The Unadventures of Tracie

On February 24, 2009, I learned what it felt like to be a Beatles fan on April 10, 1970. This is the day that I learned that Steven Page was leaving the Barenaked Ladies to go solo. The news devastated me. BNL has been my favorite band for about five or so years now. Of course I heard their hit singles during the nineties while growing up. I was familiar with “One Week,” “Pinch Me,” and “If I had a Million Dollars.” I didn’t realize at the time that they were all the same band. It was Heidi who first led me to realize I loved this band. She made me a few mix CDs with various BNL songs on them. When I realized I loved the songs and they were all the same band, I decided to buy their Greatest Hits album. I loved that so much that I bought their first album, Gordon . After that, it was all history as they say. Subsequently I bought and loved the rest of their albums. In 2003 when they released a new album ( Everything to Everyone ) I listened to it obsessively. Then I heard they were comi...

Don't you hate when you're waiting around forever for something you want, and then when you finally get it, you don't like it? So about a month and a half ago I made an eye appointment because I was on my last pair of contacts and needed new ones. I go to my appointment to find out that wearing my contacts too long has caused an eye infection and that my eyes are too damaged to get an accurate reading. So I was to wear only my glasses and come back in a week. I HATE wearing my glasses full-time, but I wanted my eyes to heal so I wore them. I also had to put a substance similar to vaseline in my eyes at night every night. That was great gobby fun. No, it was annoying. After a week of this, I went in again to find out that my eyes still hadn't healed so I was told to get eye drops and come back in ANOTHER week. I was not happy about this. But I used the eyes drops and came back in...to discover my eyes STILL weren't healed and to come back at the end of the week, wh...

When it rains, it pours. That seems to be our lot in life. I’m doing much better today, but I’ve been struggling the last little while as everything seems to be going down the crapper all at the same time. Because of everything that’s been going down, I finally slipped up on my goal. As many of you know, I recently made a commitment to work out every day no matter what. And I kept that commitment for exactly SIXTY days. For sixty days in a row I did at least one thing that was considered exercise. On the low end this meant doing 20 crunches before bed. On the high end this meant doing a highly vigorous, high-intensity 40-minute workout. Most days were somewhere between those two, but I did it without fail for sixty days. Until yesterday . . . when I forgot. Two months of work out the window just like that. Gone. Good-bye woo-hoo see ya. Sigh. It’s not hard to see why I forgot. Yesterday I became completely and utterly depressed, a state I’m not fond of being in. I was optimistic when A...

“And there it goes, my innocence. . .There’s something more than the world out there” Well, here I am again, posting. I actually have something to post about too. So, as many of you know, I’m not totally in love with my job. Don’t get me wrong—it is a good job. But it’s 40 miles away (80 miles roundtrip). And driving two hours every day is not my cup of tea, er, hot chocolate. Also, I don’t feel like my talent is being used for all it’s worth. There’s never enough to do, and I get tremendously bored. It’s the same thing all the time, and it’s really not the type of editing I’d prefer to do. I also realized that I’m not as happy here as I could be for various reasons. So, last week when my former editing teacher forwarded a job opportunity at an LDS publishing firm in Springville, I eagerly jumped at the chance. My dream is to edit fiction. It has been for some time. I also think I’d be great at it. Not to be prideful, but I think I’m a darn good editor. If there’s one thing I am good...

So, before I bought my car I noticed the a/c go out during a test drive. We told the people that we wouldn’t buy it until they fixed it. Next time we came, it was “fixed,” and we bought my car. A month later the a/c started going out. Slowly the speeds and the fan died. It wasn’t too bad in the summer since I didn’t drive that much and I could get some cool air when on the freeway. Flash forward to the winter AKA the Cold Death of Coldness. So, I drove to Salt Lake and back every day. I have had almost no heat (except when cruising at higher speeds and when I had the defroster on from some reason). So last week the defroster stopped working and I was getting almost no heat. I couldn’t take it anymore so I finally took my car to the shop to get fixed. I found out that I needed a new blower motor and a new blower resistor (the thing that makes the air go different speeds). Sigh…. So $478 dollars later, my heater works again! I no longer freeze on my way to work, tap my leg to keep warm, ...

I finally found out that I did NOT get the Covenant job. I'm pretty sad about it. I really wanted it. They took long enough to get back to us. I will, however, still be able to do some freelance work for them. They sent me some information to get started on that. Now I just need to find another job. I've been looking, but haven't found anything promising. I hope I will find a job soon. Austin and I went to the dentist today. HayLee cleaned my teeth. I like getting my teeth cleaned; it feels so nice. Austin has cavities. He's going back tomorrow to get them taken care of as our insurance expires on Friday. I had no cavities. When we get our new insurance (in 3 months) I'll go back to the dentist to get my 3 wisdom teeth out. Yay.

So this....isssss....love. Sorry. Disney songs in my head. So, good news. Austin found a new job just like I knew he would. He starts a week from Monday, which is extremely fortunate as this was to be his last week at QualitySmith. This means that he will not have any days of unemployment. We're grateful that the company gave them two weeks notice before they were ultimately laid off. His new job is at a place called MarketPartner. They help out new companies that are just starting out with their marketing, brochures, websites, and the like. Austin will be a CSR (Customer Service Representative.) He will not have to be doing sales. They have salespeople for that. He will be checking up on customers for renewals and upsales. He'll be making at least what he was at the old place. He has a higher starting base, which is good, but we'll see how he does on his bonuses and stuff. The place also has benefits too which start after 90 days. They may not be as good ...

Today...not the best day. We just found out that Austin is getting laid off. He has two more weeks and then one week severance pay. And yes, this happened just as he was supposed to be getting a promotion. It totally sucks. So we have to yet again find a new job for Austin. We really thought that we had finally found a stable and secure job. We're trying not to get too down. Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing. One kinda good news. I heard from Covenant. I'm one of the finalists and even if I don't get the position I will be able to do freelance work for them. So that's kinda good. I still have another two weeks until I hear back from them. Austin is now officially registered for school. He's taking Math 1010 on Wednesday nights and Student Success something on Saturday mornings. He's retaking the Student Success class because he didn't do so well last time and he needs to get his GPA up. I'm sure he'll do awesome. Be...