credit class that covered physics, geology, biology, you name it. it was pretty sweet.
• office assistant for a professor in Ancient Studies at BYU (also very fun)
• research assistant in charge of documenting all the TA training at BYU/assembler of information on all the course evals at BYU
• graduate instructor at BYU (teaching freshmen English and technical writing) during my MA program
• lecturer at the university here (teaching technical writing and business writing)
• and of course, being a mom/financial planner/chef/chief nagger, etc.

Movies I can watch over and over:

• The Importance of Being Earnest
• Gone With the Wind
• Forrest Gump
• Shanghai Noon
• Hamlet (the Kenneth Branagh version)

My guilty pleasures:

• Exercise (I know it sounds weird, but it's kind of an indulgence for me. I really love working out).
• Cracklin' Oat Bran
• Wheat Thins and Triscuits
• Reading until very very late at night
• Grocery shopping--I love buying things and I don't feel guilty about buying food like I do about buying clothes

Places I've lived:

• deleted for privacy's sake

Shows I enjoy:

• hmm...seeing as how we don't have a TV...but I do love Seinfeld

What were the first things you thought of when you saw your significant other for the first time?...

• Wow. That guy is really tall. He has nice legs.
• Hmm. That guy would be really good-looking if he did his hair differently. (the first time I actually talked to him, he had done it differently than the first time I saw him in class. The first time I saw him, he hadn't done it at all and it was sort of hanging in his eyes. The next time it was all spiky.)
• I like his shirt.

Places I've been on vacation:

• Big cities: Boston, New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Chicago, Salt Lake
• Cool views: Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, the Tetons, Sunset Beach (S-Carolina)
• Canada: Quebec, Montreal, Niagara Falls
• Europe: England, Wales, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany
• and lots of other assorted places that I am not even going to try to enumerate

Favorite foods:

• homemade whole-wheat bread
• pancakes
• fresh blueberries
• fudge brownies
• roast beef (not the falling apart kind but the kind that you slice off)

Websites I visit daily

• MSN
• Gmail
• blogs!

Body parts I've injured

• My left foot (I shoved my bike pedal through it during a crash)
• My right pinkie (or what's left of it!)
• My right ankle (smashed to the bone when I slipped diving into a pool and hit an underwater concrete barrier)
• The fourth finger on my left hand (chipped the growth plate playing tag in 4th grade)
• and childbirth, for what that's worth

Awards I've won

• lots of forensics stuff (for the uninitiated, that's the speech and drama forensics, not the dead people type)
• various scholarships from BYU and the community, for which I am exceedingly grateful as I got through college without having to pay for it! Neil and I have promised each other that we will fund some similar scholarships when we have a real job because of how much those meant to us as starving students!
• International Baccalaureate diploma (this deserves a line to itself because of the two years of blood, sweat, and tears it cost me!)
• assorted journalism things from high school
• teaching awards from BYU, which actually meant quite a bit to me and made me tear up a bit when i found out
• the obligatory soccer trophies from elementary school
• various 4-H ribbons (I was rather proud of my blue-ribbon peanut butter cookies!)

Nicknames:

• Rach, Raquel...and various others for which my sisters were liberally pounded which I will not mention here

and like Andrea, I tag all those who want to do it!