Living a Chaotic Life

Lately our house is a shipwreck.... or perhaps by now I should say the ship has not only wrecked, but rather sunk. We are moving to Vancouver, WA. in a short 11 days. Things around our house have been slightly crazy as you could imagine. I don't think that Quincy really knows what's going on yet.... although he has thoroughly enjoyed playing with all the boxes.

Quincy playing with his new friends, the boxes.

(If only our moving process looked something more like the picture above!)

Quincy showing me his master box-stacking skills.

(Wouldn't it be funny if our boxes were labeled like this?)

The past 3 weeks have been a sort of whirl wind for us. We went from Tyler having no prospects of finding a job any time soon, to him getting a few phone calls to set up some interviews, to us driving to Portland so he could go to the interviews, to him receiving a job offer for JP Morgan Chase, to our final decision that he will be working at KEY Bank. It has been quite the process. We feel very blessed through this whole process and we know that God has been gently guiding us to where we need to be. Both of us feel good about his decision to choose KEY Bank and we are excited to move on to this new stage of our lives.

We will be living in boxes for a little while longer, as my parent's have offered to let us stay with them until we get settled. It is nice that we don't have to be rushed to find a place to live in as soon as we make the move. I will try and keep you all updated the next few weeks as to how things are going.

How much is really Necessary?

I've been working more hours recently and while working this past week I had two interesting experiences.The first one was a $200 flower arrangement sent to a daughter celebrating her 29th birthday from her mom. I told my mom, IF you feel the need to spent $200 on me for a birthday present, PLEASE just give me the money!


The second interesting experience I had at work was with a gentlemen. A man phoned in to have a $100 arrangement sent to his wife as an apology. He sounded really distraught, and apparently REALLY needed it to be impressive. Again, don't you think that if you were apologizing to your wife you could maybe manage to do it without spending $100 of your money?

I'd take a back massage/ foot rub, or a pedicure/manicure over the $100 worth of flowers.... but hey, that's just me. Am I cheap? Do these situations sounds crazy or is it just me? Whatever happened to 'economic hard times'?

Look what Happens when I'm out of town...

When I was in Washington Tyler worked a few days in Fruitland. While he was there he decided to visit the parents of an old friend. As he was leaving, their dog got a little too excited and attacked his leg while he was walking out to his car. The dog tore his pants and left a nice little scar on his calf.

This was the damage. The scar on his leg wasn't as bloody and by the time I took this picture it was mostly just bruised. The parents of his old friend were really apologetic and gave him some money to buy some new pants.

And here are the new pants! I didn't really care for the old pants anyway... so I wasn't too sad to see them go. Hopefully the next time I leave he won't be shot, cut, bitten, or abused in any other way.

A day of Work:

Well, we're arrived in Washington and everything has been a blur. Thursday after arriving in Portland we went to lunch at Quiznos and I had a retainer check up in the afternoon. We pretty much just hung out for the rest of the day and visited.

Friday my brothers and I went to help work as servers for the Dr. Croft doctor appreciation party. My mom had to be there to help so we all agreed we'd help out.... not mention we would get paid. I thought, hey why not?

The party turned out well. The only disappointment was that the number of people who actually came wasn't as many as they had hoped would come. We didn't have to work terribly hard and it was fun being there with my mom and brothers. This picture was taken after we had finished cleaning.

Left to Right: Spencer (21), Scott (18), Me (23), Karter (16), and our Mom (you get the idea).

A sneak peek:

Here are some sneak peeks at Kelly's wedding flowers. These are just a glimpse of a small portion of her bouquet. She is here this weekend and loved it. I'm so glad. I can't wait until I can show you all of it.

Busy part III

Saturday we spent with Tyler's youngest sister Kelly and her fiance Mike. They came over from Jerome to watch the girls High School basketball play-offs. Well, I should say that Mike came to watch basketball, Kelly came for that too, but we had some wedding stuff to plan also.

I have decided that my gift to my sister in-laws is that I will do their flowers for their weddings free of charge. It's good experience for me, and a great gift for them, seeing as how cost of labor adds up when there are many flowers involved. I have already completed the men's and boys boutonnieres. I also finished Kelly's wedding bouquet. It turned out beautiful.....but I can't exactly post pictures just yet. I didn't think it would be fair that everyone saw her flowers before she did..... so I'll just give you a sneak peak at the baby cousin's boutonnieres. This is the smallest of them for our soon to arrive cousin and nephew Jakoby (sorry Heather if I slaughtered the spelling... I think that's how your mom spelt it for us). It looks much bigger than it actually is because I zoomed in.

