(Ok, Mel. You are allowed to sue me for breach of contract. But not for too much because I’m only 24 hours late.)
These last few months have just flown by. I think it’s a function of my age, but time goes SO much faster than it did a few years ago. June was fantastic. As mentioned, I moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment with some friends. That has been a wonderful, if expensive, decision. I love my roommates and we are getting very close. It’s a great apartment – which is good because I’m stuck with it until at least next June.
June was also wonderful because I was able to spend a week and a half in Utah with my long lost siblings. (Or am I the long lost one?) I was surprised with how much it made me realize that I miss about Utah. Ok, not Utah itself. But there are so many people there that I love. I am tempted – kinda – to head back out that direction when I move on from Delaware (maybe next year). I don’t want to live in Utah, but it might be worth it in order to spend more time with these people.
I was expecting to spend a lot of time with Kathryn and new baby Josh because, let’s face it, that’s why I went. Josh is adorable and my whole trip would have been totally worth it just to hold him once. And I got to hold him a TON! Plus I miss Kathryn. Kat – you are my best friend and I’m so lucky to be your sister.
But I was able to spend a lot of time with a lot of other people too. I had dinner with some of my old middle school friends and their families. It was great to reminisce and remember back when we were kids who thought they were so grown up at 12 or 13. And remembering all the good times since then too. And everyone’s kids are so cute!
I got to spend a day or two with one of my very very best friends ever, Jessica Ellison. She is one of maybe 3 people I know besides my family whom I really trust to love me no matter what. Some people are good friends, but no matter how much you like them you still always feel like you need to impress them or you feel like you have to worry about how much they will judge you before you tell them something really personal. It’s never that way with Jessica (or Ellie as she calls herself these days – which is really weird, by the way Guck). We’ve pretty much decided that the day our mothers met and we started playing with each other in the nursery at church was the best day ever… even though we don’t remember it. She’s also the kind of friend who I can not see or even talk to for a number of months or years and we’d still be able to pick right up where we left off with absolutely no awkwardness. And we’d still love each other just as much.
I got to stay with my Grandma and Grandpa Savage who are two of the coolest people on the earth. I really love my Grandparents. All 4 of them. And I know that I am extremely blessed to have all four of my natural grandparents still living and living together. The older I get, the closer they are to my heart. Which makes me a little scared because I know they won’t be around forever. But I’m hoping for another good 20 years at least.
I also spent some great time with Matt and Rachel. I spent a whole day with Rachel setting up her classroom for this fall (yay Rachel!). The three of us were able to go to the temple together and spend many many hours just talking. Sometimes until so late at night that it was really early morning. (And yes, Grandma and Grandpa noticed that I came in at 5am.) Or watching good movies/shows… I keep telling them they’ve done a wonderful/terrible thing by introducing me to the phenomena of Doctor Who. I have lost many hours of sleep to watching that TV show since. But I don’t regret a minute of it.
After I got back July just seemed like a blur. My team leader pulled me aside at work to inform me that things were in motion to have me transferred to a new team/position here at CSC. She wanted to make sure that that was ok with me before it became official. I said yes, of course. But then it became problematic for me because I wasn’t supposed to tell my teammates until a general announcement was made. But I had a lot of things to do in order to get my filings and my clients all in order so they could be transferred to someone else. So I was trying to make all kinds of arrangements without letting on that anything was changing. But I got things squared away and they announced it and now I’m moving from the role of Annual Report representative to a general Customer Service Representative. This is huge because now, instead of specializing in one kind of filing and being able to manage a very specific list of clientele, I have to be on the phones where anyone anywhere can call me and I have to be an expert in everything. So I’m a little nervous. Since August 1st I’ve been training with various other teams here so that I can have at least a general grasp of what they do before I head into the CSR training. But I’m excited too. There is a lot more opportunity for growth and advancement there. (Not that I’m planning on making any long term career out of this… but it’s nice to know I have options.)
In other news, I’m still the Relief Society president in the branch. My dad (who is the high councilor assigned to the singles) is talking about the stake cracking down on the age limit in the branch. You know how YOUNG single adults is only supposed to go through age 30? Well my branch is crawling with 31-35 year olds. Since my dad mentioned it to me, I looked around our PEC/Branch Council meeting on Sunday… I’ll be the only one left. Which is why they haven’t moved on I suppose. The Elders’ Quarem president is 30, the Branch Mission leader is 30 (I think… he’s new, so I don’t know for sure.) the branch clerk is 31, the Sunday School president is 35-year-old student working on his doctorate, and even the second councilor in the Branch Presidency is my good friend who’s turns 32 this month, but I guess they’ll let him stay. (We don’t have any other auxiliaries in a singles branch.) So it will be interesting to see what happens and how much will change if they start to enforce the guidelines on that.
Back in February my Dad bought me a sewing machine (it was on sale!) as a thank you present for babysitting the kids while they went to Hawaii. So I finally brought it out and started playing with it. I had a project that was half done that I’ve been carting around with me, so I decided to finally finish it. Matt, you’ll be happy to know that the blanket that I promised you (a year and a half ago) is finally being put together. It will be finished by the time you come out here for Christmas. And don’t worry, you can have it even if I don’t draw your name.
I crocheted an afghan as a Laurel project (when they used to have those) and I decided to do another one of those too. Then, since I've actually never done this before, but always wanted to, I got a simple cross-stitch pattern and I'm slowly working on that too.
Something else that has been on my mind a lot recently is this Christmas. I know, I know, that’s more than 4 months away, but you don’t even know. First of all, it’s Christmas. I love Christmas. But even better than that, Daniel will be home from his mission. I miss him SO MUCH. We are going to speak in Spanish all the time. (Sorry to those of you who won’t understand us, but you are just going to have to deal with it. I’ve been going through Spanish withdrawals lately.) But even better than that, EVERYONE will be home for the holidays. Just as I’m going to start getting used to having Daniel around, suddenly Matt and Rachel and Reid and Kathryn and Adam and JOSH are all going to show up. AAAHHH!! I can’t handle how amazing and epic that is going to be. This is the first time that we’ll have everyone home since the family started adding in-laws. The Savage family now boasts a whopping 15 members: Mom, Dad, Heather, Matt and Rachel, Kathryn and Adam and baby Josh, Daniel, Reid, Victoria, Caroline, Steven, Nate, and Julie. That’s a LOT of people.
So I’m kinda glad I have my own place. : )
I haven’t been reading a whole lot lately. Moving tripled my commute time into work, so I’ve started listening to audio books while I drive. But it’s not the same. Plus I don’t want to get a book on audio when I already have it on my bookshelf. So I havent been reading the books that I said I would. But I’ll get to that soon. Promise.
Well, I hope that this post will satisfy those of you who have been anxiously awaiting information about my life. It’s random, but then so is my life these days. Please post comments. I’m looking for advice on how to do these projects better, ideas for other projects to start, scathing comments about not spending enough time with you while I was in Utah, Christmas wish lists, declarations of undying friendship, your favorite joke, sympathy for my sad new Doctor Who obsession, or anything and everything in between. Love!
(I was going to take pictures of many things mentioned in this post and put those up too... but my camera is broken. Sorry.)
