Remember how I said I loved my job? Well, I changed my mind. And I quit. I'm now trying to get a job on BYU campus. I'm really excited to be done with Response. I'm applying this week to be a Writing Fellow, which is pretty much a peer paper reviewer.
I'm loving school. As of right now, I should finish school (besides my capstone) a year from the end of next fall semester, so in about a year. I'm thinking of adding an editing minor though, but I haven't looked too seriously at that.
Ben and I are planning on going to China in about a year, to teach English. We're really excited for it.
Ben and I are working on a project. Well, Ben is working on a project and I'm helping as much as I can. Which isn't very much. But it's really exciting. It's a video game, we're going to do a Kickstarter for it. Ben and I both really enjoy talking about marketing and entrepreneurship together. It's a common interest and we have a lot of fun with it together.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Probably the closest Ben and I will ever get to having a "fight" ...
Today, I wanted to share a somewhat personal story about my husband and I. I hope nobody minds. It made me really appreciate my husband and all that he does to make our marriage work.
We were at church, walking from sacrament meeting to Sunday school. We were discussing our plans for next weekend. Because we haven't visited Ben's family for a long time and because it's General Conference weekend, we were planning tentatively on going to Vernal Saturday afternoon.
I started thinking about our plan in more definite terms and started worrying about a few logistics/snags in our plans. Mostly I realized that I wouldn't be able to spend the night of the priesthood conference with my mom. That has been a tradition in past years and I love that times spent with my mom.
I brought this up to Ben, but I don't think he understood why I was saying it. I think he really misses his family and he said something along the lines of, "Well, you will get to see her tonight and you spent yesterday with her."
Needless to say, that wasn't what I wanted him to say. I am an emotional person and was a little hurt by it. I simply answered with something like, "Yeah, I know," and walked into the classroom really quickly. Once inside, we both let the subject drop.
I knew that Ben didn't mean to upset me when he said it. He was simply expressing what we both knew, which was that we hadn't seen his family in a while and this weekend would be a good time to go. He didn't know about my mom and my tradition of spending one on one girl time together every six months and he didn't understand how much I have been missing my mom recently.
Ben is such a good husband though. Even though he might not have understood why I was so emotional about it and even though it wasn't even really his fault, he knew that what he had said had hurt me. When we sat down for our combined meeting after Sunday school, he kissed my cheek and whispered to me, "Charly, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I shouldn't have said it."
It made me feel so wonderful that he cared about me enough to do that. I know that he didn't need to apologize. By doing so, however, he showed me not only how much he loved me, but also how much he cared about what was important to me. We were able to talk about it later when my emotions on the subject weren't as close to the surface and everything turned out fine.
Ben and I have only been married five months. So far, it's been wonderful. I know that the high quality of our marriage is in big part due to the way Benjamin treats me. I am so blessed to have such a thoughtful, loving, Christlike husband.
We were at church, walking from sacrament meeting to Sunday school. We were discussing our plans for next weekend. Because we haven't visited Ben's family for a long time and because it's General Conference weekend, we were planning tentatively on going to Vernal Saturday afternoon.
I started thinking about our plan in more definite terms and started worrying about a few logistics/snags in our plans. Mostly I realized that I wouldn't be able to spend the night of the priesthood conference with my mom. That has been a tradition in past years and I love that times spent with my mom.
I brought this up to Ben, but I don't think he understood why I was saying it. I think he really misses his family and he said something along the lines of, "Well, you will get to see her tonight and you spent yesterday with her."
Needless to say, that wasn't what I wanted him to say. I am an emotional person and was a little hurt by it. I simply answered with something like, "Yeah, I know," and walked into the classroom really quickly. Once inside, we both let the subject drop.
I knew that Ben didn't mean to upset me when he said it. He was simply expressing what we both knew, which was that we hadn't seen his family in a while and this weekend would be a good time to go. He didn't know about my mom and my tradition of spending one on one girl time together every six months and he didn't understand how much I have been missing my mom recently.
Ben is such a good husband though. Even though he might not have understood why I was so emotional about it and even though it wasn't even really his fault, he knew that what he had said had hurt me. When we sat down for our combined meeting after Sunday school, he kissed my cheek and whispered to me, "Charly, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I shouldn't have said it."
It made me feel so wonderful that he cared about me enough to do that. I know that he didn't need to apologize. By doing so, however, he showed me not only how much he loved me, but also how much he cared about what was important to me. We were able to talk about it later when my emotions on the subject weren't as close to the surface and everything turned out fine.
Ben and I have only been married five months. So far, it's been wonderful. I know that the high quality of our marriage is in big part due to the way Benjamin treats me. I am so blessed to have such a thoughtful, loving, Christlike husband.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
A little more about my new job ...
