It's never that bad

So after my fiasco with the car, I took it in this morning to have the ignition replaced. I was in a much better mood this morning. I was going to drop the car off and have them take me to work. As I'm standing there talking with the guy, asking if someone can take me to work and explaining where I work, someone behind me says "Cathy?" I was a bit confused, but as I turned around I got such a great surprise. Rob, a guy from my ward when I lived in Orem, was standing there! I haven't seen him in almost 6 months and it was so good to see him! He offered to take me to work so I got to chat with him a bit.
Around 3 they called to tell me that my car was done and that the part they had ordered hadn't cost as much as they thought. Hurray! So my $400 car repair turned out to only cost me $250. My car works great and I got to see Rob. If you had told me Thursday that it really wasn't so bad, I probably would have glared at you and held back some biting retort or flying fist. :) But really things are not so bad when you look at them from a different perspective. Sure it bites that I had to pay $250 to get my car fixed, but I still had a car that ran and I drove it all weekend, they fixed it, I got to see Rob, and I learned a lesson, it's never as bad as you think.

Crappy Day

I had a fun weekend planned. Friday night I was going to go to a girls night with some friends, Saturday go to the temple, go for a run, go grocery shopping so I had food for my family when they came to visit, clean, maybe take a nap, Saturday night drive to Salt Lake and see Les Mis with my cousins, Sunday hang out with my fam, Monday play and go to the Bruno Mars concert. About half of those things happened.
Thursday was the day from Hell. I tell you I haven't had such a horrible day in . . . I don't know, a really long time. I should have known it wouldn't be good when I got up early to get some homework done and the internet was down. No problem I'll take my laptop to work and get what I need done there with their internet. I get to work and this man is pretty much waiting for me as I get out of my car. He didn't have an appointment. I called him the day before to set one up but he didn't call back. Once we got inside the building he was really upset that my boss wasn't there. "Well if you had called and set up an appointment I could have told you that he wouldn't be in this morning." Then he goes off and how this is the only time he could come and he won't be able to come back later. Not my fault. He's getting pretty upset with me, but HELLO there is nothing I can do to change the fact that JOHN ISN'T THERE. So I tell the man that I will go look for the papers he needs to sign, as I'm walking away he asks if John is always this disorganized, that really bothered me. Don't blame the fact that you think you can just walk in and have everything your way on someone else! I turned around and told him as much. I said "John is really organized, especially when he knows people are coming. He always has there stuff ready when he's planning on someone." Then I went and found the papers sitting on John's desk. Now the man is reading through them (good for him) and telling me everything that is wrong with them. How is that helping? Don't sign it, take the pen, make the changes and GET OUT OF HERE. To say he was rude and I was bugged is an understatement. After almost 45 minutes he finally left. Then my sister was going to stop in Provo and go to lunch with me, but her plans were changed and it didn't happen. This wasn't necessarily a bad things, but disappointing after my already not so great morning.
Then the worst part of the day. I went home for lunch since I hadn't packed one and I wanted to see if the internet was working (since the pass code for the internet at work wasn't working, just my luck). I got home, internet was working, ate lunch, got the stuff I needed for homework and then went out to my car to return to work. CAR WON'T START. It won't even let me try. The key will not turn past turning on the radio. It just stops. At this point I was just annoyed. I tried a couple things and then did what I always do when I have car problems, I called dad. He gave me a few things to try, looked stuff up online, but nothing. The ignition still wouldn't turn. I live on a hill and my driveway is pretty steep, and my car is manual so I rolled it down and popped the clutch and woohoo! my car started. I drove around the block and came back parked it in the driveway, turned it off, then tried again. NOTHING. It has the same prob. So now I'm letting my boss know, I'm not gonna make it in. I look up a mechanic, call them, the roll the car down the driveway again and take it in. By this point I have been crying, but I've composed myself. I take the car in, tell them the problem, then sit to wait. and wait and wait. They fix the clutch (which was temperamental) and then I wait some more. Finally the man comes in and takes me out to explain what the problem is. There is a tumbling mechanism in the steering column that actually start the car, there is a metal rod that actually cranks the starter and that metal rod has snapped. Such a tiny little piece of metal and yes that tiny piece of metal is costing me $250 plus labor. Now I know that this really isn't bad. It definitely could be a lot worse especially as far as car repairs go, but I've ALREADY had a crappy day! Now I am crying my eyes out. I tried really hard not to. REALLY, REALLY hard. So I go to go pay for all of this and what happens? MY CARD IS DECLINED! Are you freakin' kidding me?! That's never happened to me before! The man felt so bad. He did split up the bill so I was only paying for the part and I'll pay for the labor when it's actually done. They had to order the part so I've been driving my car around with the makeshift key that is actually an old dipstick. Real classy. So now I've missed half a day of work, I'm $400 dollars poorer, but my car still runs. I came home, went running and then tried to do homework. I'm not saying it was quality homework, but whatever. I did fail my statistics quiz, but by that time I wasn't surprised. The only highlight of the day was when I got a message on facebook from my friend Josh asking if I'd be home this weekend. I wasn't going home since my fam was coming here and we had lots of plans. I asked him why he wanted to know and he told me he was receiving his endowment Saturday morning. Now that's a big deal! I thought it through and decided that if I threw out the girls night party, the run, and the Provo temple that I could totally still do it. So what did I do?

