Annual Summer Cabin Trip

Hi everybody!

Time for my once-in-a-blue-moon blog post. 

I thought I would share a few pictures from our recent family trip to the cabin (my mom's side of the family). It is absolutely beautiful up the Weber Canyon. It feels like stepping out of reality and into a dream.

Clint and I took a walk one evening to the "Big Spring" where you can drink fresh mountain water almost exactly where the water comes out of the mountain. BEST. WATER. IN. THE. WORLD. We took a picture on the bridge over the Weber River on our way to the spring:

We went on a hike up the ridge behind the cabin one day. Clint's a hiking fool and he sort of initiated the whole thing. Once you get up high enough, above the firebreaker roads, you run into this massive grove of aspen trees. It was amazing.

Clint with our "minions" (a bunch of my cute cousins who took to following us on the trail. My youngest sister included.)

This one is on the road next to the cabin. This was just another beautiful evening up in the canyon and Clint and I took a little walk down the road to scope out some of the other cabin dwellings.

It sounds like we did a lot of walking, which I guess we did, but the main event up at the cabin is...BADMINTON!!! I played all night, every night with my cousins, sisters, uncles, parents, and the entire clan. Badminton is like the most underrated sport ever. So fun.

Yes, I do frequently imagine dragons.

I'm crazy about these guys. Imagine Dragons.

And there's more than 1 reason why Night Visions is the most played album on my ipod right now.

• First of all, I am still missing most of my music from our hard drive crash months ago because I haven't had the guts to cough up 500 bucks to recover the files (will eventually)
• Second of all, have you heard "It's Time"? If you have, you wouldn't even need to ask.
• Third, "Radioactive." Speaks for itself.
• It's great music to accompany writing a book about a spell trapping people in a time capsule
• Fortunately for me, my baby sister also loves the album and I get to act like a teenager again as we try to play ping pong and dance in the basement at the same time. My moves are atrocious and no you cannot ever...EVER... see them.
• These songs are also quite good work-out tunes
• There's a sort of mystical, yearning, lively, in-your-face quality to their sound that just... speaks to my soul
• And finally, it MUST be said that Clint and I - thank you very much - heard these guys long before anyone cranked them up on the radio. That's right, we saw them at a little venue called...The Venue in Provo when it was just something like 10 bucks a pop. They rocked our world and I will never stop kicking myself for not buying every album they sold at that event. 

Never stop imagining! Heh heh.

a new career chapter for me

It may seem too early to tell, but I am already super glad I left my old job for my new one at OrangeSoda. Sounds like an obvious statement, but I did have my doubts in the interim. I was unemployed for several weeks before getting a job offer, after all. And this was after going back to at least 3 companies for a 2nd interview! Job searching blows!!!

But I finally feel like I may be at a place where work doesn't have to suck. Where it can actually be fun. Trust me, I know how rare it is for someone to be able to make a claim like that. Since starting my working life back in high school at the bottom of the food chain with first a newspaper route and then as a server, I have never thought that work was fun. And that's just life. 

I don't expect that I'll think work is fun every day. I'm not that naive. But the facts that these people are almost as enthusiastic about Halloween as I am and that they encourage employees to take breaks in the community ping pong table room are enough to give me high hopes.

Talking about work is boring, I know. But this has been occupying my mind for, like, a really long time now. So here are some things I've learned to appreciate during my quest for career nirvana. At my new company:

• They value people and employees. That's a good sign. I used to take that for granted.
• They're excited to brag about their benefits & compensation rather being secretive about it.
• The interviewing and hiring process is organized.
• They recognized that it was also in their best interest to make me feel comfortable during interviews and etc.
• I've already been introduced to a gazillion people.
• They have a "work hard, play hard" mentality that makes its employees happy! Imagine.
• They are flexible with scheduling and time off.
• People are just nice. Everyone I've talked to has been friendly and happy. No negative vibes.
• They are expanding and expecting to move to a larger building within the next year.
• It's my first week and they've already made me feel like they want me to stick around.

Here's to hoping I'll be here for a long time. I don't want to job hunt again any time soon. Actually, when it comes to job hunting and I, "we-ee are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together."

