My husband is more than cool

Tonight I'm just thinking about people and how they judge each other, and I wanted to write it out to make sense of it. Read on, but be warned that it may be mushy.

There is a girl who doesn't like my husband very much. I think she just hasn't really gotten to know the real him--like she hasn't allowed herself to be close enough to really know his character. Anyone who knows him knows he is really upbeat and positive and also very selfless. While he does like to play the "cool" card, it in no way interferes with his kindness and humility. It got me thinking about how easy it is to make a judgment about someone else, and to then continue thinking badly of them no matter what they do later on. In high school I learned that I had to put myself out there more. I actually felt really shy around people I didn't know very well, but it ended up looking like I was really snooty. I still try to make a real effort to be friendly--I am just not much of a talker and not particularly expressive, so I know I have to let people know that I really do like them!

So I am just thinking about all of this, and I'm guessing that the majority of the time, we just get people wrong. It's interesting to think about--there are so many different personalities out there (maybe some more different than others!) and yet we always expect people to think the same thing as us. How backwards is that?

And on a completely different note, I am thinking just how wrong she is and how wonderful my husband is. Sure, he is a cool cat. And he may seem like he is overly confident and perhaps arrogant at times. If she really knew him, however, she would know that he acts that way kind of as a joke. I mean, sure--he likes to dress "cool" and play "cool," but he is much more than that and is, in fact, a very humble, hardworking, sincere guy and would do anything to help someone else.

I'm thinking about my expectations for other people--I'm sure I have them. And what are they? I expect that they act a certain way, that they will have certain reactions, that they will like one thing and dislike another. Are expectations a good thing? Are they limiting? Or do they help us in some way? It is really interesting.

I think of President Monson's talk in the General Relief Society broadcast. He could not have been more spot-on in his choice of topic. Women especially are so bad about thinking the worst of others and judging when they ought to be understanding. I know I've often pointed out someone's dirty laundry on the line, when in reality it was probably just my window that needed cleaning. Sometimes those little judgments can blow up to major resentments of others. I am hoping I can see people for who they really are, and I am hoping I can be the person that gets up early to clean that dirty window!

rained in.

The weather is rain. Lots of it. There also happens to be a lot of thunder, so Here I am trapped in my apartment. I don't really want to take the scooter out in the rain, especially becuase I don't really have any rain gear. and visibility will be a bit harder.

I had a soup fest a couple of weeks ago and was making homemade soups every couple of days. Well one of them turned out really great! A corn "choup" (chowder and soup) by Rachael Ray. It had bacon and potatoes and was soo delicious. The other soups.... we'll call a learning experience. It was fun to get out the cookbooks for a little while.

I am currently reading Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery. It is such a wonderful book. Here are a couple of favorite passages:

"Can you sing?" asked a thin, freckled girl, who yet contrived to be very pretty in spite of thinness and freckles.
"No," said Emily.
"Can you dance?"
"No."
"Can you sew?"
"No."
"Can you cook?"
"No."
"Can you knit lace?"
"No."
"Can you crochet?"
"No."
"Then what can you do?" said the freckled-one in a contemptuous tone.
"I can write poetry," said Emily, without in the least meaning to say it. But at that instant she knew she could write poetry. And with this queer unreasonable conviction came--the flash! Right there, surrounded by hostility and suspicion, fighting alone for her standing, without backing or advantage, came the wonderful moment when soul seemed to cast aside the bonds of flesh and spring upward to the stars.

Another line I liked very much was "To love is easy and therefore common--but to understand--how rare it is!" This line comes just when she has finally met another human being who is like her father--someone she can really talk with and share her true feelings with. She hadn't had that connection with her starchy aunts or sarcastic great aunt or even with her school playmates. It isn't until she meets a fellow writer that she really connects on that level. I just love that italicized understand. I love those kind of relationships.

P.S. I just talked with Traci for an hour. When we get on the phone together, we just go off. It is so fun for me.

