New Cell Phones!

I feel like a little kid who just got a new toy. Well, I guess cell phones today are toys for grown-ups.

Jeff and I have been on two separate phone plans for the past few months, and we decided it was time to consolidate. We shopped around, and Sprint ended up giving us the best deal. Sorry to those of you that are still with Verizon that are sad they can no longer call Jeff for free. FYI: both of our phone numbers have stayed the same.

The phones that we got are Muziq by LG. They have been discontinued, but we got two of the last phones in stock. We actually had to go to two different Radio Shacks, because each store only had one left.

One of our favorite things about our new phone is all of the options it has for recording and playing music. It has a memory card slot, so you can download music onto your phone. You can then transmit the music from your phone to a radio if you want to hear it on your stereo.

It also has three options for composing music. You can hum a song and it will convert it into a score, push numbers on your phone that correspond to notes, or put a melody directly into a score. Once you have composed a song, you can play around with several features such as changing the style (which adds a pre-recorded background, such as pop, rock, or jazz), instrument (with choices from piano to xylophone to trumpet), and tempo.

Jeff and I have spent the past two days writing songs on our phone. We've done some of Jeff's songs as well as Christmas carols. My ringer is currently set on "Angel's We Have Heard On High." I know - we have too much time on our hands. But hey - it was a 4-day weekend (which we much enjoyed).

And speaking of ring tones, we also discovered that you can set a video that you've recorded on your phone as a ringer. We've joked around that Jeff should make a video on my phone (and vice versa) that goes something like this "Christine, it's your husband, Jeff. Pick up the phone, honey. Come on, pick up the phone. I need to talk to you. (etc)" So not only would I hear his voice when he called me, but I'd also see the video playing on the outer screen on my phone. Cool, huh?

You can do the same thing with a voice memo that you record on the phone. Jeff set his text message alert so that it's him saying over and over "Text message, text message." It's kinda funny.

Well, I hope you haven't been too bored with our excitement over our new phones. And I'm sure there are some of you out there who have really high-tech phones and don't think our features are much to brag about, but I don't care - we like them.

Horray for new toys!

Tutoring

So I just realized this afternoon that I neglected to mention that I started a tutoring job a week or two ago. I'm tutoring a co-worker of Jeff's in a college math course. We meet for 1-3 hours a week.
I love tutoring again. Teaching is fun, but tutoring in math one-on-one is my first love. I love helping them to grasp concepts and watching those "lightbulb moments" when they get it. If it's not making sense one way, I just attack it from another angle. Each student is a new challenge that I love taking on.
And I'll admit - it's also fun making a little money on the side doing something that I love. I hope to continue being a math tutor after we start having kids. I get to set my own hours and rate, and there never seems to be a shortage of people who need a math tutor. Plus, I could arrange to do it out of my home. It reminds me of how my mom taught piano lessons growing up. I like the idea of doing something on the side to keep me mentally sharp and help bring in some additional income.
So there you go - there's a tentative plan for the future. Oh, and somewhere along the way I'll write and publish a book, too (that's been a goal of mine since I was about 6). I guess we'll just wait and see what actually happens.

Whispering Wisdom

So Jeff and I have been sick this past week. Fortunately, we've only had colds, with symptoms ranging from runny noses, coughing, minor sore throats, and losing our voice.
That last one only happened to me. I'd been fighting off a cold last weekend, and I lost it when I taught my class on Monday morning. Let me share some interesting observations I made when I didn't have a voice:
1) When you whisper, people around you are more likely to whisper too. They seem to feel like it's rude to talk when you're not able to. I had to reassure my students that it was ok for them to talk when they were asking a question or giving an answer in class.
2) It is difficult to participate in a staff meeting when you can't be heard. I had to kind of wave my arms to get my co-workers' attention so they could quiet down enough for me to share my thoughts. Needless to say, I listened for most of the meeting.
3) It is very inconvenient to not be able to communicate with your husband when you're in different rooms of the house. He would call out a question to me, and I couldn't even let him know that I was coming to answer his question, so sometimes he would call out several times before I could get to him.

It is so true that you don't appreciate something until you don't have it anymore.

Six Quirks

I was "tagged" to do this by my sister-in-law Linda (Linda, I loved this pic you posted so much that I just had to put it on my blog, too). I consider myself to be a quirky person, so it was hard to choose the six quirks I wanted to share. Enjoy!

1. I am VERY OCD when it comes to eating my food. I have a method for eating everything, and I mean everything. I could do an entire blog about just my food quirks. But let me list a few to give you an idea. I am obsessed with finding the "optimum bite" in whatever food I'm eating. I'm always analyzing my food and calculating what the best bite will be, and then I save it for last. If a meal has carrots, potatoes, and meat, I want every bite to have one of each because I like how they taste together. So first I cut up the item that I have the least of (which is usually the meat), count the number of pieces I have, and cut up the remaining two ingredients to match. I then find the largest (and least fatty) piece of meat, a large piece of carrot, and a relatively small piece of potato (because this the perfect balance), and set them aside for my last bite. I then usually select a second and third "best bite" before proceeding to actually eat anything.

Because this first example was so long, I'll just give one more. You will never see me just grab a handful of colored candy and pop them into my mouth. First of all, I usually like to eat candy one piece at a time and savor it. Secondly, when I eat candy that has different colors, like M'n'Ms, I always count out how many of each color I have, then eat the ones I have more of first, systematically of course. I do this even when I know that the colors don't make them taste any different.

As you may have guessed, my quirkiness causes me to be a very slow eater. I always had a secret fear that my food habits would become a source of annoyance to my future husband. I am SO grateful that Jeff is so loving and understanding about my food habits. In fact, they amuse him and he understands the logic behind them (though this doesn't stop him from eating normally).

