Name changes!

This week, we have been on a quest to finally change my name for realsises (as opposed to me just writing "Alyssa Facer" at the top of my homework and pretending that it's legally true). We've had boring lunch breaks, but we're almost finished!

On Tuesday, we spent a little over 2 hours at the social security office. 
On Wednesday, I had a dentist appointment. This seems unrelated, but I was taken from being under my dad's name and put into my own family on their records, so it counts.
On Thursday (today), we spent a little under 20 minutes at the driver license division. 
On Friday (tomorrow), we plan to visit the administration building on campus. Not sure how long it will take.

But I ask you: what can we learn from this??
We can learn that the social security office is poopier than the driver license office.
Proof by example. Boom.

In other news, my new license picture is awful compared to my last one. I've never understood why people care about this so much, but now.....actually, I still don't understand. 




In really other news, I am on an informal quest for the best orange chicken recipe in the world. Anyone have one they love? 

Picture!

I had a test in here today. School is cool.

A bright idea

Technology needs a way to staple things together. Like if I read a PDF and then write a paper on it for my class, I don't want those two documents to need their own folder within a folder within a folder to know they go together (FOLDER-CEPTION). That's craziness.

But I want them to stick together so that I don't have to remember what I named my paper and what I named the article because I am lazy. What if I could just "staple" them together so that they stick together automatically but just in the folder they're already in?? Saweeeett, right?


I'm thinking of submitting this to Microsoft. Maybe I'll submit to Apple too, just for kicks. 


Alternatively, does anybody out there have a great way of organizing their documents so that this isn't even an issue in their life? I would love to hear it.






Another bright idea, one which I already carried out yesterday: signing up for Google Fiber. Yeah, that's right. I'm comin at you with all my free time, interwebs. (But it'll be sometime after March 7th, so...yeah.)

Birthday month!

My birthday was this month, which means free stuff, woo! I'm not signed up for very many birthday freebies, but I think I'm signed up for some pretty good ones. The following mail all came on the same day, and it was pretty darn exciting:

Godiva Chocolatiers sends you a $10 gift card for use anywhere on their website or in-store. I used it in combination with a free shipping offer to get a package of sea salt caramel toffee chocolates shipped to me for $2 instead of $20. I realize that I still spent money, but it was, like, manageable. I can handle 2 bucks, and "It's my birthday present to me! I'm so happy" (name it). Except I signed Joseph's name on the card because I think I'm hilarious.

Tucanos sends you a buy-one-get-one-free meal card. Since Tucanos is a little bit outside our newlywed price range (cough cough how does anyone ever afford this food), we went as frugal as we possibly could on this. We used it for lunch instead of dinner, and we did not get the Brazilian lemonade (single tear), and we used a gift card we got for Christmas. Which means it was free-ish and we still have gift card money! For Joe's birthday, of course.

My other lovely piece of mail was not a birthday thing, but I'm counting it because it arrived just in time. Shutterfly did a New Year promo for 101 free prints, and I had the epiphany that I could use these free prints promos over the next year (they come up every few months) to print our wedding photos! Because I want hard copies. Just because. So that first batch came, and that was pretty exciting. It's different to hold them in your hand than it is to scroll through on a computer, you know??



Anyway, birthday months are fun. You should all celebrate one sometime.

Winter 2014 semester run-down

It is a new semester and I have a full load of fresh new classes. I love new semesters. I talk about this often, but I really just do love school and homework and learning and stuff. This semester is a good blend of generals and major requirements, plus my one fun class (of course).

So! Here's what I'm taking currently:

History of Learning in Art, Science, and Technology (1500 to present) :: Completely fascinating. This was my decision after I pled for advice. It was the one which was harder but more interesting, basically, and I think I chose correctly. There is an online class discussion every Wednesday, so it's a 3 hour class credit with only 2 class hours. #winning

Communication in Organizational Settings :: AKA business writing AKA how to write a rockin cover letter and a nice looking memo. This class mostly just requires us to blog and comment on each others' blogs, which is pretty easy homework. There's also a strong grammar emphasis for the first half of the course, which is apparently scary for most people but I don't mind it. The professor's great. Bonus: I'm taking this with Joe!! Awww.