A life of service

Today in sacrament meeting the talks were on service. The third speaker is leaving on a mission in a couple of weeks and compared our lives to a full-time mission. In essence we all came to earth on a mission, to obtain a body, learn and grow, and ultimately return to live with out Heavenly Father. I felt like throughout all of church, service was brought up again and again. Tee one speaker said he was asked to speak 3 times and all 3 were on service so he must not be very good at it yet. I feel like I probably fall into that category. We talk about service a lot but do we actually go out and do anything about it. Sure there is the ward service project, the random small acts of service, like making your roommates bed or picking up someones dropped book, but how am I actively serving? Am I just sitting around waiting to be acted upon? The challenge given today was to plan a service activity once a week. Don't just wait for it to happen. So now I feel that I need to follow the many examples that I have in my life, the many talks that have been given, and really look for, plan and carry out acts of service. I'm open to suggestions, invitations and company. I know that service brings great blessings to not only the people being served, but to myself as the provider of service. Call me selfish if you will, but it seems to me to be a win win situation and this is a challenge that I am prepared to take.

The "Big Run"

All right, for most of my life I have been a hater of running. As a child, the mile run day in elementary school was a dreaded day. The only reason I did even reasonably good was that dad always came and ran with us. It didn't really get better as I got older. It wasn't until college that I could at least tolerate running and do it of my own choice. It's actually my preferred way of working out now. It's the one thing I can do that at the end I actually feel like I've worked out. It provides a good feeling of accomplishment, since the mission I actually even enjoy it. So I made a bucket list this year and I'm not sure why, but I put run a half marathon on the list. I decided that I had to start somewhere at that a 5k was a good place. So yesterday I ran one! I've been running 3 times a week and felt pretty prepared. I actually had two friends come a run the race with me. My old roommate,Emma, on the right and my companion from the mission, Denae, on the left.


So obviously these are pre-run pictures. Thanks Emma for getting me these pictures.


And here are the end and post-run pictures. Thanks David.

Emma was off like a shot and Denae and I ran the race together. I finished it and didn't even come in last. I've got plans to run a 10k next month with my dad, sister and Emma,and then a 5k for July, August, and September. I'm pretty sure the half marathon will have to wait until next year, but at least I'm on the right track.

Life long friends

I love people. I get very attached to people fairly quickly. I have this thing with wanting everyone to like me, or at least not hate me and once we are friends I want to be friends forever. In college I had this vision of girls weekend getaways with my friends from college. Talk about our families, our problems, our hopes for the future. As I have graduated college and moved on with life I have come to find out that, although it's a great vision, it takes more than just me to make it possible. And so for that I am very grateful to those friends of mine who have kept in touch. Thank heaven for facebook and blogs. :) But more than that, the friends who, although they live far away, make an effort to contact me when they are in town, or who are more than willing to make time and arrangements to meet up with me when I go to their town. I am so grateful for the wonderful friends I have had in my life. I can think of so many, but I'm only going to list a few from each phase of my life.
Katie- the best friend a sunbeam could ever ask for and longest friend I have.
Dana- a friend who has withstood the test of time and distance.
Danizza and Laura- the high school posse.
Aubrey- the best example of a disciple of Christ and partner in many adventures.
Lucy- when I think of service I think of her.
Jamie- always willing to listen and chat
Denae- the best mission companion you could ever ask for and partner in many a p-day adventure.
Camille- Lives what she believes. Can make you feel like a million bucks and never thinks you're silly, no matter what you say or do.
Julia- my most favoritest sister, the funniest person I know, and my very best friend.
My mom- I put her last because when I was young, I definitely didn't consider her to be my friend, but she has seen me through the best and worst, she has been my defender, my confidant, my adviser and my friend. She gave me life and she has seen me through it.

To all of these beautiful women, thank you. Thank you for being a life long friend. Thank you for your example, your friendship, and your reciprocated effort to stay my friend more than just on facebook. :) You are all wonderful daughters of God. To those of you who are mother's Happy Mother's Day, to those of you who aren't yet, you will be great moms. I love you all.

School

Well an update on the school status. Through no merit of my own I got in for Spring semester at BYU-Idaho. I sent my application home with my neighbor who was here visiting her family and she gave it to my family and then my mom took it in Monday morning. Turns out, the deadline was a week after school started, so I was accepted that same day and after having the credit restriction block removed I registered for class and started Tuesday. It worked out that I was going home that weekend and I could get my books. So that was two weeks ago. Last week I went and bought a laptop. It's so pretty. :) I looked in Rexburg and Idaho Falls for the red one I wanted but couldn't find it. I finally decided to just give in and get a boring black one. I went to the Wal-Mart in Orem and bought it, but when I got home and opened the box it was the RED one!! Hurray! It seems that I'm a little rusty on the whole school thing. Online classes are a bit different so it took some time to adjust, but I think I'm getting it down. And now I can even watch the videos. If you ever decide to go back to school for a couple classes at BYU-I, make sure they take of the "Alumni Student" status or you won't be able to watch the videos online for your classes. That was frustrating, but we finally got it figured out.
And now to just keep plugging along. I think the History will be okay. It's actually very interesting. The Statistics on the other hand is gonna be a struggle, but I can do it. :) And today it's sunny and very Spring looking. Love it. What a great day to be alive.