And now that I can blog from my phone, i can post candid shots like these!

Progress in this neck of the desert

Several great things have come to pass in the last few days down here in Logan. But since I don't have a gigantic block of time to adequately describe them with all the minuscule details that I usually like to, you'll have to suffer through a checklist type of thing for now. If you want details about a particular event, please write to me and I can elaborate it for you later.

Last weekend:
I had Callie and we had a great time. We didn't didn't have any big and fancy outings, just stayed home this time.She's getting so big and indepenent, it's hard to keep up!

Sunday night:
Deb and I went to a fireside with John H. Groberg and Elder Charrington(sp?). Elder Groberg is the author of The Other Side of Heaven and a former member of the Quorum of the Seventy. Elder Charrington was just called to be a Seventy in ths last Conference. I went up and met them both afterward. This was my second time hearing from John H. Groberg. the first time was inthe Salt Lake Tabernacle right after the Other Side of Heaven movie came out.

Monday:
I got a call from Ryan Powell, one of the four owners of the Sprinkler Store from last year. He called to invite me back to work for this season but couldn't give me a specific date to start as of yet. There are some details involving the transfer of ownership of the company that needed to be worked out first. Those kinks should be fixed throughout this current week and he said he would call me back next Monday about it.

Tuesday:

I got a call from Sue Boswell, my counselor from Voc. Rehab. She called to tell me she got a call from a Kevin Smith who wanted to work through them to get training for me to draw sprinkler plans for him this season. It was an interesting call because I had to explain to her that I really didn't need training to draw sprinkler plans. Also, the name Kevin sounded familiar and I wanted to know what company he was from. She didn't know, but she gave me his number so I could call him and ask any questions.

I talked to Kevin and told him I was fairly proficient at drawing plans as I had done it all last year. Then he mentioned how he needed to talk to Ryan about it anyway and it all clicked! Kevin was one of the owners of the store that I was already planning on coming back to anyway. I had only met him once last year and apparently he didn't remember me very much either. I explained to him that the only training I might need is just a little refreshing from Nick, the manager and that there was no need for Voc. Rehab to get involved.

{Did you notice that between the owners of the store that the right hand didn't know what the left one was doing? This was the kind of confusion and miscommunication that we (the peons) had to deal with last year, which is the cause for the current transfer of ownership from four owners to no more than two now.}

I called Sue back to explain that Kevin didn't know what was going on and that I had worked for them before. I told her that I had talked to Ryan the day before and I was already planning on going back pending the desicion from him.

Today:

I am doing more financial aid stuff for school. It never ends! Later I am Going with Debbie to her bank to find out why there is this unending chain of fees that keep getting charged from her account for no reason. She's got plenty of money in there but they keep taking out signifigant chunks of it!!! We need that money!

Tomorrow:
I'm going to do a couple temp jobs in the morning and then we are packing to go to Pheonix, AZ Friday morning. We are Taking Deb's other car to her mom who needs it. Her car was totalled in a wreck a month ago and she's going to take over payments on the Lexus rather than getting a new car. This whole car swap has been kind of a complicated ordeal between creditors on the Lexus, gettingthe Taurus fixed for Deb, transferring the title to her mom and for preparing to take it down to her, but soon it will all be done and everyone will be happy and we'll all have transportation! Yay!

Friday:
We are leaving at 6:30 AM, taking both cars down to Salt Lake. We will leave my Caddy at Aunt Leslie's house for the weekend and drive the lexus to Pheonix. we are planning to make a quick pass by Lake Powell and then the Grand Canyon on our way down, so be prepared for some amazing pictures when we return!

The Weekend:
We will spend time down there taking care of liscencing and everything for her mom. I get to get grilled by Deb's Family the whole time and then we will fly home Monday afternoon. Aunt Leslie will come pick us up from the airport in my car and then we will come home from there.

Does that sound crazy enough?

~P.S.~
This post wasn't quite as brief as I was hoping it would be, but that's alright.

