When my mom was here she showed me the song "Uncharted" by Sara Bareillas. I'd never heard it before and its become a favorite. But I've had a line from it on my mind all week.
"Compare where you are and where you want to be and you'll get nowhere."
Its given me a lot to think about. Love it.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
When My Mom Comes...
Today I was talking to my wonderful mom about when she comes to visit. After talking about our mutual excitement I asked her what she'd like to do while she's here. Her answer made me smile....
pile into bed at night and watch movies that aren't even funny and laugh really hard like they are
and stay up late
and then wake up and take walks in the mountains
and take pictures
and take long drives and stop wherever we want to
and run into shops we have never seen before
and if we wander too far from home just check into a hotel
and order pancakes for breakfast
and listen to music that brings back memories of my little girls
and call each other names like stupid and dummy...but not mean it at all
unless we are being stupid or dumb
I have the best mom on the planet.
pile into bed at night and watch movies that aren't even funny and laugh really hard like they are
and stay up late
and then wake up and take walks in the mountains
and take pictures
and take long drives and stop wherever we want to
and run into shops we have never seen before
and if we wander too far from home just check into a hotel
and order pancakes for breakfast
and listen to music that brings back memories of my little girls
and call each other names like stupid and dummy...but not mean it at all
unless we are being stupid or dumb
I have the best mom on the planet.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Company History
The month of September...I made company history. Our company is a business training and leadership company. We have a program called the Performance Index that gives employees "scorecards" that detail their responsibilities. At the end of each month, you sit down with your boss and you score your scorecard. The categories are: Does not meet expectations, partially meets expectations, meets expectations, exceeds expectations, and far exceeds expectations.
The month of September was a FULL one. Of all the months to set a goal to reach far exceeds expectations, this was definitely the most busy one. I worked over weekends and was very tired. But I DID IT! I made company history by being the first ever to reach Far Exceeds Expectations.
On Friday, Peter made me STAND at the company meeting while the office applauded. He knew how much I'd hate that. That's why he did it. But I sure have the best boss anyone could hope for.
And I got a nice little bonus this month :)
The month of September was a FULL one. Of all the months to set a goal to reach far exceeds expectations, this was definitely the most busy one. I worked over weekends and was very tired. But I DID IT! I made company history by being the first ever to reach Far Exceeds Expectations.
On Friday, Peter made me STAND at the company meeting while the office applauded. He knew how much I'd hate that. That's why he did it. But I sure have the best boss anyone could hope for.
And I got a nice little bonus this month :)
Sunday, September 18, 2011
"Adventurous-ness-es"
I've needed to post on here for quite some time. About two weeks ago a new side of Carly that no one, not even myself, knew emerged. It started with a hike. A bunch of people in our ward wanted to hike Mount Timpanogos on Labor Day. They wanted to start at about midnight on Sunday so that we could hike it in time to see the sun rise from the top. I from the get go told them I would not be interested. I'm not a hiking mountains kinda girl.
Sunday afternoon rolled around and I REALLY wanted to do something fun for Labor Day since I had the day off. Becca SOMEHOW talked me into going on this hike. So we leave and head up. It was a good thing it was dark. If I had seen that mountain and how much I had to climb in the light of day there is no way I would have done it.
After about six hours we made it to the top! Wow! What a feeling. I took some beautiful pictures. We stayed up there for about a half hour and then headed down. Everyone said that the hike down would be SO much shorter so I was excited for it to be over with. The way down seemed to take SO much longer than the way up. But after four hours, Chase-one of the guys in our group, said that the sign was coming up. The sign that started our journey. Much to Becca's delight (she still tells the story) I shouted "The Sign?!?" and started RUNNING as fast as my exhausted legs would allow me. We got to the sign (which I kissed) and knew the end was coming. We kept making our way down when Chased said that he heard a car. I once again, shouted "Cars?!?" and started running. I would not be stopped until we had reached the parking lot. The cute park service old men at the end of the trail could not stop laughing when they saw me coming. I'm sure I was the sight to see after a ten hour hike.
So that was Monday. On Thursday I got a text from my friend Austin asking if I'd like to go skydiving on Saturday. He was doing it for his birthday. After several hours of tossing the idea around in my head I consented (WHAT IS UP WITH ME?!) and started planning on jumping out of an airplane on Saturday at eleven.
