Overheard in the office

It's easy enough be negative about your job -- you spend 1/3 of your day there (nearly all of your waking hours!) and it's not typically something you enjoy doing; at least, not enough to do on your own without being paid. To alleviate the usual work frustrations, I've decided to relive some of my favorite moments from work recently. I work with some very fun people!

The conductor of one of my daily meetings, Dave, was unable to make it to work on time, so he called in on the conference room phone. He explained that his bees were angry that morning and that he'd needed to suit up and plug up the tops of his hives so that the bees could calm down before going back in. 
Charles: "You know, bees can sense electromagnetic disturbances in the atmosphere. This could be indicative of some kind of impending catastrophe."
Jaynee: "The apocalypse itself!"
Dave: "...I think it was spilled sugar water." 
Silly us!

Later in the same meeting...
Dave: "Aaah! A bee!"
A few minutes later...
Dave: "Hey, do you guys want to hear some bees?"
Scott: "I want to hear 'Aaah!' again."
Dave: "That was me going 'Aaah!' Okay, here are some bees" *buzzing through the speaker*
Scott: "Hey, ask them about Thor!"

Two stories need to be told for this quote: 1) A UX engineer, Geoff, had been helping a fellow writer improve the look of our documentation website. 2) We have a comment feature in our documentation that a customer has recently discovered. He keeps asking questions that we already answer in the documentation, so he's not bothering to read before asking.
Geoff: "Craig, you are going to have the most beautiful thing that no one will ever read!"
Me, laughing: "That was the funniest, most accurate thing I've heard all week."
Craig: "Well, at least we know <customer who keeps commenting> reads our documentation."
Me: "Yeah, well... wait. No, he doesn't."
Craig, laughing: "I think that actually wins funniest thing said all week."

On the van home one day...
John: "Jaynee, is this your hat?"
Jaynee: "Nope. I saw it in the back last week. Has no one claimed it?"
John: "I think it might be Winnie's. I wonder where she's been. Maybe she's too cold without her hat."
Neil: "Sorry, I can't come to work until Spring -- I lost m'hat!"

Marriage Lessons Learned from Funerals

On Thursday, October 10th, my husband and I took the day off work to drive to Iona, Idaho and attend the funeral of my last grandmother, Barbara Elliott ("Toady Gramma"), who died on Friday, October 4th. She'd suffered from severe Alzheimer's for years. She also suffered from hearing loss, which made her as amusing (though in a sad way) as her funny, lively personality made her when she was more "with it." For instance, here are some Grandma quotes from my Aunt Helen's funeral last December, which she hollered instead of whispering to my grandpa:

(Repeatedly to my sister-in-law, as if it were her doing) "This is a good party! These are beautiful flowers."

(As a large man walked into the viewing room) "Boy! He ate his mush!" Cue Grandpa's smacking her in the face with his program. ;)

(As an African American woman with long dreadlocks walked into the viewing room) "Johnny, look at the hair on that darky!" I still contend that old people are allowed to be racist because they don't know any better. So rather than cringe as you would with a middle-aged or younger person, you have to chuckle a bit-- except in this case, where, I assure you, the woman heard.

Anyway, some great things were said at her funeral. How she was incredibly service-oriented, adored her children and grandchildren, and how she had an unmatched sense of humor and love of throwing parties and dressing people up. In the end, there were far more laughs than tears at her funeral. I think that's a mark of a truly special, unique person.

I finally started crying when my dad talked about Grandpa's reaction to Grandma's death. He was a lost puppy, and understandably so! They had been married for 72 years, eight months, and had dated for three years. He was miserable and didn't know what to do with himself. Fortunately for him, however, and unfortunately for us, he only had to suffer his loss for 19 days. He, John Elliott, died on Wednesday, October 23rd. His funeral was yesterday.

The last conversation I had with Grandpa was at the luncheon after Grandma's funeral. As I said good-bye to him (I knew it was my actual good-bye for life, though I treated it more to him as a "see you later"), he said "Jaynee, I hear you got married recently. I was married for 72 years!" He is a quiet man, so I couldn't hear exactly what he said next, but I caught the word "happy." He either said "I was very happy," "I hope you are as happy," or gave me advice, such as "You have to work at it to be happy." All three messages were received and taken to heart at his funeral yesterday.

His entire life was caring for my grandma. He built her a house, and, apart from about 2 years, beginning a year into their marriage, when he fought in WWII, he never left her side nor the tiny town of Iona where both were raised and married. Grandpa was a quiet and simple man while my grandmother had what he called "go-itis," constantly needing to go out and do things. He took her wherever she needed, even in the last few years as her mind suffered but her body did not, and his body suffered but his mind did not. He fought to keep up with her and care for her.