2. I LOVE to floss my teeth. I'd rather floss than brush. The dentist always comments on what healthy gums I have. Hardly a day goes by when I don't floss. I carry floss in my purse, because I can't stand it when I have the urge to floss and can't. I'm very thorough and love the feeling of my mouth after a good flossing session.

3. I can't talk about serious things when I'm driving a car. I've found that I need to focus on the road, and it stresses me out to try to focus on more than one thing. I don't have any problem conversing about little things or listening to the radio, but I can't talk about something serious that needs my undivided attention. My brain just can't multi-task that way. So Jeff and I have discovered that, if we want to have a serious discussion in the car, he needs to be the one who's driving.

4. I don't like to be touched repeatedly in the same spot - anywhere. If someone comes up and pats my shoulder a few times, I shrug them off. It's nothing personal - it just gets to a point where I can't stand it. I have a higher tolerance with Jeff than I do with most people, but I sometimes have to let him know that he's patted my arm one too many times.

5. I never got over the "simple joys in life," as I like to call them. These include kicking icicles off of the bottom of cars (even when it's not my car - Jeff is always afraid I'm gonna rip some paint off or set off a car alarm), sliding down banisters, climbing trees barefoot, running and sliding on patches of ice, crunching leaves, and throwing helicopters (maple tree seeds) up into the air by the handful just to watch them spin to the ground. I hope I never outgrow these things. :)

6. When I'm focusing on doing something, I stick my tongue out slightly. I often don't know I'm doing it - someone usually has to tell me. I actually did it several times while typing this blog, and Jeff caught me doing it, so that's how it became #6 on my list.

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed reading about a few of my quirks. For my family members that are reading this and thought of some I should have added but didn't, I'd love for you to post a note telling me what they are. And feel free to do this in your own blogs if you'd like. I won't bother "tagging" specific people - just do it if you want to.

Kitchen and Dining Room

We now enter the next portion of the condo: the kitchen and dining room.

As you walk into the center of the condo from the living room, the kitchen is on your right. I love our large marble countertops - they are wonderful for cooking. The door next to the fridge opens up into a small laundry room.

This is a shot of the kitchen from the other side.

The kitchen and dining room are adjoining rooms. It makes getting food on the table nice and easy. The middle door leads to what we call the "third bedroom," a.k.a. the storage room. It may become a study one day - we haven't decided.

The set of double doors, which is next to the "third bedroom" door, conceal the pantry. I thought that our pantry was pretty full until my sister Suzanne came over a few days ago and remarked on how empty it was. She has inspired me to invest more seriously in food storage and make it a well-stocked pantry.

The door to the right of the corner leads to the "second bedroom," a.k.a. the guest room and current computer room. This is the room that Kelly (Jeff's brother) used when he lived with Jeff. The door on the left leads to the guest bathroom.

Now, as we wind down with the last shot of the dining room, we find the door that leads to our bedroom (or, as I like to think of it, the "master suite," but Jeff thinks that's too grand) on the right. The door on the left is a small broom closet.

So there you go. You have now seen the central hub of the condo. In the weeks to come I will take you behind those closed doors and show you the remainder of our home.

Short sojourn in Primary.

So, we got a bit of news that kind of took us by surprise this morning. The bishopric had asked us last week to meet with them. So we set up an appointment for this morning. We were surprised when they asked us if we would accept a new calling. We were called to the primary about 2 months ago. We have really enjoyed teaching. I think the regular attending kids were really starting to warm up to us. So, we are a little bummed that we were released from the primary. Our class members were a little saddened too. So, you're probably wanting me to tell you what our new calling it is. Apparently, it is one of the most feared callings in the ward... other than being the bishop. Have you guessed yet? Okay, okay, we've been called as the Ward Activities Co-chairs. It will be a little stretch of our abilities. Christine has confessed that this is one of her most feared callings. Being called as a couple has alleviated some of that fear. I have been a ward activities co-chair in a singles ward, but I am getting a feeling that it is a bigger calling in a family ward. But I feel confident that working together and having good committee members will help a lot and a little faith of course too. It will also give us a new challenge of trying to learn peoples names and get to know people better. I confess I know very few ward members.

Virtual Tour of Our Condo: The Living Room

My parents came to visit us today. Their visit motivated me to do some of the cleaning and picture-hanging that I've been meaning to do for the past several weeks but never got around to doing.

Knowing that many of you have never been to our condo, or that those who visited when Jeff lived here with his brother may be curious as to how things have changed, I have decided to give you all a virtual tour of our home.

I'm planning to show you one or two rooms a week. Doing this in our blog will provide the motivation I need to keep working on finishing up our other rooms (for most of them, they're just lacking pictures on the walls).

(These pictures are going from right to left.) When you walk into our condo, you enter in the living room. To your right (behind the door) there is a short wall with a coat rack, then a short hallway leading to the rest of the condo, and the fireplace.

We decided to make the decor of the fireplace family-centered.

Next to the fireplace is the TV. This is actually what you see straight in front of you as you open the door to the condo.

Next to the TV there are some vertical blinds concealing the sliding door that leads to a small private porch (I didn't include a picture - it's small and rectangular and not very interesting to photograph). Occasionally we'll set up our hammock out there when the weather is pleasant. Unfortunately, the smoking of our neighbors prevents us from enjoying it most of the time.

On the short wall next to the porch doors there's a bookcase which holds our games, music, and Ensign magazines, the old AC wall unit that we don't use (we have central air), and Jeff's really nice digital piano.

Next to the piano, on the wall that has the door leading into the condo, is our couch (which faces the TV).

So there you go. Welcome to the beginning of the virtual tour of our condo. Tune in next week for: The Dining Room and The Kitchen (at least, that's the plan).