Christmas Tree

We finally got to decorate our tree last night. We WERE planning to do it Thursday night, but the power went out and didn't come back until sometime yesterday. So, here it is!

Hubsend hanging lights on our tree.

And this is him being cute. :-D
He is putting the star on... It's a long reach because we only have a step stool, and the tree is nine feet tall.

We've made a tradition of buying a new ornament every year. This is last year's ornament.
And this is our ornament from this year.

All done!

Christmas Decorations

I hung these lights in our front window. As far as I can tell, we're the only ones with lights up.
Our little tree from last year. On Saturday, we are going to get a real tree. I am super excited about it. This will be our first year with a real tree. It's a little more exciting since my family has switched to a fake tree. :-(

Our stocking are hung by the chimney with care... :-D
I'll post some more pictures when we get our tree and get it decorated.

Our Poor Car

So, yeah...

A while back I knocked the passenger side mirror off. It's a long story, but it involves big orange construction barrels closing a lane that wasn't marked to be closed. So yeah...

Then, on Monday, I had a flat. Then I went to help some people from my church clean out a house that had been flooded.

And on the way home from that, I got rear-ended. Grr....

To top it all off: Now it is dead. We think it's the alternator. So, I am now carless the day before I'm supposed to be driving down to Portland to go to Nightstrike and hang out with some friends. Totally sucks. My parents have an extra car, but Mom said that they're not driving right now cause there's something wrong with it. And my friend's family is being really super dumb and not letting her take HER car to Portland. So yeah, it really sucks. I WILL figure something out. I WILL come to Portland. I promise.

The Only Constant is Change

We have been in the process of moving into an apartment in Federal Way. We found a totally cute apartment complex, Fox Run, up there. We are completely out of the old apartment in Puyallup and turned our keys in yesterday.

We don't have our internet set up yet, so I'm stealing a few minutes here at work to update. We should have it set up soon (Comcast is working on it). We have some, but not many pictures of the move that I hope to get up here soon after our internet is reconnected.

We absolutely love our new apartment. It's much, MUCH bigger than our last one, which means that we will be able to have more than two people over at a time. When we had all our furniture in the old apartment, four people was about the max number we could have in there at a time. On Saturday (the 26th) we had 14-15 people in our new apartment helping us move and eat pizza, our stuff was every where, and it didn't feel crowded at all. It was wonderful.

We are look forward to being able to have people over to hang out (and play with Jesse's xboxes) as soon as we are slightly more settled.

Jesse has been at WV for a month now. It's seems crazy that he's actually been there that long.

I am quitting my job as a contract office worker and preparing to jump into the world of freelance Web design. OK, so I'm really sort of easing my way into it. My last day at my current employer is September 15. Then, I am hoping to get a part-time job at a nearby Starbucks (there are 10 within a 5 mile radius). In the time I am not working, I hope to hone my design skills and keep my house clean. Both of which are nearly impossible when working full time. I hope to start a blog about my adventures in the design world when I get going. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

So changes are happening again (still) for the Carrigan family. :-)

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Wow.

We have already been married for a year. I can't even believe how fast it's gone. One year ago today, we went from two people with seperate lives to two people with one life. It's wild how that changes things. As a single person, you don't really have to think about how your taste (or lack thereof) in music, food, clothing, decorating, etc., will affect anyone else. If they don't like it, well, they don't have to deal with it. Not so in a marriage. Your life becomes someone else's life too, and things have to adjust to fit. Or, in some cases, go out the window altogether.

This year, we've been through 4 job changes, 2 moves (well, one is coming up), 2 car purchases, 1 car breakin, 1 car accident, 1 stolen car, 1 apartment flooding, and all the little things that fill in the details of daily life. It's been kind of nuts, really. And this was just the first year!

I'm looking forward to growing old and gray with Amy. I think we will probably be a very cute old couple someday. :) I love her more than I thought it was possible to love another human being, and I'm thankful that God worked things out for us (I certainly couldn't have planned it).

So here's to us. Here's to our family, our children (someday), our home, our life together. Thank you, Father, for letting us live as a picture of Christ and the church, and give us grace to live it well.

Equal Opportunity Satire

Hi everyone. I thought I would post something a little lighter than usual. I know that some of you have PCs, some have Macs, and I'm sure that several of you have iPods. I also know that some of you are gamers. Here is some fun for all of you.