We drove out to Toole where the skydiving place was. There were so many people that our time kept getting pushed back. Finally at 2:30 it was our turn. We started getting our gear on and my jumping buddy, Blake, and I started talking and I found out that he is a part of the Meibos family! One of my favorite families. So we felt very bonded at this point. We went up in the plane and I was introduced to the Channel 4 weatherman who was sitting in front of me. He asked me what I was thinking and all I could say was "I can't believe I'm doing this!" Finally....we'd made it to 13,000 ft. I put my toes over the edge of the plane door and next thing I knew we were falling for TWO WHOLE MINUTES at 120 mph. Then Blake pulled the chord and the parachute (hallelujah) came out.
We started floating in the clouds. He even let me hold on to the handles of the parachute. Then, after about six minutes of that, we went in for the landing. I completed a PERFECT landing on my feet. So thrilling! I would do it again in a heart beat.
My mom wrote on my facebook wall: "Sky diving-check, Rocky mountain climbing-check check, Next...2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu? I love your adventurous-ness-es."
Me too :)
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Speak English?!
The company I work for deals with customers all over the world. On Monday we have a program in Shanghai with Microsoft. The materials we needed for the conference were shipped out WEEKS ahead of time. As of Friday Chinese customs STILL wouldn't let the materials through. Even though we'd provided them with all the necessary paperwork.
So...we came up with plan B. If by noon on Saturday (Shanghai time) the materials hadn't arrived we should just plan on them not being there. So we found the phone number for a FedEx Kinkos that was close to the hotel were our Client Partner is staying. Peter asked me if I would please be in charge of calling them, explaining how we wanted the materials printed, and making sure they would be done in time. When I expressed my concern about the language barrier he responded..."Don't worry. It's an international company. They'll have someone there that speaks English."
I dialed the number for the Kinkos in Shanghai. A woman answered saying SOMETHING. It just sounded like a bunch of sounds to me.
"Uh. Hi. Speak English?"
"A little."
Oh great...this will be fun trying to explain everything to her. I started speaking in the simplest, shortest sentences I could think of. I'd ask a question....
"Ok."
"You understand me?"
"Ok."
Ya....not working. I tried asking if there was ANYONE else I could speak to.
"Ya. Ok. Great. Bye."
I started yelling in the phone. "NO BYE!"
After wayyyyy too long. She communicated that a man who speaks better English would be there in twenty minutes. Great. I'll call back then.
He did speak much better English. MUCH better. Not great. But it worked. And everything was finally figured out. But here are the lessons I learned from this experience:
1. Chinese customs does not care if you need your package.
2. Just because FedEx Kinkos is an international business does not mean that they will have someone who speaks English.
3. Google is very useful when converting RMBs to USDs.
4. If communicating with people in China you MUST be up all hours of the night because thats when they're up and doing business. AKA-I'm EXHAUSTED.
5. My boss owes me BIG TIME!
And...last but not least....
6. Speaking louder does not make it ANY easier for them to understand you. But it sure does make you feel better.
So...we came up with plan B. If by noon on Saturday (Shanghai time) the materials hadn't arrived we should just plan on them not being there. So we found the phone number for a FedEx Kinkos that was close to the hotel were our Client Partner is staying. Peter asked me if I would please be in charge of calling them, explaining how we wanted the materials printed, and making sure they would be done in time. When I expressed my concern about the language barrier he responded..."Don't worry. It's an international company. They'll have someone there that speaks English."
I dialed the number for the Kinkos in Shanghai. A woman answered saying SOMETHING. It just sounded like a bunch of sounds to me.
"Uh. Hi. Speak English?"
"A little."
Oh great...this will be fun trying to explain everything to her. I started speaking in the simplest, shortest sentences I could think of. I'd ask a question....
"Ok."
"You understand me?"
"Ok."
Ya....not working. I tried asking if there was ANYONE else I could speak to.
"Ya. Ok. Great. Bye."
I started yelling in the phone. "NO BYE!"
After wayyyyy too long. She communicated that a man who speaks better English would be there in twenty minutes. Great. I'll call back then.
He did speak much better English. MUCH better. Not great. But it worked. And everything was finally figured out. But here are the lessons I learned from this experience:
1. Chinese customs does not care if you need your package.
2. Just because FedEx Kinkos is an international business does not mean that they will have someone who speaks English.
3. Google is very useful when converting RMBs to USDs.
4. If communicating with people in China you MUST be up all hours of the night because thats when they're up and doing business. AKA-I'm EXHAUSTED.
5. My boss owes me BIG TIME!
And...last but not least....
