My new goal

Blogging via phone is my new best friend. I'll be on here much more now.
So Jason and I are all moved into my parents basement (huge thanks to my family for their help with this task.) and the move went surprisingly smooth with a few fights of me trying to get Jason to do manual labor :P. For those of you who haven’t heard yet my parents are getting divorced and Jason and I decided to move into the basement so as to help financially with the split and so i can be with my youngest sister. It’s been nice so far being at home. Also, Jason’s shop is going really well, he is picking up a hoist this weekend so no more jack stands. We have enough referrals now that people are stopping by because they heard someone talking about us. J gets a real kick out of that, our conversations after work usually start with, "So I had 2 guys stop in the shop today..." I nod and smile and am excited for him.
I have been learning some hard things about marriage the last couple of months. A couple of nights ago I had a meltdown- I have really been struggling with the transition to wife. I didn’t think much would change since Jason and I lived together before the wedding but wow. I’ve got a lot more respect for ‘wife’. I didn’t naively think that getting married would be a fairy tale and I felt prepared walking down that aisle but man. Anyway during my crying I kept wondering why I was so sad and I realized I was having a hard time loving myself. I felt down on myself because I am not working toward anything and do not have a clue what I want to do with my life. I work and go home and do it over again. Luckily I have Founders training in 2 weeks, I’m hoping that will light some type of fire but I have also set the goal not to be so hard on myself. Does anyone else have this goal?

My 21st and moving

Quick run down on my birthday. It was the big 21 on the 5th.
I ran errands with Jason in the morning and hung out at the shop for awhile. Then that afternoon I went to Platos Closet and my best friend Brittany foot the bill for my shopping spree (she is store manager there so it worked out nicely for both of us.) And Jason gave me a $150 gift card to Forever 21, that I haven't used yet. That night Jason and I went out to dinner with Brittany and her boyfriend Jeremy at Chilis and then played arcade games for a while at Miracle Bowl while we waited for a lane to be open. It was a pretty fun day. Also, Susan paid for me to get a hair cut at her salon which I used the next day,my new hair is so cute. It's not shorter but it has layers and long sideswept bangs now. And then that Sunday we went to my parents house where my family sang me happy birthday and my Dad made my birthday cake. (Mom gave me another gift card to Forever 21, score, and Dad gave me money.) So I guess it was more like a birthday weekend.

Other then that things have been fairly quiet, we are settling in to the new shop and getting ready to move out of the apartment. Right now as I write this Jason is at a car meet for all of the Mazda enthusiasts in Utah.

I'm human ok?

Sometimes I write a post and then forget to post it because I will write it and then feel 'wow this is really lame I'll just save it as a draft and edit it later and post it.' Well thats what I did with that last post so I am doing a more updated one right now, this is why I am posting twice in one day.

So yes last week as most of you know by now was Jasons 23rd birthday. I can't believe we met when he was 19..... Anyway, I threw him a surprise party which had to be one of the scariest things to do ever because I knew it would mean a lot to him but I was so worried that people wouldn't show up and instead of feeling how loved he is he would feel bad that a lot of people hadn't shown up. Thankfully of the 25 people I invited, 30 people showed up! My parents kitchen was super packed. Here is a picture of his cake, it's kind of dark:

I am giving myself a pat on the back with this cake because I designed the picture that is printed on there and it was such a hit, a lot of our friends were shocked that I had designed that. I feel pretty good about myself looking back at that picture lol. My parents got video of the party so when I get that from them I will post it too.

I was really pleased the night was such a success, Jason kept saying I can't believe everyone was there, I can't believe how many people were there, I can't believe that all my friends showed up- after a while I was like ok ok I get it. I did an amazing job haha.

Also, this last weekend Jason moved into his first shop!! I am so so so so soososososo thankful he has this place now because the car parts in our dining area were really starting to cause problems with my feelings towards him.
On a more relevant note, it is starting to bring in a lot of business. Jason said the other night that he didn't realize before how much more credibility a shop would give him. Before we started moving stuff in we had to seal the floor using that garage floor paint and omg I am so sick of painting. If I have to edge a floor ever again I think I'll die. I'll post pictures of the shop later because there isn't much to it right now.

PS My birthday is this Thursday so feel free to leave me a note about turning the big 21! ;)

And life speeds up

Let me tell you about our month. Two Tuesdays ago I came home from work not feeling so well, not really sick but more like achy, like I had had a long day (which we always do at Zrii eh Amber?) Anyway, I get home about 7 and at about 830 I got really tired, couldn't keep my eyes open, I thought 'Ill lay here for a bit and unwind'. Well I woke up the next day at 2 pm! Somehow that morning I had managed to call into work to let them know I wasn't coming in but I don't really remember what I said. And man did my body hurt. It was an achy and a sniffly and a foggy feeling. From Wednesday to Friday I stayed home and over the three days I'd say I slept about 40 to 45 hours. I could not stay awake! Until Friday afternoon, what I think was my fever, broke and just like that I was up. I took a shower and was good to go. It was the strangest illness I have ever had. And even today when I was running errands I could tell my reasoning skills aren't all the way back yet, I kept forgetting to shift or I would stop on green lights.