These deaths were very sad for us -- Iona, Idaho was a big part of our childhood, as were our Grandma and Grandpa Elliott. Now all three are gone until we go. They left us with very important lessons about marriage, though. At my grandpa's funeral in particular, the emphasis was on their life together (they didn't really have lives outside of each other. 72 years!). In my dad's talk, the phrase, said by my uncle to my dad the day Grandpa died, was repeated: "It's a love story." Some lessons I learned from my grandparents are these:

It doesn't matter how different you and your spouse are, as long as you are both willing to serve each other and work hard at it.

Love is perfect when you love and serve constantly.

It's okay to laugh at yourself -- please do!

Pet names can go a long way (my grandpa called my grandma "Bobby," and she called him "Shawn." we never figured out the Shawn thing).

Do what you are passionate about. Support your spouse in pursuing his/her passions. 

BE HAPPY. 

On a final note, here's a song a coworker on my team sent to the rest of us. He said it was very touching, and he was not wrong: 

I listened to this all week, and it shows really well the feelings I have about my grandparents. :)

Moaning Myrtle

I am not going to comment (beyond this sentence) about how long it has been since I have posted, and I will not make excuses not will I promise future posts. Life has been busy, but here I have a moment to write about one of many, many goings-on that make life so great. To start, Joe and I just ended an incredible summer together. It began in May with the official end of his second year of law school and a move from the hobbit hole on State to a house 2 miles north of it. While we miss our first home as a married couple, we could not be happier with our new (and old -- this is the house I grew up in) house!

In July, Joe and I took a trip to the Humane Society of Utah and picked out a cat. We wound up with a darling 2-year-old tabby named Veria (My theory is that she belonged to a little, old lady who had to give her up when she moved to a retirement home... Because, well, 'Veria'? Really?). We brought her home and immediately started calling her Eunice (as in What's Up, Doc?), but that didn't last long. Eunice high-tailed it for the space behind the toilet when we let her out of the tote and could not easily be persuaded out for several days. We decided that she was haunting the toilet -- you know, sitting in the u-bend, thinking about death. So we called her [Moaning] Myrtle. Or, when she's in trouble, Myrtle Eunice Johnson.

I'm quite sure my taking her to the vet for the visit that I agreed to in the adoption contract did nothing to alleviate her nerves. For weeks, she probably believed that anytime I gave her a treat, I was tricking her into a ride in a non-air conditioned car to have a needle thrust in her leg and a thermometer shoved up her butt. Despite that unpleasant adventure, however, she's adjusting very well to her new home. We love playing with her, despite the fact that her new favorite game is attacking feet from under the bed and her most active hours are between 5 and 9 AM.

There you have it; we are officially parents now! Well, besides the fact that our new daughter cleans herself, has some degree of built-in portion control when eating, is litter trained, and can be left at home alone over a weekend, we are.

Summertime!

As of today, Joe and I have been married for 3 months... and so far so good. Our only complaint? Not having enough time to play! As usual, I'm going to narrate snippets of the last few weeks with pictures.
To celebrate the ends of finals, Joe and I packed up his car and drove off to Antelope Island to camp for the night. My awesome manager had me leave early to beat traffic -- good thing, too! We weren't sure we would be able to get a campsite, but we beat the rush.

Immediately after setting up camp and taking this picture, we had a great bike ride along the causeway, watched the sunset had tinfoil dinners, made a few s'mores... and were randomly attacked by 40 MPG gusts of wind. Out of nowhere our camp started blowing everywhere! We cleaned up dinner and Joe had me sit in the tent so it wouldn't blow over while he took the bikes off the car and put everything else away. The wind lasted all night and morning, and it was so crazy that the tent wall would fall almost flat on our faces while laying down. Amazingly enough, nothing, including the tent, was damaged!

On Saturday (the 19th), we got up early and hiked up Olympus. We talked about how we remember hikes in sections, and actually named each section of the hike:
1) The Eye of Satan's Butthole - the first 15 minutes or so of straight uphill that makes you immediately question your choice of a hike and ability to finish
2) The Airport - The longest (distance-wise) part of the hike that could not be any easier. In fact, it's kind of like riding an airport walkway.
3) The Rattlesnake Switchbacks - Joe and his siblings saw a rattlesnake in this area a couple years ago. The switchback thing is pretty self-explanatory.
4) Hell - The never-ending uphill stretch just before the saddle
5) The Scramble - The rock scramble to the top of the peak.

We finished this hike, crashed for a couple hours, and headed back to the Festival of Living Traditions for round 2 of pigging out. I feel like this evening's pig-outage was well-earned.

This week has been a blast, so I'll post a few highlights just from the last few days as well:

On Wednesday, we hiked Donut Falls. That's not particularly difficult or adventurous, but the fact that it was so spontaneous (we were planning on going for a bike ride, but my bike broke last Saturday and we weren't sure how to fix it) and that we both got soaked made it just that much more awesome.