6. Speaking louder does not make it ANY easier for them to understand you. But it sure does make you feel better.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Crush
My roommate Laura is a second grade teacher. School starts on Monday and she was making name tags for the kids in her class tonight.
It made me think....
Remember the first day of school when the teacher assigned seats and you ran into the classroom HOPING to be "forced" to sit next to the boy you liked? And you found out you HAD to sit next to him?
That was happiness.
It made me think....
Remember the first day of school when the teacher assigned seats and you ran into the classroom HOPING to be "forced" to sit next to the boy you liked? And you found out you HAD to sit next to him?
That was happiness.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Memorable Flight
Last weekend I went home to help my parents get the house ready to sell. We painted and cleaned and packed. We also participated in the annual 5k our ward puts on. The Taylor family made us hot pink shirts. We went to a Cardinals game. And we had late nights and talks and lots of laughs. I loved being home.
On my flight back home I was EXHAUSTED. I'd only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before because I'd stayed up all night with my mom. As I sat down on the plane for the flight to Dallas (where I'd connect for my flight to Salt Lake) I was thinking I'd get some sleep.
A lady (mid-thirties) gets on the plane last minute talking on her phone and comes and sits down next to me. I hear her say, "And hopefully this nice lady next to me won't mind if I grab on to her when I get scared." Haha. Ya....at this point I'm thinking NO WAY I'm going to get any sleep.
So I start talking to her. Trying to distract her. Talk about scared of flying! Its an 8 AM flight and she's already had two cocktails she informs me and is frustrated with the flight attendant when he asks her for her drink order and he tells her its too early to be serving alcohol. But she's doing pretty well. The flight is only supposed to be about an hour and ten minutes so I figure I can keep her distracted for that long.
About thirty minutes into the flight the flight attendant gets on the intercom and starts SCREAMING into it "CODE RED CODE RED CODE RED" and flight attendants start running up and down the aisles. I'm literally thinking "This is it. This is how I go. Wow." Meanwhile the POOR lady next to me has a DEATH grip on my arm. I cannot feel it at all. I took a picture of my hand and sent it to my mom afterward....HOURS later you could still see this lady's nail marks in my hand. After what seems an eternity she follows her screaming of code red with "MEDICAL EMERGENCY. WE HAVE A PASSENGER THAT HAS PASSED OUT AND NEEDS MEDICAL ATTENTION IN FIRST CLASS."
Ok. Well glad to know we're not all gonna die. But for the sake of everyone on board next time.....LEAD WITH MEDICAL EMERGENCY!
Cause who the heck knows what code red means?!
Lets just say at the end of the flight the woman and I embraced as we said goodbye, truly feeling like we were saying goodbye to a dear friend. We went through quite the experience together.
On my flight back home I was EXHAUSTED. I'd only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before because I'd stayed up all night with my mom. As I sat down on the plane for the flight to Dallas (where I'd connect for my flight to Salt Lake) I was thinking I'd get some sleep.
A lady (mid-thirties) gets on the plane last minute talking on her phone and comes and sits down next to me. I hear her say, "And hopefully this nice lady next to me won't mind if I grab on to her when I get scared." Haha. Ya....at this point I'm thinking NO WAY I'm going to get any sleep.
So I start talking to her. Trying to distract her. Talk about scared of flying! Its an 8 AM flight and she's already had two cocktails she informs me and is frustrated with the flight attendant when he asks her for her drink order and he tells her its too early to be serving alcohol. But she's doing pretty well. The flight is only supposed to be about an hour and ten minutes so I figure I can keep her distracted for that long.
About thirty minutes into the flight the flight attendant gets on the intercom and starts SCREAMING into it "CODE RED CODE RED CODE RED" and flight attendants start running up and down the aisles. I'm literally thinking "This is it. This is how I go. Wow." Meanwhile the POOR lady next to me has a DEATH grip on my arm. I cannot feel it at all. I took a picture of my hand and sent it to my mom afterward....HOURS later you could still see this lady's nail marks in my hand. After what seems an eternity she follows her screaming of code red with "MEDICAL EMERGENCY. WE HAVE A PASSENGER THAT HAS PASSED OUT AND NEEDS MEDICAL ATTENTION IN FIRST CLASS."
Ok. Well glad to know we're not all gonna die. But for the sake of everyone on board next time.....LEAD WITH MEDICAL EMERGENCY!
Cause who the heck knows what code red means?!
Lets just say at the end of the flight the woman and I embraced as we said goodbye, truly feeling like we were saying goodbye to a dear friend. We went through quite the experience together.
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