2 sisters married

It is sooooo..... FUNNNNN.... to have 2 other sisters besides myself married. Seriously, it's been a blast.

What a blessing it is that they each found a great guy who jives well with the fam. They are fun, adventurous, kind, and a bit goofy. Which you have to be if you're gonna jive well with these wackies.

I've loved it. And Clint too. Since my brother left on the mish, Clint has been the only dude at family gatherings besides my pops. And now he's had 2 other dudes to be buddy bud with.

Needless to say, family four-square and badminton and basketball will never be the same again. It's at a whole new level, I'm telling you!!! But so fun. And I am happy to say that I did actually win a round of Lightning (Tornado, Tsunami, Spit, etc) against even all of the guys. So ha. Take that.

And I got to have some special sister moments too.

Don't have any of the pics ready right now due to the recent hard drive crash (GRRRRRR!!!! I won't be over THAT until I get my files BACK already), but here are some of my favorite moments:

1. Posing with the cardboard cut-out of my missionary brother (in Paraguay) at the weddings
2. Doing my sisters' hair and make-up (both sisters) for their bridals and their actual wedding day (both events)
3. Posing in "all-sister" shots at the temple in cute, matchy outfits. Seriously, some of those pics of all of us (posted on facebook) are time. less.
4. Hugging my sisters and their brand new husbands in the temple right after the marriage ceremony. Giving those guys a huge old hug and saying "Congratulations, I'm so happy for you" have been some of the sincerest moments of my life
5. Noticing that my parents are a bit more... willing? aggressive? assertive?... about getting the family together now that there's more than just 1 daughter (ahem) not living at home
6. Allie's husband Cameron taking to Clint like a puppy-dog to a frisbee thrower. Clint loves having a disciple of his same mind. Clint and Cameron are so similar -sports-loving, practical-minded, conservative with money, chick-flick-eschewing, etc - and any time my parents invite us to do something, they always say that Cameron asked whether Clint was coming. The side bonus for me is that I get to hang with my sister Allie more :)

As for least favorite moments... the 2nd sister to get married, Liz, moved to Nevada with her husband Mark right after the honeymoon and I miss my Bizzer (there's a long story behind that nickname somewhere but I don't remember it.) I miss both of them obviously, but Bizzer was always my willing toe-nail-painting-chick-flick-watching-girls-night-in buddy. Still happy for them to be starting their own cute little family in Nevada while Mark starts school. Of course.

It's so special to see my family change like this. It's just really... really.... REALLY...

FUN.

itunes withdrawal

Waah. Our hard drive crashed and we lost a bunch of pictures, documents, and music that will cost hundreds of dollars, like 500 bucks, to recover in a special "clean room."

Speaking of which, if anyone knows of a good hard drive recovery place that's cheaper than this, I'm all ears.

I didn't have any of my favorite itunes saved on my ipod because I had just on that very same day uploaded a new audiobook to my ipod at work which reset my ipod. HUMBUG!!!

It's kind of a good thing I've gotten used to running without my rock 'n roll and beaty-beats but it's a major bummer when I want my "wakey wakey" playlist in the morning and it's not there.

Boo to that.

Want my tunes.

when writers know

I think writers know they have a story when they can't NOT write it. I mean, when they think about it all the time (even while they're working at some other job) and all they want to do is keep writing down the scene that's running through their head. Or multiple scenes. I cannot write down scenes fast enough, yet when I finish writing one, I look at the clock and somehow hours have passed. It's quite joyerrific. I'm excited.

At last a snow day!

...and finally the pictures.

Wow, it has really been that long since I've posted pics on the good old bloggy blog! Time's been sort of speeding by in a blaze of driving to and from Provo.

I wanted to post some pictures of our snowshoeing/sledding adventure (a couple weeks ago now) just because it's such a novel occasion for this (until now) snowless year!

Shelly was recently in town (Hi Shell!) so Clint and I and Tyler went with her up to Dog Lake to play in the pretty, sparkly snowflakes. Mm-hm, it was GORGEOUS.

(Shelly - I think I still need to email or facebook the pictures to you!)

I’m sorry if you love office fish tanks…

But I have to say that the fish tank at my office is downright creepy. It’s not just because of the odd-looking fish and the shark with snake-like eyes.

