The Match is In!

Come this time next year, Josh and I will be living in......

Grand Forks, North Dakota!

We are extremely excited! It's a small town, but it's only for a year. We'll move there mid-July, but Josh plans to stay in Oregon for ski and football season and we're not planning to sell our house. I loved it there so much more than I had anticipated when we went for the interview and I think it's a really good fit for me. They have an excellent substance abuse treatment focus and I'll be able to work with the Native American population again.

But the absolute best part about matching is that I no longer have to worry that I won't match! Also, Josh has already planned out all the new temples we'll be able to visit by living in that part of the country. (That was seriously the first thing he did when I told him the news).

When I am 30...

When I am 30 I will be too old to:

Wear brightly colored tights

Wear my hair in braids

Wear my Disneyworld sweatshirt in non-Disney public

Spend all day in bed

Go out in public without makeup:

Wear ironic t-shirts:

But I will be just the right age to:

Listen to NPR (which has become an addiction in the past year)

Go to sleep at 10pm

Wear my glasses without shame (even if I have a "baby prescription")

Have Girls' Nights and not feel bad about leaving Josh behind

BTW, I stole this pic from Paige Miller

Tell stories about what it was like when I was your age:

I'll be 30 in less than a month. Things are going to be different around here!

The end of an experience

As part of my training, I was a therapist at a private liberal arts college, but this week was my last week. It was sad saying goodbye, but they gave me a present:

(It's a blanket, not a sweatshirt).

Next week I'll be doing psychological assessments (for custody hearings, mostly, it seems) and family therapy (in McMinnville of all places), but this week I got to luxuriate in my tiny, windowless office (that I shared with two people and lots of files), finish a mound of paperwork and listen to hours of audiotaped sessions. The life of a (student) psychologist is totes glamorous, let me tell you.

I know we've left some stuff out

We've had a busy few months, so some of the stuff we ordinarily post about has gotten a little lost in the melee. First and foremost is the annual BNAT post. Josh is working on it, but has been super distracted lately (mostly watching football, but also actually working). I was also going to post about all the awesome food we ate in Phoenix, but it involves a lot of links, youtube clips, and possibly some clever puns so I haven't gotten around to it. I promise, these posts are coming eventually.

But I can tell you about our upcoming trip in March so you can look forward to even more posts we haven't written yet. Josh has been in the process of finalizing hotels, but we bought our plane tickets a few weeks ago for ROCHESTER, NEW YORK! Woot!

Okay, really we're going on a church history tour, driving from Palmyra to St. Louis in a week, stopping at temples (not in order: Palmyra, Toronto, Nauvoo, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis) and other church history spots. For our one reader who likes our posts about the temples we've visited, I know this is going to be exciting.

Master of the House

I picked up my diploma today. Josh said I should share the news.

School has been going well lately. I've started my dissertation (and hope it will go better than the thesis) and already have over 30 client contact hours at my practicum site (which means nearly 300 overall). That's okay since I didn't do practicum last year and am not applying for internship this year. 

Recent Obsessions

and, of course....

(it was on sale)



(can't you tell I've started my dissertation... and the stress eating?)

New Things

We like to change things up every once in awhile here at the ShepAlder house. Recently we've made some new additions, like:

New curtains for the dining room (I admit that this picture didn't turn out well, but the curtains are pretty [in my opinion]).

The original dining room curtains are now in the living room.

And we finally got throw pillows for our living room couch!

A closer look. I just love sunflowers.

Also, here's something else that is new:

For those of you who have been unlucky enough to hear me complain about my poor eyesight, you will be glad to know that I finally got it checked (because Josh made an appointment for me) and I finally got glasses. The optometrist said that my eyesight isn't really that bad (I can still legally drive without glasses), but in the past couple weeks I have gotten very lost because I can't read street signs. I'll probably only wear them when I have to read things far away-- like when I'm driving somewhere new or when I sit in the back of a classroom. Now hopefully things will change.

This is Embarrassing, but...

... I kind of miss hearing "California Gurls" on the radio ten times a day.

So I downloaded it from iTunes.

Yep. That happened.

In other news:
Josh is working on the post about our "Lost" tour, but he's been working the Hoodoo booth at the fair this past week (plus the post is really, super long), so it's not ready yet.

