The Unimaginable

The unimaginable.

There are some things in life you never plan on having to go through, and quite frankly could never prepare yourself for. We all know life is an endless round of starts and ends and usually, if you search it out, where one door closes you can find another has opened. Is it possible to find an equilibrium in life between these ups and downs, are we even meant to?

There are few, if any, joys in life greater than the birth of a newborn baby. They come to earth so small, so innocent, so perfect. Each one is a precious gift from God. I have yet to experience this joy in my life personally so I am writing about something I know only second hand. From welcoming in younger siblings, cousins, and nephews to the most recent, the birth of Hayden Emilio Knudsen. Hayden is the first born child to my dear friend and former mission companion Tyson Knudsen and his dear wife Jenny.

I can't think of any other young lady who has been more excited or more ready to be a mommy.

It is futile to ask the question "Why," but on Monday morning, February 27th, at about 7 am, less than 72 hours after giving birth and meeting her baby for the first time in this life, Jenny passed away. Every possible thing was done to save her, but sometimes even all the advances of modern science can't compete with the will of God and a tiny blood clot.

One door closes, one door opens. A new birth, a passing on.

I simply sit here wondering how to comfort my friend.

After spending the day with him and his new little baby I realized all I can do is be there! How grateful I am that I was able to! It seems as though I have been in need of learning this important lesson lately... the lesson of gratitude. I really do have so much to be grateful for. I have a great job that pays well and comes with a number of benefits and perks. One of the greatest perks is the flexibility my supervisor gives me. Just the fact that I have been able to up and leave (or not go in at all) with very little (and sometimes no) notice. I also have family and friends who are always there to comfort me when I hurt for friends of mine they've never even met.

The thing that is truly unimaginable is how someone can doubt the existence of God, that He is our father, and that He knows and loves each of us personally. I am so grateful for all the people He has put in my life. For those that lift me up, and those that are there for me to lift up. It's no wonder one of the first things God asks of his children is to "morn with those that morn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort," because it is in those times that we are able to grow and become more like Him.

Happy Birthday to Tevia!!

Hope you have a special day, with no throwing up, sick kids, and a nice lunch with your friends. and a buena fiesta! well, not many people get to party on Tuesdays. I will call you today. we all send our love! We are always so glad Bret married you and brought you in to our family. You add a lot to it, and we love to be with you. You are a great mother, and your boys show it by their behavior. You are also beautiful, and the extra weight of a child within will not take away from your beauty and radiance. As for the getting older part, it is actually wonderful! I think I am more at peace and happier every year, and I am really old! "The more sand that has escaped the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should be able to see through it." Jean Paul
I still find I have so many things I love to do, want to do, and want to accomplish, but I think they say knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. With you, all thins are possible! have a wonderful year of life! love, mom

The Good with the Bad

Last week was a tough week. I already posted about it, but with the bad week at work along with Malik in the hospital, Tevia's father in the hospital, my brother coughing up blood, and some other things, it is hard to imagine a more stressful week. Fortunately I am blessed with a calm demeanor and I know that I am blessed and so do not blame God for any of these things and thank Him for things not being worse. I have often heard that if you have something really good happen, then something bad will probably happen soon (i.e. get called to a mission and all of the sudden the girl you have liked for years has the hots for you) and vice versa. I'm not sure that I have seen a pattern of this, but certainly this week was a vast improvement.

This week a couple of things happened. First we did our taxes. I did them on turbotax.com as a friend of ours had noted you can do it online and then decide at the end if you want to pay for the services. This seems like a genius marketing strategy as most people will do the work and see the tax refund (hopefully!) and easilly agree to pay the $20 to file online with no paperwork, etc. I have been very curious over the past few years to try this out as we do our taxes on our own and who knows what hidden loopholes we are missing. Well, apparently a few. After going through the very easy-to-use program online we only had one area of concern or question. We had sold a few of our stock options last year and this ended up being a little more complicated than expected (and I had expected some complications). But after researching for a while we determined the way it needs to be done for the IRS (which of course is completely illogical, but...). In the end the neat little box they have in the corner of the screen which constantly changes showing the amount of your tax return with each number you input showed substantially more than we had expected. Dramatically more! It was so surprising that I almost didn't believe it or dare use the program. But in the end we paid the $20 and sent it off to the IRS without having to sign anything or send anything in. Theoretically we get the refund in around 10 business days. It was a fantastic surprise. Then we did our state taxes the same way and had a very similar experience. Last year for taxes we got back $28. This year it was in the hundreds. So, needless to say I am a big turbotax fan and we are happilly awaiting some good money.

This week was also my review. This is the time I learn of my performance and what my bonus and salary increase will be. Last year Prudential provided me with a bonus that was VERY generous (they wanted me to stick around) so I had expectations that my bonus would be less this year. Surprise again! Though not substantially more, it was more - thanks to a great performance year. So we will be getting quite a bit more cash this Spring than expected. It is amazing how blessed we have been. I have been thanking God all week. Now the hard part is deciding what to do with the money - a big portion going for a minivan to fit the Wall clan (we will have 5 of us this Fall). I finished the reviews of my employees - feeling guilty every time I went over their bonuses and raises knowing what mine was. But I am only given so much, so I have little control over what I get compared to what I give. My employees are fantastic. I enjoy being with each and every one of them, which makes my job much easier. Risa, who is not on my team, has been doing well also. My team really likes her - and she has suggested to me that she wishes she was on my team as it is the best! :-)

So, though I certainly would not want to go through a week like two weeks ago again, to be followed by a week like this was a blessing. Certainly money isn't everything, and I don't want to sound like that is the greatest thing in the world. It is not. Money is not my goal in life. But having extra money is nice - and it will be spent or used wisely. My votes are for the minivan (Chrysler Town and Country), a patio set for our deck (found one at Target I LOVE), and a mountain bike for me. The rest, if any, can go to my beautiful wife for her heart's desire and savings. These two weeks reminded me of a quote I have on my desk (which since I am not at work, I'm not sure of the person who said it) that goes something like: for people who feel, life is a tragedy; for people who think, life is a comedy. I like the quote, but I would add "for people who know God's Truth, life is a blessing."

Happy Birthday to Malik!

HI sweetie, we will call you later. we hope you like our present. we love you and miss you! grandma wall, grandpa wall, and Tom and Kathy

Patriarchal blessing

Kathy gets her blessing this sunday from Bishop Edmonds. any advice, ideas, etc, from older brothers and sisters is welcome as she prepares, and prayers are also accepted.

ps- Tom passed his Eagle board of review last night, so we will be planning an eagle court! thanks to two great older brothers who led and still lead him along. I thank you!

answers to prayers

I was supposed to go to the temple today, but Kathy has been feeling 'weird' for 2 1/2 days now, hot, cold, tired, tingly, shakey, and no other symptoms. because these symptoms are so close to blood sugar problems, I have been worried, probably more than I need to, but Tevia will understand the worrying of a mother when their kids are sick. so this morning I prayed that I will know what Kathy has, and when I called Kris Pretyman to tell her I couldn't go to the temple, she said it is the same exact thing that is going around the second ward, and Nicole Brown had it all week, and they took her to the doc, and it is simply an inflenza. yeah! there are 2 that hit the schools this week, one is stomach related, the other is this one. I guess it is funny that I am so glad Kathy has the flu! so I will babysit for her at her job today so she doesn't spread it to the little kids at daycare. I am thankful for the peace of mind the Lord gave me today!

Jumping the hurdles

I just got back from a small campus career fair. I talked to two people and left resumes with both of them. And I am so, so incredibly relieved that it is over with.

I found out about the career fair yesterday from my friend Andrew who is always insisting that I need to get a job. I was supposed to go earlier in the day, but I chose to sleep in instead. That's how much I didn't want to go. But I promised my friend I would go, so after class, off I went. I did make him come with me for moral support. I talked to a couple of software development and testing firms, both pretty small, that are here in Utah County.