I was recently hired at a start-up (sorta) marketing business and they recently changed  locations. This doesn’t mean that they had a lot to transport.

There is virtually no wall art or plant life to be found anywhere on the floor of this building, and yet there is this huge humming aquarium stationed in the main “reception” area (which makes up a significant area of the total office space on this floor.) The isolated fish house is surrounded by cardboard boxes scribbled hurriedly with black marker, and the inner digestive tracts of the aquarium are a jumble of exposed pipes beneath the main watery habitat.

I halfway expect the shark in the aquarium to hiss at me as I walk by. It doesn’t help that most of the fish follow you with a slow-blinking stare as you pass. (Shudder.)

In other words, it’s not creepy in a cool way. It’s not like some mystical, unearthly display of creatures arranged aesthetically for shock value or as a tourist attraction.

It’s more like a small business owner’s eccentric attempt at appearing reputable or even (spare me) medical.

If you were to simply walk in the door, you wouldn’t expect to see a team of highly productive and smart-alecky copywriters in the next room – oh no. You’d expect to hear the crazed snickering of a dentist as an unnaturally loud drill buzzes dangerously to life somewhere you can’t see and someone else starts wailing.

I know you’re asking that question right now, and the answer is:

No.  No, I definitely could not ever have stopped at plain old ‘creepy.’ It’s me.

how to - hopefully - fix runner's knee

My particular brand of "runner's knee" syndrome was not your typical outer-side-of-the-knee pain. It was on the inner knee. And I think I have diagnosed the problem

Well, my physical therapist diagnosed it.

I've been running and working out with this deep ache in my left knee for a while now, and even tried resting from running for the entire month of January before jumping back into my half marathon training, only to discover that the knee pain was still there.

I finally saw a physical therapist. Apparently my hips are not the strongest - especially the lift hip - which has gradually been allowing my left knee to turn slightly inward as I run. The idea is that increasing hip strength prevents runner's knee by keeping your hip, knee, and ankle in proper alignment as you stride.

So I am now officially doing special hip exercises every day to strengthen my hip and - hopefully - stop straining my knee so that the pain can go away.

There are 3 exercises total. I'm sure I could find a way to post visually appealing pictures of them if anyone's interested.

Good news: I can still keep training for my half marathon as long as I keep treadmill miles to a minimum and make up the mileage with elliptical time. Can do.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a tempo run today that needs to be taken care of!

Operation: Morning Person

So far it's going well. My new job, I mean. I usually work from about 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And the commute is 45 minutes each way. I've downloaded some audiobooks that keep me entertained in my car. And... I have decided to finally force myself to become something that I have never been, nor have I ever thought I would voluntarily become:

a Morning Person.

You see, waiting to exercise until after getting home from work was just too late. It didn't leave me any time in the evening to clean up, make dinner, maybe watch a TV show with Clint, get in some writing, and get ready for bed. It just didn't. So my new daily schedule looks like this.

• 5 a.m. - alarm goes off. I sleepily slap on gym clothes that I laid out in the bathroom the night before.
• 5:15 ish - workout at the gym
• 6:30 ish - arrive home from the gym, depending on length of workout, number of miles, or whatever. Shower and eat breakfast.
• 7:15-7:30 ish - leave for work. Traffic's not bad and the sun comes up.
• 8:00 a.m. or so - arrive at work and spend another day trying to be a confident copywriter.
• 4:30 p.m. ish - leave work. Traffic's filled in a little but still mostly smooth.
  
• 5:15 ish - arrive home. Ahhh.

Then I have time for grocery runs, making dinner, getting to Young Women's at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, or working on my story (which has taken a serious hit of neglect the past week or so).

• 10-10:30 p.m. - bed time.

So, yes, I am running low on sleep. Just like my gas tank is now routinely running low on gas. I'm feeling deeply connected to my Dodge Neon these days.

On a brighter note, I think I may just become hooked on this Morning Person thing. The first day I forced myself to drive to the gym when it felt like the middle of the night, I was encouraged by 2 very significant signs (redundancy intended).

