Yes! Christian has a job! Final answer!

Biggest news of the week: (drumroll...........)

CHRISTIAN HAS A JOB!!! For real this time! Hooray!!!! The computer lab assistant people (who have been torturing him by offering him jobs multiple times then refusing it).... have finally given in! Christian is now a computer lab assistant at BYU, and has a picture nametag and everything! He starts work tomorrow. He will work the late evening shifts, because those are the ones they needed and that would work for Christian's busy school schedule. So usually he will be working about 7:00 pm til midnight. I have decided I will go with him to work and just chill in the computer lab that he's assigned to, and use that time to do my homework and go on Facebook and whatnot. It'll be kind of nice to have 5 hours of scheduled homework time, because that way I won't feel guilty about not doing it as soon as I come home. It'll also motivate me to study more, because I won't have much else to do in the computer labs besides study and do homework.

Needless to say, we had been getting concerned about his job in the past while (actually, pretty much ever since we got married). Job searching had been unsuccessful for a long time, and we were getting worried about it. A few weeks ago, we decided to fast and pray and go to the temple about it. We got the answer that right now was not the time. We were disappointed: we both wanted Christian to have a job, and we wondered why not now, but eventually came to accept "thy will be done" and to put the matter into the Lord's hands. I guess that was all He wanted us to do, because just a couple weeks later here comes a job! We also think that maybe it was also because Christian might have just needed a few weeks to get settled into his school schedule and get into his routine. It could be a combination of those, or just one of them. Either way, we're super excited that he has a job now!

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We have been counting our blessings this week. Although we know we don't have much comparatively to many others, we know there are many, many people who are worse off, especially as we keep hearing at church about the pioneers, and all their challenges. As the gypsy's song "God Help the Outcasts" from Hunchback of Notre Dame goes, "I ask for nothing; I can get by. But I know so many less lucky than I." We also think that not having much right now will help us be more grateful once we do get to a more comfortable financial situation. We have caught ourselves saying "Won't it be awesome... when we actually have a COUCH???" and "Man, I can't wait till we have a CLOSET! And CARPET in our bedroom!" Lol.

But we love our little tiny apartment, and we are grateful for having a place to live at all, grateful that we have our trusty fans to keep us cool (and an oven that we can turn on in the mornings to keep us warm), grateful that we have a bed that's bigger than twin size, grateful that (almost) everything in our house functions like it should, grateful that we have clothes to wear, grateful that we live in a great city with super nice people, grateful that it only takes us 5 or 6 hours to completely deep clean everything in our entire home... the list goes on and on. We even figured today that we could live on even less, if we had to. Really, if the pioneers could survive like they did, we can too. BUT..... we are very grateful that we DON'T have to survive on a pioneer budget. Hooray!

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This week's recipe:

Baked Lemon Chicken (about 35 min start to finish, including prep time!)

Ingredients:

3 Tbs butter, melted

2 Tbs lemon juice

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 oz each)

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) In a shallow bowl, combine the butter, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Place bread crumbs in another bowl.

3) Dip chicken in butter mixture, then coat with crumbs. Place in a 13x9 baking dish. Drizzle with the remaining butter mixture.

4) Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until juices run clear.

Yield: 4 servings

We thought it was super good. The chicken came out very moist and tender! Christian even said he didn't usually like lemon chicken because it was too lemony for him, but this recipe was just the right balance. If you have a lot of butter left over (from having small chicken breasts), I'd suggest not drizzling it all over the top at the end, because our chicken came out a bit soggy because of it. However, Christian said he liked the sogginess. I didn't. I guess it depends on what you prefer.

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Oh - one funny thing to hopefully put a smile on your face this week:

We were driving down the road, making comments about how many posters there were advertising the flu shot. We thought they must desperately need the money from it or something because of how heavily it's been advertised around here. Then we saw one advertisement that we deemed the most desperate of them all, by far. It simply read: "FREE BAND-AID WITH FLU SHOT!"

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Anyway, we love you all and we are so excited for Mike and Alayne to come up here this weekend, as well as my dad! It'll be so fun! Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Brittany and Christian