And I've started school and practicum, so I've been going to bed earlier because I have to be places by 8:30, which means I have to wake up by 6:30. The downside of bangs is that I have to wash my hair every day otherwise I look gross. My shower cap is looking very forlorn. 

Did I mention...

... that I got a haircut? Because I did.

It's the first time in quite awhile (20+ years) that I've had bangs, because when I did they looked like this:

and sometimes like this:

I like the change. I think the bangs make me look older, which is nice when I'm supposed to be an expert that people come to with their problems. I've been having that experience lately where, when I tell people I'm a therapist, they don't believe me. 

Drum Roll Please....

Our new closet!

My side of the closet

A closer look

When we first moved into our house, I ended up with the left hand side of the closet where there were the only shelves. Josh took up most of the hanging space because he had so much stuff to hang (I don't think he had gotten rid of any clothing since before his mission). 

But NOW, I get the "long hang" and Josh has tons of "short hang" space. We have probably three times as much shelf space, four times as much hanging space, and a guarantee that this closet will be up until we die (or move, whichever one comes first).

From the doorway. That shoe rack to the left is full of all my beautiful shoes that previously had to sit on the floor or hide in the spare bedroom closet.

Josh's side

They even installed tie racks, which I love so much I thought I might cry when I saw all of Josh's ties hung up, when they had previously lived on the floor or somewhere that Josh could never find them. We have most of our stuff out of the cloud room now, but I figured that an empty closet is much more fun to look at then all of our boring clothes. Also, in these pictures the closet looks a strange shade of Tiffany Blue when it really is more of a sky blue. We mixed up a bunch of the paint we have leftover, and it turned out pretty well.

In short, if you ever want to re-do your closet, Portland Closet Company is efficient and friendly. We had a guy come and give an estimate, then two weeks later the closet was being installed, and it only took a few hours until it was done. It was possibly the best ending to an otherwise stressful situation.

P.S.

This our 100th post! Woot.

The Closet: An Update

Remember when this happened?

Well, we are finally getting a new closet (yay!) Tonight we had our FHE in the closet. Right now our lessons are coming from the book Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon: Is this the place? by Dr. John Lund. Josh pulled out nails and I read out loud, then we spackled together.

But we're left with a dilemma. We have all this wire shelving for which we have absolutely no use. I would like to recycle it or reuse it or something. Does anyone have any use for wire shelving? We would gladly give away everything we have, which includes the metal arms and screws, though all of the dry wall anchors are broken.

Here are some of the shelves:

We have two really long shelves, too, but those are in the garage. We would love it if someone wanted them, because we really, really, really don't, and I worry that we'll just end up dropping them off at the dump.

There were so many holes in our walls, but we spackled them all. Our next goal (Saturday) is to repaint the whole closet, but we haven't decided on a color yet. It depends on what leftover paint we have in the garage.

The pink spots are spackle-- where there used to be holes

In the meantime, all of our clothes are in the Cloud Room. It's extremely frustrating. 

Josh also has a ridiculous amount of clothing, so next FHE will be devoted to sorting things out for the DI trailer. Somewhere some lucky XL guy will get to be the recipient of Josh's 500 t-shirts.

Just One of Those Weeks

I find myself being really annoyed when the people whose blogs I check regularly don't post every day, and yet there are some months that go by where I don't post at all. I don't even have the excuse that nothing is happening! Though this week, it seems, has been the week for professor to be snarky with me, and I can't even claim not to deserve it. I got a particularly snarky e-mail, and my first instinct was to reply in an equally snarky way, but I refrained. Because, quite frankly, I deserved it, and I can't go around feeling self-righteous or indignant when I could have avoided the whole thing.

In other news, I suffered a harrowing half hour when I received an e-mail from The Powers That Be telling me that I had been given the wrong Practicum II placement information. I had initiated e-mail contact with the person I thought would be interviewing me, only to be told this was wrong, which wouldn't have been so bad except that if I interviewed at the replacement site I had been given, I woud be competing with a friend for the placement. Thankfully, though annoyingly, I got another e-mail telling me to disregard the other e-mail, so I am back to interviewing at my original placement. There is no guarantee that I will get it, even though I've only been given the one option (and it's my number one choice), but at least that momentary freak-out had a positive ending.

In even more news, Josh and I have finally seen all of the Best Picture nominees, so we're looking forward to Oscar night!

Flu Season With the ShepAlders

These objects have become commonplace in our house this past week!

