Funny cuz its true.

(FYI: ASL Interpreter humor.)  These are questions that we have gotten countless times.  Usually not all at once, but crazy that we even get them at all.   Love it.

I  couldn't pick which to post, so I picked 2, first is for the Educational Interpreters, 2nd is for the Freelance interpreters.  Really they apply to both though.  Enjoy :)

Guess what...!?

...I'm moving to Arizona in 3 weeks!!!  Whaaaat?   

Yep, I have been offered a job at Central Arizona College, and am starting on January 3rd, its true.  I have loved living here and have made such good friends in the 2 1/2 years I have been here, so it will be sad to leave.  But I feel really good about it, and feel it came at the right time for me.  People are asking why, and I'm not gonna lie, the increase in salary is a significant pull.  I have been so grateful for this position as Staff Interpreter here, because of great experience, benefits and retirement, but benefits don't pay the bills.  Also there are some other things going on that make me realize it is time to move on, and I have been keeping my eyes open for a job with benefits and better pay, and found it! I just gave my 2 weeks notice, which I am relieved about (its always awkward), so now I can be excited about it.

The job is basically the same with additional counseling responsibilities, but I will be the only full time interpreter on campus, and there are only a few deaf students compared to 50ish at UVU.  I will be living in the Phoenix area (really more like Chandler/Tempe).  I have 2 good friends {who happen to be married to each other, and they have 2 of the cutest kids!} who live in Gilbert, so I will only be 15 mins or so away from them-exciting!!  I have felt increasingly good about accepting the job, and am so grateful for prayer, and family to help me make the right decisions for this next part of my life.  I am not looking forward to the "starting over" feeling, because it takes me so long to get used to an area and make new friends, and the packing and unpacking part doesn't seem so exciting either. But through prayer I know its right, so I have no real worries about it.  { I will miss some of my dear friends here, but I know we'll keep in touch, and I will visit often!!}

Yay!  Wish me luck!

Pointless Purchases Please

I love "window" shopping on-line.  I found a website here that has stupid random gifts that one feels are so novel that you have to buy it.  I try to think of which of my friends I think NEEDS the item, so I can justify buying it.  Then I think, "wait, do I really need to spend $10 on bacon band-aids, and $15 on a hamburger phone?"   

These are all things that I would buy if I had money to burn, just because of the dumb little kid in me.  If you feel you need any of these, I am pretty sure that it would not be very hard to convince me to buy it for you.  

Stationary is a weakness of mine. i love it.

Cutest tape despenser ever, right?

This has fun pages inside...see below

Its like Willy Wonka's Magical edible land!

Milk Jug!

USB drives!! Cute!

Guitar Spatula!

I love coloring. And indie rock.

Crazy Cat lady ACTION FIGURE

My family needs this.

Makes me want to make more Jewish friends.

Shower Curtain

A nose is a nose like a rose is a rose...
(these are called "Pick your nose" cups. clever.)

lots

Well, I have had no internet at home for the past several weeks, so I have been MIA as far as blogging goes.  I have been dying without real internet!!  I have been able to barely attach to someones internet for a little "sharing" but its not reliable and its slower than slow on a slow stick. 

I have one thing I need to check of my 30 Before 30 list though! Yay! I am checking off #5, "Buy and learn Photoshop more proficiently."  Note: while I am definitely not proficient I am getting a lot better.  I learned SO MUCH at the Art Weekend in SLC put on by Nicole from A Little Sussy and her clan.  I had SO much fun, I just loved it. I felt like I learned a years worth of material in just 3 days, and so I have a years worth of homework to do from it.  A friend just pointed out that I am in pictures on her blog, here too. (see if you can find me-I'm there twice)  :) I would much rather be behind a camera than in front of it though.  (as you may be able to tell from my head being down.) 

Also because of that, I have gotten further in some of my other goals on the list, and will hopefully be cheking more off soon.  

Here are some pictures of what I have done with photoshop since going to the classes (click on picture to make larger) :

(these are pictures my Grandpa sent me that he has been wanting to get repaired/retouched.) 

The above is a picture my of my maternal Great Grandfather at my grandfather and grandmother's wedding.  It is the only good color picture we have of him, and my Grandpa wanted to see if I could make a "whole person" out of him.  Its my first attempt, but I think it worked pretty well so far. 

The below picture  is of my Grandfather and his Brother when they were young, and while, its not perfect, its certainly a lot better. 

