My Idea

Sooo, a few weeks ago I was browsing eBay - something I do quite often of course - and I decided to look up invitations, specifically for weddings. I got the idea in my head because I was sort of planning along for the future (ahem ahem) and wanted to see the options out there. While I was browsing, I came across a beautiful green and white invitation. I looked at the pictures on the auction and noticed the first name on the invite was "Fadia" - I thought to myself, "Hey! I knew a Fadia back in high school in Florida". So I continue reading more at the invitation and it showed her complete name! I was kinda in shock because I knew who it was that had the invitation. All of the info on it was from Florida too! So then I looked at the seller's info and it turns out she was my other friend from high school as well - her name is Annette.

Anyway - I emailed them both and am friends with them on Facebook. The point of all this though, is that all of my invitation research led me to think about it as something I might want to try. And then when I found out that Annette does it as a business, I really got inspired!

So here are my thoughts:

- I'm not terribly creative, so I asked Jill if she'd like to work with me on this. She's been wanting to start her own business type thing for a while and I figured we could work good together. She is the creativity and I am the business side.

- I've been doing TONS of research, from printers, to paper suppliers, to special software I can use.

- Chris and Ramin can make me a website when the time is right.

- Jill and I can make some prototypes and create some ideas before we start going. I am going to purchase some special software I found that is specific to invitations. Once I learn that we can create some samples to use on our website.

I'm kinda excited and nervous at the same time about this venture. I find myself constantly thinking about it and it seems so fun to me - of course thats if it succeeds. I plan to only do this as a hobby for the first little while, especially while I'm still in school. But we'll see how good we are at it and how fun it is for us. If we like it we can gradually ramp things up. I am so grateful I have a contact in Annette because she was able to provide me with some insight into whether this is something plausible or not. I think the Utah market is a perfect place for this because it is the fastest growing state in the US at the moment, not to mention all of the weddings that happen here ;)

If anyone cares to share, let me know your thoughts!

Grades

Well I'm kinda in shock right now because all of my grades for Fall Semester have been posted. They are as follows:

Contemporary Ethics (5000 level course) - B+
Syntax - B
Ancient Greek Philosophy - B

And the dreaded CS Engineering Computing - B

That's right!!! I actually got B's in all of my classes and I'm so pleasantly surprised that I feel so great. Everyone knows that this was the hardest semester of my life and to actually come away with B's is such a great feeling. I was totally settled on getting C's in the Syntax and CS classes because I hated both of them tremendously!

This gives me renewed enthusiasm for next semester. It starts on Jan. 12th and I've only got 3 classes to take - we'll see how they end up!!

Winter Wonderland

Today has been the first clear day pretty much all week. Christmas Eve was the beginning of a major storm that blew through - it was insanely windy! Christmas day we woke up to more wind and the power even went out for about 45 minutes. That is unusual for Utah because we can handle winter storms. Mom and Bob had a tough time making it over to our house Christmas morning because the major road to our house was closed due to the storm. They ended up making it and the power did come back on so all was well. Yesterday was more of the same storm. So here are some pictures of the aftermath. As you can see from the neighborhood shots, we've got quite a bit over here. It's not the most we've seen though in our neighborhood - last year's storm was worse, but that was in February or so. We'll see if we get blasted worse than this current storm!

The neighborhood park is in front of our house - lots of people out sledding today!

More sledders

This is the view from our back porch, you can see the piles of snow

This is the snow ON our porch...Belle has been having issues going potty since the snow...she just goes right on the deck :P We should shovel the snow hahaha

This is our shed and the big snow drift in the back yard. It's hard to tell but you can see all of Belle's prints in the snow - she runs around like crazy when it snows. She loves playing in the snow!

I wanted to share my Christmas decor with family and friends so here it is! I have never really been a fan of the traditional red and green color scheme, so I wanted my tree to be all jewel tones. Ramin is a fan of that as well. Our tree is small...we can fit a much larger tree in our house since the ceilings are so tall - we will probably buy a new tree after Christmas is over - the sales are good then. I am even contemplating getting a big white tree because the decorations will show up much better on a white tree. Anyway - here are the pictures! Enjoy :)

The tree of course

My Santa Claus

My flower vase, spruced up with sparkly decor

Ramin's Gator ornament

Ramin's ESPN ornament - LOVE this thing. It lights up and plays the SportsCenter theme.

Ramin's airplane ornament and our ornaments from Tombstone, AZ

Some of my random sparkly ornaments

Peacocks, feathers and sparkles are the themes of choice!

Chris' space shuttle ornament

A few of my special ornaments. On the far left is my Sleeping Beauty ornament. In the middle is Sleeping Beauty's castle from Disneyland and on the right is the Wicked Witch of the West - it lights up and talks!

This is our Christmas card collection

The stockings. We don't have a fireplace so something had to act as the hanging place :P

And lastly, the entry table.