Combinatorics :: Math math math math math math math. I didn't take a real math class last semester, and now I'm on my very last one. WAHOOOOOOOOOO. It's pretty interesting, I guess, but I have, like, math senioritis or something. But wahoo for the end of upper level math classes!

Teaching with Technology :: This is my other major class for this semester and it's pretty interesting. Basically, we learn how technology in a math classroom can enhance learning. For our first activity, we explored how and why nobody uses logarithms anymore, and I found it completely entertaining. I think Joe might vicariously take this class this semester because I tell him everything I learn. (Actually, I'm just realizing that applies to every class I ever take. Huh. He's getting a steal of a deal for his tuition.)

Interior Plants and Landscapes :: This one is the wildcard fun class. I am so obsessed with plants and flowers, it's not even funny anymore. So I'm taking a class that will teach me how to be a plant lady! It's just like floral design, except now things come in pots and there's no lab fee. And the textbook's smaller. And class is usually held in the greenhouse, which I am anticipating will be warmer than the majority of BYU's classrooms. Best of all worlds. 

In other news, look what I did with my tabs today during a very slow work moment:

(They're in rainbow order, in case it's just too darn hard to see.)

Aaaaand that's a wrap. Have a good weekend, folks.

Apartment quirks

Our apartment is a little quirky. We love it, but it's a little quirky.

:: It slants ever so slightly toward its southwest corner. I thought I was imagining this until Jenna came over and commented that she thought our house was tilted. And then the effects of "a guest agrees so it must be true" wore off and I thought I was imagining it again. Yesterday I tested it by putting a pen on the kitchen table and watching where it rolled. I tried all the cardinal directions, and I now have a working proof that our house slants. Cool. (But don't worry, you can still come visit without getting dizzy or anything.)

:: Everything in our apartment is SO HOT ALWAYS. By which I mean that our radiator and hot water work better than great. We literally keep at least one window open at all times and have since we moved in. Please take a moment to realize that the time we have lived there includes only the coldest months of the year (!!). But we love the warmth and now whenever we visit our parents houses' in Orem, I feel bad for them because clearly their heaters are all broken. I'm going to miss radiator heat whenever we move on. 

:: I'm giving the hot water its own bullet point. Our water gets SO HOT ALWAYS. Like I've never showered in hotter water than I do these days because as soon as you go slightly over to the warm side of the dial, it's like Mordor. (Did I use that correctly? I just saw it on the interwebs once as a joke, I've never seen LOTR  I've only ever seen one half of The Hobbit #1.) Also, our kitchen sink faucet goes the opposite way that faucets are supposed to go. So when you turn it to the cold side, you get warm (HOT) water and when you turn it to the warm side, you get cold (just normal cold) water. This has messed up the way I use every faucet in the whole world. On Sunday (while we were visiting family up north), I accidentally got Joseph and me two drinks of warm water. Twice.

:: No disposal. Not a quirk, but definitely something we've had to learn to live without. Yum.

:: There's this little tiny decorative built-in shelving thing in the kitchen. I will have to provide a picture so you know what I'm talking about:

Supposedly it would have originally been a window to the living room (but they walled it) and also a spot for an old school telephone?? I dunno, that's just what people have told me. I have big dreams of filling it with [small] seasonal decorations, but for now we just have the adorable apron I got from a bridal shower hanging in front of it. Joseph's idea. 

:: We have no doors. Well, we have a front door and a bathroom door, but everything else (pantry, bedroom, closet) is supposed to just be curtained off. Since we didn't particularly want to register for a bedroom curtain (yeah, weird), we have just left everything without doors. There's really no way for guests to see anywhere we wouldn't want them to even without curtains--we keep our pantry organized enough for company and our room isn't visible from the main areas--so it's not a problem. 

:: I would love to have more places to store things, but we just haven't gotten around to tackling that issue yet. So to resolve the problem, we are using the two camping coolers we got for our wedding as cubbies! We refer to them lovingly as "the game cooler" and "the music cooler" because one holds all our board and card games and the other holds all our music books. We can thank Joseph's ingenuity for this. 

