rushley & crew

A few weeks ago, I got an unexpected knock at my door. When I looked through the peep hole, I was super surprised to see my dad. I opened the door and asked what he was doing here . . . he was being all weird. My initial thoughts were that he had come to chat with me about my new business , because we've talked about doing that, but after a few minutes it was clear that was not why he had come. My dad is on the executive board of Omadi, where Russ has worked for the last four years. The night before, he had found out that Omadi was cutting back their employees by about a third, and Russ was one who was being let go. My dad had come to let me know in person. He was so sweet and kind 💕 It was a pretty big shock to both me and Russ (I texted him right after my dad left, and he officially found out about 15 minutes later). After all, we both remembered his performance review where his boss had said he was an essential employee to Omadi. However, Omadi had basically decided to c...

With all of the amazing and inspiring podcasts I've been listening to over the last six months, I've found myself wanting to be amazing and inspiring myself, but I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know what I might be able to do to contribute to the world and find personal fulfillment (besides being a mother -- which I definitely feel like fulfills both of those things). One day, I told Russ that I wanted both of us to think of things we were good at and/or enjoyed, and see if we could find a way to start a side hustle with them. Some of my initial thoughts were to start an Etsy shop because I like crafting, or to try and do something with interior design or party planning since I enjoy both of those things. However, none of those ideas felt quite right for me. For one thing, I'm actually not creative. I'm FANTASTIC at copying other people's ideas and maybe even improving upon their ideas, but I've never been one to come up with the ideas on my ow...

I meant to blog after my first week at my new job, but that obviously didn't happen since I'm now finishing up my third! Life is cuh-razy now, in case you were wondering. {new job} I now work Monday through Friday from about 8-5. My job is pretty cool and has lots of perks. A few of them are monthly birthday parties (a paid 45-minute event where we get a treat and get to hear about people who had birthday or work anniversaries), daily team-building breaks (paid 30-minute breaks where we play fun games like Snake Oil or the Skittles game), food truck Friday (a different food truck chills outside our building every Friday for a few hours during lunchtime), and 10am & 4pm stretching (just my team, just at our desks, but we usually all migrate together to chat for 5-10 minutes). There are also random optional things going on, like a monthly book club and yoga 2x/week during lunch, as well as currently a Bachelor bracket challenge, an Oscars nominee challenge, and a lip sync c...

Lately I've been thinking about insecurities and how they affect the world. I'm pretty sure everyone has some insecurities, at least on some level. Personally, I am pretty confident in who I am; I can acknowledge my faults without letting them define me, and I definitely know how to acknowledge my gifts and talents. But despite my confidence, I also have insecurities. I'm often afraid to start up conversations with people because I wonder if they'll like me or if they'll just think I'm weird, and then even if they're nice to me, I might wonder if they're just being polite or if they genuinely like me. Why is stuff like that so much easier as a kid? Kids somehow know how to make friends so easily and they don't worry about what other people think--worrying about what other people think is a poor side effect of growing up, if you ask me. Sometimes I take a step back and realize that everyone probably does what I do--that everyone probably spends ...

I think a lot of people start blogging as a way to keep track of their lives--to journal, to document. Then, if they're funny enough, have cool enough lives, have interesting enough ideas, and start putting some work into it, their blog grows and they become popular bloggers who can monetize their blog. I kind of was the opposite. I started my blog because I wanted to be "popular on the internet." Don't ask me why . . . it seems stupid now, to care about a bunch of people liking you and your blog when they don't even really know you. But I just saw these viral blog posts from various people on my FB feed and I really just wanted to be one of them. I wanted things I said to be so interesting, entertaining, or moving that people would resonate with the things I said and want to share them. I knew I wouldn't get there right away, and I didn't even know if I was willing to put in the work for that type of thing right away, but I figured I'd get started i...

I grew up constantly planning my future. I've thought about baby names since I was 5.   Don't even get me started on how often I would think about my future husband. And I got really into home design around age 13--drawing pictures and picking paint samples and even drawing home layouts on graphing paper. The thing about making plans about the future is that sometimes they go one way in your head and another in real life. My baby names have definitely changed over the last ~20 years. My husband is wonderful  but definitely different from what I planned (better in many ways, and just different in other ways).  And when it comes to buying a house . . . the process is a lot more difficult (and irritating!) than I anticipated. We started looking at houses about three weeks ago. We're working with a realtor, so she has listened to things we want and keeps her eye out for them. Then we all work on this website together where we can look at options and favorite ...

Russ and I are trying to be better about going on dates. Sometimes we're successful, sometimes we're not. And then sometimes, I think we try to over-compensate for those times when we don't go on real dates, by having one giant marathon date. A few weeks ago, we got Jimmy Johns for dinner, then went climbing at the quarry, then walked around ShopKo for a while, then got ice cream at Cold Stone, and then topped it all off with Interstellar at the dollar theater. In case you're wondering, the date was about 7 hours long. Ha! We are old married people--we don't stay up til 1am anymore! But we sure did that night. Last weekend, I caught up with my girlfriend, Kari. We met in 6th or 7th grade, became best friends, and then I moved away a year or two later. We've managed to stay good friends over the past 8 years, and hanging out with her was so fun :) We went to the Draper temple together (still checking off temples for my bucket list !). Then we went to...

I've been thinking a lot lately about how life changes. I'm normally one to say that I love change . . . I love moving to new places, not knowing anyone, and having/getting to start over; I love switching up my haircut (though, it's a much longer process to go from short to long than the other way around . . . ); I love new semesters filled with new classes. Some changes are harder, though.  As you go through life, you meet lots of different people. Some stay acquaintances, others become fast friends. Some friendships, though strong, are short, while other friendships are lifelong.  Like I said, I'm usually a fan of change. I realize that even though some friendships are only temporary, they are still worth it. I don't regret my childhood friendships just because they're mostly over now (except for the occasional FB hello). I don't regret the time spent with friends in Jr. High because I learned a lot from those experiences, and I enjoyed that tim...

I was supposed to graduate this upcoming April. By then, I will have finished my generals, major, and minor in eight semesters. I was feeling pretty good about myself because most people take some extra time to figure out what they want to do with their lives, but I knew from the beginning that I wanted to have an English Language major and an editing minor. I prided myself on the fact that I've only taken two classes outside of my major/minor/generals. But two weeks ago, I found out I won't be able to graduate in April; apparently, you have to have 120 credits to graduate, and I will only have 110.5 credits.  At first, I was furious. I cried in both the office where I found out you have to have 120 credits and the office that told me there is pretty much no way they'll make an exception. I was just devastated because I'm so ready to be done with school and move on with my life! But slowly, I've come to terms with it. I am now excited to take a few fun clas...