Weekend in Florida

This past weekend Chris and I flew to Florida to celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday. It was a great trip and it was fun seeing everyone, including Dad and Maria for a few days. Here are some pictures from the weekend. The pelican pictures were requested by Patti ;)

DOOOOOONNNNNNEEEEEE!!!!

Holy crap! I'm freakin done with ALL of my finals and this freakin stupid ass semester! :P I've been waiting and waiting for this day to come! I took my horrible CS final today and turned in my final materials for my other classes. Now I just have to wait and see if I passed the freakin classes! Not a big deal though cause now I get to go enjoy some time with my Dad and Grandma in Florida! Chris and I leave in the morning. I'll post pictures when we get back :)

One down - two to go

Took my Contemporary Ethics final today. It went ok. I'll admit, I didn't study as much as I probably could have. I wrote a 4 page study guide for it, but honestly, when there's 20 philosophers/theorists to know and remember, it gets kinda tiring. We seriously read over 20 separate articles this semsters. Not short articles either. Each philosopher had his or her own theory of practical reasons and morality. It's hard to keep straight who says what and who disagrees with whom. I did alright though. I'll settle for a B in that class :)

This weekend I have to write my 4 paper Greek philosophy paper and then finish my Syntax take home exam. Of course my most dreaded of all final exams/things is the CS final exam. That isn't until Wednesday but you can believe all of Sunday and Monday/Tuesday nights will be spent trying to understand that crap. I'll settle for a C- in that class - literally :P

One Word

The rule: Answer all of these with one word (except on the list 4 things).

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Your significant other? Ramin
3. Your hair? Dark
4. Your mother? Loveable
5. Your father? Intelligent
6. Your favorite thing? Family
7. Your dream last night? Work
8. Your favorite drink? Water
9. Your dream/goal? Graduate
10. The room you're in? Office
11. Your fear? Loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. What you're not? Rude
15. Muffins? Blueberry!
16. One of your wish list items? Sims
17. Where you grew up? Utah
18. The last thing you did? Dinner
19. What are you wearing? Soft
20. Your TV? Big
21. Your pet? Cuties
22. Your computer? Awesome
23. Your Life? Ecclectic
24. Your mood? Airy
25. Missing someone? Grandma
26. Your car? Audi
27. Something you're not wearing? Shoes
28. Your favorite store? TJMaxx
29. Your summer? Perfection
30. Your favorite color? Green
31. When is the last time you laughed? Evening
32. Last time you cried? Recently
33. Four places you go often? School, Work, Wal-Mart, Smiths
34. Four of your favorite foods? Ice cream, hamburgers, lasagna, salads
35. Four Places you would rather be right now? Here(home), Disneyland, Florida, England
36. Four people you tag? Anyone

What's Left?

Well, next week is the final week of Fall Semester - THANK GOD! I have been waiting for this week for months! The week after is finals week, but I only have 1 final to take that week - my Computer Science final on Chris' birthday! Go figure!

Here's the list of things I have yet to accomplish:

12/8 - Full day of work - Last argument outline for Ancient Greek Philosophy class
12/9 - Full day of work - 2-3 questions typed up for Ethics test
12/10 - Full day of work - Finish Ethics study guide that has to be turned in on 12/11 - Also, study for Ethics test on 12/11
12/11 - full day of work - Ethics final test & Prepare grad school folders
12/12 - Full day of work - Meetings with two professors for grad school recommendations - folders prepared
12/13 - Write final Ancient Greek Philosophy paper 4 pages, Work on and finish Syntax take home test (these are usually way harder than normal tests)
12/14 - ALL DAY - Study for Computer Science test
12/15 - Full day of work - Continue CS studying
12/16 - Half day at work - turn in Greek paper and Syntax test
12/17 - No work - CS FINAL EXAM (AHHHHHHHHHH)
12/18 - DONE - Fly out to Florida

Just Dance

When Jill, Steph and I went to the New Kids concert, this girl was one of the opening acts along with Natasha Beddingfield - her name is Lady GaGa. I know weird...but her performance was pretty awesome and I really liked her songs. So this week I've been hearing this song on the radio that I've totally falled in love with and I knew it just had to be her...and it is. Here's the song...there's tons of remixes of it but this is the version that I like the best. I'm gonna have to buy her CD.

It's the hap-happiest time of the year!

Jill came over the other day to take some Christmas time pictures of Ramin and I - we also took some pictures with Chris and the dogs. I've got some surprises with some of the pictures in mind so I'm not gonna post them all, but here are some fun ones we took :) Enjoy!

Interesting News Report

So some of you may recall my stint on the news when Fox came to visit the research lab I was a part of last year. It was in Dr. Drews' driving simulator and the news came when he released results of the texing while driving study. Well today, he released some more results and my old childhood friend, Shara Parker (now Park) was the reporter who covered the story. It's kind of funny because I'm sort of related to the whole thing since I was part of the lab for 2 semesters. Here's the link to the story - including Dr. Drews. (BTW, I'll be meeting with him on the 12th to discuss him writing a letter of recommendation for me to grad school)

Video Courtesy of KSL.com