God will never let me be successful..

I don't know how many of you are as big Seinfeld fans as we are, but we know many quotes and watch the whole 9 seasons at least once per year. One thing that always makes us laugh is Graham's likeness to George Costanza in many ways. Graham may not be stocky like George, but he has other similarities (**cough cough balding cough cough short**).

--Graham has eaten out of the trash like George.
--Graham has to do the opposite of his natural instincts sometimes, like George.
--Let's not forget that Graham had to move back in with his parents for a little bit, like George.
--He also has had many many things go wrong for him, like George.

Related to that last one, our married life has often been a comedy of errors, with everything seeming to go wrong for us (like the day when Graham wrecked someone's ATV and I also washed his new Blackberry in the washing machine).. Or in Hawaii when Graham left his cell phone at the Dole Plantation, I left my cell phone at Sephora, and Graham went swimming/snorkeling with the rental car key in the pocket of his swim trunks.

And now, things are actually going suspiciously well.. Well enough for Graham to say something to the effect of, "God will never let me be successful", like George said in Seinfeld. It's not like we actually believe that, but our luck has never been great (related to coincidence or choices, I guess)..

We have several bits of good family news:

--Graham got a new job. And in fact, it's not just a new job--it's actually a career. He is currently going through a very strenuous and intense hiring process. I won't give too many details, but it's a stable government job, with lots of benefits and potential. It doesn't start out at high as if Graham has been hired on as an engineer, but definitely better than where he's working now. There are some negatives, but we will deal with them as they come (more on that later). Anyways, we are beyond excited for this opportunity. However, this does mean that we will pretty much live in this area forever.

--The even bigger news. This has been my dream for the longest time.. We are officially in the process of buying a house! Once we decided Graham wasn't going to finish his engineering degree, we had to be a little more realistic about where we could afford a house. That limited our selection a bit more, especially when it came to finding a house in a good school district. The schools around here are awful (well, maybe not all of them), so we found an area we like in a good school district a bit farther away.. The bad thing is that it will make my commute to about 25-35 minutes each way. Graham will be able to do a Park-and-Ride parking lot with a bus ride to work. So yeah, we are getting a USDA loan with an amazing deal on a renovated semi split-level home on a cul-de-sac. It has mostly everything that we were looking for, and I am so happy to finally have a place to call home. We should close by the middle of January and be moved before February 1st.

We are just sooooo happy that things are going well for us--FINALLY. Pray for us that everything goes well for Graham's hiring process and our USDA loan approval.

Passive Aggressive Neighbor

So, we live in a somewhat ghetto townhome complex in B-town. To be nice, the neighbors in general are not super classy. With that said, we have an middle-aged neighbor who is different. Graham said that she's disabled, which I can see somewhat. She seems a little slow. She also has a 20-something daughter that lives with her that's a little slow as well, possibly developmentally delayed. These are the neighbors that had trouble opening their front door when a large planter pot fell in front of the front door.. and when Graham helped them move it, they said, "Oh thanks! We would have been stuck in the house all day!" (Nevermind the fact that they have a door at the back of the house.)

Anyways, when Graham and I were both working out significantly last year and early this year, we made a lot of noise. Graham did Insanity, and I did Turbo Fire, which both require lots of jumping. We tried to make it more quiet, but no matter what we did, it still made noise. Mind you, the exercise was not completed at weird hours of the day. We mostly stuck to evening times, between 7-9:30 PM. Also, we only have one shared wall, which is with Carter's bedroom. So anyways, these neighbors started banging on the wall when we were exercising, which was annoying at first, but infuriating as time went on. Please tell me why the hell can I not exercise in the middle of the day on a Saturday?

One day last year, our neighbor saw Graham getting the mail and asked him if we work out a lot, or if we have a treadmill. He explained that we do workout videos with jumping, and we try to do it an non-offensive hours. The neighbor replied that it sometimes "shakes their whole house", which is ridiculous. I realize that the construction for the townhomes is crappy, but seriously? The whole house? I solved this problem one Saturday when I was doing a HIIT workout with lots of tuck jumps, and our neighbors started banging on the wall. I usually am totally considerate and try to "roll through" up and down the balls of my feet when I land from a jump, to soften the blow on the ground and my joints. But, not this time. I let them have it. I landed full-footed on the ground. HARD. Like, shake my picture frames and DVD cases hard. Several times. Bam. Problem solved. They haven't banged against the wall since.