This is a test to see if I can post a mobile blog from my phone

Especially for you!

I got this idea from Jill Smith. I'm reposting because it will be fun to make a custom, surprise project for you! Plus I need to do it in order to get the suprise from Jill... The first 5 people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice, for you.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1. I will make no guarantees you will like what I make.
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done this year. (anytime)
4. You will have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleansing your face before a masque. I may paint or draw something. I may bake something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on their blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did, win a FABULOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

That's DEFINITELY worth blogging about!

Remember that list of dead cars I made awhile back? Well, I'm proud to announce that I can cross one of those cars off the list. The Taurus that I had so much trouble with last Fall has been sitting all winter waiting for something to happen. I've had a couple opportunities to get rid of it, but they fell through. A young couple almost got it to fix up for their own, but then changed their mind. Then my friend talked about getting it for himself and his other buddy to go bombing around in, but they lost interest as well. Now we'll fast forward to the present day. Deb needed a car and I happened to have one that needed a home. We put a new battery in it and it started right up. We got it registered today and it's going to be a perfect 'round-towner for her.

Another reason that this is such an accomplishment for me is that it is a big type of project that I completed nearly all on my own from start to finish. Usually withmy past automotive issues I've had to defer to other people to handle the problems. It makes me feel good to know I got it all done myself! I guess I just needed the right inspiration to finally get it finished up finally! Woo hoo!

Today we all went to a baptism for one of Deb's friend's kids. It was at the Logan Tabernacle which provided some nice photo opps afterwards. The sky was slightly overcast which gave us excellent light for photography and the temperature was even cooperative which added to the ideal-ness of the conditions.

Pull out the stopper, lets have a whopper!

Ok everybody, I promise you'll all get individual official announcements in the near future but I'm sending out this blanket statement now in order give you as much notice as possible for you to make plans if you can make it down here this Summer. Debbie and I are getting married on June 27th.

She really is a winner and I would like as many of you to come as realistically possible. We are looking forward to having a traditional ceremony and reception here in Logan on that day so as many of her family members will be able to participate. I know it's not a huge amount of time to plan, but please let me know if you can find a way to make it down here. I'd appreciate it. Hope to hear from you soon and we can make arrangements for you.
love,
Zach

Do a good turn daily

The other day, after helping a nice old lady cross the street I was on my way over to rescue a poor, helpless stranded kitten out of a tree when I spotted a plastic wrappedobject in the ditch about the size of a small loaf of bread wrapped in bubble wrap. I picked it up and it turned out to be a brand new paper bill accepter mechanism for a vending machine.


It looked like it had fallen out of a truck as it was turning the corner or something. The bubble wrap was succesful in its objective by preventing the part from not getting anything worse than a slight scuff on one of the corners. I found a manufacturer's phone number on the side and called it. I gave them the serial number and they tracked it to the Pepsi distribution center about a 1/2 mile from my house.

So Friday I took it over to them. The receptionist had no clue what to do so she called a guy in from the warehouse. a kind of grisly older guy came out, grabbed the thing and said, "Come on back here..."
So I did. I followed him through some doors into a warehouse filled to the brim with more bottles of soda than I had ever seen before in my life! You could say they had a "plethora"
of Pepsi products!

"I guess I owe you a drink for bringing that back to us, don't I?" he said.

I wasn't expecting anything in return but, ok. As we started heading toward where a vending machine was over in the corner, he uttered an, 'aw heck' and then a made a right turn down a towering aisle of Country Time or something. He called to another guy farther down and said "Hey! Grab me a case of pepsi and bring it to this kid here!" Whoa. They even loaded it into my car for me and told me to enjoy it and gave a great day!

Now I've got a fridge full of soda pop that I (used to) rarely drink. I'd offer some to y'all but you're kind of far away, sorry.

I have a REALLY cute video of Callie from tonight's visit, but it will have to wait until I am reunited with my card reader in order to upload it onto the web. I should be able to do it tomorrow morning.

