In with the Cool Kids

Probably the highlight of the last couple weeks has been feasting on our newly purchased Dino Buddies.  Apart from that, we had Valentines Day and I got accepted to both of the CSU schools I applied to.  Merilee has been baking some delicious stuff too.  I try but fail in my effort to not eat any of it.  Actually, I don't really try that hard.

So for Valentines Day I didn't buy Merilee anything.  It was our first Valentines Day together (last year we were broken up) and I didn't really know what to expect.  I've never had a significant other around this time and I didn't feel like doing the whole "buy a box of chocolates, flowers, teddy bear, balloons, and a fancy dinner" sort of thing.  It's nice and all, but it's expensive.  I told Merilee that I liked what my sister-in-law Melanie does.  On the 15th she buys discounted Valentines Day stuff (like plates etc.), and on the next family dinner they have, they do a "we love our family" sort of celebration without having to pay retail.  I like that idea for when we have kids. 

So I decided to make a box of chocolates for Merilee.  I've made fancy things out of cardboard before for class projects, so why not a box?  We had a recipe for turtles in our cookbook, so I could make those too (they're her favorite).  I also got little wrapper things for them to make them real fancy.  I probably would have broken down and bought some flowers or picked some if we didn't already have some from the week before when she passed her tests for her CDL.

So the week of, I didn't have any time to make the box because of my big homework load, which meant I only had Friday to do it.  I was even then limited on time after working out and doing some home teaching.  So, it didn't turn out exactly as I had imagined it, but it worked.  Maybe I can make her a better one next year.

The chocolates didn't end up exactly as I had hoped, at least initially.  There was a typo in the recipe.  It called for two tablespoons, instead of two cups, of half and half.  So in the picture you can see the fist sized candies that resulted from the chocolate not being completely liquified (I didn't want to burn it by increasing the heat so it just stayed clumpy).  When she got home and I gave her the box, we ate one then decided to try breaking them and melting the chocolate down again with more half and half.  The result wasn't photographed but let's just say that it worked a lot better.

That week I heard back from San Jose about my admission status.  I wasn't expecting to hear back from anywhere until April, so I was pretty surprised and excited because that meant that I might not have to wait to hear back from my other schools too.  Merilee didn't want me to get my hopes up because she thought I would stress more about it.  I didn't go around announcing my acceptance to the world because it's my back-up school and I pretty much knew I was admitted before I did the application.

The real excitement happened two days ago when I got an email from Cal Poly about my acceptance there.  I got in to my top school and didn't have to wait until April to find out!  Now everyone is sad because Merilee is moving away, but whatever.  She's mine people!  See this face?  All mine.

So things are wonderful and exciting here at our house.  We're enjoying our time alone together before we start making babies.  I'm very much looking forward to the new adventures that are in store for us in San Luis Obispo.  I'm so grateful for all the blessings we have, and for all those that have supported me and Merilee get to where we are today!  We'll miss you (but not until August), but hope you'll visit!

The Blood of Angry Men

So I had neglected to post my last post for a couple weeks because I thought I still needed to finish it.  I was wrong.  Racist and wrong.  It's not the first time.  Last night, in fact, I was wrong in assuming that not wearing red was okay.  I guess I should have asked first.  It was good though.  Merilee and I got taken out to dinner by the Schulls.  It had been a while since we had seen them, so it was great to catch up and talk about things.  They repeated the usual admonition to make the pilgrimage to Disneyland, to which we gave the usual reply saying that we would once we knew where I got in to school.

I won't hear anything back from the schools probably until April, which stinks.  I can pretty much assume I'm going to Calpoly based on my GPA and such, but you know what they say about when you assume.

It's been interesting in my engineering classes lately.  We've had several former Las Positas engineering student visitors talking about their transfer experience.  One girl got like a 2.9 gpa from Fresno State doing civil engineering and her first job is paying her 60k a year.  She had an advantage with her experience working on a special water drainage project at school that related to the job she was interviewing for with PG&E.  It got me excited, because if I reach my goal of getting a master's degree from CalPoly, I would probably be making more than that (and I'm kind of excited to make more than $8.25 an hour).

Another visitor was a San Jose student (my backup school) and he had a lot to say regarding the difference between a UC and a CSU when it comes to engineering.  Basically, what I took away from the visitors was the importance of projects, lab, and internship experience.

I've almost got a job at the Tutorial Center at Las Positas.  I've had to jump through various hoops in the bureaucratic financial aid system to do it but it should be coming together soon and I can start working again.  Until then I've pretty much just been doing school and working out.  Both are going well.  Don and I start week 4 of P90X tomorrow.  Then we're about one third done with the program.

Well everything is going really great.  Merilee and I are doing really well.  I don't have to report her to the police anymore for having a MO driver's license.

The Phoenix, Part 2

So Don and I are on week 2 of the program.  Yes, it's incredibly difficult.  I won't get too detailed about the program, but one thing I will say is that it makes you work out more than you think you need to.  You do exercise after exercise and when you think you're near the end, the video shows 33 minutes left.  My theory is that the human body has adapted to tell itself to stop at a certain point.  It's the point that, once surpassed, the body will no longer be able to defend itself from predators (or even hunt prey), neither after the workout, nor once soreness kicks in.  The body then does all it can do to adapt and get stronger for next time.

There's plenty of times that I've gone to the gym, felt the burn, and come home.  For me, the magic of P90X is having someone there telling you not to go home, but to keep going.  I think that's why athletes, who train as a group under a coach, usually get better results from their workouts than those who exercise on their own.  If there wasn't such an emphasis on completing workouts in P90X, even if that means longer and/or more frequent breaks, then it'd be so easy for me to do half the workout thinking that I'd work up to doing the full one.

Anyways, don't worry, I'll post pics for everyone after week 13.  Yeah right.  As hard as it is, I really like it.  It's hard to schedule sometimes because Don and I both have responsibilities (his wife just had their 3rd child in December!), and there's something scheduled everyday, but we've been doing alright so far.

The first week of classes has been pretty slow.  I'm trying to get a job in the tutoring center here at Las Positas.  I can't tutor at DVC this semester since I'm not taking classes there anymore.  This semester will hopefully be my last at community college.  I should hear back from the places I've applied to by April.  I'm taking Physics 8C (Oscillations, Waves, Thermodynamics, Light and Optics), Math 5 (Ordinary Differential Equations), Engineering 44 and 46 (Materials of Engineering and Introduction to Circuit Analysis).  It totals 15.5 units, which is the fewest I've taken since coming back from the mission.  Since I'm not tutoring yet, my schedule looks drastically empty compared to last semester.  Though I am worried about having time to workout once I do start working.

I'm hoping I can get enough hours tutoring so I can justify not working weekends.  It's not that I just don't want to have to work those days, but having a full school load and a weekend job makes it hard to take Merilee out to do things.  I just feel that we don't get to do enough fun stuff together because of all the school and stuff I'm always engrossed in.  She doesn't complain, but for example, I'm sure she liked that I was able to play Ultimate last Saturday.

Anyways, life is good, this blog is long. Six months of marriage down, the rest of eternity to go.

Woops!  I was supposed to post this like a week and a half ago!  My bad.

The Phoenix, Part 1

I know what you're asking.  It's the dilemma that's taken hold over your thoughts, dreams, and actions during the last two months.  Why haven't you written Charles?  Well, the weekly blog thing was a good idea but I really ran out of time last semester.  I don't know how I stuck to my commitment to refrain from doing homework on Sunday's, but I did, and I didn't use the time for blogging.  It was mainly used for napping.  After school was over I was in Texas.  When I got back, I figured I'd wait until classes started to give an update.  But I'll finish talking about my ridiculous Fall semester before I move on to this semester.

I was taking 18.5 Units and it was pretty rough.  I did have my tutoring job until the end (about 8.5 hours a week).  The Chalet I eventually "quit."  They stopped giving me hours when their budget was tight and I didn't want to work there anyways (more time for homework/naps on the weekend).  I turned in my two weeks notice before they could either (a) schedule me during finals/holiday times and/or (b) fire me.  I didn't look for another job after that since my two-day a week availability really only works with a retail job, and I don't know of a retailer that would hire someone in November/December who would be away on the holidays. 

I don't really remember why last semester was so hard besides the unit load.  I know I was making sure that school wasn't taking priority over spending time with Merilee.  I just remember pulling all-nighters a lot after I kissed her goodnight.  But it finally ended, and I eventually slept. 

Texas was glorious.  Merilee has a sister there, Sarah, who I'm very much a fan of (she planned our wedding, for one).  Me, Merilee, and Bonnie, had all bought tickets back in May so we could spend Christmas with Sarah and her family in Spring.  We were the first ones there, so the first couple days we basically just took naps all day.  Once more people arrived, we spent most of the time watching movies, playing games, eating chocolate, and laughing at how much Sarah's youngest hated Merilee.  I probably ate my weight in chocolate (there seemed to be an endless amount!) and even forgot what day it was a few times.  Like I said, it was glorious.  It was also good to get to know some of the Peterson clan better.

Day Before Marriage

We had been there two weeks (the 19th to the 1st) and when we came back I had three whole weeks before school started.  I weighed myself and surpassed even my wildest expectations when I found that I had gained about 10 pounds over the break.  I was 165 when I got married, then I somehow gained 10 pounds, then after the break I weighed in at 185 (a weight I only had once when I was in high school).  You can see in these two pictures the 20 pounds I've gained since that most wonderful day in July.

 

 

 

Jan 1st, Returned from Christmas in Texas

I committed myself immediately to losing those ten pounds in one week that I had accumulated over those two weeks.  I started running, using my dumbbells, etc. and succeeded.  Fortunately, I also gained 5 pounds or so of muscle, so I'm still hovering between 180 and 185.  Anyways, I'm fine with being 185 as long as more of it is muscle, but my pants are getting tighter and I don't like it (too much hip muscle?).

I don't know exactly how we started talking about it, but it came to my attention that my brother-in-law, Don, was wanting to use the P90X program he had but wanted someone to do it with.  But I'll talk about that more in my next post, since this one is already pretty long.

Soul to Squeeze

Many have been asking me how married life has been treating me.  If this picture doesn't give you a clue, I'll explain in detail.

But first, I guess I'll just give a general update.  I haven't blogged since September (duh).  I have not been held hostage.  I've only been busy.  School has been pretty crazy, and the rest of life hasn't left me any chance to slow down.  Plus, all that waffle-making.

I'm also applying to schools this semester.  My #1 pick right now is San Luis Obispo, but we'll see what happens.  I would go private if the financial aid was good enough.  I have a few unique circumstances that might get me some scholarships.

Work has been different.  My weekend job at the Chalet isn't giving me many hours.  My boss knows I'm looking for another job.  My tutoring job at DVC has bumped me up to 8 hours a week.  It's a nice job.  Unfortunately, it's been pretty busy at the math lab, so I don't get as much homework done as I thought I would be able to.  I can't really complain since I'm getting paid to tutor and not to do my homework.  It's mostly irritating when people come up with questions where they basically just want you to work through the tediousness that is algebra.  Or people like this one girl who takes a chemistry class at another college that isn't even the chemistry class I technically tutor for, and then wants me to figure out what she was supposed to do in her lab.  That's like you barfing into my bucket and then asking me what you had for breakfast.  I hope that makes sense.

This semester so far has been all about balance.  Balancing schoolwork, my marriage, church responsibilities.  Oh by the way.  I don't know if I mentioned it before but I've been called as the Sunday School instructor for 14 and 15 year-old group.  Merilee and I also just gave talks in our ward.  Anyways, it's been pretty hectic.

It's also been extremely rewarding.  Married life, to answer all the questions that everyone's been asking, has been great.  No, better than great.  It's exceeded my expectations in many ways.  I feel like I tell Merilee all the time that I'm so glad that we got married.  The thing is, that I probably only say it 10% of the time that I feel I want to, so the phrase doesn't get worn out.  I try to tell single friends who ask how married life is that they should just go get married.  But I know that it's not that easy.  As it is, married life is challenging (and I don't even have kids).  The balance of 18.5 units of school and part-time work with family life really requires effort, but it's so worth it if it's for the right person.  We have a lot of blessings and a lot of things going for us that make our marriage super great.  It's sad to see families and couples struggle, but we're glad to have the Gospel and each other.  We're pretty excited about that.

The Honeymoon is Over

So it happened.  In case you don't know what I'm talking about, I got married.  Sorry, not just married, but married to Merilee Peterson.  I'll get into exactly what that means later.  For right now, we'll just look at this picture and try to take it all in.  If you've grown up in the Church, you've probably been singing "I love to see the temple, I'll go inside someday.  I'll cov'nant with my Father; I'll promise to obey.  For the temple is a holy place where we are sealed together.  As a child of God, I've learned this truth: A fam'ly is forever."

What is it like on your big day?  How does it change your life?  You've found someone you love, you tell that person that you love them.  You tell you're friends and family, your Bishop, your Stake President, your coworkers, your relatives, your social media contacts, your mission friends and old companions, your classmates, your teachers, your butler, and anyone else you talk to that you love that person.  Then the day comes, and you go to the temple.  In a weird way, it's unfortunate that you usually only get married once, because it's certainly a unique experience going through the temple.

Now that I've said that, let me be clear: I would never get married again.  Between the stress and cost of wedding preparations, it's not really something you'd want to repeat.  Heck, I only did it this time because of Merilee.  What I mean to say, is that she made it all well worth it.  I really shouldn't even complain about the cost or stress of wedding preparations since both were super low for us.  We tried to have a very economical wedding.  In addition to that, Merilee's family did most of the planning and preparations and they pretty much covered the cost of everything.  Thank you Peterson Clan.

Anyways, so if you go back to the picture above, that's where the story resumes.  You've told everyone you're getting married, you've said "yes," and then you walk out of the temple doors to a mass of people clapping, cheering, taking pictures, holding children, etc.  You don't really know what to do.  I've never been famous before.

That day was really nice.  I'm thankfully able to say that it was void of stereotypical wedding day stress.  This was due to all our family and friends that did so much to help with set up for the reception and for everyone who was there at the sealing.  Again, I'll say that it was really nice.  It was super chill.  All we had to do was show up to the temple, get married, take pictures, then go to the reception, which was just a party for us.

As the title to this blog indicates, the honeymoon is over.  We were on the Oregon coast for most of it.  We've now settled into our new home in Hayward, and have resumed normal daily life, just now as a married couple.  I've been in school for about a month now, and have resumed work at the Chalet and in the Math Lab.  I got a lead on a possible job to replace the Chalet, so we'll see how that works out.  I would be searching more aggressively, were it not for the copious amounts of homework that you get assigned when you're in 17.5 units.

Merilee is still working her office manager job.  She gets home between 5:30 and 6:30 (depending on when she leaves in the morning) everyday.  I usually get home between 6:00 and 8:00 (depending on the day) and I try to get all my homework done before I'm home, but so far it's been hard to make that happen.  My past ideas of having more time to devote to school once we were married have proven to be false.  Now that I have the opportunity to spend even more time with Merilee, I spend more time with Merilee.  Because I have someone who cares what time I go to bed, I don't usually stay up later to do homework.  The benefits are great (more time with Merilee, more sleep), they just require more discipline on my part to be as productive as possible outside of the home (trying to get homework done in class if possible or in between classes or in the Math Lab when students don't need help).

In the beginning of this blog, I said that I'd describe what being married to Merilee Peterson (though now Ward) meant, so let me break it down (note that many of these things may not be unique to her).

   1. You are not the only one who sheds.

• She only has hair on her head whereas I have hair all over my body.  Both of us end up leaving hair all over the place.  It's a good thing we got a vacuum.

   2. You have now joined a troop of monkeys.  Prepared to be monkeyed.  You're welcome.

• I live with a monkey that's always picking at stuff I have on my face, back, hair, whatever, etc.  I like being monkeyed, so it's fine.  But I know she does it not because she likes it though, she does it because she's a monkey.

   3.  Congratulations!  You just married a portable jukebox!  Get ready to learn some songs! 

• There's so many times when I've said a phrase or started a sentence with something that triggers Merilee to remember a song and start singing it.  I'll usually ask where it's from if I don't recognize it.  Sometimes it's a song she learned in elementary school, or at a camp.  I really don't know how she remembers every lyric to every song she's every heard.  I think it's amazing, and I love it when she sings.