I know this sounds pretty boring and like a commentary on what did Carolyn do today between the hours of 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm, but....that fact that I did this is a big milestone for me. I'm not really all that excited about getting a "real" job after I graduate. Ok, so it's something that I've been avoiding all of my life. I don't know if it's laziness or fear or conditioning or all that and more, but I've just never, ever wanted to get to this point. I don't really know what I was planning on doing instead (perhaps I should have married an independantly wealthy man...), but I somehow thought I could get away with not going through the looking and hiring process. Obviously, I kinda have to now, but I've been dragging my feet about it big time. Jacob and I have had lots of talks in the last couple of months about how I need to start looking and get my resume out there, but until today, I honestly have done anything about it but talk. Finally, I have two good job leads and at least two copies of my resume in someone's hands. ::pats herself on the back::

In summary, I guess I'm just glad to be over this first hurdle, grateful for my husband encouraging me to start this process, and grateful for my friends for continuing to bug me about doing something to find a job. And I just wanted to share that with the whole group. :-)

New Week

Well, a new week, a new start. So far so good! We got both kids off to school as they were both healthy enough to go today. Malik still has a cough and Jarek has a small lingering one every now and then. It was hard for them to wake up since they stayed up till 9:00 last night. My bad really. We were trying to do taxes and forgot about the kids for a bit.

I got 30 min of cardio and some stretching in. And Bret made it to work safely. So far, so good!

Here is hoping for a great week to all. I feel ready to finally clean my house and get a good productive week in. I hope that my kids feel the same and decide to stay healthy for an entire week!!!!! :)

P.S. Thank you all so much for the prayers and nice notes while we were having a tough week. It really means a lot to us to know that we have so many people that love and care about us. You are all the best!

Stress at work...

I decided Bret and Dad might find the negative emails I get every week entertaining. I try not to let them get me down. In reality, I am the best CS142 TA to date and have more job security then Bill Gates. Further my job is temporary and not super important. But I do try, and I feel I have really made a difference. For you pleasure, here is last weeks best email...

Jacob -
I received the following from a student.  I assume you'll want to attend
to it.

"I do not want to complain too much but I am very disappointed in the
TAs this semester. Also, please don't share my name with any of the TAs
regarding this email because I don't want them to hate me and not help
me for the rest of the semester. First of all, I am a quick learner I
think, but these concepts are brand new to me. I have never programmed
but I think that I am picking it up rather fast and, honestly, I quite
enjoy it. I especially enjoy your teaching style. But because of my
newness I still need a little help in the actual application of what I
learn. Jave is a very precise language, as you know, so I sometimes have
syntactical questions. I always try to solve problems on my own before I
go to the TAs, but sometimes I need there help before I can move on.
Today, Thursday, I was in the lab all morning working on Lab 3.
Everytime I would press the button on my screen for TA help, it would
take them 5, 10, and even 15 minutes sometimes to come and help me. Now,
they were not extremely busy helping other students. They just seemed to
be typing away on their own computers doing who knows what. Sometimes,
after waiting for so long, I would speak up and ask them to come help me
and then they would. Well, towards the end of my time in the lab, there
were about 5 TAs in there chatting away making it hard to concentrate. I
must say that I am not well pleased with the head TA Jacob because he
was the loudest and rudest of them all. Not only was he constantly
talking from the moment he entered, but he was referring to us students
as "kids" right in front of us and he was also gossiping about every
weakness and shortcoming of a TA who was fired recently. Well, all of
this made it very difficult to concentrate on my work and it was also
distracting the other TAs from helping me. Well, I could go on about
other things like the weak help session by David on Tuesday, but I won't
waste any more of your time. Natalie and Robbie have been very helpful
to me but they all tend to get distracted by whatever they are working
on and forget to check if anyone needs help. Have a great night and I
will see you at class tomorrow.  Thanks for your help and time."


So, work is work!  Im just so grateful I get to come home to a loving
 wife who really could care less what happened at work and always 
reasurers me everything will be alright.

Poor little Malik

Malik is on his way to the hospital with pneumonia. please pray for him. and for Tevs. Tev, I am sure he will be fine. I am glad you took him in. they will treat him and he will be good as new.

here's a cup of tea for Tevia

A Cup of Tea:

Nellie made a cup of tea,

Made and poured it out for me

And above the steaming brew

Smiled and asked, “One lump or two?”