On the way down, I made Joe listen to this book on tape I'd just finished and loved. I finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower this week, and I'm adding it to my list of favorite books. It takes some great writing to keep a book interesting while nothing is happening! I'm not selling the thing very well, am I?

Yesterday, we hiked to Timpanogos Cave with a group of friends. We had a lot of fun, since those of us who had seen it before hadn't seen it in years. The time they give you to hike the trail is ridiculous, so we stopped and took lots of great pictures. This one is just one of my favorites.

After the hike, we stopped at Taco Bell before coming back home. That sounds like a random, boring detail, but I actually think it has everything to do with this story... Everyone met at our place, so they came inside for a bit. Jake informed us that he needed to "wreck our toilet." We very generously gave him permission, but then as he was in that process, a line formed. In the end, the combined efforts of 4 men made me think of "wrecking the toilet" as less of an exaggeration. Gross and hilarious. On my sharing this story: you're welcome.

To conclude this week's hardcore Saturday, we met up again in the evening and played Silly Hat Poker -- which appears to have turned into a weekly tradition and even involves a trophy. Logan won this week. The loser could either be me or Logan. Logan was the first one out of chips, since he went all in on one hand and lost everything. Jake gave him one to keep playing, and somehow Logan ended with the most chips by the end of the last hand. Anyway, the deal was that the loser takes the winner on a $5 shopping spree to All-a-Dollar. I guess I owe him the chance to load up on single-use spatulas and stale candy!

Some other highlights that I don't have pictures of:
+ Bowling
+ Raging Waters
+ Nick's hockey game
+ Numerous bike rides (including biking down Big Cottonwood Canyon. Or, for me, just half of it)
+ Random hikes up the S-curve and Bells Canyon
+ Horseshoes
+ Ultimate frisbee with a few high school kids we met and challenged at a park. We got spanked!
+ A couple trips to Airborne for hours of jumping fun!

Ketchup Time!

Remember that time I didn't blog for 6 months? Well, I decided it's time to do a little catching up. The problem is that I don't remember exactly what happened the first 3-4 months, except for a lot of snowboarding and even more wedding planning.... so we'll just leave it at that and start with March 10th of this year. :)
I never actually believed the day would come (especially that last week), but come it did, and everything turned out perfectly. You know your wedding day is going to rock when your also-restless fiance texts you at 6 AM to ask if he can come over and eat your cereal. Yes, please! The sealing was incredible. The sealer did a fantastic job bringing the Spirit there and not leaving an eye dry. What an amazing experience that was. Since that was later in the day, we went straight to our dinner/dance after pictures. Small though it was, it was pretty hopping, not gonna lie. The best part was doing the Thriller dance with family and friends -- classic!

So what have I been up to since then? Quite a bit, actually. I'm not feeling a whole lot like typing, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. First, obviously, was the honeymoon in Mexico.


We didn't snorkel a whole lot (just had a lot of fun taking pictures with them), except for that incident with the sharks and stingrays... but I'll let your imagination take over from here. Trust me though, your imagination won't do the day justice.






We spent a ton of time here at the beach in Playa del Carmen. I read The Princess Bride and Joe did Sudoku puzzles -- those moments we weren't swimming, I mean.

There was plenty to do away from the beach in Mexico. On our 3rd day there, we took a 4-hour bus ride to Yukatan to see Chichen Itza, and believe me, it was worth the commute. We also visited the ruins of Tulum one day.



We spent that Saturday (day 5) swimming with the dolphins. Our dolphins were named Yoconda (sp?) and Estrella. They were both mothers with 1-year-old babies, which, though they're cute, we decided we'd rather not sneak home with us when we kidnapped the mothers. They're useless right now; they don't do any tricks!


We did quite a bit more and ate a lot of indescribably delicious food, but I'll leave this where it is and move on to the things we've been doing since our return to reality...

We've played a lot with friends. On this particular Sunday evening, we invited our friend Jake over for dinner, after which we all decided to put various bridal shower/bachelor party gifts on our heads. And yes, believe it or not, I actually meant to make that face.
Another night, we went to dinner with our friends Logan and Elise. Wait, I worded that wrong. They kidnapped us and took us downtown to The Bayou, so we showed them a favorite location of ours -- what we call Thinking Hill. The only downside to this trip? There was a couple up there, so we felt a tiny bit unwelcome and eager to leave.





Joe and I went to the Salt Lake colors festival. It's much smaller than the Spanish Fork one, which is why it was so much better!


Here we are, showing dominance over our bikes after the Salt Lake bike tour, where we rode 26.1 miles for a Creamie and chocolate milk. Worth it? Well, yeah... the Creamies were peach-flavored!
So much adventure, and hiking season hasn't even begun... life is great!

Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

I know everyone has been overloaded with gratitude posts on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc., this week, but if you're apt to complain about it, let me point something out to you: long, gushing, Oscar-style "I'd like to thank my..." posts are a heckuva lot better than the ranting/venting/life-is-terrible posts that you're overloaded with the other 364 days of the year. Eat that for breakfast!

Speaking of breakfast, I'm starting my gratitude post there. There are many things that I'm thankful for this week. Right now, I'm grateful for the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that I had for breakfast - that it sat so invitingly in the fridge, that I could eat and enjoy the holy shiz out of that dessert. I mean breakfast.

I'm so thankful for my amazing fiance who understands and never criticizes me, even when what I do is irrational or selfish; in fact, selfishness is almost encouraged? Honestly, the man's perfect! I'm thankful for the support we've received from family and friends. Actually, in a way I'm also grateful to any who questioned us along the way - for causing me to reconfirm that I am making the right decision. I have zero doubts that I am!

I'm grateful for my supportive, understanding family that takes care of me, is genuinely concerned, and is so willing to offer and deliver help at the drop of a hat. It's inexpressible the gratitude I feel for Buster and Emelie for providing me with a cheap (and free for most of my stay, until I put up a big enough fight to pay rent) place to live, and for the love and support that they give. Even during those few times when things seemed hard, I could never complain; I had them and a place I felt totally at home (and still do!).

I'm grateful for the Gospel in my life, for a loving God who is willing to give me blessings I know I do not deserve. I'm grateful for covenants and promises, the opportunity to give (although very little) back to my Heavenly Father and Savior. I'm sure this gratitude will only grow when I go through the Temple soon.

I'm grateful for my wonderful friends (some of which are also family!) for supporting me and putting up with my flakiness and endless faults. Maegs, Nell, Rach, Weenie (in no particular order besides alphabetical) - thank you for being so kind and caring. You are seriously the best friends I could ever ask for, and if I were to have bridesmaids, you would definitely be they! You're welcome, by the way, for not making you stand in line and try on and wear borderline skanky dresses that you will never take off the hanger again. ;) Hehe, just kidding. Sorta.

I'm grateful for my health, my continued safety (especially driving 70+ miles per day! That's a REAL blessing), and for the health, safety, and happiness of my family and friends.

There are so many other things I'm grateful for, but those are the ones that I absolutely had to get out for fear of bursting this weekend. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. If it doesn't have Siamese twins in a jar, it's not a fair!

Just a quick update before bed. For those waiting for the news, I am officially engaged now. We've had a date picked out for quite a while, but as of 3 weeks ago, it's official. here's my sapphire ring.

How'd he ask? Well, funny story. We drove out to Antelope Island with our bikes, parked at the end of the causeway, and went for a ride. The causeway is a really fun, really easy ride. The only catch is all the brine flies. I was not wearing an immodest shirt by any means - just a Ninja Turtle t-shirt - but still the flies flew down the neck and flew around in there until I pulled a Tarzan, pounded my chest, and killed them all. Blech!

Anyway, we rode the 7 miles to the entrance and the 7 miles back to the van. After I killed the new batch of flies, we drove to a rocky area where we took pictures with a group we camped with a few weeks before - the view of the sunset there is always breathtaking.

We climbed the rocks so we were far away from the other people and watched the sunset. Joe bent down to pretend to tie his shoe and came up with the ring. While I wasn't totally surprised (I tried it on 2 days before), it was still perfect for us. There we were, covered in sweat and dead bugs, watching the sunset on Antelope Island.

I said yes, and he pulled a dead brine fly out of my hair (no joke!). It was pretty great. :) We went to Chef Tom's and got some cheap but fantastic Italian - which is also us! What's wrong with cheap if it's delicious, right? Best alfredo ever! We stopped at FYE, looked for the absolute worst movie we could find, and watched Frogs at his house.

That's the story! I've just been busy shopping for a dress and reserving reception centers and whatnot since then. I'm still in favor of elopement, but, as Joe so rightly put it, "we need stuff." Hehe.

Other things going on? I joined Joe's family on a trip to Cedar City a week later to see the final weekend of the Shakespearean Festival. I'd never been before, and I loved it. We saw Winter's Tale on Friday night, then Dial M for Murder on Saturday (obviously not a Shakespeare, but I do love me a good Hitchcock script.). We had tons of fun!

This picture is from a hike we took in Kolob Canyon (which is technically a part of Zion National Park, but it's accessed somewhere funky and very few people know about it). Pretty, right?

One last picture for the road. This is my favorite engagement picture, taken 2 weeks before actually being engaged so's not to miss those leaves: