How the Iversons Make Decisions

(Jenn)

How do the Iversons go about making a major life decision (in this case, which of 14 apartments should we choose to live in for the next 5 years)? Well, it depends which Iverson you're talking about . . .

Ben:

1. Narrow the 14 apartments down to the 6 best.

2. Make a list of all the features we find important in a home (location, commute time, space, bathrooms, yard, etc.).

3. Rank each of the top 6 options according to each feature, giving the best apartment for each category a score of 6 and the worst a score of 1.

4. Put each feature into a category, and weight each category according to how important it is to us.

5. Plug everything into an Excel document and see which apartment wins!

6. Make a bar graph to show Jenn (not so much a number person) the winner.

7. Pray to confirm that the decision is correct.

Jenn:

1. Narrow the 14 apartments down to the 6 best.

2. Look at the pictures on the camera of each apartment. Look at them again, and again, and again. Repeat until the camera dies.

3. Imagine our family living in each apartment, one at a time. Ask questions like, "Where would we put the toys? How am I going to do the laundry? What furniture will go where? Could I really stand having pink cabinets/only one bathroom/no backyard/an ugly exterior for 5 years? Which one will feel the most comfortable? Which will feel the most beautiful?"

4. When none of them seem to be the perfect match, rework everything again. Rearrange the furniture in your mind. Change the bedrooms around. Draw pictures if necessary.

5. When one of them seems like it would absolutely work, tell Ben that you've decided. Tell him that you hope he agrees, because it's now impossible in your mind to imagine living in any other place.

6. Pray to confirm that the feeling is right.

Miraculously, the two of us came to the same conclusion on this one. Isn't it amazing? Mostly I just think it's funny how differently our minds work, and I love that Ben creates an Excel file for everything (yes, there was a giant Excel document for deciding where to go to grad school, and there's even a little one for GPS systems). I have to give Ben credit though. If he were 100% logical, we would never get along. He even had a category in his Apartment equation entitled "aura." That's pretty good. And he gave it the same weight as "price." I guess we balance each other out. :)

Memorial Day Checklist

1. Ate Lehi Roller Mills Country Raspberry Muffins for breakfast . . . a perfect start to the day.

2. Got the A/C units put in the windows. Hallelujah!

3. Fed Jenn's latest obsession by going to Ikea "just to look." Came out only $3 poorer, partly because we had to bribe Henry to stay in the cart with Swedish Fish. Still not sure if the trip hurt or helped my intense and greedy desire for MORE AND MORE STUFF to fill our beautiful new house (it will be hard to live there with our old furniture after seeing it so nicely furnished by the previous tenants). Still, even after all the amazingly good deals we found, it doesn't mean we have any money . . . nor will we likely get any money over the next 5 years. Oh, the injustice of it all!

4. Fed Ben's latest obsession by going to Best Buy "just to look." Ben has slightly more self-control than me, although I still give myself credit for only spending $3. We didn't buy anything, but we played with GPS systems for about 30 minutes. Ben has been spending nearly every minute of his free time trying to decide which system is the best. Just as soon as he thinks he comes to a conclusion, someone throws another factor into the equation, and he starts all over again. And why would we have money for a GPS system and no money for a new sofa? Probably because Ben never wants anything, and I always want something. So it will probably end up that he gets the thing he wants this time, since he wants it so badly. We're still waiting eagerly for that stimulus, by the way.

5. Afternoon: went hiking at Mills Reservation. Much more satisfying, relaxing, and fulfilling than how we chose to spend our morning. So in this part of New Jersey you have to search for them, but when you find these little pockets of preserved nature, they are amazing. We kept reveling in the stark contrast between what Northern New Jersey is (way too many people, buildings, houses, and businesses crammed together) and what it once was (endless forests of tall, thin deciduous trees -- basically a canopy of green). And to reinforce that contrast, at the peak of the hike (which isn't much of a peak at all), you can see a beautiful view of the NYC skyline. You might have to squint to see the skyline in my photo.

6. Henry learned to answer nature's call "nature's way." A big step for him -- his first successful standing up endeavor. This is big, as we're trying really hard to move away from having to take his potty seat with us everywhere we go.

