a new list

So I had a birthday. And now I am 29. This is the first birthday where I have felt hesitant to tell people how old I am...mostly because the comments I was getting were always something like "oooh, just one year left to live it up" or something like that. I guess I don't see turning 30 as getting old, but it will be the end of an epic decade. I hear that 30 is the new 20. I certainly don't want to be 20 again, but it's fun to think back over the last 9ish years and see how much I've grown and learned. I would agree that the 20s are about discovering who you are and figuring life out a bit and then your 30s are more about embracing what you have learned.

Anyway, over the last week or so since my birthday, I have been thinking about this list. I wanted to set some goals for this last year of my twenties. This year has been a little rough for me so far and the last month or so especially has been frustrating as I've been job searching and contemplating a move and making some big decisions. My first idea was to have 30 things, but that was really hard and I decided I would rather focus on just a few things to better my chances of accomplishing all my goals. So this is my list of 10 things I want to do before I turn 30, in no particular order:

1. Get a new job-preferably not just a job, but a career-something I will be happy doing for at least a few years
2. Get engaged
3. Pay off my remaining credit card debt
4. Lose 25 pounds
5. Get a passport and use it
6. Make journal writing+blogging a habit (at least once a week)
7. Try a new recipe once a week (and blog about it)
8. Spend time developing my hobbies (gardening, photography) and try something new (ceramics, sewing)
9. Take some trips to visit family and friends out of state: some destinations include California (Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe), Cour d'Alene, ID, Portland, OR and Washington, D.C.
10. Volunteer-get more involved in my community

birthday fun

The last few days have been really busy and really fun. Thursday was my birthday, but unfortunately I had to work all day. The kids did make me a cake though and they sang to me with their grandparents and we had the cake together. The rest of the night I spent at Primary Children's with my sister, Rebekah, and her little girl Lucy (you can read about her ordeal here).

Friday night I went out with some of my friends for celebration #2.

Carlee, Andrea, Natalie, Me

Then Saturday I threw a baby shower for my friend Anna. It was raining all day, but it was fun to get together with some of our old friends. I realized as soon as I got home that I forgot to take any pictures. So just imagine what a fun time we had.


Later that evening, I met up with my family for celebration #3 at Applebees. We were supposed to have a BBQ, but the rain combined with sick kids at Matt's house too, we decided just to go out. Again, no pictures. I have been a photo-taking slacker lately. I have not had my regular lap top for a couple of weeks and have just been working on the mini. I can still upload pictures to the mini, but typing and therefore blogging is always so difficult on the mini computer. Luckily, I will not have that problem anymore. John gave me a laptop for my birthday! Woo hoo! It is so nice to have something full size again. Have I mentioned I have the best boyfriend ever?! So hopefully I will be able to have photos in my blog posts again.

Best Boyfriend Ever & Me

Sunday was Father's Day and I was able to go to my parent's house to have dinner with them. We shared a strawberry cheesecake and I got to blow out a birthday candle (I'm a sucker for traditions). By the end of the weekend, I was all partied out. Thanks to all my friends and family for making it such a great birthday!

sigh.

So I didn't get the job. Again. Rejection sucks. I had a good talk with John last night that helped me have a better perspective on things. For each job I don't get, someone else does. These people could need the job so much more than me, not to mention obviously being better qualified. I don't know their stories. This is not the best economy to be job searching in anyway, but I do have a job for now. As much as I don't love it and the terrible schedule and inconsistant hours are wearing me out, I can pay my bills and life is generally good.

So I am still job searching and focusing the search in Logan, at least through the summer. If something doesn't work out by then, I may decide to work at a ski resort for the winter or something like that. I have options, I'm just not doing so well at being patient right now. I do know that that things will work out however they are supposed to. Thanks for everyone's encouraging words!

here I go again

So I didn't get the job I interviewed for last week. Bummer. I got the call today and I was pretty sad. It was this super chaotic moment, but I saw the call was from USU so I answered it anyway. I was just letting the dog out (side note-I am house and dog sitting this week, which has turned out to be kind of a nightmare with my already insane work schedule) to go potty, which they have him do on the front lawn. Normally this would not be a big deal because it's a relatively quiet street, but they live next door the the Town Club on South Temple (some sort of private hall, country club or reception center looking building) and there were suddenly a lot of elderly women flocking to the club...I assume for a fancy luncheon of some sort because is was around 11:00am. Anyway, I also had Mia with me (the 2 year old I take care of) and there was a neighbor dog barking somewhere. So as I answered the call, I'm suddenly thinking Fergus (the dog) might start barking at the other dog or run off or try to jump on the ladies walking by or that Mia would start screaming about nothing (not uncommon) but I answered the phone anyway. I was pretty disappointed that I didn't get the job. Luckily, my dog+toddler situation was under control and they both went back in to the house, so I lucked out.