Fast forward to this Saturday.. Graham had driven up early Saturday morning to watch Carter while I worked. Graham was driving me to work at 7:15 AM, and I saw the neighbor peering at us through her screen door as we got into the car. I thought it was a little strange, but I thought that she was probably being nosy because Graham had been gone for like 3 weeks. When Graham and Carter got back home after dropping me off, our neighbor approached Graham. Apparently, Carter had woken her up that morning. He regularly wakes up around 6 AM when I do, even on the weekends, which is not a big deal. He doesn't yell, scream, or cry, but he mostly cries out, "Mommy, I awake! I awake!", every morning. This morning was no different. He played around the house, but nothing too loud or disturbing. His voice is just piercing. If he is awake in the house, then so are you. Back to the story.. Anyways, the neighbor complained that Carter had woken her up early. Graham responded something like, "uh yeah, he's a kid.. what do you want?". So, this neighbor wanted us to apologize for a toddler waking her up early on a Saturday morning.. WTF?

Let me remind you that our only shared wall is along Carter's room, which borders the 2nd bedroom in the other townhome.. not even the master bedroom. So lady, are you sleeping in the tiny bedroom or are your ears pressed against the wall? We have lived here for 2 years, including when Carter was a baby, and NOW you start complaining that he's making too much noise? Just you wait, lady. Just you wait. I can only hope Carter starts yelling even louder in the morning.. especially Sunday mornings.

Sherri.. MS, RD

I passed my RD exam yesterday!

My heart stopped when the test stopped after 110 questions... out of 225.

A screen popped up: "This test is finished.. please get your results from the testing office."

I was like.. "Oh s#!t. I failed!"

After clicking through the next questions (a stupid survey about the testing center), I found out I passed. I can't tell you how well I did, because I don't really know. My score is a "scaled score", based on how difficult the test is. So, I don't understand my score at all.

I do know that I'm a super test taker though because the guy said he'd never seen somebody pass this particular test so quickly.

Anyways, Graham and I went out to celebrate as soon as I got home. We went to a delicious bistro-like restaurant in Brem Brem called "The Patio" and enjoyed my freedom from studying. Hallelujah!

Interesting Ward

So, Brem Brem is an interesting place.. It's kind of a beat up, run-down, and tired town. The city planners are trying to revitalize the downtown, but with the economy being the way it is, it's slow and the people here are trying to resist change..

The first time I drove through Brem Brem was to my first job interview at the hospital. I was like uh wow... this is kind of ghetto. It's a gorgeous area, but the town itself is run-down.. with a lot of public housing units... you know--the "projects". So yeah, there's a lot of low-income people and military people. Let's just say it--a lot of white trash.

We live in the part of Brem Brem that has a lot of the low-income housing units, so our ward is quite interesting. We have rich people that have lakefront houses, low-income people, elderly people, and some young people who just started working at the shipyard as engineers. There are a lot of elderly people in our ward, which isn't a bad thing, but most of them are in Relief Society because the younger women are in other callings. So, us young ones in RS sit there while the rest of the women laugh at "old people humor".

The reason why I bring this up is because when I first got into the ward, they found out that I work full-time... which I didn't think was a big deal.. until they asked me if I'd have enough time to do visit teaching. Uh yeah, duh.. I work a normal 40-hour workweek and I don't have kids.

So, I just got a calling as assistant ("to the") secretary in RS. I got an email about weekly RS presidency meetings, and they were worried that I wouldn't be able to go to meetings because I "work long hours".

Wtf? I'm thinking that a working LDS woman must be quite rare here in good ol Brem Brem.

Good 'ol Brem Brem

So Graham has this thing that he nicknames stuff by repeating it.. Like a shower is a little "rinse rinse" or if I want a shoulder rub it's called a "rub rub".

So I want to call our town.. "Brem Brem". I'm retarded.

Anyways, we're here in our condo.. Eventually I'll post pictures, but it's not too impressive right now. We are unpacked already with picture frames on the walls, which IS impressive.

We have an amazing view of the water from our living room and from the kitchen. I can chop vegetables and look out at the Sound. I love it.

Yesterday, we were bored and randomly took a drive out to "Scenic Beach Park" to watch the sunset. It was seriously one of the most beautiful sights to see the sun set behind the Olympic Mountains and cast its rays on the Sound. We were in awe of the sight and wanted to live there forever.

We are strapped on cash, but might take the ferry for free to Seattle tomorrow to escape our boredom and to explore a bit.

So yeah--all of you are invited to come visit! It's beautiful and we have a lovely condo for you to stay in!

Moving

Graham and I are moving today to Brem Brem, and we won't have internet for a bit.. so this will temporarily be my last post for a while.

Oh, and good news.. Remember my episcleritis?

Well, I got blood work done to see if I have a common autoimmune disease, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.... and the results all came back NEGATIVE! So that is great..

As to the cause of my episcleritis, that is currently unknown..

So anyways, have a great week!

Our new place!

Ok, so Graham and I have waited last minute to find a place to live, but we were lucky and found a nice condo with a view of the Puget Sound.

Check it out!

I...

Got the job!! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I will be starting on August 11th.

Graham and I will be moving to Brem Brem the weekend before I start. We are so freaking excited to move out of our crazy people apartment complex.