yaaaaaawn...

i was complaining to jonathan yesterday about how i want to blog more but there's nothing to say.

so jonathan told me to blog about our doggy. well he's fun and exciting for us and we love him but i think i already talk about him to much to my friends and family and they're probably sick of him. i can't help but post a cute picture of him though.

he suggested i blog about his beard. jonathan has had a beard for the first time in his life for about 3 months now. he might shave it soon. i think he's hot both ways so whatever.

he suggested i blog about the work we're doing on our little basement apartment. we've been painting a lot. our new bedroom is now a blueish greenish. swan sea. it looks better than it sounds. i can't wait to get carpet and organized.

i refuse to get too settled in my current blugh restaurant job... which means i've been officially searching for a job for more than 5 months. rough.

jonathan has been searching for a job for about 3 months. he even resorted to applying at 7-11 the other day. :(

my little bro, josh, got swine flu. i hear gargling warm salt water twice a day and drinking hot drinks or soups helps keep flu germs from growing in your throat. let's hope it works.

i have never been a huge t.v. person, but abc's new show flashforward is really entertaining. we've been watching it. i recommend it.

so see? nothing too crazy going on around here. life's kind of a yawn right now. but a good yawn.

(pay attention starting at 00:11)

yep, life's kind of like that.

duck pajamas

thanks to everyone who commented on my post-college crisis thoughts from a couple of days ago. it's nice to know i'm not the only one in a weird spot in life or that hates that need for money is guiding my decisions. i appreciate hearing people's thoughts and experiences. sometimes, through being honest and open about our frustrations and hardships, we can really comfort and motivate each other. yes!

jonathan and i just got back from volunteering at ascend's (the organization we interned for) annual gala. it was quite an experience to sit in the company of people throwing around thousands of dollars for basketball games, private concerts, and vacations during the live auction. of course it was all for a good cause and i know the people in the countries that ascend works in will really benefit from the money coming to them. (it would be cool if we didn't have to use luxury vacations to get help to the poor, but if it works, it works. aaahhhhhhh i said it. whew feels good to get that off my chest. okay.)

jonathan was in the silent auction with his design skills up for bid. he spent days (and even pulled an all-nighter after they made a bunch of print changes) designing the program for this gala. so we were hoping someone would bid on him at the gala to help pay for his hours of work on the program design. we don't know if anyone bid on him yet. i have to say, i'll be disappointed if he doesn't get paid for his hard work.

BUT we can live off of canned tuna and rice here just like we did in ecuador if we have to. and there are always our parents for a nice meal. it's funny to think that we're about as poor as the people we worked with in ecuador right now.

well, financial security is overrated. i'm serious. i'm happier now, poor, than i was a couple years ago when i had a lot of money.*

plus, jonathan is wearing my duck pajama pants right now (from the girls' section of aeropostale), and that makes me happy too.

(no pictures please:)

*not to say one can't have money and happiness. someday.... someday.

this is what happens when you don't feel like giving up your husband to guys night.

What I am doing right now:

(the edge of the laptop screen in the bottom left corner of the photo means that i'm participating in my own amusement... not wii mario battle or whatever it is.)

What I wish I was doing right now:

(the blanket is every bit as soft as it looks. the pink wingback chairs next to me are the ones i hope to reupholster... someday. also, when did jonathan take this picture?)

What I hope Policia is doing right now. (and not chewing up chair legs or eating rat poison)

feeling philosophic

what is it with all these thoughts in my head?

how is it that i have four chairs and a kitchen table and a headboard and walls that all need painting or reupholstering or both and i haven't started. why can't i start?!?!

is there ever not someone in the del taco drive-through? nope. there is always someone. always.

i want kids. ...do you really have to have money to have kids?

my dog is cute. why does he love jonathan more than me?

family is the answer to life.

i love colorful walls but i really want to paint my walls gray.

it's getting cold outside. crisp. it feels weird. aren't i supposed to be going to school when this happens?

i met this girl that's really nice. like really really nice. seemingly genuinely nice and caring. like she wants to really make you feel good and welcome and happy and belonging. really. why do i have to wonder if it's fake niceness? are people really that nice with no motives? can i be?

how did i ever get lucky enough to have someone that makes me happier than i've ever been just by being himself? who he is. even when i'm sore and exhausted from work and being a grown-up i'm just happy when he's there. i can honestly say that i don't care how sappy or mushy that sounds. and the below picture...

says it. sums it up. i love it. sappy mushy happiness.

vacuuming can change your outlook on life. (and in a way that sweeping never will. there's always that line of dust and tiny crumbs that won't get on the dustpan.)

maps are so beautiful and intriguing to me. but why?

what am i supposed to be doing at this exact point in life? if money were not an issue, what would i be doing right now?

