One year older...

Wiser, too? Naw. While sitting in my advanced foods class today, I started thinking about all of the things that have happened since my birthday last year. A lot has happened. A few highlights:

- Had a baby (big enough event for you?)
- Started my catering business (it's getting busier every day!)
- Worked as a dental assistant
- Quit teaching guard
- Craig changed jobs
- Bought our first home which is pretty darn close to being our dream home
- Moved into said house


I'm 24 today. That's sort of intimidating. Enough random thoughts. I'm going to attack my foods project while Sophie is still napping. Craig and I are going on a date tonight and I don't want to have to worry about homework when we should be having fun :)

Where in the world are the Nastersons?

Well, all over, actually.

It has been just over two weeks since my last post but it seems like oh-so-much more. I have some papers to write and such so I'm just going to highlight some events that have occurred so I don't get too terribly far behind.

• Completed my very last week of BYU Cougar Marching Band band camp in the guard. *sniff* 
• Planned & catered my very first full wedding luncheon - complete with new hires
• Started my last semester at BYU (I know I've said that before, but it's true this time)
• Found out my financial aid was not going to be dispersed with my few credit hours. Had to add another 3 credits so now I'm taking advanced foods. Fun, yes. Full of silly busy work? Yes. 
• Received financial aid. WOO!
• Found and hired a nanny. No, a manny. We'll write more about that later but I'm just glad that we won't have to deal with any (more) girl drama. There are enough girls in this house, don't need anymore. 
• Craig was offered a new job and accepted. I'm excited that he'll be working with one of his favorite mentors and friend. I'm ever-so-slightly irritated that this will be the 4th health insurance plan we'll be on this year. But I'm just so glad we HAVE great insurance!
• We had a booth at The Bridal Fair last weekend at PHS. It was a full adventure that really deserves an entire post. For now I'll just say that without the amazingly amazing help (is there a stronger word than help?) of Ashlee Chatterton and Amy Hill, there is no way I could have done it. 
• Said catering business is now booming! 
• And most recently, my sister, Erin, had her baby on Wednesday! A boy they have named Tyler. 

Now time to write a rhetorical analysis about a conference talk. 

Oooh my Sophie...

I can't even go to the bathroom without Sophie getting in to things/trouble. 

• Have taken her off the stairs three times in the last 30 minutes...
• ..... Put chairs at the bottom of the stairs
• 5 minutes later, found Sophie climbing up the OUTSIDE of the stairs
• ..... Moved laundry basket in front of the bottom of the outside of the stairs
• Went to the bathroom and came out to find Sophie and Herkimer sharing a bowl of cat food soup
• ..... Used the last kitchen chair and tall stool around cat food factory
• Sophie is now napping and I'm sitting in the middle of a sea of toys and sideways chairs. Must be time to get ready for my last first day of class! 

Below you will find a little video of how Sophie likes to spend her evening. Likely for serious Sophie fans only. (Poor kitty!)

 Filmed on the iPad... Craig is still learning. 

Special thanks to Emily for kindly donating the bag- an endless source of Sophie-Herkimer fun. 

A teeny tiny post

Just an update to say we're all still alive. Somehow. We've been visiting my grandparents in the Seattle/Tacoma area for the last week and there wasn't really any good internet (aside from my mom's iPhone- which she didn't end up seeing much of) and we were too busy to worry about blogging. Sophie and I are at the McCarren airport right now waiting to board. A few thoughts about traveling:

• Damn the man
• Damn the TSA
• I dare you (TSA) to require me to do anything I don't want to do- including going through the body imaging. Yes, I'm one of "those" who hates them both on a moral side as well as pure logic and safety. Guess what? Not a single 'agent' had a radiation badge on. Dumbbums. 
• We're ready to be home. 

A bit of perspective?

Craig shared this with me this evening and I think it is both beautiful and profound on various levels. This was an entry in a film contest. It's short and I hope everyone will take a few minutes and watch it.

"Less Is More of the Day: Entrants in the Philips-sponsored constrained cinema competition “Tell It Your Way” were restricted to six lines of dialogue: “What is that?,” “It’s a unicorn,” “Never seen one up close before,” “Beautiful,” “Get away, get away,” and “I’m sorry.”

Keegan Wilcox’s Porcelain Unicorn, hand-picked as the Grand Prize Winner by director Ridley Scott, is making the rounds again today, and it’s certainly worth a second (and third, and fourth, and tenth) glance."

Politics again

Read/listened to or watched Obama's latest speech? I have a couple bones to pick... 

• Telling a large amount of the country they're being dumb -whether you agree with them at all or not- is not exactly a way to get support and solve problems
• If I have to carry a balanced budget in my own life, I damn well expect the government to do the same thing. Don't come crying to me because someone else is being irresponsible and spending more than they have. I have ZERO desire to "bail out" people who are being incredibly irresponsible financially. I am doing everything I can to get out of good debt (education, modest car, modest home) and I expect the same thing of our governing bodies. 
• Obama wants more tax revenue to come in. If everyone else wants to pay more taxes, fine, but don't ask me for anymore than I'm already paying. I have so much taken out of my paychecks I barely have anything left. I am not working as hard as I am to fund the governments' ridiculous spending. 
• If you're going to tax the "wealthy" make sure it is the same proportional rate as the "poor." Do NOT penalize people because they have worked hard, gotten an education, made something of themselves and BEEN RESPONSIBLE WITH THEIR SPENDING! 

In case you haven't fully understood my opinion on this topic, feel free to leave me a comment. I'd be happy to further explain. For now, I need to go cool off. 

Grown-up life is hard :/

So, apparently, it's a bit harder to get all of legal niceties taken care with a very small start-up business than I thought.

Things we currently have going for us:

• Customers coming to us
• Good products at reasonable prices
• Free website
• Free advertising
• I'm a girl (more on why that's good later) 
• FREE online accounting & small business software. It's amazing. 

Things that need to happen/change/ be completed:

• Make my IRS EIN # mean something so I can hire an employee
• Figure out what the real law is regarding home-based catering services
• Talk to the Community Action people about their sliding-scale small commercial kitchen rental

Apparently there are grants and classes available for women who are trying to start their own businesses in Utah. The emphasis and greater support is given to people who want to be able to hire other employees. I'm going to be looking in to this because really, I love catering. I love being my own boss. I love that Craig is amazing and tells me to figure out what I want to do and do it (and dump the rest of the time fillers but that's not a discussion for this blog.) The biggest problem now is making sure I have a facility I can use and that will meet my event preparation needs and not eat all of the profits of events. 

My newest dream is to someday to have a small little store front-type set up with a little office and modest size commercial kitchen. Starting a business (legally) is pretty intimidating. Any suggestions?