Here it is...

Mole in the Hole

I came over yesterday and Deb and I had breakfast. Since we're both pretty broke we had a cheap, easy, quick and delicious option. All you need is bread and eggs and some butter!(and a small glass to cut the holes)

All things bright and beautiful

For all of us having to endure these past few days of dreariness and grey weather, here are a few pictures to help keep things light and fresh. My Christmas cactus is getting ready to bloom again for Easter, so I will post pictures of that when it explodes with flowers again too.

Birthday Party

This morning we went to a brthday party for Deb's friend's 8 year old girl. Callie had a great time. All the other kids just accepted her as another one of the big kids and let play along with everything.

The pin'ata wasn't half as good as ours are(Go Emily!). It kept falling off the wire every 3rd hit or so.

We ran around the rest of the day going on errands and taking care of things. It was pretty fun, especially since the weather was cooperative!!

Draper Temple

Last Thursday Deb and I went down to the Draper Temple open house. It's beautiful! For those of you who aren't familiar with the Utah locale, Draper is at the very south-east end of the Salt Lake Valley. The Temple is tucked up right against the mountains, as you can see in the pictures.

I hope that no one buys that piece of property and puts some hideous gargantuan house right there. It would ruin that spectacular view!

For Amanda

Amanda, this is how I would do the windows on your greenhouse. You can roll up the flaps and tape them in place to adjust the opening. Put matching ones in the back too and you'll be good to go!

Whirlwind

OK, I'm playing catch up now because the past couple of weeks have gotten away from me. Between employment stuff and everything else, I have had very little time to blog. Lately I've had something going on every night of the week! Mondays are FHE; on Tuesdays I go visit Callie; Wednesday is for Institute; Thursday is Volleyball night; last Friday, my friend Deb had the day off from work so we decided to get out of Dodge and went up to the Idaho Falls Temple. Neither of us had been here before and we both had always wanted to go- So we did!


It was as beautiful as everyone says it is. We didn't get out of there until fairly late and didn't get home until much later, but the trip was well worth it. I got to take my Caddy out on it's first real road trip and I had a good navigator too. We enjoyed being in the Temple and had fun on the way there and back.






Deb had to work Saturday afternoon and then we went swing dancing that night.








Sunday night we went to a fireside(which was very good). The guy who spoke also played the piano and sang.




This past week has been crazy too. I've been meeting with Vocational rehab for them to help me to get back into school. We've decided to forego the university setting for now and opt for a trade school with a more flexible schedule. It has open enrollment (I can start at anytime) and I can go at my own pace. Voc. Rehab will pay for everything. I'm going into the drafting and graphic design program. It will give me the opportunity to get out of the seasonal jobs I've been stuck in and into a career with a broader range of job prospects with more stability. I'm taking the placement test next Monday.

A great weight has been lifted from my shoulders

My mailbox is going to get lonely now because I won't be getting bills every day from my creditors. I finally got my tax return back and immediately called the student loan people, paid them off; went to the lawyer's office, paid thyem off, called a couple of others and paid them off too. Unfortunately I don't get to keep more of the return, but it's a good feeling to not have to have those other things in the back of my mind all the time. I might even be able to start saving some money for the future now!

I'm blogging about that fact that there isn't anything new to blog about...

Callie's Birthday

I might as well do a post on my blog about Callie's birthday as I sit here eating her leftover chocolate cake for breakfast/lunch.





















Yesterday in Priesthood meeting our music was being conducted by a 13 year old who had obviously never done it before. After the song was finally over, the announcements were given and we broke to go to out individual meetings; I went up to the bishopric and politely told them I had experience with leading music if the ever needed someone to fill in. They said,"Well we'll just issue you the calling right here! You can be the one to pick out the songs and lead the music. We've been needing someone to do that." They clearly needed help, but I didn't want to say anything. You just don't go up to someone and say, 'You're horrible. Let me fix you.'

