What I'd do with 10 Grand

I have a feeling that I am VERY much like my father in some respects. One of these is that sometimes I feel utterly unsentimental, and when I ponder on this idea, I blame my whole feelinglessness on my father. Ever practical, pragmatic, father of mine. This was recently brought to my attention because I got my roommate's piano tuned for her, so that I can play it anytime I want---and be able to stand how it sounds, because before it was so incredibly terrible, off-pitch sounding, that I couldn't handle it. I was given a fabulous reference for a piano tuner, and he really did an amazing job. He knew exactly how old the piano was, that it used to be a player piano, and that the carvings on the piano made it really valuable. He himself, was a history lesson, and I spent a good three hours curled on the couch reading his autobiography while he tuned the piano. At first, he thought the piano was a lost cause, it was so old, so out of tune, and he thought he'd for sure break strings trying to bring it all the way back up to pitch. But he was fabulous, brought it up to pitch, and didn't harm the piano at all. But this is not at all what I wanted to talk about. Point of story: he told my roommate the piano was worth between 12,000-15,000 dollars. She just paid a whopping $850 for it. The first thoughts in my mind, were of course, historically based. I love history, I love imagining all that this piano lived through since it was built in 1910, and it is a really neat thought. But, poor, hungry college student that I am, I quickly turned my thoughts to all that I could do with the profit of selling this piano. I then related my deep thoughts to my good friend and manager at the hotel the next day. She was shocked at my lack of respect for such an antique item, and amazed that I wouldn't want to keep it around. I have to say this: I do value old items, I am a HUGE history lover, and it is in fact, my favorite subject. But I absolutely love my mom's piano, and it isn't ancient, or rebuilt, or anything of the sort. It's quite new, as far as piano's go, but I made amazing memories with that lovely piano, and maybe in a hundred years it'll be worth something---but only because I loved it so much. I don't know, I think it is neat, but I'd rather sell it. Then she told me she had her grandmother's china in her closet. Yes, that is a really neat thing, but whats the point of keeping china in your closet and never using it? Yes, your grandmother loved it, and it is very special---but if it is never used and never seen, whats the use? At least this piano you can continue to use! 

So: while I may be wholly unsentimental and callous, here is what I would do with 10 grand:

First and foremost, quit both jobs and move in with my parents for July and August. It's only two months of work, I'd only make a little over 1200 anyway, and sometimes I think people forget how important it is to make memories now---before you regret the many times you DIDN'T stop to make them. Plus, I'd be just in time for all of her garden harvesting, canning, freezing, cooking--and I could learn OH so much that I have previously avoided learning, and now badly want to know.

Secondly, although I have a year of school left, I would be hurting a LOT less to work, and so, depending on how hard classes are, I would definitely only be working part time in the school year, and not working at all if I wanted. Once again, this is the last year of my education, and there are lots of opportunities to participate in so much and enjoy so many memories that I will never be able to get back again. Is this senioritis? Or have I just LOVED my college experiences so much and wish I didn't have to work to make up for it????

Thirdly, I would put all the rest in the bank, to save for my wedding, the months I'm putting my husband through school, and maybe a SWEET honeymoon. 

Oh, and I would also buy a laptop and an ipod. I am losing good music because my cd's are so old and scratched---and its annoying when you need a computer and have to drive 15 minutes to a siblings because the library is closed. Not so annoying when I can't afford one, and definitely doable--but if I had 10 grand, might as well. 

I just really, really loved the idea of being able to spend two whole months riding horses with my dad, learning to cook from my mother, playing the piano, and hiking up the mountainside. Instead of spending an inane amount of hours selling people shoes and cleaning their hotel rooms for a ridiculously small amount of money. Not that I'm really complaining, because I know I am incredibly blessed to not only have one, but two jobs in this economy, and I really am happy that I can pay for so much, and I'm keeping my goal of getting my bachelors degree without going in debt. I think June was just a long month---and I am incredibly excited to take four days off in a couple weeks and spend it with my mother in Cedar City at the Shakespearian Festival! Yes!

So...what would you do with 10 grand?