It turns out that even we are not immune to the flu, though we were having a good run of it there for awhile. Josh definitely got the worst of it, as he was sick from Thursdayish and is STILL SICK. He has mostly had a sore throat and a cough, which has made his snoring even worse. I was feeling a low level of sickness earlier last week, and I randomly started sleeping a lot, so I figured that I passed Josh something that didn't actually make me very sick, but I was wrong.

On Sunday when I got back from church (Josh was WAY to sick to come with me), I took a nap that lasted for seven hours and when I woke up I was sick with a fever, body aches, and a stuffed nose. That pretty much lasted until Tuesday. For those few days, whenever I woke up I would just eat because I was ravenous, take medication because I hurt, and try to drink water so I wouldn't get dehydrated and die. My temperature got up to 101 degrees, but that was really the worst of it. I felt like I was freezing and burning up at the same time because my body was giving off so much heat.

It wasn't fun, but I think we're pretty much over it for now. This may have been the first time Josh has been so sick since we've been together. Josh doesn't get sick very often. I, on the other hand, get sick all the time. So this was the first time Josh was sick and I wasn't (for the most part), though Josh wasn't that demanding like I am when I'm sick (and not sick).

We decided to sequester the cats while we were sick and I just let them out today. When I opened the door to the Bonus Room, it was like a cat stampede! That is, until I put food in their bowl and they were all clamoring to get back in the room.

So this is all why I've taken a break from continuing my DC posts, but more are coming soon.

P.S.
17 days 'til BNAT!

Looking Forward to the Future

It's been awhile since we've provided an update, so here are some things we've been up to lately, and some things we're going to do soon:

I (Emily) am still in school during the summer. I am also still working as a mental health counselor at a drug and alcohol residential rehab. It's been challenging. Pretty much every time I see a client I have to quell a mini internal meltdown because I get a little worried that I will never be able to help anyone. My supervisor constantly reminds me that I can't make anyone change, but I can at least provide support and make an effort to learn more about each client and why they are the way they are. I am fascinated by my clients. Some are nice, some are mean. Some lie, some manipulate, but some genuinely want to change. I love it (most of the time).

I am also volunteering at a place called Homeward Bound, which is a center for adults with brain injuries. It's located on a farm in Cornelius, which is totally in the middle of nowhere, but it also means that they have chickens, a llama, a hourse, and a goat. The volunteering is related to a class I am taking this term called Human Diversity, which is about diversity issues that clients may have and how to provide adequate therapy for different diverse groups. On the first day of the lab portion of the class everyone talked about which groups we would be the most scared to work with, and I admitted that I would have difficulties working with mentally or physically disabled populations. Everyone was assigned volunteer work based on these diverse populations with which we were worried about working. I have to admit that most (maybe not all) of my fears were unwarranted. The people who work there are exceptionally nice and completely helpful. They have encouraged the clients to talk about their various brain injuries and the resulting disabilities. It's fascinating.

Josh is continuing to work as the PR and marketing director of Hoodoo Family Recreation. Right now it's camping season, so he's spending this weekend at an RV show in Albany. He is suffering through allergy season, which has been much tougher for him this year than last. In his free time he has been working out. We joined 24-Hour Fitness, so he works out at the oddest times. Like, right now he's at the gym. He has lost so much weight, his pants just fall off! I always tell him to buy new pants, but he ignores me. He doesn't like to shop. Josh has also been enjoying his calling as Scout Leader/Young Men's Leader. He's the sole member of the YM adults who did not attend BYU, so he feels like it's his duty to let the YM know there are other colleges in the universe.

My term ends in July, and after that I am taking the year off. We're really excited because it means we can do all sorts of travelling. We've been wanting to go to Washington DC forever, but have instead taken various other trips (well, we've gone to Disneyland twice, as per Josh's request). We're also going to drive from DC to Philedelphia to visit the various US history sites. We also already have plane tickets to Southern CA to go to Disneyland (for the third time in two years) with my family, then we're going to spend another week and go to the Hearst Castle to take another tour (we visited there during our honeymoon tour through CA) and then stay at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. We're also planning to go to Austin, TX again sometime this winter to visit my sister and her family, and I've been begging Josh to take me to Hawaii. So many plans!

I am so excited about taking time off, it seems like sometimes I completely forget that I'm still in school. Instead of reading textbooks, I've been reading mystery novels, and instead of preparing a presentation, I am writing a blog post!