The Story of My Loving Wifesteroni Parte 3

So there I was, scanning through hilarious pictures of desperate people trying to look their most appealing. Pictures with puckered lips, shot from above with the chest slightly protruding and that glint in the eye were abundantly abundant that day.

SN (side note): To be honest I really enjoyed it, not for what you women would consider a male predisposition but because I find it funny. Out of all the first impression images why would someone want one that doesn’t represent them at all? I’m not a shallow or mean person so if your facebook or dating site picture falls into the category I described don’t be offended because it really doesn’t matter to me who does it, it’s just a funny phenomenon that you happen to be a part of.

So I was getting my laugh on sitting in my parents office chair (ya know the ones that go bweeeee and pffftttttttt when you adjust the height?) when who’s face should load onto my screen but this!

Now the reason this was special to me was this. I had traveled a lot after the mission, dated a lot, met a lot of girls. I wasn’t in a rush to get married but I did want to meet people and “get back in the game” that I hadn’t been a part of for so long. My problem was things were very different. The dynamic of dating was weird because now it wasn’t the boys making first moves and being the hormonally aggressive ones but it was the girls I was meeting and dating. On dates I’d ask “So who would be your ideal guy to marry?” A probing question that I legitimately wanted to know the answer to and get a response like, “I can’t believe you just said the “M” word on a date!”

That was new.

And as unappealing as I was to them at that moment they became to me. Not that I hated them and would refuse to talk to them or avoid making eye contact (which would happen at get-togethers to me) but they just were no longer a candidate for anything more than a friend. Which isn’t a bad thing, I was not what they wanted and they weren't what I wanted in that instance. I’d also like to bring attention to the obvious that this isn’t the only thing that was causing me to find the girls I was dating to be unappealing, just a large one.

So with that back to AMBS! The strangest thing happened to me when I saw her picture, my speedy clicking of the mouse halted and I had a heart attack. Not left arm numb type heart attack but something punched me in the heart forcing me to recline in such a way I fell over. On the floor I was just shocked, “WHAT WAS THAT!?!?!” I want to point out that it was a “OH MAN!!! WHAT IS THAT!!!” type of shocked but an “ANGEL!!!!!” type. (For those of you who have never had a moment where an angel popped in and surprised you, inhale the biggest inhale you’ve ever done and at the same time yell ANGEL and then fly backwards across the room because of the sheer awe of what you’re witnessing)

SN: I’ve never seen an angel to my knowing. (Other than Ambs)

I stumbled back up and I just stared at her image (don’t worry it wasn’t engraven, just pixeled). She looked like such a good person, happy, confident, modest and more importantly she wrote a lot in her profile haha! She was clever witty and had a harem of manfriends on her profile whom all were models, I'd go so far to say they may have been actors, I mean look at 'em!

 (I look like a … well here look at me:

So I thought, “NO REGRETS!!” and I sent her an email on January 3, 2006. She replied two days later and said that she had never read such a funny email. *SPOILER ALERT* Ambs blogged about it in more detail http://gusafam.blogspot.com/2009/09/it-happened-one-night.html (I hope you notice the puckered lips pic!)

This started our friendship. She was in Chicago and I was in Conklin an armpit hamlet by the plant I worked at. (No not the garden variety) We started talking every night and for the next 8 months we developed a really good friendship.

It wasn’t a romance yet though.

Ambs and I both had a very different opinion on where to live and raise families. I wanted Canada, she wanted Utah. So we just closed the door to ending up together because neither of us wanted to compromise. That really permitted our relationship to grow because now “M” words were comfortable, we were very open (because why try to impress your friends, am I right? huh huh?). Sometime in August we both were busy and couldn’t talk (to each other, just clarifying) and that ended being the worst day of my life! I was miserable. So was the next day until that night when we were talking on the phone about the date she went on and the party I went to when I realized how happy I was to interact with her and how happy it made me.

I need her.

When I’m with her (metaphorically or literally) it doesn’t feel like I’m trudging up a mountain through life but like we’re standing together at the top of it deciding which way we want to go!

I told her later that week that I loved her.

BUTT UNFORTUNATELY……..

(no not a typo)

This is only a post, if this was a real statement you would have read the following....

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please do not be alarmed, this is only a post.

