Jess and Bill

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Jess.

One fateful day in May she went to stake prayer sat next to  the love of her life--only she didn't know him yet. His name was Bill. After a night of games and other activities Bill gathered the courage and asked Jess on a date. And they had a blast. Little by little they got to know each other and they fell in love. For a year they dated and then at last they were married in the Logan Temple for all eternity.

So here's to you Jess.

GREAT friends! Melissa, Mallory, Rachel and Hilary

Rich 301 united! Kelsie, Michelle, Me, Mallory, and Rachel!

Two drop-dead-gorgeous girls!

It was a bit chilly in the shade!

A little sick of smiling?

I apologize for the horribleness of this picture, but
 I love their faces. :) So descriptive of them.

Hilary and Jess!

The lovely couple and Melissa--who
 is getting married herself in August!

Sisters, sisters! Jess and Fred [a.k.a Marie]

Little sister Valerie caught the bouquet!

Little girls excited about balloons....

...Hilary and Taylor excited about balloons.

The great escape!

Congrats you two. I wish you the best life has to offer!

-Tay

The Green Apron

I do have something to blame for my absence from the blog world: Ream's.

Most of you recall that I worked there for a year back in high school. When I moved home this summer I was in dire need of income, and found that Reams was hiring again. After an application and a quick interview I was back behind the checkstand doing what I never thought I'd do again. 

The first day was rough. Lorie just assumed that I remembered it all when really, I was clueless. I fumbled my way through the first few days of "training" and went home depressed and overwhelmed. It just wasn't coming back. The produce codes I worked so hard to memorize were completely gone. The checklists of things to do for WIC, checks, and in-store charges was jumbled and forgotten. 

One day, in a rush, it got really busy and so I jumped in a checkstand to help out. There was an initial panic, but then my fingers took over and it came flooding back. Celery 4070, Garlic 4608, Loose Carrots 4562. It was incredible. It was almost as if it was staying latent until stress pushed me into action. From then on I've had many little questions, but I've been able to remember and build on what I knew before.

A crazy thing was that on my first real shift I could not remember the lettuce codes to save my life. Everyone buys lettuce, and I got stuck every time. The part that was even stranger was that I knew a ton of really weird numbers like tomatillos, artichokes, and turnips but I couldn't remember romaine lettuce. It's fixed now though, don't worry.

The other day I dreamed about Reams. I dreamed about checking out an order and then I said, "5.56 please." Instead of just saying that in my dream I said it out loud--and woke myself up. Yup. It even haunts my dreams.

So, my life has been Reams. 

"How are you doing today?"

"Great thank you!"

I've perfected the art of the fake smile. I try my darndest to be happy, but sometimes it's just been a long, long, day.

What brightens my day is when customers will actually talk to me. I strike up small talk a thousand times a day, but on those rare occasions when I can actually talk to them about something interesting I feel like I've done my job right. I learn some pretty awesome things too. I've heard about good movies, Australian Root Beer, ice cream preferences, holiday traditions, and countless recipes. People leave with a smile, and they realize that I do care about them.

But work is not always rosy. The other day I had an crazy busy, stressful, and altogether awful day at Reams. I flashed my fake smile and carried out orders like a zombie. What made me the most angry though was when  people would reply to my greeting with a grunt or some sort of "bad day" answer. If I can fake this for hours on end you can fake being happy for a few minutes! Just pretend you are having a good day and dump your grumpy on somebody else! Usually I'm more patient, but that day was just awful. 

So here's a hint: Be nice to your next cashier. Strike up a conversation. Actually listen to the answers. Their job sucks, and you can make it better by being kind.

Fore!

Golf is a game invented by classy looking men that want to hit a ball without [heaven forbid!] breaking a sweat. And they drive around a golf cart so that they don't actually have to exercise. What is the fun in that?

In spite of my tendency to make fun of golf, I had the chance to go with my singles ward and so I went. It couldn't be that bad. I grabbed my mom's dusty clubs and headed off to Hobble Creek Golf Course.

Since few of us actually knew what we were doing we played a really relaxed game. Instead of the traditional rules we played "scramble". These are the basics:

Each player tees off on each hole. The best of the tee shots is selected and all players play their second shots from that spot. The best of the second shots is determined, then all play their third shots from that spot, and so on until the ball is holed. 

This was good because between the four of us someone could usually land a decent shot. It was rarely me, but I tried! It was at this point that I realized golf is a little harder than it looks. And since I had to swing six times for every shot, I got tired quite easily. There was also an incredible amount of wind, and so I attribute most of my horribleness to the wind. 

In my group I was fortunate enough to have the lovely Breanna [who showed me the wonderfullness of ball cleaning machines], as well as McKinzie and her boyfriend Addison [quite possibly the cutest couple I have ever seen]. None of us really knew what we were doing, and so it was fun. We also, *ahem* cheated a lot. My favorite was standing behind the hole so that the ball would roll in, we called it the "backboard". We also didn't count strokes [or my score would easily be 500] and we liked to move the ball to the middle of the fairway. For a first time golfing, it's more fun if you cheat.

Somebody knew enough to tell us that the big fat #1 is for hitting things a long way, but after that we were a bit lost. The #6 or the #7? What does P stand for? When it came time to choose a mid-range club [not the fat #1 or the putter] I looked and thought to myself, "Hmmm, I haven't used the #3 one yet!"

I'm going to go pro someday, can't you tell?

After 9 holes of golf I was exhausted [no golf cart = walk two miles] and the next day I was incredibly sore in places that I've never hurt before. I now respect golf as a sport. It's still a wimpy sport, don't get me wrong, but it takes some skill. 

On a final note: My family loves Bill Engvall and this is one of his comedy routines that is our favorite, and it is worth listening to

I Love Golf --Bill Engvall

[note: this link is for Rhapsody. You can listen to it free and without any commitments or downloads, just make sure to disable your pop-up-blocker. I promise, this is so worth it.]