(again, click to make larger)

This one below, is also of my Grandfather when he was in college in Canada. It was a large picture of a huge class of students, and this is scanned and enlarged. The picture says "Normal School" but I have no clue what that means.  I am glad he got in though, I would hate to have to tell you this was a picture of him at "Abnormal School."
 Anyway, I love this one, and think it turned out great!  I think it was about 1917, right before he flew in the RCAF in WWI (Royal Canadian Air Force).

More posts to come.  :)

you're welcome.

I never posted this picture from my cruise last year, but I thought it was appropriate today, we'll call it a little gift from one friend to another.

yippie doodle do.

This week has been icky.
So, I'm glad that I have something to look forward to!
I literally have to have something to look forward to or my life gets too monotonous and I get in a funk. That is one reason that I decided to go to this exciting workshop series, which I found through one of my favorite local Blogs, "A Little Sussy." I have been wanting to go to a class held by Nicole Hill for a couple years, since I found her blog, and have now saved up some money and convinced a friend to loan me his DSLR so I could have a better camera for the workshop.

These are the classes offered (click for larger version):

I am basically taking all the Photo/photoshop classes, plus a screenprinting class, and party planning 101! F.U.N.!(this will also help me get more on my way to ticking of #4, 5 and 6 off my "30 before 30" list!)

And now I invite anyone in the area, (or not in the area who wants to come to SLC) to join! You can see the cost of each class, or the discounts for multiple classes here. So far, I am just going alone, but it would be fun to have someone else there too! Even if it was for just one class. :)

Yay! I can't wait!

Aging is yucky.

(I ensue in much petty yet casual bitterness in the following paragraph... You have been warned.)

I am disgusted. I have a problem with getting "older" and I don't like reminders that the earth is spinning and time is ticking away. That is why I am becoming less fond of birthdays where I bury another year of my 20's and wedding announcements of "kids" I used to babysit, and HS reunions. That's right, HS reunions. My 10 year reunion for Fountain Valley H.S. is next month. Most likely, I will not be attending, due to the time of year and its in California, and the fact that I refuse to admit I have been an "adult" for 10 years. Also, I already keep in touch with those I want to keep in touch with, and most importantly, I don't have enough money to "rent" a muscular piece of hotness to be my fake husband for the evening.

On a lighter note, here is a blast from the past, probably only interesting to those who know me and or the other people in this picture. I will point out who I am in each one, because although I think its easy to pick out who I am, I recently showed a room full of my peers one of these, and NO ONE could tell I was even in the picture. Basically they thought all the girls were pretty and didn't believe I was one of them. Yeah, I don't think there are even any positive ways to spin that. :) At any rate, I love these pictures, they remind me of the "good 'ole days" and my days of being a choir nerd..."Glee" style.


My school yearbook pic.(freshman/sophomoreish year)

Heather and I looking all "hot" in our loose flowered shirts and high-water semi-casual slacks.

"Besties" in our Troubador dresses Junior year.
(Becca, Heather, Emily and Me)

Janny, Me, Brandon and Heather (B and H are happily married now w/2 little cuties!)

Senior year. Me, Colleen, and Heather ready for the Homecoming dance.
(this is the one no one believed was me)
16th B-Day party - Summer Between Sophomore and Junior year.

My Bro James and I in Hawaii my Senior Year.

You guessed it, Choir again, I am top middle left.


Heather and Me, we often got mistaken for sisters, or for each other. (my Dad is in the background too.)Some of my very best friends in HS!
{Emily, Brandon, Carrie (Em's cousin), Brad, Becca, Kirk, Heather, Me}Prom, Senior year. I'm in the middle. Graduation!

Lastly....I promise to go to my reunion if I can find 2 other peeps to do this Dance with....this is the only way to do a HS reunion. Watch it, you wont be sorry:

Quotes for a Sunday Evening

"Dance like the photo's not being tagged, Love like you've never been unfriended, Tweet like nobody's following."
Post Secret's recent Tweet


“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." -Winston Churchill

“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” – Thomas A. Edison


“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
– Milton Berle


"Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to. Then on the way out, slam the door."-Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

i love this...

Someone on Facebook posted this, and i really like it. I like things that simplify my life :)...

"hint, hint"

So I get 2 magazines in the mail now.
One is Glamour. The other is Fitness.

Only problem?
I never subscribed to them.


Is somebody not-so-subtly trying to tell me something?
(and my name is spelled correctly...highly suspicious.)