This concludes this post.

The Story of My Loving Wifester Part 2

So I served for two years as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS and I came home. Completely single!

So I dated a few wonderful women. I landed another job in the oil field and had the goal to save enough that I could acquire some basic things that my future wife and I could enjoy while we were a poor and destitute newly married couple, as I assumed we would. (It was never my intention to continue in the oil field only because of the fact that I would often be away from my someday family, but for the meantime it was a wonderful way to earn some money and I really enjoyed the work!) I was working 24 days and then I would have 4 days off. During those four days I would return from the north and be hanging out at the padres. One morning I was on the computer and again like before and being bored I threw LDS back into the search engine. Also like before I saw the LDS site, the nostalgia made me try my old username. Since I always used the same password and username it was fairly easy to remember (for those who are wondering about how I could’ve possibly signed in after two years). GUESS WHAT!? It was still active! I also had about 400 emails from people wanting to talk to me or whatever they do on those things. So for the next while I went through all those, figured out how to email people and I even emailed a few ladies that I thought seemed interesting. It was fun because I could be at work and still could have some interaction with someone outside of work. I feel I should mention as well that I had some pretty strict rules for myself about anyone from “online”, some of which were, I would never have more contact then through email, we would never “meet” because it was weird, and the most that could happen as far as a relationship was concerned was friends only. I had a woman that would email me often and we’d talk about whatever and she was fun. She kept telling me to join a different LDS singles site, LDSLinkup. Apparently it was superior in some way. After about 2 months of her trying to pressure me into it I said, “Meh, why not.” So as most people do, I set out to check out the features of this new site I had joined.

Little did I know that this decision would ultimately change the course of my life … for the BEST!

I must confess my love for Photoshop

I have to admit that Adobe really has done a wonderful job with their digital imaging editors! I’ve been playing with them for a while and it’s true, we’ve had a long lovely relationship. I wish I had more to put in here but I have a couple of simple things that I’ve done starting with my Halloween blog stuff!!

 

 

 

I hope you could tell which was the before and after pictures and yes thank you, I think I did a good job removing that Mexican from that picture too! So that’s a few of the pics I’ve played with but also you can build from the bottom up and create a whole unique image. Here’s a couple that I’ve done (some under the direction of my wonderful creative wife):

 

SO for all of you that were expecting something good I’d like to take this opportunity to just quickly apologize to those people, I’m sorry.

 

 

 

I love Photoshop.

All things Halloween!

Well I’ve never been one to get really excited about All Hallows Eve … lately haha! Crazy Halloween movies was something I used to really look forward to. The treats, the spooky feeling as you’re watching a movie with “jump scenes”, and the laughing as we all claim we’re not scared or we saw that coming was an integral part of this time of year. Well that’s been laid to rest really and it’s one dead thing I doubt will be returning from the grave! My wife isn’t a huge fan of scary movies, in fact I think she’s an anti-fan of scary movies UNLESS they were made anytime before the ‘80’s! Also she hasn’t been too adamant about me eating candy by the buckets either!

BUT I think I’m starting a new tradition. PHOTOSHOPPING HALLOWEEN STUFF FOR MY BLOG!!!! YAY!!! So I hope that you all can enjoy my spooky horror rendition of my bloggy bloggy and don’t worry! CHRISTMAS IS NEXT!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Windows Live Writer

So I thought I’d throw this out there right quick. I was investigating Windows 7 and all that the new OS is all about and I ran into a review about some of the tools that are sneaking in as well. Included in the Windows Live Tools is Windows Live Writer made especially for making blogging easier.

As you can tell it works. This is my second post within a year!!! HUZZAH!!

So anyway, I’ve been ripping through the programs features and I’ve found some HUGE advantages to using WLW.

1. Photos: No more tedious loading, positioning, html editing. Just insert and play with the sidebar features just as you would in word.
2. Drafts: Save drafts locally AND/OR save drafts to your blog from within the program.
3. Multiple Blogs: Quickly switch between any blogs you might have with a drop down menu. No more signing out and signing in!
4. PLUGINS!!!! The potential for new features via plugins is exciting! I already have a bunch from embedding flash movies to entire photo albums!