Another funny thing I noticed in church yesterday was that no one sat behind us in Sacrament meeting. I guess they didn't want to get smacked on the head by Callie!

Wasteland?! . . . I think you mean Wonderland!

I was feeling photographical yesterday so here's a few wintery pictures.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With scenes like these on the left;

And these on the right;

How could someone not be inspired to take pictures of them???

I like this one

Here's your sign...

I snapped a quick picture of these pallets with my phone while at work. Those bright yellow stickers that are placed right in plain sight? They say, "DO NOT DOUBLE STACK "
And the freezer I've been working in. We have to wipe down every single railing in there. And there are about 6 more aisles just like this! At - 10 degrees farenheit!!

At least it FELT like it went on forever... I actually edited the picture to make it look 3 times deeper than it really is. But what is 1/3 of infinity?
The temperature and the number of aisles are correct though.

Good boots!

I have a job for the next two weeks! I wish it could be for longer terms but I'll be thankful for what I have. A local medical products company is going to be having an audit soon in preparation for taking on a new customer. They have hired a bunch of temp workers to come help them clean up their warehouse before the inspection.

They have a huge freezer that stays at -10 degrees F, a cooler that stays at about 34 degrees F and another that stays at room temperature. They are all about 3 stories tall and our job is to dust all the racks with pallets full of product.

When I was offered the position, the agency simply told me that I'd be doing cleaning. They DIDN'T mention that it would be in a dirty, dusty warehouse in sub-zero temperatures half the time! So I show up yesterday in jeans, a polo shirt and tennis shoes; ready to vacuum floors and clean windows. I could almost see them laughing to themselves when I got there before they took me over to add a few layers of Carhartts, gloves, hats and anything else I could fit on. By the end of yesterday I was crusty, caked with dust and gross from the job. We did take breaks from time to time to come out and warm back up but that still didn't stop my toes from turning into ice cubes while in the freezers! My lowly hiking shoes simply weren't designed for that type of cold torture! Also, my feet were so sore by the end! Eight hours of just standing on flat surfaces was also not in their job description.

That brings us to today. I came prepared! I brought extra socks, more layers of clothing, a ski-mask/hood thing, better gloves than the ones they supplied, and most importantly, my better boots. I've had them for a few years and they are well-broken-in, insulated and they still look fairly new. They are great for the winters here because they've got good traction and they give good support to my feet which keeps me from falling (most of the time)!

After leaving work tonight I wasn't sore or cold or anything! I'm thinking that these two weeks are probably going to fly by. I'm almost halfway through the first one already!

I must also mention how thankful I am to be able to get this job in the midst of news of many companies laying off thousands and thousands of workers due to the recession. It is such a blessing.

Insert interesting title here

I continue to gain respect for those who have raised children. one reason I have not posted too many pictures of Callie lately is because I spend every second chasing after her and monitoring her to make sure she's not spilling, dropping or breaking anything; dumping something out, pulling something over on top of herself, or just wreaking havok in general. I realize I can't really complain to anyone because most of you have all been there/done that and this is just part of the game.

But amidst all the choas there are the little gems that make it all worthwhile. For instance in church yesterday; In between crawling under all the pews and trying to gain access to the aisles, she was standing on Brother Willardson's lap playing pattycake with his shiny, 'Mr. Clean' head. Callie was fascinated and Tim was loving it too! Then she leaned forward over him and slapped the bald head of the brother behind them who was leaned forward, resting his head on the back of our pew. It was like the cymbal crash at the the end of a drum roll thing- "Ba- doomp - -TSSSSS!!!!" The guy immediately sat up straight and stayed that way the rest of the meeting. . .

I guess that's what he gets for not listening to the speaker! We were sitting near the front so the whole congregation was quite entertained yesterday! When the home teachers came over later, they confirmed that she was the highlight of Sacrament Meeting. I 'm sure if I should be proud that she was so disruptive or not though.