Rude.

Why couldn't the magazines be called something like The "Your Perfect the Way You Are" magazine.


This reminds me of the time I got emails from several different websites like "Baby To Bee" and "Motherhood", saying "congratulations on your pregnancy! Your baby now has head-to-toe bodily hair, and fingernails! Here is a free countdown to the happy day!"
People. I have never been even close to pregnant. They even had my home address and phone number! Someone was playing a dirty trick!
Never found out the dirty rat behind this kind gesture, but I wish I had thought of it first cause it was pretty funny.
{Except the part where they had all my info and I had to call numerous places to cancel all my "subscriptions."}

Well, I'm gonna go try out some new "Bun-bustin' work out moves" and the new "must-have lip-plumper for spring." Oh wait, no I'm not.

"insert busy signal here"

Holy Mother of busyness. I have been so ridiculously busy. School started at UVU, and I not only interpret classes, but am involved with scheduling, and rescheduling all the 30+ interpreters and transcribers, with the almost 50 deaf students. That is A LOT of work. I worked a lot of overtime this week. I love all the classes I am interpreting so far though.

I also went to a GREAT concert with a GREAT friend this week. My friend Julie (from my Mission days) went to SLC and saw a free Twilight concert in the park of She and Him! (SLC puts on these concerts for free every thurs in the summer, and this was the last one. The first started with Modest Mouse.)


Anyway I, like many of you, LOVE Zooey Deschanel. She (and him) was great! They had lots of energy, and she worked that tambourine and ukulele. If they play anywhere around your city...go! It was a great time. Julie and I had a picnic, (Kneaders, yum!) and caught up since we haven't seen each other in a couple years! Love that girl!.

Anyway, I haven't had much time to blog, and this week may be the same, so just wanted to write a quick one. Oh, and as a last thought from Jerilyn the wise one, (just say it in an Asian accent and picture me stroking an invisible long thing beard.)

"I can do hard things."

I learned that this week, and it just seems more interesting with an accent. Peace out!

Such a great day.

I'm getting on a soap box. But just a little one. Maybe like the size of a hotel box of soap. Ya know, mini.

Yesterday was the Candlelight Serenade Acoustic Festival. It was a charity event to raise awareness in the prevention of Child Sex Trafficking in the United states (it is just as bad as any other country). Its a pretty grim, and taboo subject, but so important. I got the opportunity to volunteer with my friend Wayne from 9-1pm, and got to sit at a booth and talk to people about different organizations and how they could help. We then stayed for the rest of the days events until around 11pm.

They had several bands that played in support of the cause, and that was also great. The bands included, Third Eye Blind, Neon Trees, Allred, Dashboard Confessional, 311, Pricilla Ahn, Reliant K, and several others including some local bands. The music was AMAZING, I just loved it.
(Neon Trees, my new favorite band, and they are from Provo but are now all famous!)


The best part of the whole day though, was just being around so many volunteers who were just there because they were passionate about this cause, and they were just uplifting and good people. Most of the bands expressed how they felt priveledged to be a part of the cause, and in between each band, they had videos, and speakers including congressmen, and film producers, and even one girl who captivated everyone by sharing her story of how she was sold in to sex slavery here in Utah. (yes, this happens EVERYWHERE.) I am so grateful I have had the life I have, nothing compares to the pain and trauma these kids have gone though.

(Nick Hexum of 311)

At the very end, the lead singer of Allred had written a song for the event and all the bands came out to sing it together, while the whole audience waved candles (electric ones, as it was windy) in the air. It gives me chills to think about it. It was such a fulfilling day, and something I was glad to be a part of.



After this big event, I just felt so much hope in humanity, especially because a lot of the the volunteers and supporters of these organiztions were my age and younger. Sometimes I really wonder about the future, especially learning about this horrible "industry", but I saw a lot of great people yesterday, and was very uplifted. It made me feel like I wanted to be a part of something bigger than me, like this event. There was a bunch of money raised, and many people signed up to help, and we wrote letters to our congressmen, in support of the H.R. 5575 bill.
Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional
(ps. seeing him fullfilled my 18 yr old self's dream even though I haven't listened to him much since HS.)

Please take a min and watch this, it is a trailer for the film "Playground." Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, people tend to shy away from talking about it, but its something NO ONE is safe from, and education is always the best prevention.



For more info on how to get involved, go to http://childrescue.org/. Thanks for indulging my serious post. :) Much love!