Lovin what I do

Have I told you I love my job yet? Well if I haven't let me tell you, it beat the pants off of your job. People bow in my presence. Of course I in turn get on bended knee in return. We then take part in a ritual called playing. Yes, I play for a living. Blocks, puzzles, balls, you name it. So far I have been doing a lot of orientation stuff and home visits meeting a few of the children I will be taking onto my case load. I was able to attend a special therapy offered using horses. I was in heaven.
I really like the other people that work at Kids On The Move and am already falling in love with the little ones I will be working with. I feel so lucky to have snagged this job.
Let me tell you a little bit about my "perks." My salary requires that I work a 40 hr. work week 230 days a year. That means I get lots of time off. A week off in June, SPRING BREAK (just making up for the ones I didn't get in college) and no worries about working holidays. While I should be working 40 hour work weeks, they hours are flexible. That means I can work a bunch of hours and save the hours I have gone over to not work some hours on different days without taking time off. I get money each year to go to a conference of my choice... there is one in Disneyland coming up...
I have to drive a lot to do the home visits but I get paid for my mileage. Right now I am watching videos on autism at Talon and Annie's. I'm in my PJ's. Yes, this counts as work. My obsession with autism has lead me to read and hear all the information in these videos, so I'm multitasking ;)
Oh! And I finally got an apartment. I move in Tuesday. It is a little one bedroom and one bathroom but it has a dishwasher, washer and dryer, disposal, free cable and internet. Most of all, it is clean.
A special on a documentary done by a boy with autism is one. Gotta go.

Apartment Blues

I HATE apartment shopping. It stresses me out beyond belief. I especially hate apartment shopping in Utah. With BYU's two mile rule it drives prices up. You go outside the two miles around BYU and it gets even more complicated. Suddenly nothing is furnished and I think to myself "Wait, when between graduating college and getting a job was I supposed to suddenly have furniture?" I did find one apartment I fell in love with but housing apparently is so competitive, I have to fill out an application and hope to get picked! How do you make yourself stand out on a housing application? Do I write a cover letter? "My objective in applying for this apartment is to acquire a place to sleep at night and maybe cook some meals." So here I am, stressing about how much I am going to spend on rent, how suddenly insignificant my belongings have become, and wondering why washers and dryers don't grow on trees.
Now I am understanding other peoples attractions to "alternative lifestyles". Examples:
Carnival workers a.k.a. Carnies: Living out of the back of a U-haul and seeing the country one dinky town at a time is sounding pretty good right now. "My house ain't got heated floors but if you drive fast enough with the back hatch open you get a nice breeze coming through!" (not a quote from a movie, just a scene that played out in my head.
Hippies: Yeah, eating dried fruit, stringing beads on willow branches and selling them out of the back of a van sounds like a pretty sweet set up right now. Organic cactus juice anyone?
Strippers: Yes, strippers. I love to dance. I love high heels. Might as well make some money while I'm at it. Wouldn't it be nice to have money being stuffed into you instead of coming out your nose? I'm afraid I'd have to give up eating to get a job at any of these joints so I'll give up on this dream.
Well, the saga continues and life gets stickier. But don't be surprised if you receive a house warming party invitation in a month and I have forgotten all about my apartment blues.

What a Day!

Where do I begin? How about here...
I got a job. Doing what, you ask? Doing exactly what I have been not-so-secretly hoping to do since I found out this job existed.
Let's have a little Special Education 101.
You know the old phrase "The sooner the better." The same goes for implementing strategies to help individuals with special needs. So are there really things you can do for infants and toddlers with special needs or developmental delays? You betcha! That is why Special Educational Services (yes those same ones that always seemed to be located in the portable behind the school) were extended to families with infants and toddlers with special needs. It is called Early Intervention. They have figured out that if they spend money on doing more for children while they are young and more impressionable, they are able to exit many more children out of special education earlier in life...a.k.a. save money later on down the road. So Early Intervention Services were federally mandated and it is up to the state to figure out how they want to implement it.
Now more about me. I will be working in Orem in their branch of Early Intervention Services called Kids on the Move. I will be a developmental specialist. That means I go into the home and help the parent know how to teach new skills and work with their child to further their development. I will also teach a few classes where the parents and children come into the office and we do play groups. I am sure there are many more things about this job I have yet to discover but that it the jist of it. I am SO excited. I get to play with children for a living! I was offered the job yesterday and snatched it up. I will start on Monday so life will be a tornado for the next little bit. I am looking for a place to live, trying to figure out how to move all the junk, and trying not to buy every toy, puzzle, and book I come across. I will admit, Mom and I bought a few to celebrate my new job and get a jump start on the supplies I will be needing.
Yesterday after a celebratory lunch at my favorite restaurant Si Senor, my sister Chelsey and I went to my great Grandmothers house that she lived in when she was alive and found treasures of hers for us to keep and have a piece of her. I snagged some pretty china plates and tea cups, a cute owl oven mitt, some picture frames, and some amazing pyrex bowls. I can hardly wait to use them!
Today I plan on going through my stuff to weed out the things I no longer need now that college is over (hallelujah!) and practice making a key lime pie from a new recipe for when Elder Scott comes. Oh my! I have not mentioned that yet. Elder Scott is coming to do a conference here in good ol' F town and we get to "wine and dine" him at our house Friday night. Ok, so there won't be any wine, but probably some whining when we have to hand wash all of moms china. What an eventful week!

In case you didn't notice...

Half the fun of having a blog is CONSTANTLY changing it up. I feel like I change my background every five minutes. There are just so many cute ones out there. I just wish I were better at customizing it myself. Maybe I'll take a class on it someday...

And a Pink Tool Belt!

The last part of my Christmas gift from Nathan came in. A pink tool belt. As of right now all I have to put in are hair products and chopsticks. We will have to work on getting some tools to put in it. And don't you love the pic? Took it in my pj's on a timer in my bathroom. My brother-in-law Grant so graciously informed me that the tool holder things go in the back and the clip goes on the front. Looks like I have a lot of learning to do about tools and fixing things

Oh Holy Christmas

Christmas was wonderful! All 30 Webbs were home for the blessed holiday. There were rare moments where not a single child cried...or adult for that matter. The holiday treats have left my own body looking like figgy pudding. While I stopped wanting a white Christmas the second I stepped into winter in Rexburg 5 years ago, we had plenty of snow to make up for all the white Christmas' I wished for as a child. Yes, it was a Christmas to remember. And for memories sake, I am going to post pictures of the presents Nathan gave me. I was obsessed with calling him and asking for clues and talking to my sisters (blood and in in-laws) about figuring out what they were. So Steph, here they are, except for the one that hasn't come in the mail yet:

My ADORABLE kitchen timer from Anthropologie! I was drooling over it a Thanksgiving and so he hunted it down and got me the last one in Arizona. It goes perfect with my "Pioneer Woman Cooks" cookbook I got. I've already tried a recipe. That is probably why there is a crusty on the timer already


And to go with my kitchen timer, a gift card to my favorite store on Earth- Anthropologie! Is this not the cutest gift card holder?


Our favorite TV show came out with a Christmas special, so he got this for me....and him


What are these you ask? Spring loaded chopsticks. Huh? Let me explain. Nathan and I love sushi and Asian food. He is amazing at using chopsticks, I am not so good. But I refuse to give up and end up ruining my meal because I get so frustrated. As a joke Nathan went to the Asian market and picket up some chopsticks, tinkered around in his dad's garage with some springs, and made me these beauties!
Conclusion: I love Christmas. I love giving presents, and with not enough guilt to keep me from saying it, I love getting present even more!