Shiney.

I am a huge slacker.

It has just been really hard to write in here. I never seem to have the time that I want to dedicate to an entry in here, and so I just keep putting it off until I feel like I do have time. Well I don't have time right now, but I'm making time anyways.

Things have been going really well at CFS lately. Ever since OJ created positions for us and gave us responsabilities, I have really been having fun. And I feel like I accomplish things each day. A lot.

One of the things I'm in charge of that I'm really excited about is rentals. We only have 2 rentals out right now, but I really think we can get a lot more out there, and really start to bring in a decent monthy income. We have a whole lot of used inventory, and a lot of that used inventory is pretty decent stuff. I really feel like this is a really good way for me to bring in some income for the company.

I'm also in charge of the groundskeeping and general cleanliness of the property. Now that I know I am in charge of that I can come up with a tasks and a schedule of when those tasks need to be done. Like cleaning the bathroom happens every Monday, or Mowing the lawn happens every Wednesday. And if I'm gone, I can make sure someone else gets it done. Its also been kinda fun to do some research on how to do some of these maintenance things.

Its just nice to be "in-charge" of things. I have more responsabilities as well, like making sure prices are correct in the system. Creating and updating pricetags. Managing the used inventory. Doing all in-house services. Managing the warehouse.

It's gonna take a while to get all these things to where they are workable. Especially the warehouse! But I am so excited to have some freedom to do these things. I feel like I can do them well, and shine.

Good News

Pam gets to come home today! She's extremely excited about that. We were a little worried at first that coming home would be a dangerous thing, but after talking to the doctor, we have some of those fears put to rest. He said that she would probably do better at home on bedrest. She wouldn't be as stressed, and she would sleep better, which are really key elements to a healthy pregnancy.

Now we just have to figure out a way to keep her off her feet. I might have to tie her down...

OJ is sending me to a class in Seattle to learn how to install and service Cardio Theatre at the end of August. Cardio Theatre is the tv's and radio's on the Precor machines at health clubs. It's a four day thing, and I have to pass a test at the end of the class. It doesn't seem like it'll be too bad. I am usually able to absorb information easily, and retain that information for a long time. Especially if I find it interesting. And I think I will find this stuff interesting. I enjoy learning how things work, and learning how to fix things. I am hoping he'll send me to Precor Tech Certification 1 school as well. I would really enjoy that a lot. Besides that, it would make me more valuable to CFS.

I really want to get back to school. Really bad. I want to learn stuff. To work towards a degree in something. I really would love to see myself in 10 years teaching at a university somewhere. Teaching really is fun for me. My favorite thing on my mission was teaching appointmets. I loved to find new and exciting ways to teach the principles of the Gospel to those who wanted to learn. Finding ways to help them understand in their unique way. It would be a pleasure to do something similar in a field at a university. Either History, or English. Both are of interest to me.

Maybe Zac and I could be professors at the same school... :0)

Not Much Sleep. But More Than My Wife.

My wife is in the hospital with some pregnancy complications. She's been there for a couple of days now. Things are looking good for now, but they want to monitor her for a few days at least, and maybe for the rest of her pregnancy.

She has something called "placenta abrupta". I think that's how you spell it anyways. Basically it means that her placenta is seperating from the wall of her uterus. Right now its not too bad, but it could become bad, which is why they still have her there.

She started bleeding randomly at about 18 weeks. We went into the ER, and they took some tests and an ultrasound. They didn't find anything, so they sent her home. It cleared up after a few days. They didn't seem too worried about it at the time. But they told us to come back if it happened again.

The next time we went in, the doctor put her on partial bedrest. We still didn't know what it was, but he wanted her to take it easy to see if it would clear up. The doctor also made an appointment with a specialist.

The specialist found the problem. This was last Thursday. She was 26 weeks along. He found the small place where the placenta was seperated. It wasn't a huge break, so he kept her on partial bedrest, told her to take it easy, and that it would hopefully clear up in about 6 weeks.

She was doing great for a couple of days. No bleeding, no pain or nausea. But then Sunday it happened again. She was very reluctant to go in, because she was afraid that the doctor would put her on full bedrest. Ultimately, we decided to go in. So we did, Monday evening.

Everything looked ok with the baby, and they couldn't see if the placenta had seperated more. But the doctor wanted to keep her for a few hours to monitor her. Before he let her go home, he told her that she was on bedrest with bathroom privaliges, and that she was to come in if there was the smallest bit of bleeding, pain, or if she was contracting every half hour. He also said that the next time we came in, she would be there for the duration of her pregnancy.

We were back the next evening. It was kinda scary. She was bleeding more than she ever has. They hooked her up to monitor the baby, and her. She was contracting every 3 minutes. The doctor was talking about delivering the baby the next morning. 2 months early.

Luckily they were able to stop the contractions, and the bleeding stopped as well. They decided not to deliver, but now Pam is on bedrest in the hospital untill she has the baby. She's not very excited about that. But it's better than having a baby too early.

Now it's just a waiting game.

Stairs

Man I am tired. It was a really long day yesterday. We moved almost everything from our old apartment to our new apartment. We got all the big stuff done by about one o'clock in the afternoon with the Missionaries help. Then we started moving all the little stuff. It was a long day. My right leg was killing me from walking up and down the stairs ten thousand times!

It's really exciting to be moved. We really like our new apartment. It's a lot bigger than our old one. Plus, it has washer and dryer hookups, and a fireplace. We love that. We also love the fact that it has two bathrooms. All in all, we couldn't be happier. This is some place I can see us staying for a couple of years. By that time, maybe I'll have a couple of years of college under my belt, better pay, and we can move into a house.

Two years from now I'll be 25. Wow. That's pretty crazy. Hard to believe it. Man life goes fast. I hope that I can get somewhere in two years. I kinda feel adrift still. Like I really don't know what I'm going to do with my life.