Drip drip drip little april showers

drip.. drip.. drip.. Lil april showers! Alright it isn't april and it hasn't been raining, however everytime our neighbors upstairs do their laundry, (which is everyday) a little shower begins in our family room. This has been going on since july... With no help from the management of the apartment. not only a shower but storm clouds gather on our ceiling. Ok so there aren't any storm clouds, but the ceilings paint bubbles into tiny little rainclouds that bring forth moisture, and drip drip drip. Well it happened again yesterday, ironically the day before, the management came and scraped off the rainclouds and repainted over, they told me they had fixed the pipes, (this is the 2nd time they've told me this.) And once again it is raining. I guess I wouldn't be that bothered by it. but it is raining really close to our electronics, and it did stop our clock the first time. This is the 3rd time its happening. Well anyways I called and left a message, sounding a little annoyed that they still hadn't fixed the problem, within an hour one of the management guys came over, I showed him the lovely video of it raining, and the bowl full of water. He was pretty helpful. hopefully we won't have anymore showers till April.

The Other Day...

I was knocking doors the other day, I had just talked to a few customers and signed them up for more services. I then came upon a customer who wasn't happy with our service. The ironic thing is the fact that I literally came minutes after a competitors internet service provider rep left their home. They hadn't signed up yet to switch the service. The customer has a very large family and the internet had been going out couple times a week, which is annoying when you're doing homework. I listened to them tell me everything that was going wrong for over an hour. & about their life. The other service provider had told them they could get 50mpbs data, they just had with us 10mbps. I told them that we have that package and it will be cheaper too. The cust said that they didn't even know we offer that package. But that wasn't their only concern, they had had a hard time getting a hold of cust service. The other provider called our service line, only to be put on hold for a few minutes and then sent to an answering machine. They called his service and it picked up. I was thinking thats becuase they don't have any cust (which is sorta true by the fact that we cover more than just utah for service). The lady then told me I should work on my talents, and explained how we can gain talents and such. Well I showed them our price for 50meg and phone and tv, they saw that it was cheaper than the other, I also assured them that we would do something about their internet not working, cause there are a few other customers on the street that have our service, and the service is working fine. So it looks like our competition is selling cust service, becuase the cust knows that we actually have better quality service, (their son was a tech guy who see's that we have invested in more quality products. I hope our customer service will fix the issues that this one particular cust is having. We've fixed things like this. Cuase generally I'd say over 75% of the cust I talk to are happy with our service. but it was crazy. Very nice family they shared their life story and how people haven't treated them very nicely, its sad cuase their very nice and really smart. I"m going to follow up and make sure we treat them right as our customer.

My day off

Dear bloggers,
Isn't it fun hearing Raimo's commentary on life from time to time? I don't think I would hear those things from him otherwise. I enjoyed his notes on tetris, especially since the game has been keeping him locked up in the bathroom for even longer than usual lately. I'm glad to know that it helped in the rearranging of our house:It's so much more open now. I love it.

Today is the first day of fall. We've been leaving the windows open at night, and every morning is so crisp and cool in our apartment. And since we live in the shadows, it remains quite cool all day. Today I wore a sweatshirt for the first time (inside the house). I painted my nails an autumn bronze, I cleaned up my house and added a little fall decor, and I sliced up some garden fresh tomatoes and ate them with lots of salt (Raimo brought them home from work--from an old lady he met on the doors.... they were big and plump and so-much-better-than-grocery-store tomatoes). My friend did a soup week in honor of fall, and I'm thinking I need to make some delicious homemade soups because that sounds soo good.

I have the day off work today. It has been nice to sleep a little later, get caught up around the house, do some laundry, and see some daylight.

That is all that's going on. Lately I am loving:

--the sound of plastic hangers clacking against each other or screeching across a metal pole. This means either I am shopping or I am going to hit my sales goal at work.
--having a stack of good sheet music next to me at the piano (every once in a while, I go play at the church across the street)
--living the simple life with Raimo. Sometimes we really wish we had this or that awesome thing, and sometimes I really wish we had fun plans to move or to do something exciting, but then we have nice days like today and I am quite content where I am.

Here are some recent photos
So that's about it!
Love,
Jessica

I Dream In Tetris...