So I was feeling pretty sad about things and decided to take the kids to McDonald's for lunch, mostly because I didn't feel like making anything for lunch at this point, partly because french fries taste better when I'm sad, and partly because the kids needed some playground time, which they haven't been getting due to all the rain this week, so I drove the extra 4 minutes down the road to the McDonald's with a play place.

As we are walking in to the place, my phone rings and it is USU calling again (I know this because all USU on campus numbers start with 797) so I answer it again because I'm hoping it's the other call I was waiting for, and it was. It was for another interview, this one with the Retention and First Year Experience Office (the other one was in Athletics). This office handles many things on campus, but the main function is obviously retaining students. They due this a number of ways of course, but their big events each year are SOAR (Student Orientation and Registration) and Connections, which is basically freshmen/new student orientation the week before school starts to kick off the year. I had the chance to work with some people from the RFYE office while I was working in Admissions and I think they are all great and would be so fun to work with. I love working with new students and I would definitely get to incorporate the things I learned in Admissions, plus I would be doing some new and challenging things too.

Anyway, so I take the call while I have all 3 kids wondering where we are going to sit and when we can get our food. They were actually pretty patient, but I was stressed for a minute because they wanted to schedule an interview for Thursday or Friday and I work both days. So I told her I would call her right back. So over the next 10 minutes I am ordering food, wrangling 3 chilrdren, and texting the other nanny I work with to try and work out the schedule for Friday and then confirming with the director for Friday at 4:00. Kristi (the other nanny) should be able to come in early and cover the end of my shift so I can leave by 2:00 and be to Logan in time for my interview. She has to work at her internship that morning, but if her client shows up on time and everything goes as it should, she should be done on time. So I am hoping and hoping that things work out. Being late for an interview is pretty bad, even with the excuse of a long drive.

So to make a long story even longer, I was super bummed for about 45 minutes and then I've been very excited the rest of the day. I really want to leave my current job...there are more reasons every day. I feel like Logan is where I should be right now and USU is such a great place to work. I love working in student services and I think the Retention office would be a really good fit for me.

So if you feel so inclined, please keep me in your thoughts over the next couple of days and I will let everyone know as soon as I find out. I'm starting to get very discouraged+low self esteem because I have applied for several jobs at this point and still nothing. I just keep hoping something is going to work out, and I really hope this is it.

where does the time go? and going private (temporarily)

So I feel like I was just barely doing my April blog, catching up on the whole month. I can't believe how quickly the month of May flew by. Time is just flying! I think about blogging almost every day, but I never seem to fit it in. I feel like my blog is only interesting when I have photos to share, which hasn't been easy due to my recent computer issues. I was happy to get a new power cord for my laptop, but the connection was kind of loose and it has now failed again. John, the amazing, smart, sweet heart he is, is trying to find some time to fix my little old laptop. In the mean time, he is letting me use the mini again. This week, I am using his full-size laptop because I needed to do some typing practice. Isn't he the best? I sure think so. But that means all my pictures are in Logan. I do have a backup copy on an external hard drive, but it takes too long to load everything I want. So no pictures for now, sorry.

Anyway, May was a good month with lots of fun stuff. I ran the Race for the Cure with my mom, John, Rachel, and Kayla. Had a nice Mother's Day with my mom...Kayla and I made her a delicious lasagna dinner. My nieces had their spring dance recital, which was super cute. Lucy turned one! We had a fun party+dinner for her on Memorial Day and she was so funny eating her birthday cupcake. This last weekend, I went to St. George with John, Matt and Debi and their girls, Rachel and Dan, and Kayla. It was great to get away for a couple of days. We did a little hike, swimming and sunning, and lots of eating and sleeping.

The big event of this week is a job interview I have at USU. I'm pretty excited because I've applied for a couple of jobs and didn't even get an interview, which is always disappointing. After a lot of long talks with John, we've decided the best thing is if I can find a job in Logan and move there so we can be together (as in living in the same town). We both think it would be good to stay in Logan for at least a year or two, and possibly longer if John/we buy a house there because we love the community and it would give us both the chance to do a little more schooling (another undergrad degree for me, masters for him). I can't believe I am even considering doing more school, but I am. We'll see. We both love USU and I would love to be able to work there again.

Anyway, this month could end up super busy for me if I end up starting a new job because it would mean moving (again!) and lots of big, but good, changes. The other thing is I'm going to change my blog settings to private for the time being while I am doing all this job searching. If this job doesn't work out, I will continue to job search through the summer and I don't want to worry about censoring my blog in case any prospective employers "google" me. ha ha I think I am pretty conservative in what I put on this little blog, but you never know. So if you would like to keep reading my sporadic blog posts (could be a week, could be 3-4 months) during my search for a new+better job then please leave me your email or send it to me at bkyoungs@gmail[dot]com so I can send you an invite. I will probably change my settings this Thursday or Friday, so hopefully a lot of people see this before then.

I am reading all of your blogs and I try to take the time to comment, I am just not that great on the writing end. Wish me luck on Thursday!