Seems silly to be 23 and clueless.

At least I'm happy. I have many, many blessings. And more to come.

Back to the Grind

I went through and double spaced between paragraphs in my previous entries. It's easier to read something when it has roadmarks, instead of looking like a giant daunting block of words.

It is deffinately a Monday. And a difficult one at that. After 5 days off...

My wife and I found out today that we don't get to move into our new apartment until Thursday. That was a let down. I was looking foreward to being in a new place tomorrow, and I know for certain that my wife was really excited. Alas, what is a young man to do. I guess we just wait.

I actually had a few customers come in today. That was a nice break from the monotony. Terry from Precor came today as well. He's the regional commercial sales rep. His responsability is making sure all the retailers in his region are taken care of. He told us some really neat things about Precor. I like it when he comes, because he is so positive, and he knows his stuff. It's always really educational when he comes.

The last time he came, I learned a whole lot. My sales style improved drastically after he left. I acquired a passion for precor cardio. I love to talk about it. The more I know, the more I want to share. My excitement for the product has lead to a couple of Precor sales.

There really is no comparison to Precor ellipticals. And their treadmills are superb as well. You will find reviews out there that place Precor products somewhere down the list from the number one spot, but that's just not right. It makes me question the integrity of some of those review companies. Consumer Reports included.

I literally could talk about Precor all day. They are expensive, but you deffinately get your money's worth. And then some.

You can see it in the way it's built. So simple. You can feel it in the perfection of its stride. Nothing feels better. Everything about it is well thought out, tried and tested, and engineered to as close to true perfection as man can get. And still they find ways to improve. Which fits with the full name of the company. Precision Corporation.

Maybe one day I'll be a regional rep for Precor! Or something. I think working for Precor would be a fantastic job. They really are a company that stands for something good.

Ok, I'll stop.

Late Night Conversation

Had a good conversation with a friend of mine last night. We ended up talking till about 1 in the morning. We like to do that. It's one of the things I enjoy the most about having him visit. He has been instrumental in several paradigm shifts in my recent life.

Last night was one of them. We were talking about my job, and I was kind of down about it. I've always considered myself a smart guy. A pretty level headed guy. Someone who excels at anything he does. Well, I don't feel like I excel at this job. We discussed the reasons for that, most of which are related to confidence. I'm still just not very comfortable with my boss (I'm getting there), and I don't really feel like I fit in all that much at CFS.

He told me something from his life that has really helped him out, and then applied it to my situation.

He said that what I needed to do was look at my job as one entity, rather than the two entities I'm currently seeing it as. I am seeing one CFS that I really like, the good times, the sales and dealing with customers, etc. And I am seeing another CFS that is hard on my body, that is hard on my stress level, that doesn't pay me enough, and where I am always in state of reaction because there is no sence of planning or organization. I need to look at them as one thing. One company.

He's right, and you can hear it in the way I talk about it. One minute I'll be talking about how much I love some of the things I do, the next I am complaining about my back hurting, or about how tired I am after dealing with the stress of every day being an emergency. But I don't seem to associate the two.

What I need to to is look at it as a whole, evaluate it's effect on me, and decide if it is something is good for me, or if it is something that is hurting me.

When I look at CFS, I see how awesome it can be. And sometimes I fail to see exactly how far away it is from being an awesome company. It's already almost lost its most beneficial employee because no matter how hard he tries to make it better, it doesn't get better. The owner just isn't willing to do what it takes to really make this place great. We hope he comes back, but I get the feeling that he won't.

Anyways, our conversation last night really got me thinking about all this stuff. Maybe it's time to move on. Actually, I'm pretty sure it is. When I take a realistic look at my job, I know what I should do. Or at least I think I do.

We also discussed reasons why I haven't already started an aggressive job search. One of the biggest reasons for me is St. Louis. I was unemployed for 4 months. It was literally hell. I have never felt so hopeless and helpless. I have never doubted in myself more than I did in those long 4 months. I don't want to go through that again. And I am kind of secure in the idea that I have a job right now. I fear that if I was to find another job, that it would become another St. Louis. That the job would seem to be awesome, but in the end, would fail and leave me unemployed again. I don't think I could bear that. It would be so destructive for me and my family.

But I have to try. Though it is comforting to have a steady job right now, it is not enough. It was never meant to be the way I support my family. It was meant to get me back on my feet. Well, I am better off now than I have been since I got home from my mission. But I have kind of capped out. I need to move on to something better.

Well, we'll see what happens.

Hope

Sometimes I feel very hopefull about things. And lately, such has been the case. I don't exactly know why that is, but I feel very good about things in general.

It's probably from having a couple of days off. It's been really nice to be home and spend some quality time with my wife. Yesterday we made breakfast together, and the day before that we had some good quality time to actually sit together and talk. She really is a wonderful woman. She has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know. And she puts up with me, so she's got some good patience as well!

I've worked a lot of hours this week. But more than that, I've been on deliveries this time instead of in the shop. Brandon sprained his ankle pretty bad over last weekend, and it's looking like he's gonna be down for a couple of weeks, so he's got to stay in the shop and off his feet. It kinda sucks, because I was just starting to get some things going, but he hates it in the shop, so I think he wants to get back out to his regular position as soon as possible.

The 4th was a lot of fun. Zac and Colt came over and we BBQ'd some burgers and dogs. I killed a few of them... I'm a beginner...

Anyways, I hope I can keep this positive attitude going. I really feel like some of the weight of stress has been lifted off my shoulders. And Pam and I are getting along great lately. Not that we don't get along pretty good most of the time. But its just been a very happy time lately. I think a lot of it has to do with my attitude. I just feel better.

Anyways, I'd better get home!