Saucily she tossed her head;

“Make it sweet for me,” I said.

Two sweet lumps of sugar fell

Into that small china well,

But I knew the while I drained

every drop the cup contained,

more than sugar in the tea

made the beverage sweet for me.

This to her I tried to say

in that golden yesterday –

Life is like a cup of tea

Which time poureth endlessly

Brewed by trial’s constant heat

Needing love to make it sweet.

Then I caught her looking up,

And I held my dainty cup

out to her and bravely said,

“Here is all that lies ahead,

Here is all my life to be –

Will you make it sweet for me?”

Author unknown

( I would have ended it with a statement and not a question –

I will make it sweet for thee. )

Kite Runner

Like when I read the Good Earth the first time, I did not know the history of the countries in this book. I was surprised at how little I know about Afghanistan. I did not remember why Russia took it over, why the Taliban took it over, and when and why any of it happened. It was eye-opening to me. having known a few people from there, it made more sense to me why they acted like they do. it was a deep book, not exactly a fun read, but I, for some reason, couldn't put it down. Dad stopped reading it after the second chapter. I found it upsetting and yet, I was convinced I had to know more and read on. Parts of it were too predicatable, and parts were a bit boring. I skim read a lot, so I skip parts like that. I read it in a week, and I have to rate it for our book club, even though I can't make it this month. Out of 10, I would give it a 6.5. People like me should read it, for the experience, and for the more depth of the people and the country. It's theme, forgiveness, can be therapuetic (sp) to one who may have past secrets. Not that I do. :)

Not a good week

I have been fortunate in my working career to not have many "bad" weeks. And by bad weeks I mean weeks where you wish you could just disappear - kinda like those Southwest Airlines commercials - "wanna get away?" This has been one of those weeks. It started on Monday. We currently have a client - Unisys - which recently went to RFP (Request For Proposal), which for those of you in non-business backgrounds means they are looking at other possible vendors for services. In essence it means that our contract with Unisys ended and they are looking at other companies, but including Prudential, to continue their services. So there is a chance we could retain their business and there is a chance we could lose it to a competitor. When a client is in RPF mode, everything is scrutinized and escalated. Fortunately for me, our team has been a favorite for Unisys and has had little complaints. Until this week.

It started with a simple report that we passed to Unisys reconciling some data. Upon reconciliation, Unisys questioned why 3 people were not on the report. I immediately looked at our report we provide each month, and sure enough these three people were missing. Our International Assignment Managers (IAMs) had forgotten to put them on the report. In essence this means our reports had been inaccurate for the past 7 months. Of course, the client noticed this too. A disturbing note was sent to me with the word "disappointed" appearing many times in many forms. This note made its way up to senior management, and suddenly the crown jewel of the Unisys account was weakened. I received many calls reminding me of the "importance" of this and how this does not make Prudential look good - especially right on the eve of a decision coming. I didn't need these reminders - but I accepted them and apologized to many people with my tail between my legs.

Obviously, this was not my fault - as I am not the one putting the report together - but I took/take full accountability as it is my team and they should have gotten it right. Any other time it would have been seen as a "simple mistake." At this time it is seen as "a possible deal breaker." So Monday was bad. I came home upset, sad, and disappointed. Luckilly, this is the first time really anything like this has happened on my team - which for 6 years is a pretty good run. Luck had been on my side. It had finally left.

Then came today. On my way home from work I get a call from the Unisys client contact. I knew it could not possibly be bad news. She goes on to tell me that she had asked one of my employees for a document that should have been completed only to hear that it had never been done. The employee had unfortunately not been completing a certain step in the process for the past year. Unisys asked us to do an audit of all files with a report out next week. I have a nagging feeling that this will not turn out well. This has built up to be the ideal situation to place myself and my team as the perfect scapegoat should we lose the client. The ironic thing being that when we entered the RFP the client had noted that they wished everything ran as well as on Bret's team.