   4.  I win.  No, I win.  I win.  No, I win.  I win, I always win.  I win, times infinity.

• Anyone who knows Merilee, knows that she's competitive.  When we started dating, I was determined to not let her win every time at everything.  Because that is just obnoxious.  Now, every time we leave the apartment, it's a race to see who's out the door first, then who's to the car first, and today we actually raced to see who got their seat belt on first.  Of course, this race is repeated in reverse when we come home.  I always win that battle though.  She'll disagree, of course.

   5.  That awkward moment when you come home to your wife in the bedroom with... the vacuum.

• Who knew that Merilee would love vacuuming?  A+ to Dyson for making the dirt go into a see-through, easily emptying, crafty canister.

   6.  You are now that man sitting next to Sister Ward.

• Oh I'm well known in the Ward, of course.  But it's by virtue me being married to Merilee that they all know me.  It's not just the fact that she's more lively, outgoing, and attractive than me.  She's been able to go to more of the activities since we moved in because I've either been at work or doing homework.  Today she actually sang in church.  I'd be famous too if I did that, just not in a good way.

   7.  Last but not least...

• Putting all these things aside, the best part about being married to Merilee is (get ready for something cliche-ish) being loved by someone so fully.  I've had to tell our dating story a few times, and it's amazing to me to remember back when we had rocky times in our relationship, and when I felt like things wouldn't work out because Merilee wasn't so into us.  It amazes me to remember it because of how much that has changed.  Somehow, somewhere along the path from courtship to getting engaged, that changed.  Marriage is awesome because, though it has it's challenges (and this is where the peanut gallery chimes in), it allows us to show each other how much we love each other, and it defines what kind of relationship we should be striving for.  Balancing life inside and outside the home is a struggle, but keeping my focus on my marriage has helped me to have less stress and to enjoy it.  Thanks.  Yes, I can say thanks.

There's a lot more I could write about tonight.  But this blog is plenty long and it's late.  Finally I have something out.  I haven't blogged since right before we got married, but I guess that doesn't really count because I didn't post my last post until tonight as well.  Anyways.  Just know Merilee and I are doing super well and even though the honeymoon is over, we're really enjoying married life with each other.  Thanks everyone for your love and support!

Not so Fast there, Charles.

So I usually consider myself to be pretty computer literate.  I type, I can use MS Office proficiently, I have 5 buttons my mouse.  I manage to surf the internet without giving my computer aids.  I know binary code.  How then?  How did it take me like 30 minutes to make a meme?  Oh well.  It was a painful process that included many google searches and cursing Paint for being so dumb.  I won't go into much detail, just know for future reference that you can in fact put text  in your picture, but you cannot change its color.  Racism.

So it's been a while since I blogged.  I guess I'll give you a quick 34 word recap of what I've been up to.  Announcements, internship, announcements, work, announcements, internship, work, church, running (trying), sleeping, announcements, workinternshipchurch, looking for a place to live, dancing, stuff, watching funny videos of animals, other stuff, phone calls, CF clinic, etc.

And there you have it.

So below there is the meme that took me an obnoxious amount of time to make.  On Tuesday I fasted as part of the Ward's 40 day fast for missionary work.  Merilee did hers on Monday and had a great experience.  She's such a great example.  She had a neat conversation about the Church with one of her coworkers that day.  I knew that my fast would have blessings, even if I didn't have any missionary experiences that precise day.  It's a good thing I had that attitude or else I would have been like Chan here because pretty much the only person I had a conversation with that day was with another member at the lab where I'm interning.

 

And he wasn't even inactive!  The last significant missionary experience I remember having was probably a couple weeks ago when I was online and chatted with a friend from school.  He was always really skittish talking about Mormonism in class, and I could tell that he had certain perceptions probably from knowing Mormon people at school.  I forget what exactly we talked about but I do remember just telling him that I didn't mind answering questions or talking about it and that he could feel free to ask me anything.  I felt like it was major for him for someone to be so open and non-defensive about it.

Okay folks so that's pretty much it.  Excuse me while I go look for a place for me and my bride to live.