basically i don't know what the heck i'm doing. i studied politics. i'm working as a server. i feed people and fancily open bottles of wine and hope i look like i know what the heck i'm doing. because i don't. and when people are snooty to me and look down their noses at the waitress that just brought them the wrong spaghetti and doesn't know what wine to drink with salmon and grated parmesan cheese onto their cell phone... i wonder what the heck i'm doing. and even when i get a huge tip because the couple loved their just-attentive-enough server and delicious food and perfect wine... i wonder what the heck i'm doing.

i know step-by-step u.s. foreign policy during the cold war. i know about lots of u.s. presidents and what they did and why and how they got elected. i know that great britain has a constitutional monarchy; that gabriel garcia marquez often wrote in the literary style of magical realism; that cinco de mayo isn't really mexico's independence day; when to use the subjunctive tense (usually). now i'm learning about differences between merlots and pinot noirs and chiantis and that pasta florentine means that it has spinach and how to make lattes versus cappuccinos.

and what does any of it matter? is all of my knowledge only important because of the experiences i'm having while working to gain it? because i sure can't solve any pressing political problems of the day. i can't even take a side. and i can hardly bear to listen to people who talk about the side they've taken. i can't solve the illegal immigrant family's poverty, suffering, and worries by speaking spanish to them. i don't even want to be able to tell someone what wine they might like but now i have to.

you know what sounds kinda good?

move into a little log house with rocking chairs and with lots of land. have chickens and cows for food. maybe a goat too because they're funny. grow crops for food. burn a fire for warmth and a candle for light. read books and sing and dance and play games for fun. have a duck and a pig and a couple more dogs for pets. bake bread and grow pumpkins for the county fair once a year. simple life. not easy, but simple.

anyone with me?

It's all a game of give and take.

I think everyone knows that sometimes life just doesn't give you what you ask it for... or even what you think you deserve. Sometimes life even tells you it's giving you something and then takes it away. Sometimes life just takes and takes.

I have to try to remember during the taking times how good the giving times are. And for me, the giving times the past year have given a lot of good stuff.

Recently, Life took away a cool job that I had for only 3 days.

Well... maybe it wasn't going to be that cool of a job anyway.

Life took away 650 dollars to give our cute dog a plasma transfusion and overnight care at the emergency vet to stave off his extreme internal bleeding (He ate rat poison.).

BUT he lives and is currently wrestling with Jonathan on the floor next to me.

Life took away a chunk from the bottom of my foot thanks to a rusty nail right before my 6-hour server shift. And then it took away 40 bucks more for a tetanus booster.

At least I made enough in my shift to pay for it.

Life broke the drivers' side door to my beloved little red truck (or was that Jonathan?).

Then Life loaned us another car to drive for awhile and it even has AC and power steering (thanks Mom and Dad).

When Life was making us a little discouraged about rent prices and unemployment,

Life decided to give us an nice aunt who offered to rent us her basement for a good deal.

I guess the point I'm trying to make to myself is... Life is sometimes hard but good anyway. Also, marriage is awesome. And so so poor.

So for those of you out of the loop (who care to be in the loop), I found a job as a server. Jonathan's working on freelance graphic design jobs, looking for a more consistent job, and getting ready to go back to school in a few weeks. We live in Laura's basement. The red truck has a couple more dents and the door doesn't shut right. Rat poison is the devil. Someone needs to think of a less painful and less dangerous way to kill rats and mice. Moving has made me realize that I keep too much stuff and that life is just as good without literal excess baggage. Now someone throw it all away. (Notes and homework from my first semester of college as a metallurgical engineering student? I seriously thought I should keep that?) Policia (our dog) is scared of the guitar when it's being played. My lil sis is preg. woo! Also, Jonathan has a beard.

How's that for an update?

Oh, Sarah's been asking to see a picture of Policia, or "Cia," as we usually call him. (yes, he answers to "See Ya!" Oops.) So today will be his big blog debut.

My mom says he looks like a Dingo. Dingos are wild dogs from Australia. The vet said he looks like an Australian Shepherd. We know he's a mut from an indigenous village in Ecuador. So maybe we'll just call him an Ecuadorian Shepherd.

My boys.

When he was suffering the effects of rat poison. Evil evil rat poison.

Here you can see where the vet shaved his right leg to put in the catheter for the plasma transfusion.

Here he is playing with my family dog, Cleo. It's a semi-long video for what it is so I'll tell you that the highlight for me is from 00:59 to 00:30.

Okay now I definitely feel like a mommy blogger. Except I'm just a dog mom. Nothing to be ashamed of. Right?