Who knows what will happen. In the end, even these two issues really aren't big enough to have us lose the account, but others in the company will have an easy target to pin blame. It isn't that I am afraid to lose my job or anything, that certainly is not even a remote possibility. But it is hard to suck it up and take blame. I could easilly blame this on the employee and wipe my hands clean, but that would not be fair. I should have known more; been more involved. I trusted that things were being done and they were not. It was just a harsh lesson to learn at a harsh time. The hardest thing is knowing that for the first time senior management "may" see a weakness in me. I have been so blessed to have a charmed career. Things always run smooth on my team. I haven't even had a write-off in 6 years - something that is common on a monthly basis on other teams. It was just a bad time to have a weakness exposed.

So others may find out that I am not perfect. I already know I am not, but it is humbling to be exposed. Best case scenario is we will retain Unisys as a client and in a year from now nobody will even remember this happened. Worst case scenario is we will lose Unisys and the international team will be the scapegoat. This has been a great example of how we all make mistakes. My employees made a mistake and the timing may be critical. It is a lot like life. We can go through life and be good, and then for a short period of time let down our guard. It is a risk to take, because things might happen and it could become a perfect storm. We could find ourselves before God saying, "but it only happened once!" or "it's not fair." We never know our time, or the time God will return. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us, God also judges our desires. In the business world, they aren't quite so merciful.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

And it truely is a happy one for me!

Ok, maybe it's not that bad... but I can at least get a good laugh out of this! I'd like to go out East to find a girl... but I really need to finish school first. I'm really not in a hurry to find one either... I just don't like getting jerked around in the mean time.

Window to the soul

I know. I didn't need to be told it again. It is something I've heard on numerous occasions... my eyes are very expressive.... maybe too expressive. It makes for hiding my emotions/feelings a difficult (near impossible) task. So, how does one go about fixing that... or is it even something that should be "fixed". Maybe there are times when it would be best for me, as well as those around me, if I could hide my eyes, or more importantly, what they show. After all, I think most people enjoy the games of the unknown much more than up front honesty. If someone knows what you're actually thinking or feeling, it scares them. Why is it that people find comfort in uncertainty? Or is it that they are so accustom to lies that they take truth for deceit and so any sign of something good (by process of playing the "opposite game") must be bad.

So what's this all about? What else? I can't help but think that my inability to obtain and sustain a stable relationship is becuase girls like the games... I don't. And although I've tried to fake playing "hard to get" my eyes give me away. Curse these windows to my soul!! The sad thing is, I can't help but think that even though there have been those that like what they've seen in my eyes, they run simply because the uncertainty is not there. I don't understand people... I think I'll just get myself a cat.

Cnivr qrb r bntanc

r cqvau vb fe cqn jrl

(try thunk.com to figure it out)

bret and yoda

Kudos to Bret for having the courage to go over to the dog owner's house. that takes a lot of courage, like Yoda going to visit that evilest guy in the universe type of courage. too bad they didn't answer the door. getting all pumped up emotionally to do something like that is hard, and builds all this adrenaline inside. try again. no offense to you Tev, the broom thing took courage too! love to you all, mom

Home

So, remember the roommate drama I was having a while back?...well... there hasn't been any problems since... in fact, we've all been quiet nice to each other and more than civil. Home has been a good place to come home to... HOWEVER... I forgot that in my frustration I put my contract up for sale... not thinking our more than worthless management would ever sell it... well... they did.

Monday morning I got a call from managment saying they have a kid who wants to buy my contract, and can I be moved out by tomorrow.

Uh... yeah. I guess.

I have no place to live at the moment. Good thing I don't own much, and now even less as I have thrown out even more with this move. My big leather couch will be going to Jacob and Cari as soon as I get my bosses truck (probably this Saturday now). I left my TV and electronics with a friend down the hall from my old place, and as for everything else, well... I'm sleeping on the basement floor of a lady I work with.

I think it's time I own.

I'm VERY greatful to be working in the company I do work in... I have experienced (and more importantly honest and trustworthy) lenders and real estate agents at my disposal. I'm not going to buy a new condo or townhome from my company as they are both too expensive and too far away from Provo/Orem.