First, for the Mac users a little video that imagines what would happen if Microsoft redesigned the iPod packaging.

And then, for you PC users and gamers, a dig at the Apple "Switch" ad campaign. You'll remember these when you see it.

Remember to enjoy in moderation.

First Day at World Vision

Well, here I am. Pretty weird to be here, after spending a year working in the same place, doing the same thing. Now I'm in a different place, doing a completely different thing. Check out the last post about World Vision (entitled "Whoa! (Part 2)") to find out more about how this happened. I'm excited. So far, it's been a fairly easy, nonchalant day. Also, I don't know a whole lot yet, so there isn't much I can do that's useful other than learn.

Just thought I'd pop on and say hello. By the by, please go to Chris and Jenni's site to find out how you can help them in their time of need if you haven't already. You'll find details there.

Thank you, Father, that their family is safe and they are well. Take care of their needs and walk with them through this time.

Whoa! (Part 2)

We have a friend named Tad who works at World Vision (the big Christian relief organization) as a recruiter. Last September, he talked to me about a job in their information technology department as a helpdesk person--essentially, the person who gets a call if a computer is not working. There were two positions open, and I was #3. (Kind of like a bronze medal, only not as cool.)

So I've been working at Group Health Cooperative for a year. It's a good job, in so many ways. Really, so far it's the best job I've ever had. I like the work that I do (mostly) and I like the people I work with. I had kind of settled into my routine, gone back to school, all this sort of thing.

Well, last week Tad called. "Hey," he said, "Remember Eric Ness, the guy you met at the interview last year? He asked me the other day 'Whatever happened to Jesse?' I told him that you were working at Group Health still, as far as I knew. He told me, 'Well, we have a position opening up and I'd like to have him come in for an interview.' So he asked me if I could get ahold of you."

That interview was almost a year ago! How did he remember me? Well, I went in for the interview on Friday. It just so happened one of the ladies who was conducting the interview is married to a doctor that I worked with at the Puyallup clinic. The interview went well, but I didn't feel like I had hit a home run or anything. Actually, when I went to work after,
I felt a little silly. "What, did you think they would just hand you the job on a silver platter?" I thought. I kind of figured that it would go the same as last time, except maybe this time I would be #2. (As a euphemism, this is considerably worse than #1. By the way, when you say you have to go #1, how does everyone know what you mean? It's like we all know, but no one ever said anything, no memo went out, etc. But I digress.)

Anyway, that afternoon Eric called. "Okay," he said, "here's the deal. We need someone to start on July 17th. How much notice would you have to give your current job?"

"I have to give 2 weeks notice," I said.

"Okay," he said, "we were going to have everyone come back in for a second interview. But not even counting my evaluation, since I already talked to you before, you scored higher than any of the other candidates. So we're prepared to offer you the position if you can give notice, but I absolutely have to know by the end of the day."

So I talked to Amy, who said "Why not?!", put in my notice at Group Health, and accepted the position at World Vision. I felt almost an equal mixture of excitement and sadness, because I will be leaving people that I really enjoy working with. They were all pretty surprised, since I hadn't even been looking (this whole process took 1 week), but they were all excited for me and sad I would be leaving. It's nice to be enjoyed.

So, God went and changed our plans again. We had a well thought-out, clear, precise plan for moving, school, and work. Apparently it wasn't the right plan. :) He's taking good care of us.

Whoa! (Part 1)

Long time no see. A couple of REALLY cool things happened recently. Amy filled you in on the car, I think.

I had my final on June 15th for my precalculus class. That was a very difficult class for me, and I didn't do particularly well on the tests. Failed a couple, actually. However, I did extremely well in the homework and a project we did, and so I wasn't really doing too badly--a low B, which is not bad if you're me and you're taking precalculus.

My instructor's policy is that if you do poorly on the final, it won't hurt your grade. It basically gets thrown out. If you do well, however, it will help you. Not a bad deal, all things considered. So I studied hard for it.

On the day of the final, I went in and breezed through most of the questions. (It was multiple choice, but that doesn't really make a precalculus final a whole lot easier.) There were a few I had to work a little harder on. The last one I sat messing with for about half an hour (no exaggeration). It was a very simple triangle problem, and it SHOULD have been really easy. But try as I might, I couldn't get any of the answers provided.