I got a job working for Response Marketing. And, to my surprise, I love it.
Response Marketing is an outbound call company. We have different teams who call for various things (for example, one group calls people who have shown interest in wanting to start or go back to school and gets their information sent out to different colleges). I call people and offer them free tickets to different real estate seminars in their area.
It's a little hard sometimes, just because people don't like telemarketers. Most of the time, everyone is really nice about it, even if they aren't interested. Every once in a while, you get a person who's mad at you for calling or who is upset that we have their information.
It's fun talking to the different people, though. It's surprising to me at times what people will tell a complete stranger over the phone--just personal things like that they're getting a surgery or going through a divorce. I had one old grandpa explain all about how real estate works. People will tell me all about how gold is the new investment to be making or that today happens to be their nephew's eighth birthday. Even when I don't make the sale, I usually enjoy the phone calls.
It's fun to try to make sells. A "sale" is when a person lets us send them tickets, or information, about the event. It's free, so I don't feel bad trying to push them onto someone. It's really fun when a person who doesn't want the tickets or is out of town the day of the event or something and I can talk them into letting me send them the information anyways. Those are nice sales because I feel like I earn them.
The best part of the job, though, is the time between calls. We actually have a lot of times between calls, especially when we get a lot of answering machines. We are allowed to do whatever we want during that time, as long as we're not on our cell phones. So far, I've read. It's so nice, but it will be even nicer when school starts and I have homework to be doing.
My job is so flexible with hours. You can go in basically whenever, as long as you get your hours in. That is so nice for my schedule. Between work and dance and everything else I'm doing, any kind of job where I have a set schedule everyday is pretty much impossible.
The pay is good, too. It's only eight dollars an hour, base, but commission is so nice. If you hit the minimum amount of sales required, you get fifty cents an hour commission. This week, I made three dollars an hour commission, so eleven dollars an hour. Then every six weeks, they give you a twenty five cents raise. I think it's because they don't have very good retention, simply because it's a college city and also because it can be a really boring job. I'm lucky I love reading so much, and that I can read with all the noise going on. If I couldn't, I would DIE of boredom.
As it is, though, I found the perfect job for me right now. I'll probably stay with them until Ben and I are done with school.
Response Marketing is an outbound call company. We have different teams who call for various things (for example, one group calls people who have shown interest in wanting to start or go back to school and gets their information sent out to different colleges). I call people and offer them free tickets to different real estate seminars in their area.
It's a little hard sometimes, just because people don't like telemarketers. Most of the time, everyone is really nice about it, even if they aren't interested. Every once in a while, you get a person who's mad at you for calling or who is upset that we have their information.
It's fun talking to the different people, though. It's surprising to me at times what people will tell a complete stranger over the phone--just personal things like that they're getting a surgery or going through a divorce. I had one old grandpa explain all about how real estate works. People will tell me all about how gold is the new investment to be making or that today happens to be their nephew's eighth birthday. Even when I don't make the sale, I usually enjoy the phone calls.
It's fun to try to make sells. A "sale" is when a person lets us send them tickets, or information, about the event. It's free, so I don't feel bad trying to push them onto someone. It's really fun when a person who doesn't want the tickets or is out of town the day of the event or something and I can talk them into letting me send them the information anyways. Those are nice sales because I feel like I earn them.
The best part of the job, though, is the time between calls. We actually have a lot of times between calls, especially when we get a lot of answering machines. We are allowed to do whatever we want during that time, as long as we're not on our cell phones. So far, I've read. It's so nice, but it will be even nicer when school starts and I have homework to be doing.
My job is so flexible with hours. You can go in basically whenever, as long as you get your hours in. That is so nice for my schedule. Between work and dance and everything else I'm doing, any kind of job where I have a set schedule everyday is pretty much impossible.
The pay is good, too. It's only eight dollars an hour, base, but commission is so nice. If you hit the minimum amount of sales required, you get fifty cents an hour commission. This week, I made three dollars an hour commission, so eleven dollars an hour. Then every six weeks, they give you a twenty five cents raise. I think it's because they don't have very good retention, simply because it's a college city and also because it can be a really boring job. I'm lucky I love reading so much, and that I can read with all the noise going on. If I couldn't, I would DIE of boredom.
As it is, though, I found the perfect job for me right now. I'll probably stay with them until Ben and I are done with school.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Twenty Date Challenge
If you know me at all, you probably know how strongly I feel about dating, especially dating just for fun. I wrote my date ideas book (365 Date Ideas A Date a Day) because of it. I started my Facebook page for the book (https://www.facebook.com/ADateADay365DateIdeas). Now I've started a Facebook group to get more people dating more often.
Right here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/157506554446549/). It's called the Twenty Date Challenge and I'm so excited for it.