Tim taught me a valuable lesson that day too. He said that if you want your kids to behave in church, give them freedom. Let them think its fun to be in there with you. Then if they do become tooo wild and carzy and you have to take them out into the hallway or foyer or something, don't give them any freedom, make them know that it is much better to be in there and not sitting nicely than to be dragged out into the hall and not have any freedom whatsoever. I'm not condoning beating your children or anything just make sure that theay know the difference between when they are good and not so good.

Anyway, right before we had to leave to take her back today, I was able to get a few good pictures out in the back yard. The snow was really crusty so a snowman was out of the question, but we ran around a little...

Civil War and more

Almost everyone I know says I look good with a beard. They say I look older, more distinguished,etc.

I had to take a phone picture of the back of my camera because I couldn't find my card reader. Sorry about the blurriness...

And a normal one with just my phone.

Logan Temple

When I was coming home from the Library up at school the other night, I noticed something different about the Temple. It took me a minute to figure out what it was, but then I realized- it wasa different color! And it also seemed to be brighter than normal! I thought maybe my eyes were fooling be because of the dense snow clouds overhead that might be refracting the light differntly, but I checked again a different night when the sky was clear and the color was definitely not the same as it used to be. up until recently the spires had a greenish glow to them at night. You could always pick out the Temple amidst all the lights of the city when you look out from any vantage point across the valley. Now the spires have a nice rosy color to them and they are much brighter than before too. This first picture as actually taken about two years ago, but it shows the color pretty well. The second one is a view from last night.

Prettty big difference, eh?

I apologize for the blurriness, I blame it on the shivering from the cold. See what I go through just to keep you people updated!????

Pente

I hang my head in shame for having not gone to FHE in a long time until tonight. I'm glad I went though. After the lesson, the activity was just board games in the cultural hall.I didn't know that that was the activity until that very moment so I wasn't prepared. I promptly went back home and got my game box and my Pente board. I love that game! By the time I got back, everyone had settled at their tables and were immersed in their games so I had to wait until a table was done with their game to introduce mine to them. Luckily, no one had picked the Monopoly box that was an option... Anyway about 15 minutes before time to clean up a table finally opened and I brought over Pente.

One of my favorite things about the game is that is is so easy to teach and get started. After about 30 seconds of instruction, our table was up and going and enjoying themselves. Even with my past experience and expertise, I was not the first one to gain an advantage over everyone else. (We were playing with 4 players.) Ultimately I did win though. It was a good game to play because we wouldn't have had time to play any other full board game in the time we had left. The guys had fun learning a new game and I got to play Pente for the first time in over two years! Yay!

Happy New Year everybody!

I've had this picture on my phone for a few weeks, and I thought I'd share it with you. 

Christmas pics

I had the pleasure of being able to have Callie for Christmas this year. Even though she was a bit under the weather for some of it, we had a great time overall.

~Christmas Eve~
These pictures of the lights really don't do adequate justice to the megawatts of electricity that it must take to run them all. This first picture of the street is in Preston, ID(where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed). I'm sure if there was a way to put lights on the street itself, they'd find a way to do it!

Once you get to the north end of the main street you can see a glow on the horizon. This is one circumstance where you want to follow the light! You'll end up at this house:

Obsessed much???
We even saw some fireworks on the way up there- the picture is horrible.













Unfortunately Callie was asleep for all this. She wasn't feeling well. . .

When we got home, I got her to wake up enough to open a present or two for Christmas Eve. She got a nice warm blanket from Grandma Albrecht


I helped her realize that the box with the fun tape wasn't actually the present, but the fuzzy blanket she had tossed aside. She loved it!









She also got a couple pairs of new jammies too, one of which she's wearing in the picture.


~Christmas Day~
Santa brought various toys, books, a cute new outfit. . .

and. . . what could this be???



















a "bike"!














She cried when she had to get off to open the rest of the stuff. : (



For $2.00 at D.I. you can't go wrong with a complete set of Trouble Tracks! (ooh, ahh) with rompin', stompin' revving truck! It was a winner.














That about sums it up for now!