By this time, I was the only one left, and asked my instructor, "Do you want this answer exactly?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Well, it isn't here," I told him.

"Sure it is," he replied.

"Not possible," I said.

Finally he agreed to look over my work, and asked me why I had used a certain method to solve the problem. Then he indicated what the correct answer was according to the key. So, that was it.

I went home in a terrible funk. Amy was all ready to celebrate, and I just wanted to stay in bed all day the next day. Before we went to bed, I decided to check my email, and lo and behold, there was an email from my instructor with the simple subject line, "You were right":

"I am sorry, but I missed another error on your copy of the exam. The answer should have been 8 square root 3. You had the highest score of the class getting 27 out of 30 right. You also get 5 bonus points for catching the error allowing every one else to have the question dropped. ...

Sorry to have caused so much stress on your last day. Nice job overall and good luck on your educational journey."

This is for a guy (me) who always said he didn't understand math and didn't like math. I'm almost ready to cry again, because I cried when I read that. Partly I felt vindicated, but mostly it was from a a feeling of gratitude for what Jesus has done for me to take me this far. I ended up getting a 3.5 (roughly an A-) for the course.

This post is getting really long, so I'll get to the other thing in a little while.

German Engineering in da Haus... Jah

As of today, the Carrigans are the proud owners of a 2001 VW Jetta.  It is Baltic Pearl Metallic (teal-green) and has 22,800 miles on it.  The 2.0 liter engine packs a pretty good punch.

We asked God to lead us to the right car and this is the one he led us to.  Therefore, its name shall be Samuel, because God heard our prayers. (See 1 Samuel 1:20)

If we pick up a digital camera soon, you can stay tuned for pictures.  If not, you'll have to have us over for dinner, or hang out over coffee, so that you can see it. ;-D

Love you all!  And thank you so much to all of you who prayed for us during this interesting time!!

Jesse and Amy

The Carrigans' Horrible Awful Terrible No-Good Day

So yesterday, I stayed home from work because I was very sick. I hate being sick, especially when that means that I have stay at home, in bed, in the dark, all by myself. So the day started off bad and got worse.

Around noon, I woke up to see that I had missed a call from my hubby. I called him back and found out the insurance company had totalled out our car. Which was a major let down after yesterday, them telling us that they might not have to. Fortunately, Hondas keep their value and we're getting almost all of our money back. We'll end up owing a couple hundred on it, but that'll be pretty easy to pay off.

Then, my mom called to let me know that Hannah, my dog, was really, really sick and that she was taking her to the vet to see if they could figure out what was wrong with her and decide if she needed to be put to sleep. I was sick and couldn't even drive out to the vet to see her.

Mom called back a couple hours later and said that the vet couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and they were going to put her to sleep. I cried. She hasn't really been *my* dog for the last few years, but still...

Then my husband had to go to school and take a test so he couldn't even come home and be with me. When he DID get home he was all bummed out because he doesn't think he did very well on the test, due to all the distractions of the last few weeks.

The insurance company was only going to give us the rental car for another five days, but through begging and pleading, we managed to get it until the 30th. Which means that we have less than two weeks to find a new car. Grr.

I'll end this post with a few pics...



I'm going to miss that dog...



And I'm going to miss this car...



Hopefully, I'll get one of these (Mistubishi Lancer)

2000 Civic, anyone?

Jesse talked to the insurance adjuster yesterday and got a little more information about the state of our car.

Wheels and tires are gone. Stereo system is gone. Steering wheel and column gone.

Other than that it doesn't sound like anything else is missing, and there's no structural damage. So they should be able to fix it.

Which is kind of nice cause that means that we don't have to go car shopping again, just six months after the last time.

Grapevine

For those of you who haven't heard through the grapevine yet...

Thursday morning Jesse got up to go to work (I was going to *finally* get my name legally changed so I was sleeping in), I heard him leave and then about 30 seconds later he came back in. He threw his shoes and bag, and I knew something was up.

He came into the bedroom and says, "The car is gone." In absolute shock and confusion, I asked, "The Honda?" "Yeah."

I got up and looked out the window, and sure enough. The car was not where we had parked it the night before.