:: I was going to put that we also have an abnormal number of creaky floor spots, but then I decided against it. But then I asked Joe if I should add anything else to this list and he said, "ALL THE CREAKS," or something similar. Apparently he believes that every single step you take in our house makes a creak. I have since tested this and...I think he might be right. So there you go. 

We love our home's little quirks. Drop by sometime and we'll show them off to you in person!

Weekends and homework are mutually exclusive

You know those Mondays Tuesdays (wow, when did it become Tuesday?) where you had such a fun weekend that none of your homework was touched?

I'm living one of those today. 



We spent Friday at Target, buying odds and ends. We were also still sick enough to get home and lay around doing nothing until we gathered enough energy to put on our jammies and brush our teeth and go to sleep. 

We spent Saturday cleaning the house, recording Joe's program application portfolio, birthday shopping, and baking. We also went out to eat for dinner since it was our 3rd monthiversary, woo! And also since we had a coupon to a local crepe shop. The food was fine-not-great, but the date night out was wonderful.

We spent Sunday in northern Utah for a homecoming celebration. My cousin Drew is home from his mission! So we listened to him speak in church and we ate yummy food and we played with family all day long. When we got back home, I opened a present or two (happy birthday to me, woo!), and then we went to bed because it was a long day.




Anyway, I've been playing the catch-up game today and it's been a lil bit stressful. But I got my math homework turned in early (I have to because of the way my schedule works. It's good for me, probably.), and I got the rest of my week all planned out, and I have most of my tomorrow homework finished, and I made it to work on time, and I now have 6 hours to write my paper before it's due at midnight! So life's pretty swell. 

I have like 10 awesome blog post drafts waiting to be written, so don't worry--you'll hear from me again before too long. But I am not including a picture with this post cuz I have a paper to write. 


Happy not-Monday! 

Citizenship

Today I reported a non-emergency to the police and I feel like I have significantly contributed to my community. 

There's this traffic light on 9th East that has a faulty green arrow. Instead of going green to yellow to red, it just goes green to red. There was almost an accident today because somebody in the back of the line accelerated to get through the light and then had to slam on his brakes because it was suddenly-and-without-warning RED. First I was like, haha sucka. And then I was like, ohmygoshthatguyalmostjustdied. So I reported the dumb light via the non-emergency Provo police number. (It was also at least the fifth time I've seen it do that, so I could no longer tell myself I was just being crazy every time I see it. I did not overreact, ok??)

I had to go to the BYU police department to get the non-emergency number because I don't know it in my head. Should I know that in my head? I only know 911 in my head, of course. But thanks to the kind lady at BYU, my phone now knows it in its head, which is basically the same.



Three cheers for safety!

Formals

I guess most people do these in advance (so they can have pretty pictures at their reception? I've never been sure exactly why, really.) but we took our formals in the week after the wedding because I just didn't want to show Joseph my dress before the day of! Also I wanted mountain-y, fall-color pictures and that would involve tromping through dirt, which is not a good idea for the white dress you only plan to wear once. Thus, you need to do all tromping after said dress has had its glory days. 

OH ALSO: I didn't plan for a separate formals bouquet of flowers (I know it came up in the consultation, but we hadn't chosen our photographer at that point, so...I guess I said no), but since formals were after the wedding, I could just grab the flowers from one of the centerpieces and call it a bouquet! In all cases, this turned out to be a good life choice. 

Anyway, here are a few way too many of my faves from the pictures we took that day. Photographer Amber knows AF canyon really well, so we followed her first up there to a magical bridge and then back down to a magical field. It was freeeezing but I won't complain because we were blessed with the best October weather ever known to Utah for our actual wedding day, so I guess this was the trade off. I'll take it. 

I lovelovelove the way these turned out. 

In sickness and in health (but mostly in sickness)

Yesterday I was feeling pretty much done with illness and ready to move on to greater things (like homework) when I got home from work and found poor Joe laying on the couch looking a little sad. He said to me, "I think you gave me something." I wanted to cry. 

