Amber's Place

Carnival Ecstasy/The Bahamas

2012-02-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: January 12-21, 2012, I went to Florida and then on a cruise to The Bahamas. This post is about my experience on the cruise and in The Bahamas and is more for personal journaling purposes (I'm not hand writing all of this!) than me expecting people to really take the time to read this long entry. I already wrote about my experience in Florida and it was also long. I am not expecting anyone to read these posts in their entirety, but if anyone really is interested in getting the whole experience, feel free to read on!

On Monday, January 16, 2012, Alissa and I got up bright and early to get ready for our cruise. We took our hotel’s shuttle to the airport, and from there we took Carnival’s pre-cruise transfer from MCO Airport to Port Canaveral. The bus ride took about an hour. We took a happy picture of us on the bus because we were so excited to finally be going on our cruise!

I don’t remember what time we got to the port, but it was probably around 11 am or noon. We had to go through security and when I walked through the metal detector it beeped. I couldn’t figure out why, and the lady asked me if I had anything in my pockets? No. Did I still have this or that? No. Did I have any bracelets on? That’s when I remembered my watch, haha. After security we went through all the lines for getting our deck plan and Sail and Sign cards, etc. Then we waited for our embarkation zones to be called. We were zone 15, and when we got to the waiting area I think they were on zone 5 or something. Fortunately they got everyone through really fast. All we had to do at that point was get our security pictures taken and walk onto the ship, which was the Carnival Ecstasy.

Our rooms wouldn’t be ready until 1:30, so basically everyone’s option was to go up to the Lido deck, which is where the pool and buffet are. We weren’t really hungry yet, but Alissa got a salad and I went straight for the soft serve, lol! After that I found some desserts that looked really good, so I had a little of those, and I think I also had a small salad. Then we walked around and relaxed on the lounge chairs until our room was ready. Alissa had been wanting to swim with dolphins for years, but it was $200 so she wasn’t planning on doing it. She started thinking maybe she should just go ahead and do it though, so she called her mom and her sister to get their opinions. They talked her into it, but she was still hesitating when she got off the phone, so I told her I wouldn’t let her back out.

At 5:00 we set sail. Alissa and I sat outside and watched us sailing away for a while, then she went to buy her ticket for the dolphin excursion and I decided to buy the Bottomless Bubbles sticker. Bottomless Bubbles lets you order as many sodas as you want for the duration of the cruise (they’re not part of the free drinks) for only $6.00 a day. The nice thing about waiting until we set sail was there was no longer any tax on anything. Same with in The Bahamas; everything is tax and duty free. I was noticing that the ship was rocking a lot, and when we went back to our room I made the mistake of reading the daily schedule (or Capers, as they’re called), then sitting on the bed and watching the sunset outside of our ocean view window. The combination of those two things caused me to get motion sickness.

Our dinner was at 6:00, and our table was right by a window. I was a little nervous about that, but it was almost dark by the time we got there, so I didn’t have to worry about seeing the water and feeling even sicker. I was also a little nervous about the other people at our table at first, because they were all quite a bit older than us. The youngest person there besides us was in her late 40s or early 50s. I wonder if they try to put people at the same table with similar traveling companions, and by that I mean, everyone at our table was a person traveling with a friend and no one else. The younger lady was there with her aunt (Michelle and Marilyn) from Florida, there were two older ladies who were neighbors (Erline and Berle) from Nebraska, and then there were two men (Frank and Fred) also from Florida, who we later figured out were gay, lol. There were no married couples or children at our table. Anyway, I needn’t have worried about all the older people at our table because they were all really fun.

Our head waiter was Roy Anthony from Jamaica, and our assistant waiter was Bogdan from Romania. Boy, was Bogdan cute, cute, cute! I called him “my boyfriend” behind his back every time I saw him, e.g. “Look, there’s my boyfriend!”

Of course, the food was delicious. They give you a starter, main course and dessert every night, but you can order as much as you want, so if you want two starters or two entrees or three desserts, you can. They also give you bread while you wait for your starter.