So Jesse called the police, the insurance and the apartment complex. It was 7.30 and the only people he actually got ahold of were the police.

So, now, not only had our car been broken into and hit in a parking lot, it has been stolen. All within three weeks.

The Tacoma police called Puyallup saying they had found a car matching the description and plate number of ours. So they went and positively IDed it. It was ours.

The officer who has been working with us called to say that the wheels and tires were gone and the interior was "pretty well stripped". We're still not sure exactly what that means. We'll probably find out tomorrow (Monday).

So yeah... This week has been a little wierd to say the least. :-P

As You Can See

There is now a new design to this page. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Let me know what you think, or if there's anything that doesn't quite work.

Thanks.

A Public Service Announcement on Comments

Hi everyone. I'm posting again; must be your lucky week. Don't bother buying a lottery ticket, though, it's a waste of money.

I went to our gmail account today and noticed that there were several comments which we got in our email, but did not see on the blog. I even said something about that last night, viz., "Comment so we know you're reading." Well, apparently you HAVE been commenting. I just didn't see it.

After a little poking around on the help groups, I realized that Amy set up our comments to be reviewed by us before posting. This is because we had a rash of comment spam, i.e. "Your blog are very coole. Cum too this sight I think u will like it." My blog, suckers! Not your personal comment graffiti space! Got it?

Anyway, that's why we're doing it. So, put in a comment just once, and we'll be more diligent about reviewing them. If they're from people we know, they will be posted. Sorry about the confusion. Trust me, I was a little confused this morning. We appreciate that you read, we appreciate your prayers, and we're glad that you are commenting. Thanks for the memories.

Later!

If I Only Had a Brain

Precalculus beats up my brain like a pack of starving ninjas. I'm ready to become a monk or something so I don't have to think about radians and trigonometry anymore. I suppose I'm sort of committed now. I have to find some way to make more money to pay off the student loans, and longshoring just doesn't sound good to me. I don't have a high enough tolerance for alcohol.

We're down in Portland visiting people. It's a lot of fun, but I feel somehow that I should be getting lots of homework done. That just isn't happening. If anyone out there feels like praying for me, now would be a very good time.

In other news, our car was broken into the other night. Amy was going to work and called me because the dash was all torn apart. Thieves in Puyallup are apparently rather inept, because they managed to get into the car, tore the dash apart, failed to get the CD player, and didn't take anything out of the trunk. If we had lived in Tacoma, we would have lost the car.

Speaking of Tacoma, on our way down to Portland, we stopped to depost Amy's paycheck at a BECU on 38th St. As we were sitting listening to the 5:20 Funny on KMTT, we felt a dull thud. I looked back and there was a blue minivan trying to back up, but its progress was being impeded by our car. I got out and the van had scraped up our rear bumper on the driver's side. I had to laugh; what the heck was that? Really? We have to get our car fixed already, I guess. One more repair won't hurt.

Comment so we know you're reading. So long and thanks for all the fish.

"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated" - Mark Twain

Hey everyone. Yes, I'm still out here. I would apologize for not writing more, but I have to confess that I think I have had too much on my plate lately to feel very bad about not writing on my blog. Hopefully you'll forgive my lack of remorse. :)

I think Amy has taken care of writing up most of the big stuff lately...sooo...um....Oh, I finished my first quarter back at Pierce. I'm taking prerequisites for the computer science program at UW Tacoma. Since I avoided math and science as much as possible the first time around, that means that I have a lot of math and science to take. This quarter was statistics and precalculus. Next quarter (beginning Monday) is my second precalculus class. Then I will take physics and calculus, and THEN I can finally start on the coursework for my BS. (Which stands for Bachelor of Science, not...well, you know.)

So I'm looking forward to finishing school. Total time will be a little less than 3 years now. Should be interesting.

Stop by and say hi sometime. Bye for now...

Job Update

For those of you who are keeping track:

I actually have a job at least through the middle of April. Maybe longer, depending on whether or not they decide they need me enough to hire me on.

I really, really like the people here and I would love to work here on a more permanent basis. But I'll leave the planning up to God on this one.

Just keep us in your prayers as we continue to navigate the terrain. Thanks.