7. Birthday dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, topped off with our White Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Cheesecake a few hours later at home. Ben's birthday is Wednesday, but since I have Mutual on Wednesday night and he has a meeting Thursday night, his Birthday Observed will be Friday night. And apparently his other Birthday Observed was yesterday. That lucky duck.

New House!

(Jenn) So I returned from my trip to Utah and was hit head-on with the realization that we are MOVING and there is SO MUCH to do!  Can you believe it?  We're planning to move by July 1st, which is 5 1/2 weeks from today.  Aah!  Needless to say, my life has been swirling around me the past few weeks, and blogging has pretty much dropped off the map.  My apologies to all of you.

Fortunately, things have been feeling a little more calm since we found a new apartment!  We couldn't be more excited about our find.  We will be living on the 1st and 2nd floors of this two-family home in Watertown, Massachusetts.  The house is 10 minutes from the Boston temple and a 15-minute bus ride from Harvard.  It was a little smaller than some of our other options, but I'm feeling better the more I've thought about how we'll use our space.  We have plans to make a playroom/guest room out of the bedroom on the main floor (which will most likely be Henry's bedroom), so those of you who come to visit us over the next five years (hopefully all of you!) will be comfortable.  Start making your plans!  

At one point in Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery, Gilbert is telling Anne all about the new house they'll be moving to.  He goes on and on about the details of the furnishings, rooms, etc.  Anne interrupts her husband by saying, "But Gilbert, man cannot live on furniture alone!  Are there TREES about this house?"  When I read this, I completely related to Anne and have always agreed that the trees are a very important part of a "house of dreams."  So as you can see from the pictures, the trees at our new house are amazing, and I have a feeling I'm going to love living there.  The yard is BIG and breathtaking; I can't wait to see it in the fall!  Just look at how many trees you can see out the windows!   It will be perfect for our boys.

Below is a slideshow showing the inside of the house.  I have more pictures on our home computer that I may add later.  For now, this is all you get:

Bachelorhood!

(Ben) I've been on my own for the past 6 days while Jenn and Henry have been in Utah. I dropped them off at the airport early on Monday morning, and they won't be back until late Monday night, so I've still got a couple of days left of solitude. Jenn wanted to go so that she could see Shug, who is getting married in June and happened to be in Utah, attend Women's Conference with her mom, and then join my sisters, Autmn, and Grandma Whitesides for a surprise birthday weekend with my mom (who's turning 60 on Tuesday!). Those are all very good reasons to go, but I don't think either of us realized how long 8 days is!!! I'm definitely ready for her and Henry to come home.

In the meantime, I've been keeping pretty busy. I've worked late most nights in an effort to get a few projects wrapped up before I quit in less than two months (yikes!). In the evenings I've had plenty of church meetings to keep me busy, and I've gone out with the missionaries a couple of times as well. Also, I've been watching the BBC nature documentary Planet Earth on DVD (through Netflix). I heard about Planet Earth from a coworker of mine who raved about it for a couple of weeks. Since I was interested, and Jenn wasn't so much, I thought this week would be a good time to check it out. Wow. The footage they have on there is absolutely incredible. Apparently the BBC had a $25 million budget to make this series, and they spent about 5 years traveling the world filming. It's all in HD (which makes absolutely no difference to me since our TV was made in 1977, literally), and they did some incredible things to get the footage that they have. For example, they sent a camera crew up to the Himalya's for 2 years in an attempt to get the first footage of the rare snow leopards. Of course, they were successful. I've only watched the first 3 episodes (I think there's a total of 15), but I've got the next DVD here and I'm going to watch a couple more tonight probably. Anyway, check it out if you get a chance and you like that sort of thing!

Lastly, I've been painting a toddler bed that was given to us for Henry. I'll post a picture of it when Jenn gets back with the camera. It's going to be navy blue, and Henry's really excited to have a real bed.

I do have to say that I'm extremely grateful to Jenn, who definitely didn't leave me with an empty fridge like in the picture!! :) I've been feasting well on great leftovers and I'll have just enough to get me through until she returns. Thanks, Jenn, for always taking care of me!!