Lots to Share

Lots to share...and so little time to share it in. Lets start with the CRAZY JCP lady:

Lindsay, doing a pretty good job at finding stuff to do on an INCREDIBLY slow Wednesday afternoon, happily turns to help a customer who comes up to the register with what looks like a return. Crazy lady, plops a Walmart bag on the counter, with shoes inside, and says she has no receipt and no box, but needs to return these shoes because they hurt her toes. Besides the fact that we do not return things without at least a box OR a receipt, we have never carried those shoes. Ever. I promise. Scouts honor. I tell the lady that I am very sorry, but those shoes were not from our store, but maybe they could be from the Layton JCP, as they sometimes carry different stock. She scowls at me and tells me most definitely that these shoes WERE in fact, from this store, and she could even show me the Skechers wall that they came from. I admitted that, in fact, we do have a Skechers wall, but this particular Skecher had never been there. How, I ask you, am I suppose to return a shoe that we have never had, I don't have a box to, and I most definitely don't have a receipt to, and so therefore have no way of knowing what it is worth or how to put it into our system??? I tried very kindly to tell her that we couldn't do the return, but luckily, right then, a manager walked by. Thank you Zona!!! I called her over and told her very politely, because we were standing right in front of the customer, that this woman had no receipt, had no box, and we most definitely had never carried this shoe, and yet this lady wanted to do a return. Zona was kind for a while, and then told the lady quite abruptly that we could not do a return. The lady, by then, red-faced and sweating and inches away from Zona's face, furiously stocked away, grabbing her shoes with her. Zona followed her to the front of the store, where she again, tried to return the shoes. Apparently, the lady claimed to have made the purchase with her JCP card, so Zona brought up her purchases on the computer, and no Skecher shoe had been bought with her card. She also told the lady that "Lindsay knows every shoe on the floor, and if we would have had it, she would've found a way to return it for you." For which I was very grateful. Apparently after that she was apologetic, claiming she really had thought she'd bought them here. She doesn't realize, obviously, the shoe master she was conversing with. HAAHAAHAA!!!!

Other news, after basically pulling an all nighter, getting a little sleep, working all day, and doing it all again---I finally got eleven straight hours of sleep last night. It was pure bliss. Then I had all these wonderful plans of things I wanted to do this afternoon, since I don't go in to work until 230, but the piano tuner took four hours. Happy to have a tuned piano, but a little disheartening since it is not really perfect, and one note still drives me crazy, but he said it's been so long since its been tuned, it would take another full tuning to fix. And so, my morning was spent, in mostly happiness listening to his life story which was very fascinating indeed, but I saw no sun today, and I sorely miss the sun. Sigh. On to work!

If I could choose to look like anyone....my sisters have all been picking on their posts who they would pick to look like. I thought it was kind of interesting. Well, Andrea's I knew right off, but I thought the others were a little odd. These are the people I would pick. Now, if I was picking voice, or talents, it would be other people--but strictly on looks: I would first and foremost pick Catherine Zeta Jones. I think she is the most beautiful person. But in close second would be Halle Berry. I love her with short hair--and someday hope to cut mine as short. Both of them look ravishing in red dresses.

Happy Fathers Day

I love you dad!

Happenings

So...what with institute happenings going on every week, a few hours at Freedom Riders, some FHE, some other activities, and 60 or so hours a week at the hotel and JCP, and no access to the internet, my blogging abilities have greatly decreased. Just wanted to let everyone know that life is going fabulously, I find time to have lots of fun amidst crazy sleeping hours, and think about being in a dryer and getting fluffed up like a warm towel. Cozy, I know.

Lovin' Life with My Little Bro Ethan

Ethan is my little brother. He is my only little brother. He is spoiled rotten, and I hate to say it, but I spoil him too. There's just something about him that everyone loves. He just graduated this week, and I thought that deserved a post for our years growing up together. Ethan is good at absolutely everything he does. Really good. So while he is quite cocky and annoying sometimes, its hard to tell him to pipe down, when he really is as good as he thinks he is. Don't ever tell him I said that. He learned quicker, had faster reflexes, and was brighter in almost everything we competed in. Somehow, I don't think I ever really resented it though--it was just who he is. In a recent conversation we were talking about something he was struggling with, and I was taking the whole thing quite lightly. Until it hit me, quite suddenly, that at the exact same age I had been going through the exact same situation. Poor kid.  And that made me realize how suddenly we've grown up. Thanks Ethan, for all the wonderful years where you were my best friend no matter where we lived or moved, and for those rare moments later in our teenage years where we really connected and had some great times.