Check out my group and if you haven't joined yet, be sure to.
Right here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/157506554446549/). It's called the Twenty Date Challenge and I'm so excited for it.
Check out my group and if you haven't joined yet, be sure to.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Benjamin's turning me into an entrepreneur.
I have neglected this blog recently, but I wanted to share some of the exciting things that have been happening in my life.
First, Ben and I have been doing a lot to better promote my book. And, I think it's actually working! I've been more active with my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ADateADay365DateIdeas), inviting more people to like it, sharing it with various groups on Facebook, and sharing new date ideas that aren't in my book every week. It's really fun for me to watch as my page gets more likes. A couple weeks ago, I got my second check from them--this time for $110! That's the most I've gotten for it so far, and it came right after Ben and I put in the effort to advertise my book more. I am getting so excited about getting my book out there. It's fun for Ben and I to work on the advertising aspect of it together.
I've also been working on writing more. I have my foot in the door at Deseret Book, since they've already published some of my work and also because I have the email of a lady in charge of choosing what to publish. Ben and I figure that making sure my book does well won't hurt my chances of getting more work published. Right now, I'm writing about my hundred dates in a novel form, putting together a date ideas book for married couples, and trying to work on a date advice book for teens. I'm making the most progress on my hundred dates novel--I'm trying for 2500 words a day; some days, though, I have to admit I fall asleep before reaching my goal. I'm getting far in it, though. All of these books are ideas that I've had (and wanted to write) for a long time. I'm so excited to finally be making progress on them.
Benjamin is also building me a website. Right now, it's focused on the one book I already have published, but as soon as I get more, I'll be able to put it up there. It's charlytroff.com. We have the "rough draft," if you will, up already. We'll be adding more content and making it better, but I think it looks wonderful so far. Ben is really good at that kind of thing, and the ideas he has for the website will make it even better.
I'm also really excited about the blog Benjamin and I started together. It's http://lovegogglesbc.blogspot.com/. We decided to name it love goggles as a kind of reference to looking through love glasses. Of all our brainstormed ideas, that name just struck a chord with us; it seemed especially like a blog name. If you haven't started following us yet and enjoy our blog, then ... you should. We try to come up with either a funny story from the previous week or an original idea. It's so fun to write it, but the funnest part for me is checking our stats of views.
I also got a job. It's with Response Marketing. They're an outbound call company. I didn't think I would like it and I was actually planning on keeping it only until I could get a different job, but I actually really like it. I enjoy talking to people on the phone, even when they aren't interested. The only time I don't like it is when they're rude and that rarely, rarely happens. There is quite a bit of time between calls and I get read then. When school starts, I'll be able to do homework during that time. They also are going to be really good at working around my schedule; that is the biggest relief to me. I have been very worried this past month about finding a job that would work with my schedule. This job is the perfect job for me during school.
Now that I've written a novel, I think that's about it. I feel really excited about all the different projects I'm working on, and being able to work on and talk about them with Ben makes them all the better. We have so much fun planning and working on these things.
First, Ben and I have been doing a lot to better promote my book. And, I think it's actually working! I've been more active with my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ADateADay365DateIdeas), inviting more people to like it, sharing it with various groups on Facebook, and sharing new date ideas that aren't in my book every week. It's really fun for me to watch as my page gets more likes. A couple weeks ago, I got my second check from them--this time for $110! That's the most I've gotten for it so far, and it came right after Ben and I put in the effort to advertise my book more. I am getting so excited about getting my book out there. It's fun for Ben and I to work on the advertising aspect of it together.
I've also been working on writing more. I have my foot in the door at Deseret Book, since they've already published some of my work and also because I have the email of a lady in charge of choosing what to publish. Ben and I figure that making sure my book does well won't hurt my chances of getting more work published. Right now, I'm writing about my hundred dates in a novel form, putting together a date ideas book for married couples, and trying to work on a date advice book for teens. I'm making the most progress on my hundred dates novel--I'm trying for 2500 words a day; some days, though, I have to admit I fall asleep before reaching my goal. I'm getting far in it, though. All of these books are ideas that I've had (and wanted to write) for a long time. I'm so excited to finally be making progress on them.
Benjamin is also building me a website. Right now, it's focused on the one book I already have published, but as soon as I get more, I'll be able to put it up there. It's charlytroff.com. We have the "rough draft," if you will, up already. We'll be adding more content and making it better, but I think it looks wonderful so far. Ben is really good at that kind of thing, and the ideas he has for the website will make it even better.
I'm also really excited about the blog Benjamin and I started together. It's http://lovegogglesbc.blogspot.com/. We decided to name it love goggles as a kind of reference to looking through love glasses. Of all our brainstormed ideas, that name just struck a chord with us; it seemed especially like a blog name. If you haven't started following us yet and enjoy our blog, then ... you should. We try to come up with either a funny story from the previous week or an original idea. It's so fun to write it, but the funnest part for me is checking our stats of views.