If you know me, you know that I am not a superstitious person. And I do not believe in coincidences. And there are some things that happen in this world that simply defy all reason. And there are some things I feel so intrinsically passionate about, that I might just be a little insane about them.

These were the signs during the 5 o'clock hour as I for the first time revved up my car and faced down the dark and lonely road:

#1: There was a big, I mean freaking huge, yellow full moon shining right through the driver's window.
#2: U2's "With or Without You" was playing on the radio - on the very last station my radio was set to the last time I turned it off.

I kid you not! I am dead serious. Those 2 very things happened at the same moment! Full moon frenzy and U2 delirium both rose up to energize me on my first morning as a voluntary morning person. It was insane, people.

Also in the "fortunately" category: I am continually refreshed to see that there is a surprisingly plentiful slew of crazies at the gym at the same time as me. I feel like I joined a secret organization or something.

snow and other catastrophes

Okay, so it was actually just the one catastrophe. But what a!

We drove to my extended family's cabin over the weekend - just us 2. We thought the dirt road leading right up to the cabin looked packed down enough for us to drive down. Right.

Error in judgment=a couple of hours spent pushing, digging, revving, and spinning out.

We did finally, however, get the car to move out of its icy groove. After the ordeal, we decided to park at the designated, plowed area. Insertion: the designated parking area is just a short distance down this road that Clint is standing in. We hiked in to the cabin and still had a cozy overnight stay.

The next day, we also had fun sledding, flopping, and making snow angels.

I usually don't have much praise for the snow, but after a couple of months of scary-dry winter, it was actually pretty fun to be able to play in fluffy white stuff.

A trip to the Leonardo

...revealed the inner artists in both Clint and myself.

This self-exploration station was found on the 2nd floor of the Leonardo museum in downtown SLC. I had never been before but thanks to a nifty Groupon Clint found, now I can say I have.

I thought our self-portraits were honestly and legitimately 2 of the best. Can you pick us out?

Want to know how we did it? What you did was you sat at this table with a pen and scratch paper, but you couldn't look directly at your paper. You looked straight ahead into this device utilizing mirrors that showed your face overlaying the scratch paper. You then traced your face onto the scratch paper only looking straight ahead into the mirror device.

The result? A profoundly abstractish, subtley revealing self portrait!

I thought it was cool anyhow.

Are you a Book Hugger, too?

I am DEFINITELY a hardcore book hugger. (And not just because I coined the phrase.)

If you think you might be a book hugger, too; then you might want to read my official definition on my book club blog. And join it - my book club. That's the most important part. I haven't yet gotten nearly the participation I was hoping for. Just sayin'.

I'm getting a new job!

Yes, that's right. The return of the Sammer Hammer to full-time work.

I knew when I took my current freelance SEO article writing job that it was mostly an entry level SEO job. I was still thrilled to get my foot in the door. However, whether it's because I'm the oldest independent child in my family or because I just picked up the trait from my dad - I am not one to sit still for too long. The time arrived for me to move forward again.

I will be a SEO Copywriter, but working full-time as part of a marketing team. I'm super excited.

Don't worry - I am still working on my book and I am definitely entertaining my hopes and dreams of seeing my name on a best-seller bookshelf some day.

In fact I recently received a jolt of excitement that is moving my story-writing process forward with a bit more...urgency. I call said Jolt: The Mortal Instruments series - including City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass. Just when I thought the whole paranormal movement was becoming cheesy and overdone, I found my obsession again. Thanks to these books. Join my magical book club if you want or just read my reviews if you are looking for an engrossing series to take your mind off the bleak weather.

Hum diddy dum. Ok, back to work.

Lately

I don't know that I have that much to post about, but I feel like it's been a while so here is some gibberish that's been on my mind lately.