I love the tiny little boutonnieres for the boy nephews. They are just adorable. I'm sure they won't last longer than for one picture during the wedding, but hey I couldn't resist!

More to come later on the finished results for Kelly's flowers.

*****And just so you know Kelly, everyone that has visited our home and sees the bouquet and everything else thinks it's all gorgeous. So I hope you love them as well. :o)

Lastly, Sunday...............to wrap up our crazy week, I sang a solo in church. To say that it went well would be generous. I walked up to the podium only to realize that I didn't have a full sheet of my music. As if I wasn't nervous enough.......By that time I was terrified that I'd forget the words and totally screw up. My throat was entirely too dry and I felt like I squeaked through a couple of notes. Lets just say I was glad to have ended it. Maybe next time, if they ever asks me to again, it will be better. Lets hope so......for my reputations sake!

Working Girl:

So incase you want to see what I've been up to the last week I posted some new stuff on my other blog:

Bella--design.blogspot.com

..................Check it out!...................

Beauty in the heart of sadness....

Just last year the daughter of a woman in our ward passed away at the young age of 30. I had the opportunity to give of my services in helping with the funeral flowers. The family didn't have a large budget for the funeral last year and so the daughter was cremated. They requested that I make a wreath of silk flowers to go around the urn. I was pleased to help where I could and gave of my services for free.

Although the family is inactive, I hope that because of the love and service given by members in our ward they will someday feel comfortable enough to start coming to church again. This year I was called again by the Relief Society president to help with the mother's funeral flowers. I, again, was glad to help. Though I feel it was unfortunate that the same family who mourned a death last year for a daughter & niece is now mourning for a sister & mother.... it was somehow easier for me to work with the family. I felt much more comfortable offering words of kindness to them.

I think the flowers turned out nicely... they were exactly what they requested, a wreath for the urn and a long low arrangement to sit in front of a large picture of the woman who died.
This is a birds eye picture of the low arrangement:

And this was how the wreath for the urn turned out:

There are some things I like and don't like about being a floral designer. One thing I don't enjoy the most about my line of work is having to deal with mourning families. But the thing that makes funeral work easier on them and myself is knowing that I can give ugly circumstances a beautiful piece of art to remember their loved ones by.

I hope that all of you can show love to the ones you love most today!

A good honest days work

I haven't worked in about two weeks, but the one day I did work I made several of these garden baskets. I was quite pleased to see that after this one was completed I made two more which were similar as a special request from two different customers. They each sold at $65 retail... not bad for only working 1 day and a 5 hour shift. I'd say I'm a good asset for the company.

And incase you're wondering what I've been up to:

I've been working on things like this:




It's been a nice creative outlet for me to work a couple of days a week, not to mention it's nice to have a little paycheck, and gain some more work experience.

Did I Mention..

... the posative side of working as a floral designer part time? Every now and then I get to bring home roses that we aren't able to sell because they've opened too big.

I LOVE having fresh flowers in the house.

Mini Heart attack!

This morning began like any other day at work. I started working on some AM (morning delivery) orders... and then began working my way through designing some arrangements to display in the cooler. I made some really beautiful $100 arrangements like the one below:

Carol, the manager at my work, asked if I would design some amazing and unusual arrangements for the cooler since our big re-opening is tomorrow. I agreed to started working on them as soon as I finished my orders for that day.

I worked diligently, seeing as how I was only going to be working until noon. I was just about finished with my last arrangement for the cooler when a lady bought one of the ones I had already done earlier that morning. She was so pleased and it made me really happy. After receiving the great praise, I was satisfied with the final arrangement I was working on and placed it in the cooler. I told all the other ladies I work with I'd see them all tomorrow.

I was at a stop light and decided I'd call Tyler to let him know I was on my way home. It was shortly after I hung up my phone that I reached over to the passenger seat to grab my jacket to put my wedding rings back on. -- I don't wear them for work because my hands get pretty dirty and I don't want to gum up my pretty wedding ring.-- I was careful to keep my eyes on the road and pulled over the jacket, putting my hand inside the pocket where I zipped them up for safety. I felt around inside the pocket and slowly realized it was empty. CRAP! was my immediate thought, I've lost them. Now just to fill you in on the reality of my situation, the floors at my work are gravel, and it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find a small white gold wedding ring in gravel. I KNOW, because two summer's ago when I worked at the same place lost my wedding ring. Luckily two years ago I got lucky and someone happened to see them while we were searching. This time I knew I wouldn't be so lucky. So now that you understand I was looking for a needle in a haystack, I'll continue...

