Snow

The snow is covering the ground and all of the houses and buildings. This brings the biggest smile to my face, because when all the trees are barren and the plants are dead, there is something new and refreshing to see and cover all of that up. This means a white Christmas for us.

Unfortunately, with all of this snow comes the accidents. People forget how to drive, and the road rage starts. Too cautious of drivers take up all of the lanes, while people who think they are invincible are trying to pass them. All of which ends up in the inevidible. The black ice covers some of the freeways.

I turned on the news this morning to see a few cars who had this happen to them. How ironic. The one time that I'm able to see the news durning the day, it ends up being something that scares the living daylights out of me. I'm worried that one of those cars is Jesse. He is the courrier for a small yet growing financial company here. That's all he does is drive. I so desperately want to call him to see if everything's alright. I don't in fear that I will be the cause of an accident.

So, later when the light came out in the skies (the sun is hiding its face right now), I texted him. About an hour later he calls me to let me know how bad the drivers around him are. People are skidding and fishtailing everywhere, and others aren't slowing down when the person in front of them starts. People are trying to rush to where they are going. During this 10 minute call, Jesse passed by 2 accidents! The first involving 6 cars and a semi, and the second with 5 cars and a 6th that had just hit as he passed it. I tell him I love him and to be safe. Then we hang up and I got in the shower. Right after I got in the shower, Jesse had called again. I didn't notice until about an hour after he called. So, I return his call only to hear he had been rearended! He's fine. The company car isn't. He feels bad for the offices he was supposed to go to.

You would think that people would be a little smarter than that, esp around here. If you pass by 2 consecutive accidents, you MIGHT want to slow down a little! You might want to give the person in front of you a little more room! Forgive me for using that little thing I like to call common sense, but people please! There's nothing I can do for those drivers out there, but at least I know what I'm doing.

I still have yet to hear back more from Jesse, since our last conversation lasted under 2 minutes. That was due to the tow truck arriving for the company car. I hope that didn't get in a wreck too.

Closing Time

We got the word a couple of weeks ago that all of us at the two Bombay Companies in Utah are going to be out of jobs. We were okay with that for a time while they tried to work out what incentives they were going to give us so we would stick around and finish with the closing of the store. Well, we just got more word that we should be satisified with the company and how generous they were being with us. We don't get any special discounts. We can either buy at the employee discount or buy at the customer discount. Yes, 50 % off for employees is great! However, we as employees would like a little more off due to the fact that we won't be making anymore money for a time. Therefore, we wouldn't be able to afford the items that we would want. We also shouldn't expect for them to give us any other special things, esp. one of our assistant managers. She was hired on expecting a long term job and was told that it would be. Now, with her hours and busy life, she has had no time to go job searching and the company isn't trying too hard to help her with job placement. As a matter of fact, the way they act, it seems to all of us that they don't care. Which might be true. All of us have given up on our morale. We are still as pleasant to customers as ever, but there is no reason that we should be happy about working at one of the funnest jobs. As much as we would love to all just walk out at one time, our store manager might be looking for a transfer to another state, and we can't just do that to her. So, what are we to do?

Falling

Carter, as much as I love him, is so unstable. His nursery leader named him as a "constant faller." That much is true. We think it could be that he gets so excited to do things, because he's never gone slow, that he runs head first, which makes him a little disproportioned. Well, none of that is the cause for what happened yesterday. During reading time, he decided he didn't want to be in the room listening to me anymore. So, I tried to be a good example by continuing to read aloud to him. I had the baby gate locked at the bottom of the stairwell and all of the other doors were closed. Unfortunately, he has learned how to open the doors by himself. He got in the bathroom which I got him out of not too much later. A few minutes later it sounded like he was in there again doing something on the floor. Quickly, I got out to find the door still closed, and one of the 4 corners of the baby gate pried out. As I looked up the stairs, I saw him. He was sitting on the riding dumptruck scooting it towards the edge of the stairs! I yelled to him no, but then he just scooted himself right on down. Because the gate wasn't the way it was supposed to be, it got stuck when I tried to unlock it to get to him. Luckily, Carter was either smart enough or shocked enough to let go of the truck by the 3rd or 4th stair. He stopped around the 6th, and the truck went all the way down. It's a good thing that my child is indestructable, because he didn't even cry when this happened. He looked a little worried, but to him, nothing too bad as he regained his thoughts. After a little talking to with him, he gave me a hug and kiss and then went right back to playing.

Doing the Best with what We Have

Jesse and I try to be good parents with how crazy our boy can make us. We just found out tonight that Carter's one of the most well behaved children in nursery. Don't get me wrong. He does play hard when it's time to play. But when we were told how great he is to have in nursery, we wonder who this child is that they know. We don't know why he's two totally different 'little people,' but we do know that getting good reports like that gives us a great comfort in knowing that we're on the right track to raising him properly. Even though he's completely rambunctious and 'free spirited' (I use that very loosely) at home, we take pleasure in knowing that Carter isn't biting other children like he bites me (or his cousin). I feel this justifies me in getting him those loud obnoxious toys that make unbareable noise for Christmas. We ended up buying one of those bounce-n-spin zebras. The main reason that we did was due to the joy and fun he had when he saw the commercial for it. When he saw it at the store it was the same lit up face. As much as I hate hearing the piano and hate the fact that there is no volume control for his microphone, I decided we can make this Christmas extra special for him. So, now most of his toys that he will get will make me want to plug my ears shut, but it's all in the name of love. I think I can live with that.

Updates

It's been awhile since I've last blogged. Well, work has been crazy busy. We just found out that both stores in Utah are being closed at the end of January. My parents came in this past weekend. My mom was so happy to see Carter. She bought a TON of stuff for him. His favorite gift so far is the keyboard on a stand with microphone. He hasn't stopped playing that. My mom was worried because it's for ages 3+, and he'll be 2 in Feb. The only reason that's the age limit is because of the stability of the child. Our child, however, may never be stable enough for this toy, but he sure likes it.

Tonight I went to my first meeting as an activities day leader for the girls in our ward. It was chaos. Our overall leader just had a baby, who by the way the baby is sick. Another 2 leaders weren't there. That left us with 3 adults to about 15 girls, ages 8-11. It was kinda hard since I was new there, and another leader seems a little lost with people skills, which is good for her to be with girls this age. Thankfully we had one leader who had an idea as to how she wanted things to be organized. She was just handed all of this maybe a week ago. Overall, I think these girls will be fun. Actually, I know so. I used to teach some of them.