Apparently there's to many people on facebook right now, because I keep getting kicked off, and it won't load. Any how, I found down in my parents basement, my brothers old hand held Gameboy by Nintendo, along with that, I found some of the old games, like double dragon, mario land 2, blades of steel, and now my own personal favorite Tetris. I've gotten pretty good at the russian inspired game. To the point that when I close my eyes at night I see tetris blocks coming down, and I have to arrange them in such a way that they won't make it to the top. The graphics are sweet, 2 dimensional, black & white.
In everyday life, our apartment is like tetris, we have only so much space, and our furniture are the blocks that we have to arrange so that we can live within that space. Also our scheduling is like tetris, sometimes it can be a stretch trying to get Jess & I's schedules to match up and sometimes we plan everything right or we just get the right pieces and we clear a "Tetris" which is the term used when you make 4 lines disappear at the same time. Usually by the end of the semester, all the peices of hectic lives are coming down super fast and you don't have time to think all you can do is react and place at the lowest possible place. that includes homework, rent, bills, work, dating, family, and everything else.

Another Experience: Just a day on the job

So another day has come and gone, the weather was in the mid 80's and it was sunny. The usual thing happened I had to drive and look for the addresses on my list. Which I don't mind with xm radio, my first door, the lady came to the door on the phone and needed me to come back. I knocked a few empty doors, followed up with a lady who said she'd "like to do more research" Which pretty much translates, no. Becuase honestly 99% of those who say that never do any research. This person already is on the same network as us, the only difference with the two providers would be, she would save about $20. Anyways she said she'd contact me once she's done the research. I think the best research would be to just try it, since we don't have contracts, it will save you money. Well I do reccomend that people search things out to see if what we offer will be best for them.
Well enough about that, I was going to follow up with another person on the street and walked by a gentlemen that was standing by a house where there was supposed to be an address that I was suppossed to knock, So I asked him where this particular address is. It turned out he lived there, he had qwest and I could get him about 40mbps more speed for his internet, and save him $34 about. He was a nice guy.
I also followed up with another older lady, she had to buy a new computer, and is going through a lot right now. Her husband is starting to forget how to basic things. I listened to her for some 30 minutes. I think she needed to vent a little bit, and then she gave me some tomatoes from her garden. She's a very nice lady, and asked me to follow up with her in a couple of weeks. I hope everything will work out.
So that was another day on the job.

Great words about great books:

My aunt, Marilyn Faulkner, has just finished her book called Back to the Best Books. It is designed to assist book groups, or any reader really, in reading some 36 different novels that she calls classic. I just read the introduction of the book and loved her definition of "classic" or great novels! Here are a couple of paragraphs:


"When an author combines brilliant artistry with the desire to uplift and edify, the attentive reader achieves a deepened sense of what it is to be human. A great book is designed to change your mind, touch your heart, and lift your spirit. You should emerge from the experience of reading with some new wisdom about the human condition and a deeper perspective about the experiences of your own life. The careful and compassionate observation of the human soul is the gift that a great novel brings us. We cannot live everywhere; we cannot be everyone. But we can read, and by so doing send out a “cord of communion” (to quote Jane Eyre) to another kind of person, and then another, and then another, until we are reinvented by our interconnectedness. Those few authors that have created truly great novels deserve our serious attention; they add to our ability to live creative and thoughtful lives."

"...That is why it is so important that literature paint an accurate, rather than an idealized representation of the human heart. Franz Kafka said, “A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul,” and Chaim Potok described the process of writing as “mapping the human heart.” The best books show us our true selves, warts and all, yet somehow inspire us to rise above those weaknesses to something finer. To have this kind of life-changing experience, we must reach beyond the level of simple entertainment. Some great books have happy endings, some do not, but each one teaches us something true about ourselves that may lead to more satisfying resolutions of our real-life dramas."

You can read the introduction to her book in Meridian Magazine here

and her book is available on Amazon here.
And all the proceeds go to charity. Cool, huh?

And don't you love it when a book is your ice-axe that breaks the seas frozen in your soul? What books have done that for you, OR what did you think about my aunt's introduction to her book?

It's no secret...

...I've always wanted one. She is soo cute! And just think of all the fun hair possibilities!
I heart babieeesssss.