I calmly called my work and asked someone to look at my station to see if they could find/ see my wedding rings. They put me on hold and then got back online to say they didn't. At that moment I felt my heart sink. I pulled the car off on a side road, at which point I was half way home. I thanked the lady and told her I'd come back to look for them some more. When I hung up I called Tyler back to tell him I had to go back to work because I couldn't find my rings. He told me good luck and was reassuring that they would turn up. I on the other hand, was not feeling an certainty of peace. I quickly and quietly said a prayer that I'd find my rings. I normally would feel stupid about praying to find something material, but my wedding rings are so much more special to me because of what they represent- our commitment to each other for eternity.

On the drive back to work I turned off the radio and drove in silence, hoping to feel some inner reassurance that things would be okay. I can't honestly say that I felt anything... at least not right away. When I got to work I explained to everyone there what my rings looked like and even gave a description of them to the retail ladies IN CASE someone turned them in. This is what the scribbled description looked like:

Three separate bands, the odds of finding all of them were less than likely, but on the other hand the odds of finding one was better. Although I thought the chances of someone finding them would be slim, I hoped that if someone had that they would have the morals to turn them in to lost and found. Nonetheless, I searched... for an hour, turning over every piece of gravel, retracing my steps, digging into buckets of flowers in hopes that maybe they josseled loose out of jacket while I was working, I even wrote down all the numbers of people's arrangements I did in case they fell into a bouquet that was delivered. I was relentless in my search for my precious rings and despite having the outward calm and optimistic appearance, I was a wreck on the inside. I could feel my hopes sinking lower and lower towards despair. I thought: 'This is it, they're gone. I will never see them again. There's a couple thousand dollars... gone.' I walked to my car and sat in the drivers seat and called Tyler. He answered and I was all but in tears when he said 'hello'. I told him I couldn't find them and I looked everywhere. I said, They're lost! I felt so horrible and do you know what my husband said in reply? "Kati, it's okay. It's just a ring. You're still married to me. I love you. This made me feel slightly relieved, but still horrible that I lost them. I agreed with him over the phone that I'd come home and we could go back together to look so more before giving up completely.

I bawled on the way home and tried to take lots of deep breaths as to not get into a car accident. When I walked through the door Tyler hugged me and told me how much he loved me and that it was really okay. That just made me cry harder and them eventually I calmed down again. After Tyler and Quincy finished getting dressed we got into the car and drove back to work again. While we were in the car I choked back tears and Tyler squeezed my hand for comfort. He told me not to give up that we might find them. I replied, "Well I think we need a miracle." We arrived and I retraced my steps with Tyler and he remained quiet and calm as we searched. I even showed him inside my jacket pocket where I put them feeling inside the lining and looking again, for the 5th time. I was searching through a large arrangement in the cooler when Tyler said, "Kati." I looked up in hopes that he might have good news. He was reaching his hand in my jacket pocket and had a slight smile on his face. He had found them. They were underneath the zipper.

Now, I know that some of you reading are thinking, DUH, you couldn't find them right there in your pocket, but NO. They WEREN'T in there. I swear. Tyler's a little notorious for not being able to find things right in front of his face, but not me. Plus I searched those pockets thoroughly before going back to work, and then again when I got back in front of Carol. I guess I can never really say for certainty, but I believe that Heavenly Father heard and answered my prayers for a small miracle. I know that he looks out for me and loves me so much he gave me my rings back. :)


What I learned today is that I will NEVER wear my wedding ring to work again.

You, You, You, You, You, You, YOU.....

.....I wanna talk about me! So I guess if you haven't heard that country song you're probably pretty confused right now.

Anyways.

I've been busy lately... working, being a mom, and of course being an amazing wife! :) I just thought I'd post a blog about the work I did this weekend. I spent an entire DAY of work designing wrist corsages and boutonnieres for a homecoming dance! It was fun, but challenging since most of the orders had special color requests and flower preferences. It was really fun to brush up on my basic skills though. It's been so long since I'd done anything that basic. I spend most of my days at work completing orders for $60-120 arrangements. I love having the flexibility at work to switch between wedding work and everyday stuff. I'm getting lots of practice and knowledge that will go to good use for running my own business from home.