This is my little brother Ethan, and myself. We were a little crazy sometimes. He is two years younger than me---and the source of many, MANY memories of my childhood. I don't really know what we were doing in the picture above---but it was fun, let me tell ya.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Ethan and me. It was as we were leaving for the bus stop, the one year we went to the same school at South Ogden Junior High, and mom made us stop cause she thought we looked cute. I'm so glad she did.This picture shows that we loved each other from the very beginnings of our existence....and that he was mostly always the same size as me. I remember that we were best friends for quite a while when we were small. We were always very different though. I remember when we were little and lived in Ogden, he knew an old lady across the street would give him a treat if he knocked on her door, but I always was too nervous, and thought it was rude to take advantage....but Ethan went over there all the time---and sometimes he brought me back treats too.This is a picture of Ethan and I when we were in YM/YW together, and dad was the YM President...Good times.We were at a youth conference and  that river was actually off limits, cause it was too fast-flowing, or something ridiculous like that. Pretty sure Ethan, Brach, Aleesha, and myself played in it every day. Maybe not the best of examples, but it sure was a lot of fun.I have lots of great memories with Ethan. He had an old bike that had pegs on it. We used to ride it together to school at Longfellow Elementary in Minot, North Dakota. I think we had about 12 different ways to ride one bike together. My favorite was sitting back to back, him riding, and me with my feet on the pegs watching everything go by backwards. I also remember that when we finally had two bikes, he used to ride behind me and make our wheels hit, and it always scared me. One time on the way home from school he did that and both our bikes flipped and we landed really hard---it was an amazing crash really. I remember wanting to be mad, but he was smiling as he stood up and we both burst out laughing. Kinda hard to be mad after that. We rode our bikes all over Minot. Several times to buy 25 cent candy at the little corner store, we'd ride through Oak Park, and Nubbin Park, and we'd even ride our bike all the way out to the gas station on the way to where our horses were kept out of town.

I also remember all the games we played. Ethan was always my protector and I was always the one protected. I was the pioneer mother, and he was the one who found food, or I was protected from the Indians, or all sorts of things. I remember really clearly one time playing firefighters on the trampoline, and every time you bounced, it took you up a floor to blow out the fire. It was so vivid in my mind that I still remember what the dilapidated building, smoldering in flames, looked like in my head. 

I also remember playing spies a lot too. We used to borrow mom's walkie talkies and tour the neighborhood together. We fit in a little cupboard underneath the kitchen sink, and we'd slide into it, and keep one another posted on what was happening in the Rasmussen household. We also had a secret lab in his room downstairs where we made computers out of  shoe boxes and mom helped us laminate fingerprinted business cards. It was hi-tech and I LOVED playing it with him.
As we got older, I remember picking his smelly self up from football, wrestling, or track and listening to what he had to say from his day. I remember one time I picked him up and I was crying from a song that was playing on the radio, and his face was so hilarious, cause he didn't realize that that was all that was wrong!
One of the most terrible days of my life was when I got a call while working at JCPenney, and they told me Ethan was in Ogden, at the hospital, and had been hurt in football. Seeing his cocky, nothing-can-hurt-me self in a hospital bed was very scary. I brought him my phone charger, a shake, and a book. We chatted a good portion of the night actually. Luckily, he was all right, and could still play football. A few months later I was at the game he got hurt really bad. I went down to the field at half time to see if he was all right. I was bawling before I even said a word, and he said "why did you come down here?" I wanted to tell him that I knew it was his dream, and that I couldn't imagine him without football at the moment, and---I said "I don't know." and gave him a big hug.

This picture is the morning after Ethan's first prom, and my last. We both look pretty beat, but it was fun to be going to the same dance as my little brother.

So Ethan was pretty much my closest friend throughout my childhood. As we got older, we had other friends we were probably closer with--but we still had moments when we would hit it off, have a great time, and talk about our lives with one another, and I still cherish those moments---even if he is an ornery teenager jock now.




This is a picture of a mermaid we spent SIX HOURS working on one day in North Dakota. That river brings back loads of memories--most of them with Ethan. We were so proud. The other one is Ethan and I with some of our oldest nieces and nephews, now those two are about the same age as we were when we were holding them. Crazy.

       

Ethan and I started a lot of things together:swimming lessons, t-ball, new schools, we had the same piano teachers, the same church leaders. It was fun to have someone there to go through life with. Especially someone who always convinced you to drive him home between sacrament meeting and priesthood to snack on the brownies left on the counter. So delish. And so fun.

Ethan is a ornery kid now, who doesn't talk to me much cause he has a girlfriend---but he still lets me punch his stomach every time I come home to visit, and he still shows me where all the snacks are. His motto's are something along the lines of "I don't wear a watch, I decide what time it is." He tells everyone that "He'll decide" and its a huge family joke now. But even though he thinks he knows everything about the world--thats kinda part of his charm. As much as I worry about this kid, I know he is an amazing person, and I am really glad I got to spend my childhood with him. Congrats on the graduation Ethan, and good luck on the next crazy years of your life, cause right now, all I got to say is young single adult life is crazy, fun, busy, and hard. But you love it, and you'll live it up.