So those are some of the things that just popped into my head about Live Writer. Of course Microsoft hasn’t had a perfect track record with … well a whole lot… as of late….ever .. . anyway so I have a couple of brow raisers.

Blogger which is connected is also linked Google and Gmail (which I looooove!) are also connected to something else that I had no idea about!! Picasa! Some might say, “But Aaron! Everyone knows this!” and to them I would say, “Shut it, no one talks like that!”. So if you are like me and wasn’t aware that when you’re logged into Gmail that you’re also logged into your Picasa account which holds all the pictures you’ve EVER posted to your blog then do the following:

• Login to your gmail account
• Open a new tab
• Type picasaweb.google.com

Welcome to your online web photo albums! So anytime that you post from Windows Live Writer it will also be placed into your picasa web albums (side note: if any edited photos that you’re trying to publish with your posts through WLW just go into your picasa online album and create an album named “Windows Live Writer”).

But all in all this program makes it much easier to publish, quicker to publish photos, and much more convenient to arrange elements that I like.

If you’re interested here’s the link for Windows Live Writer.

The Story of My Loving Wifester! Part 1

So without further ado here is the story of my wonderful homemaker (she literally made my place a home!) and how I lied, cheated, and stole to get her to marry me! Ah-just ah-kidding!

I was raised a small chinese girl in upstate Canada.

OK OK, I'm not small or chinese and there is no upstate anything in Canada because there are no states other than states of mind.

Here's the true story.

 

After high school I felt a little lost. I knew I wanted to serve a mission but I had no money. All through school I hadn't looked for work. I felt it was important to enjoy my youth while I was weaning off my parents. Sure I had odd day jobs when I needed money but nothing with shifts or job security. Earlier in my life I had ventured to hold back on receiving my patriarchal blessing, I figured I would hold off and get it when I felt lost or in need of direction. If there was a time I needed that navigation it was right after high school. I got did what I needed done and went to receive it. It was awesome. I had questions answered and I felt confident now even though there was no visible path in front of me.

Aaaaaand what did that have to do with Amber? Haha! Well if you want the story this is what got the love ball rolling!

SO, how was I going to raise enough dough to pay for my mission!?!?! (And I did want to pay for the whole thing by myself!) I remember kneeling down and saying a prayer. It was really sincere. I remember telling God about my goal to pay for the mission myself and that it meant a lot to me but I would need a job. I had an overwhelming feeling that things were being taken care of.

The next day just before dinner I was sitting in the kitchen hanging with my mom like I often do, when the phone rang. My cousin was calling for me and was wondering if I was looking for work. He told me about it and I felt the same feeling of confidence I had the day previous. I began my days working in the oilfield. It wasn't a rigging job or anything but building the innovative Mahkesis Cold Lake Project. A construction job. In 4 months I would have my mission paid for. That was the goal and that was all I expected. 

So I arrived and started working. My schedule was I would leave for work at 5:30 AM, work and get home at about 8:30 PM. I had a simple routine. Make instant potatoes, heat up some chunky soup, eat a cheese bun, check my email, shower and brush teeth and then to bed! One day as I was checking my email I thought I’d do some random googling (it was new and exciting then) and I threw in the word “LDS” in the search bar.  I had just broke up with my girlfriend and of course I wanted some time out of the game. That may seem unrelated but I saw this one website LDSMingle.The website was for Single Adult LDS and coming from a fresh breakup this seemed like an interesting opportunity. I could unofficially meet people and be completely honest about me and just see what happens without ever having to worry about getting too involved, BECAUSE I WOULDN’T HAVE TO !!! Perfect plan right?!? I thought so, a perfect chance to gauge my worth in the LDS community without getting my hands, “dirty”? (That doesn’t mean what that means…) OK, lets try that again, so it was a good idea I thought because I didn’t run the risk of having to tell someone I didn’t want a relationship right now and that I was sorry yadda yadda. All I had to do is … wait… see who looked at my profile… go to bed. That’s better.

 

I had a best friend, Matt Adams, that lived in the area and we decided that we’d stay up and hang out. I told him about the site and he joined too! We actually were completely honest and we had a lot of fun with it. So long first part of story short even after my 4 month goal the Lord blessed me that they kept me for 10 months, earning enough for the mission and I went, leaving my profile forgotten.

 

This is the end of part 1 *beep*