Now if only I could get a better camera to take some higher quality pictures for my personal portfolio.

Oh... and as a side note, I was pleased to return to work and find a note from a lady who's bouquet I designed for her 91st birthday who couldn't praise my design enough. She told my fellow co worker that she would love to talk to me because she was thoroughly impressed with my work. It was nice to hear something like that. I should keep her as a reference :o) Although, at 91 years of age, I don't know how long I could keep her as one. Not to be disrespectful. I was just happy to hear that someone really liked what I did. It's always nice have clients praise what a good job you did. I usually get a few of really great compliments on my designs, but every now and then there's that angry customer who HATES what you did because you used a flower they can't stand and failed to inform you about.

****Sigh*****

Such is life though.

Working Girl

Yesterday was my first day back to work in almsot 2 years! I'm only going back to work as an on-call floral designer....which works out okay because Tyler can be home with Quincy the couple days I have to work, and they're not even full days. It was fun to get out of the house and do something I enjoy. I started working for Carpenter's Custom Floral... although they are in the process of changing the name, due to the fact that the previous owners (The Carpenters) have left the business. It was sort of a chaotic day.... but that's always nice because the day goes by faster when you have more to do. I did a lot of funeral arrangements for a 19 boy who comitted suicide, pretty tragic. They were beautiful pieces though and I'm kind of kicking myself for leaving the camera at home. I figured making something beautiful for something ugly that happened is the least I could do. I did a lot of other large arrangements. It was nice to be around flowers again. Which reminds me... I need to get more serious about doing more work on the side. I will be updating my business blog: http://www.bella--design.blogspot.com/ more frequently since I'll have new things to post.

The day was almsot over when we discovered that two of the large arrangements for the funeral weren't taken out on the delivery van. Carol, the manager, and I had to take them out. There were two huge flower arrangements, one that I made earlier and another that was in a large glass vase. Then we had to take a big pot planted with flowers and another heavy terrecotta pot with succulent plants which probably weighed 100 lbs easily. So off we went-- little Carol and I-- driving to this house where we weren't quite sure was. We finally found the house after missing a few streets and having to double back a few times. When we arrived we knocked on the door to see if anyone was home, but no one answered the door. We usually don't leave things at the door, since it gets too hot, but luckily her porch was shaded and secluded away from the street. We lugged the huge flower planted pot together up to the door step-- which took great effort on both of our parts. Then we each carried a huge flower arrangment, I was stuck with the heavy glass one. It was nearly as big as me, which made it difficult to see where I was going while trying to balance it in my arms. I was being extra careful so I wouldn't drop it. I was extra slow in going up her two cement steps and even in kneeling down to put in on her porch.

Just as I had one side of the bottom propped on the ground my foot slipped and I lost my balance. Down I went, crashing the glass vase into the hard cement porch and slicing my hand open quite nicely. It hurt so bad and there was blood gushing out everywhere-- thank goodness I don't faint at the side of blood, otherwise I'd have been passed out in one glance. Carol wasn't mad at all, she was just concerned that I wasn't hurt too badly. I reassured her I was okay, though I don't think I was really convinced myself. After we managed to scrape up all the rock that was in the bottom of the glass vase and pick up the scattered pieces of glass, we realized that the large terracotta pot--which we had lugged slowly to the porch we delivered all the other arrangements and planted pot to-- was supposed to be delivered to another house. We had to lug it back to the van..... I'm sure we were a sight to see.....me with a gaping wound in my left hand which was wrapped with a dirty napkin from the van, and Carol who's about 110lbs, 50 years old and 5' nothing.....as we were waddling clumsily to the van to get that stupid pot back in.

We finally found the address it was supposed to go to and once again, dragged it out of the van and up a huge walkway full of stairs, which was all uphill. I apologized a couple of times on our way back for breaking the vase, and Carol reassured me she was sort of glad. She said she felt bad since the flowers weren't as fresh as she wanted and felt bad about the lady's son who killed himself and was wishing she could've sent something better. Tuesday we'll re-deliver since we'll have fresh tropicals.

All in all I'd say it was a pretty great first day back to work... with a little bit of a disaster of an ending. Oh well what can you do? I took some pictures today of it, but it doesn't even do it justice to what it looked like yesterday!