So instead of going grocery shopping and making pasta and cuddling up for a movie, I sat and watched him while he watched LOTR, and then I made Ramen for me and Malt O Meal for him. And then I forced it down his throat along with some Ibuprofen (because I used up all the Tylenol while I was sick) while we watched the last third of Tangled. And I let him have the couch because he was all feverish and I know how awful that particular fever feels because I had it last week. 

And then we stumbled off to bed.

And then today we woke up for 8:00 class because he seemed to think he just couldn't afford to miss the first day and I couldn't talk him out of it no matter what. But I suddenly had pink eye (plot twist!), so of course I skipped my class. I have very understanding math ed professors and I look a little scary today with my one red eye and no make up to help things out, so I emailed my teacher and I think that will be just fine. 

Did I mention that I coughed through the whole night?

Anyways, I am just so so ready for this whole thing to be OVER. Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel like everyone in the world is currently complaining of illness, so maybe we should all just agree to call today December 20th and re-celebrate the holidays and have no school or work for two weeks so we can all recover! Yes yes? I think it's a go.

Please advise

This semester, I'm enrolled in two classes which fill the same requirement (Civ II), and I have to decide which one I want to actually take. Wanna help me out?

One of them sounds mildly interesting to me. It's humanities, so supposedly it covers lots of different genres, and I loved the humanities class I took in high school. It also takes care of my Letters requirement for graduation, which is nice (it's a twofer!). The professor is a little strange and very disorganized, which scares me. I already know at least 4 people in this class (not on purpose, just because of weird circumstances). 

The other one sounds really interesting to me. It covers the history of learning in communities/cultures and how individuals learn--you know, individually. It's a fairly new way to fill this particular requirement, so it's kind of a pilot course, which means nobody knows quite what to expect. It's taught in a very "new age" sort of way, which just means I don't have to go to class on Wednesdays because I have an online assignment of readings and discussion board postings. There is a final project at the end, which of course makes me want to run far far away but would probably be manageable. 

If I stay in the the second option, I have to take another class next semester to fill my Letters requirement. I'm thinking Introduction to Folklore, which sounds like a boatload of bedtime stories for my posterity, or possibly a secondary education course about literacy which would be less interesting for my posterity but good for my major. Or maybe a CS Lewis class which apparently exists but I cannot yet find anywhere. 

If it matters (and it probably shouldn't), the first class is likely to be easier, but I'm not positive on that. 

Which one, which one??

As always, I deeply appreciate your input.

thanksloveyoubye

Productivity! And illness.

Today is the last day of Christmas break. We had a rather large list of projects to finish while we weren't in school. It included:

:: getting my car inspected and registered
:: finishing up our wedding thank you's
:: changing my name 
:: buying new textbooks
:: family celebrations--holidays and a couple birthdays
:: boxing and storing Christmas decorations
:: boxing and storing my old bedroom (as in, at my parent's house)
:: sending packages to missionary friends
:: organizing, cleaning, etc. 

And as of today, we have completed almost all of them! My car's all fixed up and legal, thank you cards are mostly just waiting to be sent, we have textbooks, we have attended no less than 5 or 6 family parties, Christmas is gone, packages are packaged, and our apartment is mostly clean. 

We do still need to change my name and box up my room, but hey, I fell ill yesterday and have done basically nothing ever since. Our fun field trip to the social security office and DMV was put on hold. #darn  

<tangent> I hate being sick because I can't handle the forced break from to-do lists. I feel like I do a decently good job of allowing myself breaks from my to-do's when I need them, but when breaks are forced upon me, I usually fight back. Being sick is the woooooorssssssttttttt ugh. </tangent>

But our date night tonight is room boxing! So I'm feeling pretty good about life. 


Anyways, it's been nice to be off of school (and therefore free from homework) but to still be working on stuff. I don't know why it's taken me 20 years of my life to figure out that I feel way better when I do stuff than I do when I don't do stuff, if that even made sense, but I'm glad I know it now. Three cheers for productivity. 


[In other news, we have also successfully made our way through the entire Harry Potter series. Aaaaaaand those Jason Bourne movies. So we're not, like, rockstars at productivity, but we do pretty good.]

Picture!

Look! It's a little baby Harry! He's like 5 years old! This in honor of our first week of break.