Jason on the other hand has gotten very little sleep this week. He has some big events coming up with PriceMatchedParts (that I am not allowed to post about until after they happen) that has him swamped. We have had customers and business associates over every single day this week, sometimes 6 or more stacked into our little apartment. He had his biggest day last week doing over $6,000 in sales!! It was so cute when he added it up that night because he procceded to call everyone in his phonebook and tell them how much he had done, including my parents lol. I am so proud of him.

Business ventures

I have posted before about Jasons business PriceMatchedParts.com (http://www.pricematchedparts.com) where he sells performance car parts, ie aftermarket turbo kits, front mount intercooler kits, online. When he, and me as web designer, first started pricematchedparts he was working at Barber Brothers and only was able to work on it at night, well about 4 months into it he was laid off from Barber Brothers (he was the first cut in their downsizing because of the economy crisis) and he threw all his weight into PMP which is now his only source of income. Well pricmatchedparts is becoming so big that now we are keeping in stock some of the more common parts that he sells because customers will call him and want to swing by and pick the part up and give him cash. It's amazing. And if that isn't enough he received so many requests for PMP to install the parts that we sell that we are now getting a shop here in Orem where we will be able to stock parts and offer installations for those customers that would prefer we do both for them. Right now we have a Nissan 350Z sitting in our garage. The owner wanted to make sure he was first on the list to have Jason build his motor so he brought it over so that Jason could get started even before we moved the car to the new shop!
I am so proud of Jason taking his talent with cars and selling and turning it into something tangible.
Well we decided now that Jason is up and running doing what he loves it is time to get me moving. I had been putting in a lot of time learning more web design principles knowing that I want to go into Internet but not sure exactly what part. One day we were at Bretts house and I was showing him some things on Facebook and Brett said to me, "If I was you I would teach business owners how to use things like Facebook for their marketing. I have clients ask me all the time if I have someone that does that kind of stuff." And it hit me. Brett, the genius he is, had just defined for me what part to go into. I went home that night and started researching. Now this might have been fairly easy to just slide into but like Jasons employers when he started his business were laying people off, my work has started to lay people off. So now I am in this catch 22 of needing to show up really well at work to keep my job but at the same time really get this new business moving so that I have another means of income in case I am the next to go! I've got the groundwork laid out so far, http://www.socialnetworkyourbusiness.blogspot.com is where I post how to's so that I can market and get a following. But then I have http://www.socialnetworkyourbusiness.com which is my official selling site. It isn't the doing it that is hard for me so far, it's the where-to-start that seems to be getting in my way. Like chipping away at a glacier.
Anyway, this post has turned into a novel so I am ending here but please if you have any ideas for me or referrals shoot me an email babytwoshoes@msn.com or socialnetworkyourbusiness@gmail.com. I am all about networking now :)

Our first Christmas and New Years

The best perk of being married is I get to hang out with my best friend all the time, even on holidays that normally I didn't get to see him on when we were dating.
Christmas was lots of fun. We spent Christmas eve and day at Bretts house watching movies and playing on the ping pong table we bought his family (actually Brett and Jason played ping pong, the rest of us decided to just keep out of that competition ha). Then the day after at my parents house we played with everyones Christmas toys including the ping pong table we bought my family lol. Yes you read right, we bought two. Target FTW. We are extremely lucky that our families live so close to us to play with all the time.
Then New Years I made a nice steak dinner and at about 10pm we went to Jasons friend from highschools house and played Rock Band and chatted. It was more of a regular party then a New Years party. Next year I told Jason we are going to Vegas to watch all the big shows they have on the strip.

Christmas lights and such

This last weekend Jason and I went on a really fun group date (our first in like 6 months ha) to SLC and walked around looking at the Christmas lights. Ok so it wasn't the most amazing thing ever but it was refreshing to get out of Utah County and catch some Christmas spirit. By the way, it has been snowing for about a week now with the next week forecasting to snow everyday too! 'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....'Also some quick updates. We have a lot of big decisions coming up, our lease is up on the apartment next year and with it being a buyers market we are taking a real look at getting into a first home. Me, with my own house, and a husband. It still blows me away. And then Jason has just moved into doing installations of his performance parts on to his customers cars and might have found an amazing shop that we can run the business out of. I am really happy about this thought because I am tired of the dining room being our car parts storage. Cross your fingers for me!