Night 1, I got:

Starter: Smoked Hudson Valley Duck Breast served on Thai glass noodle salad
Main course: Cinnamon, Pumpkin, Squash, Yam and Cheddar Pot Pie
Dessert: Warm Chocolate Melting Cake served with vanilla ice cream

I also ordered a Diet Coke, and every night after that, almost as soon as I’d sat down at the table, a Diet Coke was placed in front of me. I never had to ask. They took pictures during dinner that first night. They took normal ones, and then there was a pirate walking around holding a fake sword to people’s throats. I tried to make a scared face for that one, but I’m pretty sure it just turned out like something more of a grimace. Unfortunately, we never could find the pictures of us from that first evening, so I have no idea how they turned out. I could also feel the ship rocking quite a lot at dinner, which wasn’t fun.

After dinner we went back to our room and saw our first towel animal. I’m not sure, but it looked something like a stingray, and it had little chocolate mints for eyes. It made me laugh. We got in our swimsuits and went up to one of the hot tubs. We didn’t stay in very long because I had a full stomach and still wasn’t used to the rocking. I felt soooo sick that night. We went to bed pretty early (around 10, I think), and I did alright with the rocking. I had originally picked the bed by the window, but it faced the same direction as the ship, so I could feel the movement going from side to side. Alissa said we could switch beds if the other one was better, so I laid down on it and it was much better. It was facing perpendicular to the ship, and the rocking in that direction didn’t bother me one bit. At one point during the night I woke up feeling incredibly sick to my stomach, and felt like I was going to throw up right then and there. Luckily, I didn’t. Unfortunately, there were some pretty loud people in the rooms next to us, and I’m pretty sure they came down around midnight after spending some time drinking. They were so loud and someone kept yelling “Hey!” in this really obnoxious voice. It was seriously one of the most annoying sounds I’ve ever heard. I think they were up til around 1:30.

The nice thing is that the bedding they use is the most comfortable bedding I’ve ever used in my life. The beds had nice cotton sheets and down comforters. I’m very sensitive to the way covers feel against my skin, and I can’t stand scratchy or fuzzy blankets. The bedding at our hotel in Florida was terrible, but this was SO comfortable!

Day 2, Tuesday, was our Fun Day at Sea, which means we were on board all day sailing toward Half Moon Cay. Fortunately I had no motion sickness that day. The rocking was still noticeable, and a few times I felt like I better be careful or I might feel sick again, but I avoided any real sickness. That morning I went to the launderette to wash some clothing. When I went down there I saw that it was $3.00 to wash a load and $1.00 (in quarters, of course) to buy some detergent. I saw the washing machine had some sort of card swiping slot, so I thought I’d be able to just use my Sail and Sign card. I don’t remember all the specifics, I just remember that the events that followed caused me to walk back and forth between our room (at the back of deck 4) and the launderette (in the middle of deck 6) multiple times. Basically, I forgot something (my clothes or my money) and had to walk back to our room. I couldn’t actually use my Sail and Sign card, so I had to go to the guest services desk and change $3.00 for quarters. I had to walk to our room and get one more quarter from Alissa for detergent. All in all, I probably walked back and forth at least 4 or 5 times and it was pretty ridiculous. We went to breakfast after that, and after breakfast I went back to the launderette to get my clothes, only to realize I’d forgotten the bag I needed to carry them in, so of course I had to walk back to our room to get that.

At some point after that we went back up to the Lido. I think we were just planning on sitting outside, but I ended up getting ice cream (no surprise there) and eventually went to the deli and got an Arugula sandwich. I have no idea what Arugula is, but the sandwich was delicious. After that Alissa decided to get some food. I’m pretty sure I got another ice cream after that, lol. After eating, we ended up just sitting in some chairs and watching the ocean, and eventually we dozed off. After a while, we got cold because the sun wasn’t shining on us, so we went up on the Verandah and found some lounge chairs in the sun. While we were up there, I decided that was the perfect time to go find some sunglasses, because the sun was so bright. I walked inside and turned a corner and there was a shop! Incredible! AND they had sunglasses! I ended up buying the first pair I tried on. Well, I tried on several more pairs, but I ultimately went with the first pair. I went back outside and we dozed a little longer. I think we ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours outside. Then we went to our room and napped a little longer, while more people were loud outside our room.