Also: We just bought a new laptop off Craig's List and it's lots of fun. It's a Dell XPS M140. It's really pretty. Oh yeah, and it works good too. lol

I Got a Job... Sort Of

I got the job I wanted even, well sort of.

I got hired on as temporary office help at HighPoint Solutions. I'm basically doing the same stuff I was doing at dB Audio, but not as many different tasks. Which is nice in one way, but in another, I don't feel quite as challenged. But if I got to be creative AND problem solve, I'd love work and that just seems wrong, ya know?

Anyway, thank you all for praying. I have a job for this week. Please continue to pray as I don't know if I'll have a job NEXT week.

Random Events?

Jesse and I were talking over the events of this last week last night, and it dawned on us. This week was not a series of random events. It's too calculated, to coincitental. We were reminded once again that there is a very real enemy in this world and his mission is to steal, kill and destroy everything he can. This week really seemed like everything went wrong. The leaky ceiling. Our computer working then not working then acting like it might work. My parent's laptop (which we borrowed while our computer was deciding whether or not to flake out on us) refusing to work off our internet connection. Etc, etc. It's just been coming at us from every conceivable angle. We feel a little battered and bruised, but we're alive. It's driven us to the feet of the Father, and more than ever, we feel like that's where our strength and unity is coming from and will continue to come from.

Thanks to all of you sent prayers heavenward after hearing about our flood. Please keep praying for us as we continue to deal with the aftermath. Love you all.

"After me, the deluge" -Napolean Bonaparte

{Takes deep breath}

Well folks, I've had about the craziest 48 hours anyone could ask for.

Monday night, Jesse and I went to the YMCA for a particularly difficult workout session. Then we went to Wal-Mart for some necessities (TP and ice cream for me). We got home to a torrential downpoar...in our dining room.

Apparently, a valve underneath the kitchen sink in the unit above ours blew out sometime Monday while we were gone, and poured enough water into our unit to leak into the unit below us. Needless to say everything in our dining room was pretty much soaked. As soon as we got home we had to start moving everything. Jesse keeps his guitars and amp in the dining room, but they managed to come out unscathed. We think we might have lost his tuner and his trainer thingy that slows down CD tracks so he can learn them. Thank God he bought the warrenty on them.

Also, the water was coming through the dining room light fixture. And there's tell-tale blister marks on the same line as several of our electrical outlets, so there might be some electrical work that needs to be done. The whole dining room and part of the living room are going to need to be painted and possibly have some drywall replaced or repaired. So we might have to move into a different unit while they're doing the repairs to ours.

We also discovered a blister that was threatening to leak on our computer. So we moved the computer and we thought it was out of danger. However, we have been unable to get it to boot up at all. We're not sure exactly what's wrong with it. We're going to replace a couple things that needed to be replaced anyway, and try to boot it up off the Windows CD to run a repair. That is, if we can find the CD.

If y'all would pray for us and our computer, we'd really appreciate it. It's not like we can go out and just buy another computer, ya know? God bless you all and we'll keep you updated on how eveything works out.

UPDATE:

Thank you, Jesus! The computer works! It turns out that the surge protector did its job and protected the computer, but the surge protector is shot. So I plugged the computer into a different power strip, and it worked! YAY!

Married to a Gamer...

I found this video online, and while it has never actually happened, Jesse and I laughed too hard to not post it up here.





This is the Austrailian comedy group Tripod. Hope you enjoy.

Update...

Jesse started back to school this quarter. He's taking two classes, one online and one at Pierce's Steilacoom campus. He is going back to school to get his degree in computer science. Right now he's taking care of pre-req's that he needs to get into the UW Tacoma program.

We finally bought a couch this last month. After 5 1/2 months of not having a couch, it's wonderful to be able to finally have someplace soft to sit. Up till now, we've only had our dining room chairs to sit in. Also, the couch gives us additional seating, so when people come over, they don't have to sit on the floor any more.

We are buying a second car for me. I have been without a car since I left for DTS almost a year and a half ago. I can't believe it's been that long... Anyway, we've been looking at Honda Civics. And we found a really nice 2000 up in Redmond. So hopefully we'll be able to pick that up this week and return the car we've been borrowing.

Jesse's benefits with Group Health kick in the first of February, so we're pretty excited about that.

I guess that's all the excitement I can think of. Thanks for listening.