Halloweentime

Last Friday, we had our friends, Tim and MyLyn, over to carve pumpkins. We got addicted to pumpkin carving from my cousin, Kin and his family, in SLC who always hosted an annual pumpkin carving party and we decided to take this tradition with us to New Mexico! Here are the results of our pumpkins:

Pumpkins: MyLyn, Tim, Evelyn, Ryan

My cat pumpkin wasn't completely done when everyone was finished, so I had to work on it for another 1/2hr or so:

Ryan and I decided to take our pumpkins outside to see the "full effect" at our first attempt in Halloween decorating (can't see the spider web across our front door):

What About Ryan???

Now that you have gotten an update about my career, it's time to talk about Ryan. I told him that he should explain his job instead of me because once he starts talking about engineering, I sort of glaze over and my mind begins to wander and think about other things like "hmm, what should we make for dinner?". Since Ryan has gotten use to this reaction, he gave me a brochure that discusses the purpoes of his department:

After reading the brochure, it still doesn't quite explain what Ryan does since it encompasses a plethora of engineering software terms and gives a very vague depiction. However, when asked about Ryan's occupation, I just take the little phrase in the middle of the brochure: "Modeling and Simulation". Maybe some day I will suddenly have the "A-HA moment" and understand it, but I'm not holding my breath. I am just happy that Ryan enjoys what he is doing. As what a former professor once said, "select a career that you are good at and that you love to do". Based on the few months that Ryan has been working, it seems like he is following this advice.

"Well, what would you say...you do here?"

You gotta love "Office Space" (the edited version of course) and "Dilbert" to try and convey what consultants do since we have such a "cryptic" job description. Ryan found this in the newspaper a few weeks ago and said that this is what I do:
And another one just for fun from my brother, Ben:
Naturally, consulting is much more (and obviously more legitimate) than the various stereotypical depictions! (Although, I must admit, that like the consultant in "Office Space", there was a time when I did ask someone what they did in the organization.)

Posing this same question to myself, "what do I do?", here's the basic summary: I am now an independent consultant and I assess patient throughput issues through data analyses and create presentations based on findings/recommendations for hospital systems on a needs basis. Since becoming an independent consultant, I haven't had to travel lately and work comes in peaks and flows, but a lot less burnout. And I guess you can add the fact that I have more time to write more posts :)

A New Place, A New Posting!

Okay, now you know why I put a disclaimer at the end of my first post considering the fact that it has been over 10 months since I started this blog! I think that is another reason why I haven't really told people we have a blog. One of my friends who noticed that I had a blog mentioned that she checks my blog every now and then and wonders why there are no updates (sorry Emily!) and that I should just email her to let her know when I do have a new posting. So here's my second attempt at blogging:

After a summer of endless research and thesis revisions, Ryan graduated from the University of Utah! With the "grad school phase" of our life completed, we then headed off to New Mexico for our next phase in life full of firsts: first house, first career (for Ryan), first time in NM. We have been enjoying our time out here in NM and are busy getting everything situated.