So. That's life for now.

i miss blogging

and i have a lot i could say.

i could tell about the amazingly fun last two weeks traveling ecuador with jonathan's bro and sis.

i could tell about how awesome and wonderful it was to see all of our family and friends (and grocery stores and normal cuts of meat and a queen bed) upon returning home.

i could tell the story about the cute ecuadorian puppy named policia that we got the day we got home.

i could tell about the fun trip to bear lake with the whole honkin' chamberlain fam.

i could tell about how exciting it was to get a job that i loved... and then how heartbreaking it was when it didn't work out.

i could tell about how we almost moved into my great-grandma's old house while it's being sold but then they got their first offer on it the day we were planning to move in. (after trying to sell it all year with NO offers)

i could tell about how awesome my husband is.

i could tell about how we're living out of suitcases and boxes because we're in a small bedroom at my parents' house with no room for anything.

we've really had some great ups and some hard downs in the past month.

but... i won't go too much into all that. maybe in the future i'll put up a few choice pictures and videos.

for now, jonathan and i are job-hunting and apartment-hunting. and we're oh-so-grateful for our supportive families.

If you or someone you know is hiring...

jonathan:

aspiring mid-degree graphic designer with lots of experience and a good portfolio. 2 years experience as a server.

amanda:

recent U of U grad in poli-sci and spanish. also 2 years experience as a server.

but really, life is still good even when it's sometimes bad and you get knocked on your bum.

and we're gonna be OOOOkay!

my mom worries when i don't blog

So..... wow. I am exhausted.

I'll start on Friday the 17th, the day after my last post.

Actually, that's too tiring to think about. Quick summary seems nice. Jonathan and I spent Friday the 17th through Wednesday the 22nd living (camping) in a remote community about 1.5 hours outside of Riobamba. We, along with the Ascend staff, were in charge of an expedition of 50 United Statesians doing humanitarian projects in two communities to make people's lives better.

What got done:

• 2 brick ovens built for baking bread and pizza to sell
• most of a cafeteria for a school
• part of a classroom for a school
• cooking classes to teach the people how to use the ovens to make bread and pizza
• cooking classes to teach the people how to use healthy crops they grow in creative ways
• sex ed class
• family planning class
• 2 medical treatment clinics
• 2 playgrounds built and painted
• 2 community parks renovated and painted
• english classes
• remodeling of a classroom
• business techniques classes
• teaching new games to the kids
• making puppets, a puppet theater, and putting on a puppet show for the community
• dancing and cultural exchanges
• first aid class
• parenting techniques class
• nutrition classes

The people of the communities were really happy with how it all turned out and I think the expedition participants were too. You may remember my post about the Park City 5. This expedition was made up mostly of the friends and family of 5 teenagers from Park City who died in separate accidents within the same year. Serving some of the most needy people here in Ecuador was a way for loved ones to honor these kids in a meaningful way.

Planning for the expedition (menu, food, buying utensils, planning the agenda, figuring out the budget, etc.) was one of the most stressful and difficult things I've ever done. It has also been one of the most rewarding. And exhausting. I'm grateful for my current opportunity of working in such a satisfying job.

Wednesday, the last day of the expedition, I was sick. Again. Sick again. Seriously?

This time my sickness involved the most painful pain I've ever felt. Luckily it passed in less than a day.

Thursday we took an extra long 7 hour bus ride to Cuenca for the big fundraising Gala we've been planning. It was a fancy night. People were dressy. Money was raised. Music was played. Good food was eaten.

I had to translate a bit since we had a good mix of English and Spanish-speakers there. We danced until 2:30 am with our coworkers and then Jonathan and I crashed into a twin bed. Exhaustion and satisfaction. Did I mention I am exhausted? Also, it was fun.

Upon returning home to Riobamba from Cuenca, we found Jonathan's brother, James, waiting at our doorstep. We all headed up to Quito to pick up Kristine from the airport. Now we're doing Ecuador and it's great. And I'm tired. But it's great.

We've done Quito, now headed to Baños, then to the Amazon to explore, then to Guamote, then Guayaquil, then Montañita, then maybe Isla de la Plata. Home on the 8th in the morning!

Here are some memories from the expedition...

kids singing a welcome song for the expedition

view from one of the expedition communities

another view

making pancakes for breakfast for 65 people.

handy ladder coming out of the roof

parenting techniques class

pizza cooking class

peeling the bark off for the swingset before we painted

pizza cooking class again.

the new swingset. the kids were on it all day and all night.

family planning class... bananas and condoms involved

village troublemaker with his new puppet

jonathan and daniel painting their mural.

the final product. Park City mountains alongside Andes mountains.

My new friends Blanca and Ana Maria who begged me to take a picture with them but then got really shy when the camera came out. They plan on not getting married until they're 30 and in the meantime studying to be chefs and working in big cities in Ecuador. Very rare ambitions for their culture.

building the community brick oven.

new swingset in progress in Galte Miraloma.

this kid was so excited for the swing that he wouldn't wait for the paint to dry.

above the clouds in the communities.

carlos speaking at the fancy gala in cuenca

Ascend staff and interns from Riobamba and Cuenca plus Sallee and Carolyn from headquarters in Salt Lake. At the Gala in Cuenca.

So there's a quick summary and some pictures for ya'll. Now I'm off to Baños to soak in some hot springs and ride bikes to beautiful waterfalls. See you all soon!