I met with our prefered lender this morning and he checked my credit report and ran some numbers. He says it looks like I could get about $95K at 5.18% with $0 down at about $550 - $700/ month payments depending on the HOA and other variables. I'm looking to hopefully get something in the $85 - $90K range... condo or townhome. Something with at least two bedroom so I can rent and have help with the payments. From a tax point of view, not to mention equity and investments, I think this is what I need to do.... not to mention, it looks really good to the ladies if they know I own my own place. The location is right between University Mall and UVSC, so I will always be able to resell and/or rent.

Life moves fast.

Ever so faster in this new year. One month already gone!!

It high time I grow up... I guess.

More Dog Drama

Just a quick post. Yesterday I was walking home from school with Malik and heard the neighbor dogs barking. I was so annoyed I started feeling quite grumpy about them before I even got home. Well, to my surprise and to my great annoyance, the stupid dogs were in my backyard again. They had created another huge hole under the fence and were running around, barking like mad. I went out with a broom and tried to get them to go back under, but that was a futile attempt as they run faster than me, and kept going around and around the pool and not towards the fence. Also, while they were in there, they annoyed the dog in the other yard and it broke a hole in the fence trying to stick its head through barking. So now we have a nice ugly hole in the fence there too. Well, I was at this point super mad. Swearing in my head mad and wishing I had a pellet gun to shoot these stupid dogs. (sorry to all you dog lovers) Well, I did a bad thing. First, I opened the gate to the front in the hopes that they would just leave and be someone elses problem and maybe get picked up by someone. This only half worked. Just the dumb male dog decided it was a good idea to leave. The girl dog wouldn't leave the fence. So I closed the gate and called animal control. By the time they got here (an hour and a half later) the girl dog had managed to dig her way back under the fence. The animal control guy said he would leave a note on the homeowners door.

It seems they must have found the other dog because both bloody dogs are barking it up again this morning. I am telling you, I really can't stand these dogs. The other dogs behind us never bark. I want Bret to go talk to the neighbors, because I am afraid if I do, I will probably get shot by them for hating their dogs so much. You would think they would care if their neighbors have turned in their dogs, and we aren't the only ones either. They have gotten out before according to another neighbor. If they keep getting warnings I believe they get fined at some point. We shall see.

Kentucky - and power vs. authority

So I added a new location to my list of places I have visited: Lexington, Kentucky. To be honest, I probably can't even point out where Kentucky is. I group it with other states like Louisianna and West Virginia as states that don't really seem a part of the USA - in my mind, of course! It was one of my whirlwind trips where I fly out, arrive at night, go to bed, awake early, visit the client, and fly home. So I really didn't "see" Kentucky except for the scenes from my car to the airport. I was visiting a new client - Lexmark. Who knew Lexmark came from Lexington, KY? Maybe dad did, since they were sold off by IBM back in the day. The meetings went well, the flights were fine, and Kentucky seemed to have normal people there - if not quite nice. I tried to keep to myself that I hate the Kentucky Wildcats, which was probably a wise decision.

Today on the way home from work I stopped at one of my home teaching family's and gave a blessing to the mother. This brought up a "pet peeve" of mine. During the blessing the husband stated "by the power of..." I bring this up because in my mission I remember my mission president explaining the difference between power and authority, and that we were to perform blessings by authority of the priesthood, not power. In fact, as I look here at an old priesthood manual in the section on blessings (by the way - why don't they provide these anymore? How does one figure out how to do some of these blessings these days? They used to be in the back of the manuals, but with the new "prophets" manuals, this is no longer. I had to dig up an old preisthood manual just to confirm the wording on this. Seems a little strange) it states that the priesthood holder "states that the ordinance is performed by the AUTHORITY of the Melchizedek Priesthood." Not POWER! The reason it came to my mind is because the last 10 blessings or so I have witnessed (including sick, babies, confirmations) have all said "power." Even the bishop a few weeks ago when he confirmed a new member. I know it probably isn't a huge deal, but it seems we should be much more careful with the language of our ordinances and blessings. My mission president seemed to - and I never forgot it. Maybe others did not. Have you guys noticed this as well? I mean, we make sure the baptism prayer is perfect, as well as the sacrament prayers, so why not be as exact with the other ones? Sure, a blessing is not as important as a baptism or partaking of the sacrament, but still...