• First of all, has anybody seen the reality TV atrocity called "Toddlers and Tiaras"? Oh. my. freaky. I clicked on it out of curiosity one day and I couldn't believe the lengths that some (mostly hickish) moms will go to to steer their literally toddler aged daughters into being airheaded beauty/drama queens some day.
• Anyway. I'm also getting over my fourth cold of the season. I feel better, but of course I still have a persistent cough that makes the usual activities somewhat uncomfortable.
• Do we need to start praying for snow? After several mid-Winter weeks of feeling like it's really March or April, I'm starting to feel a little concerned about what this will mean for my beloved summer season.
• Job searching. Again. It's like a yearly ritual or something. You'd think I can't get enough of it. Except this time, my freelance writing has given me a foot in the door with marketing companies and things are looking... sunny.
• My car coughs disturbingly when I turn on the ignition. It's due for an oil check, and I'm hoping that is the only reason why my car is making sickly noises.
• I'm reading City Of Bones for my online book club and loving it. Clare is a good storyteller. It's a magical and totally engrossing plot, plus the characters are fascinating.  Seriously. It's giving me ideas. And hinderig my productivity.
• On that note, my own story writing efforts are coming along. I caved in and did some outlining, eventually realizing that I could write myself in circles without a plot chain to help steer me.
• I am proud to report that Clint is enjoying his new Christmas shoes. I was hesitant about giving him not just 1, but 3 pairs of new shoes for Christmas. But he needed them. I'm always happy to see him wearing a new pair of stylin' shoes picked out by his wife!
• I also caved and finally took down my Christmas decorations. I just felt too weird with it looking like April outside.

Finally, Happy Martin Luther King, Jr day!

catching colds during a warmish cold season

I'm pretty sure this is the fourth time during the past 3-ish months of this season that I have gotten a cold.

 The kicker is, it hasn't even snowed since November, and the snowfall was pretty weak even then. Obviously something is wrong with my immunity.

I've been keeping the cold symptoms at bay each time with vitamin C drops and ColdEez; however, I'm starting to wonder if I should let one of these colds run its course so that it can finally leave my system for good.

The positive news is:

• At least Clint hasn't seemed to catch it from me
• working from home means jammies and relaxing while still getting work done

The bad news is:

• my running legs (and lungs) feel like Frodo trying to climb up the last mile of Mount Doom

So is there a secret to boosting immunity that I am just not getting?

Anway, sorry to take up an entire post complaining about illness. I just never realized colds could be quite so chronic. If you have any tips in this area, do share. Because according to WebMD.com I am simply not meditating or sleeping enough or something. Whatev.

Happy new 2012!

January? What's that? Looks like March outside to me.

I'm fine with the sunshine as long we don't get any stinky inversions. As far as I'm concerned, Snow missed its chance in December. Once Christmas and New Year's are over, I don't much care for snow on the ground anymore.

But anyway. I haven't blogged for a while so why don't I start off January 2012 with a couple of my New Year's resolutions that I'm willing to share? :) (Because you don't necessarily need to know how many pounds I would like to drop.)

Sam's (and Clint's) Goals for 2012 

• Run another half marathon, set new personal best
• do Trek with our stake (Clint and I have been called to be a Ma and Pa)
• finish at least the first draft of my story (Sam)
• keep up Sam's Magical Book Club, reading and reviewing at least one book a month (Sam)
• personal reading goal to read about one book a week, or for really long books, one a month (Sam)
• be more patient and kind and happy (Sam)
• take some painting classes, finish reading book on painting, and complete an original piece of Sam Paintasticness for house decoration (Sam)
• do better at budgeting and spending money
• paint at least one or two more areas in the house (I've slacked on that one for at least a year now)
• help Clint work on our backyard, at least to finally get some grass
• finally hike either Lone or Twin together (also for Sam's first time ever)

How's that for a busy year?

We had plenty of splendid adventures in 2011 and I'm excited for 2012. We also plan to visit Seattle some time during the year so I can see where my cousin and dear friend Emilie is now living with her husband, Todd. Plus I think Seattle sounds beautiful.

I'll try to keep y'all updated on our new 2012 adventures! Happy New Year. :)

our Christmas

was awesome! We had a fun party-filled week leading up to it, a magical Christmas day, and even a lovely day-after party.

Clint and I are sort of clinging onto our newly-wed tradition of moving out mattress into the family room and sleeping by our tree. We love it so we figured we will keep it up as long as possible! :)

We woke up early Christmas morning to go to church early (about 8:15) where I sang in three choir numbers and Clint sat by himself in the congregation. It was a great meeting and we sang some of my favorite songs including "O Come O Come Emmanual" and "The First Noel." I felt like ending with "Joy to the World" but I was fine with the classic closing song choice "Silent Night."