I also got a job. It's with Response Marketing. They're an outbound call company. I didn't think I would like it and I was actually planning on keeping it only until I could get a different job, but I actually really like it. I enjoy talking to people on the phone, even when they aren't interested. The only time I don't like it is when they're rude and that rarely, rarely happens. There is quite a bit of time between calls and I get read then. When school starts, I'll be able to do homework during that time. They also are going to be really good at working around my schedule; that is the biggest relief to me. I have been very worried this past month about finding a job that would work with my schedule. This job is the perfect job for me during school.
Now that I've written a novel, I think that's about it. I feel really excited about all the different projects I'm working on, and being able to work on and talk about them with Ben makes them all the better. We have so much fun planning and working on these things.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Missing my other half. Literally.
A year and a half ago (about a week after Jeremy left on his mission), I went to the New Year's Eve dance with some of my friends. It made me miss Jeremy so much. I actually didn't even want to go at first, because I knew Jeremy wouldn't be there, but some of my friends talked me into it.
And, just like I knew would happen, it broke my heart without Jeremy there.
My poor friends, I'm sure the only thing I talked about for the entire dance was "Jeremy and I used to do this at dances ..." and "I wish Jeremy was here ..." and "this reminds me of Jeremy ..." But they put up with it. I have good friends. But really.
One of my friends, Ben Jensen noticed how much I was missing Jeremy. Obviously. He told me not to worry too much, that the longer Jeremy was out, the less I would miss him. He was right, and wrong.
He was right, because missing Jeremy doesn't consume me anymore. That's not the only thing I talk about anymore. In fact, Jeremy is hardly even a part of my life nowadays (side note: nowadays is my new favorite word). I don't think about Jeremy with everything I do. I can go to family parties and plan dates and go to parties without every single thing reminding me that my other half is missing.
He was wrong, though, because I do still miss Jeremy, just as much as the first day he left. I don't think about it as much, but the missing is just as strong. And sometimes, it just hits me.
Like today.
I was going through pictures today on Facebook. I got to this picture, but it took a long time. There were way too many pictures and too many events between now and then.
This picture was the last picture that Jeremy and I took together before he left. It was Tuesday night, the eve of his departure to the MTC and the absolute last time I was to get to see him before that. I knew it was the last picture; see my red eyes, the tears that were almost in them? Yep. I knew it.
After Jeremy left, I missed him so much. Too much. I knew I needed to stay busy, to do fun and good things to take my mind off it. So, I went to a Christmas party with my dance class. I had Christmas with my family. On my birthday, I went shopping with mom and Jon and then had friends coming and going all night, playing Just Dance, visiting Yogurtland, and playing card games. I read the Mistborn series and then went back to school. I started dating Ben and hung out with so many people. I planned date after date. Then I moved home and hung out with more people. I tried to visit all the temples in Utah with Jon and DJ (and got close). I danced and danced and danced, and started teaching dance. I broke up with Ben. I put in my mission papers and was preparing for that. I got married and started attending BYU. I made new friends and got comfortable with the idea of being a college student. I went to so many dances and young single adult activities and institute classes. I fell in love. And all of that, all of it, happened without Jeremy.
And that, that is the worst part of Jeremy being gone. And that is why he needs to come home.
Because, it doesn't matter how long it's been or how busy I stay. When you're missing your other half, 5,000 miles and nineteen months and a fair share of life changing events don't matter.
It will still break your heart everyday.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Love Goggles.
Is it weird to blog about another blog? Well, I am.
Ben and I have started a blog together. So cute, right? And it was idea.
Our blog is called Love Goggles, you can check it out here:
http://lovegogglesbc.blogspot.com/
We're each going to do a new post every Sunday morning. Sometimes our posts will be different, but they'll be themed similarly. For example, if we tell a story, we might not be telling the same story, but we'd both be telling one. This week, we decided to do our "how we met and got married" story in twenty lines.
I'm excited about this blog. I think it's adorable and with Benjamin writing half the posts, it'll be hilarious too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been!
Ben and I have started a blog together. So cute, right? And it was idea.
Our blog is called Love Goggles, you can check it out here:
http://lovegogglesbc.blogspot.com/
We're each going to do a new post every Sunday morning. Sometimes our posts will be different, but they'll be themed similarly. For example, if we tell a story, we might not be telling the same story, but we'd both be telling one. This week, we decided to do our "how we met and got married" story in twenty lines.
I'm excited about this blog. I think it's adorable and with Benjamin writing half the posts, it'll be hilarious too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been!
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