That night was our Elegant Night at dinner. I woke up about 2 hours before dinner and curled my hair, which didn’t take long. When I pulled out the clothes I was going to wear, I discovered my shirt was sooooo wrinkled! I knew there was no way I was going to wear that, so I walked BACK up to the launderette to iron it. It was a good thing I went when I did, because as I was finishing up a line started forming because everyone wanted to iron their clothes for formal night.

Night 2, I got:

Starter:
1. Baked Stuffed White Mushrooms with spinach, Romano cheese and fine herbs
2. Strawberry Bisque—chilled creamy strawberry soup with fresh mint
Main course: Duet of Broiled Maine Lobster Tail and Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with roasted broccoli roses and Yukon Gold potato mash
Dessert:
1. Bitter and Blanc: Dark and white chocolate pudding (a bread pudding)
2. Ice cream sundae

That was the first night the staff danced for us. Since it was Elegant Night, they were playing more classical and opera themed music, and the dance was a slow dance. I did notice the ship rocking at dinner again, but it wasn’t bad.

After dinner we went back to our room and saw our towel animal was, we think, a dog wearing my new sunglasses. Of course, it made me laugh.

I don’t remember if we went to the comedy club that night or the next, but we went to the family show and it was hilarious! My favorite joke was at the end of the show. The comedian was a black guy, and he was talking about how black people will name their kids anything. He had been talking about Kwanza and he said that sounds like something a black person would name their child. “Kwanza, get over here!” Then he started throwing out hilarious names, like Propecia. My favorite was, “Nyquil, stop running, coughing and sneezing so you can get some rest!” And then he ended with “Where’s Lunesta?” “She’s upstairs sleeping!” I was crying by the end.

We went to bed early again, and this time the rowdy crowd outside was up until at least 3:30. And of course, there was more “Hey!”

Day 3, Wednesday, was our first port day. We went to Half Moon Cay (pronounced ‘key’), which is Carnival’s private island, and it is BEAUTIFUL! Picture sugar white sand and turquoise water, or pretty much any tropical beach you’ve seen a picture of or on tv, and you have HMC. The sand on the beach was so powdery soft! Unfortunately, the water was kind of cold, but we got used to it pretty fast. However, I didn’t actually go to the beach until later. First of all, the island was too small for our ship to go to the shore, so we had to take a smaller boat to the actual island. I had booked an Eco Bike/Hike combo that started at 9:30, so Alissa went to the beach while I went on that. It was so much fun! We rode on beach cruisers and stopped at a couple of places. We stopped at a beach where people who had booked the horseback riding excursion went. We got to see them coming down the beach on the horses, but what we didn’t see is the part where they actually ride the horses INTO the water. Then we rode to a little inlet where our tour guide told us they don’t allow swimming because of the stingrays, barracudas, etc. that breed there. Then we started our little hike to the highest point on the island, which was a whopping 60 feet above sea level. It was definitely not a strenuous hike, and we got to see so many cool things! We saw a lot of cool plants, animals and even old ruins from the people who lived there in the 1700s. We saw Blue Tailed Lizards, a Solider Crab, Lignum Vitae (the national tree of The Bahamas), the bush they use for sewing/straw and a huge termite nest, just to name a few things. Then we went back to the inlet and got back on our bikes, which we rode to the Stingray Adventure and watched for a while the people doing the stingray excursion. Our tour guide told us stingrays are pretty much like underwater puppies; they like to be petted and fed, and they only sting when they feel threatened. She said their barbs are in the middle of their tails. I think they had 5 stingrays—4 females and “1 lucky male,” lol. The oldest stingray had been rescued after her tail was bitten off by a shark. After that we rode back to where we started, and I changed into my swimsuit and met up with Alissa at the beach.