Then we came home and promptly changed into pajamas again for our gift ravaging session. Clint and I have come up with a way to make the gifting session last as long as possible while enjoying every minute. We take turns picking out a gift for the other one to open, and watch each other open it.

Among other things, I received some nice cold weather gear, jewelry, a laminator, a nice weight set, and these ultra cozy slippers which I am wearing right now.

Clint thought this was a funny picture of me trying to remember what things were in each of Clint's gifts as I tried to decide what he should open next.

Clint received some nice, dressy casual shoes, running shoes, a new gym bag and lock, ties, jeans, and lots of chocolate. :)

Santa also brought us a few new movies and.... (drum roll) dum dum de dum! A new laptop! I was super surprised and excited to open up that little nugget. Of course we will both have convenient uses for a laptop, but I especially am salivating at the prospect of taking my work en plein air. That is, having freedom to work from wherever and also testing out my creative writing powers under various natural settings.

And so in conclusion I must say: Clint is a fabulous gift giver. As are my parents, his parents, and our siblings. We have been inundated with blessings.

We also refuse to follow in the steps of the local radio stations and pretend that Christmas is just a day that comes and then goes. So we still happily play Christmas music at our house in the evenings while sitting next to our tree and admiring our stacks of opened presents.

Hope your holiday season continues to be magical as well. :)

Happy New Year!

downtown days of christmas

Clint and I traveled downtown 3 days in a row last week.

And we feel like we don't need to do it again for a very, very long time.

Each time it took us at least twice as long as it normally would because of extra Christmas traffic, including accidents on the freeway each night. We were travelling in the evenings on days that I can only assume the rest of the valley was heading downtown for the same events that we were. I also decided that some people who were heading toward these Christmas-related activities are people who do not normally drive on the freeway, and during busy conditions.

How else can I possibly account for all of the accidents on the freeway between the south end of the valley and downtown? It wasn't as busy as rush hour, nor have we had any snow to serve as people's excuse for driving poorly.

Anyway. Once we made it downtown, we had a great time going to one performance of Pioneer Theater's "Annie", the Utah Symphony's surprising spectacular of "Cirque de la Symphonie", and Clint's office party.

Just in case you've been wondering what we're up to.

I guess I'm fighting the "Christmas war"

The Salt Lake Trib had this provocative cartoon in Sunday's paper yesterday:

It's right on the money.

I've been thinking about Christmas topics a lot lately. And yes, I will speak of my faith for just a moment.

This is a busy week for me. I have a Young Women activity on Wednesday, the theater on Thursday, the symphony on Friday, an office party on Saturday, an extended family dinner on Sunday which I have to preparer something edible for, and I am also giving the Christmas lesson this Sunday to the combined Young Women classes. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I have to send out greeting cards, neighbor gifts, and squeeze in more Christmas shopping.

I'm booked solid, even though it's mostly with fun Christmas stuff. It's easy to see why we get caught up in the stress of Christmas and forget what it REALLY is about.

And, surprisingly enough, Christmas is not actually about what the media is telling us that it is about: that Christmas is about "giving." While generosity and consideration for your fellow men are worthy  principles that we should be following all year round, they are NOT all Christmas is about. Not really. Actually, they're by-products of the true meaning.

The media will do anything to take Christ out of Christmas and appeal to a larger shopping and money-spending demographic.

Christmas... really... is about Christ. The Savior and Light of the world. Christmas is a Christian holiday, whatever the media says.

I've been making a point of wishing strangers "Merry Christmas" instead of just "Happy Holidays." The best gift we Christians can give  is the simple reminder of what this life is all about, and we can share Christ's love with others. I think I'll challenge my Young Women on Sunday to be eager to wish people a "Merry Christmas" this season.

I love Christmas, I love Santa, I love the songs, the trees, the lights, the gifts... and the giving, of course! I really don't think any of these celebrations are bad. But most of all, I love the way that all of these secular symbols are really just that - symbols to turn our hearts toward the birth of Christ and what that really means to us.

So on that note... Merry Christmas! May it be magical. :)