and, just like that, i am done with all of my spanish homework. for the entire semester. this feels so good, but i am afraid i will forget all of my phrases over the next month off.

i got a promotion at work today. finally, after six months of waiting, the paperwork went all the way to wherever it needed to go. this feels good, even though it adds barely anything to my paycheck.

That time I almost had a heart attack:

As in, Saturday.

I was sitting in the drive-up waiting for a car to come--our branch is only open in the drive-up on Saturdays, so the rest of the bank is dark and closed and sort of eerie, come to think of it. I turned around for a minute because I heard a noise, and there was a man. In the lobby, just standing there. I have frequent nightmares about this. Anyways, nothing bad happened, except that he got very embarrassed (because if you can't tell a bank is closed by no one being in it, that's a bad sign), and we were all freaked out for the rest of the day. If he wanted to, he could've taken a whole lot of money, but instead he just fumbled out the door, and left someone to get in very big trouble Monday.

As in today.

When, housesitting, someone walked into the house, like it was no big deal.



But besides the half heart-attacks, days have been good. I haven't gotten anything done for school, but I did get to redecorate my room and spend some good time with my family this weekend. I miss my little brother a lot around the holidays because it's hard not being able to do traditional things with him. I will really miss decorating the tree together because that is a long-standing Evenson tradition. He will hopefully be back in Utah for awhile in January, so maybe we can make up for lost time then. Right now he is lost in a fantasy world of throwing grenades and going to the ocean every weekend. I can't imagine living that life, but he seems to enjoy it. I am so proud of him.

School is out in two weeks. I guess I should start acting like I know how to write a paper, but I think what happened is that I forgot everything I ever learned about writing. So that is a no fun problem to deal with. All this football I have been watching is killing my brain cells.

"Honey, what do you think this is?"

"...Something you made?"

- Steph, and then Tom Scribner, being the ever-supportive husband.

Russell at work did this thing today, where he was so excited, possibly to the point of overjoyed, to tell me this story that he thought pertained to me. Except it didn't, not even at all. This is usually the case with Russell, but it is so entertaining to watch.

My company gave me a bonus today. I feel so blessed and excited because nothing like this has ever happened to me before. My job feels so much more 'grown up' now. In about a month I will have been there a year, and this is one of my only jobs I haven't dreamt of leaving. God is so good to have placed me where he did. His timing is perfect and I am excited to see what this next year brings..except I hope it doesn't bring me to being fat, because we are getting free lunches at work like, every week now. This may be great for my wallet, but it is not doing wonders for my stomach.

It's weird to see that work is taking up so much of my thoughts. Maybe next time my writing will be more exciting. For right now, I would just like to sleep away my new-found cold.

I have been so busy with running around and travel time that I have neglected school, and actually writing altogether. I think school is a little mad at me, because when I got back from San Diego there were two presentations and Freud (who bothers me more than any other psychologist i've read) waiting for me. As if to say, you know, this is what you get for having a real life.

Anyways, the last few weeks have been:

-Co-housesitting in a very nice neighborhood. It was over Halloween weekend, too, so there were kids running around and probably expecting giant candy bars, but we had nothing to give out. They were brats anyways, though. One kid hit my car with a stick because he ran out in front of me, like it was totally okay for him to be doing that. Anyways, it is fun to pretend that I have a house of my own, with a hot tub I can use whenever I want.

-San Diego. we went out, my family, Collin, Emma, and I, to watch my brother graduate from the first phase of boot camp. It was a lovely break from the cold weather here, even though it was only slightly less cold there. We ate a lot of real Mexican food which was neat for me. My lovely friend Erin showed us around the city the first night. We sent off lanterns on the beach, which was pretty exciting, and then pretended like we were wealthy at the Hotel Coronado. She took us to a cute local yogurt shop (they had Harry Potter yogurt!) and then to the sand cliffs at Point Loma. It made me feel guilty, that I know none of the fun things to do in Salt Lake. My friends would not have a good time if they came to stay with me in Utah. The second night we were there, she took us to her friend's penthouse suite off of Pacific Beach, and the view of the city was phenomenal. There are some days, very rarely, where I don't hate big cities and would like to spend more time there.

-San Diego, the military part. We also spent a lot of time on base during the day. Everything was painted mustard yellow there and reminded me of a Wes Anderson movie. The first day we got to see Aus was pretty exciting. he looks so dapper in his uniform, like he could be hanging out with Don Draper. The day of graduation it was pouring rain, so we ended up missing most of the ceremony due to poor planning, but Austin didn't mind. He just wanted to leave base and eat burgers.

-Ten days without sleep. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Well sort of. Aus was only in town for ten days, so I spent every night, give or take one or two, in Provo or in travel. It was a lot of fun spending the time with my family and also old friends.

-Harry Potter movies. Woops, it's happening again.

-New coworkers. I am still not sure how I feel about this, but I will have more to report later I'm sure. I had a meeting with my boss yesterday, and she told me she had heard that I want to quit in the summer...so that was an awkward situation. The rest went really well though. I am truly blessed where I am right now in my job.

So that leaves today, which has been more crazy running around. I went down to Starbucks on my break between classes (yes, I just realized I can leave campus on breaks and it is okay) and some dude bought everyone in the lobby pastries, just to be nice I guess. Not every person is terrible all of the time.

"oh, it's a cake in the park."
-my grandma, mixing her metaphors the other day.