I went in the water a little ways, but didn’t go very deep and didn’t stay in very long. After that Alissa and I walked along the beach looking for shells. We didn’t find any big ones, but we found some small ones. They were hard to collect because the waves kept coming in every time you thought you saw a good one. We walked down quite a ways, and at one point we even saw some little white fish swimming right at the edge of the water with the waves. It was strange that they came in that close; I was wondering if they meant to or if the waves were just too powerful for them, lol! After spending a good half an hour or so walking up the beach, I could barely see any more from staring so long at the white sand with the sun shining on it. We walked back to our chairs and I laid down for a while. Alissa went in the water but when I tried it was just too cold, so I finished drying off and then we went to look for food. We had seen signs that said “Island BBQ” so we walked for a while until we found it. Since the food was provided by Carnival it was pretty dang good – burgers, potato and pasta salads, fresh fruit and, of course, some sweets. We ate, and I don’t think we really did much after that. I think we just got our stuff and got on the boat that took us back to the ship. I think we got back around 2:00 or 2:30.

That night they had the sushi bar from 5:00-8:00 or something, so we went when they opened, since our dinner was at 6:00. I didn’t want to eat much since it was so close to dinner, so I didn’t even eat much of the sushi. They gave us three pieces, and I only ate one of them. The second one fell apart because the rice wasn’t sticky enough, and the third one I think I just had one bite of it. They weren’t bad, but I just wasn’t in the mood for sushi. After that we went to dinner. I decided to mix things up a bit and sat on the other side of the table. The advantage to this was that I could watch Bogdan all night as he worked.

Night 3, I got:

Starter: Mango Cream—iced mango cream soup, spiced with fresh ginger
Main course: Gourmet Burger
Dessert:
1. Hot Chocolate
2. Old Fashioned Apple Pie with vanilla ice cream

Of course, they danced for us again. I don’t remember what song they played that night, but it was some poppy hip-hop song, I’m sure. Bogdan asked one of the ladies next to me (I can’t remember who) if she wanted to dance. She declined, so he turned and asked me. Being completely self-conscious and not liking to dance, I said no. I really should have said yes though. I could feel the ship rocking again, but I don’t think I noticed it much. I had absolutely no bouts with motion sickness that day either. After dinner we went back to our room, and our towel animal was what looked like a llama wearing my sunglasses. Yep, it made me laugh pretty hard.

Day 4, Thursday, we ported in Nassau. I absolutely LOVED Nassau! For Alissa, that was swimming with dolphins day! She wasn’t sure when she’d be back, so we planned to meet at the entrance to the city at 1:30. I went into the city and walked down the street until I found a boat that said “snorkeling.” I asked how much it cost and they told me $35 but that the boat wasn’t running that day. The guy walked me down to another boat that could take me. When I got on there were only workers on there. I paid and sat down to wait, and after a while a whole bunch of other people got on. I’m guessing they booked in advance because nobody paid. This boat did snorkeling and kayaking. They gave us a very entertaining demonstration on how to use all of the equipment before we were on our way. At one point the guy talked about making sure any loose strings or hair was tucked away if you were going to be using the power scooters, because they can get caught. He said just the other day a woman’s strings from her bikini top got suck and she couldn’t come out of the water, so he had to cut her loose. He said “That was a beautiful day. Yeah mon.” Haha! They showed us pictures of a lion fish, and the guy told us that lion fish didn’t used to be in The Bahamas, but that over the last few years they’d shown up somehow. He told us to be careful because they are deadly, and that they wouldn’t come up to the top where we were. They also said they had bags of fish food for $1.00, and that you’d get a lot of fish that would come up to you if you had food.

Getting in the water was terrible! It was soooo cold and we had to just jump in all at once, and I wasn’t used to breathing with the tube in my mouth, so the result was me spending a minute or so freezing and feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Once I got used to the temperature my breathing calmed down, though. When I first got in I heard someone say “There are fish everywhere!” I looked down, and sure enough, there were fish everywhere! We were at a reef so that was pretty cool. They gave us an hour, so I started swimming around, and every few minutes I’d get salt water in my mouth. Bleh! It was so cool to see all the fish, though. It was strange because the water wasn’t very deep and a lot of the fish swam pretty close. I kept being afraid of feeling a fish touch my legs but I never did.

While swimming around I did see a lion fish! It was so cool. It was just sitting there at the bottom of the reef, but knowing that it was deadly filled me with both awe and fright. After a while I remembered what they said about the bags of fish food. I was kind of contemplating buying one, but eventually another group bought one and it was so cool! The fish literally swarmed. While I was hanging around watching, the girl holding the bag of food mistook me for someone else and asked if I wanted some. Her friend said “That’s not Amy!” We laughed and then she let me take some anyway.

After a while I was incredibly thirsty from all the salt water, and my jaw was hurting from biting down on the tube, so I went back to the boat. All in all, I think I only swam for about 30 minutes, but a lot of other people had started coming in too. When we were getting ready to leave, I think one of the workers on the boat found a shell, like an oyster shell or something, and I guess he noticed that I was by myself because he came over and gave it to me. I was caught off guard and at first I wasn’t sure what he was handing me, so I just kind of mumbled a “thank you.” A few minutes later I was thinking I should have said a better thank you, and when I was over at the water jug getting a drink, he came over. I thought it was him, but I wasn’t sure, so I asked “Are you the one who gave me that shell?” He said yes, so I said “Thank you so much!” He said “Welcome to The Bahamas!” and I said thank you again. Apparently he really liked that I said thank you, because a few minutes later he called me over and handed me a conch shell! I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped. I said “For me??” and he said yes. Of course, I said “Thank you so much!” all over again. He then proceeded to ask me how long I was going to be in Nassau and what I was doing later. Haha! It was all the more flattering when I got back to the cruise ship and saw how hideous I looked!

On the way back to the dock we passed a bunch of celebrity houses belonging to people like Chuck Norris, Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and the owner of The Atlantis Resort (that’s where Alissa went for her excursion). They were such nice houses! I took a lot of pictures on the boat ride back because Nassau is such a beautiful place! As we were nearing the dock, we passed our cruise ship and noticed that there were a lot of people standing on deck wearing life jackets. We were all wondering what the heck could be going on! Somebody made a joke that someone flicked their cigarette over the side and caught something on fire. As I was planning to go straight back to the ship and take a shower, I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get back on.

After we pulled in, the guy who gave me the shells was holding a box for tips, and of course I gave a generous tip! I was still floating on cloud nine because, let’s be honest, I can’t remember the last time a guy flirted with me. It took probably about 5 minutes to walk back to the ship, and as I was nearing it I heard a beeping, and every time it beeped they would blow the fog horn. As I got nearer I heard the cruise director saying over the speaker “The drills are now over,” and I saw a passenger just hanging out on his balcony with his shirt off, so I figured it must have just been drills for the crew. Phew! I got back on the ship without one speck of trouble.

After showering and making myself presentable, I had only a few minutes to get to the entrance to the city before I was supposed to meet Alissa. I walked as fast as I could and got there right on time. I ended up waiting for about half an hour but she never came, so I decided just to go back in the city and walk around some more. The entrance to the city is indoors, and they have a bunch of little shops in there. A Baptist band was also playing “This Little Light of Mine” and people were getting really into it, lol. I saw that a lot of the shops sold these cute little straw purse things with different designs on them. A lot of them had Disney Princesses or Dora the Explorer on them. I wanted one, but they were $14-16, and I just didn’t want to pay that much. I also saw a lot of conch shells for sale, and I was glad that I didn’t have to pay for one.

After that I walked outside and headed the direction I had gone to look for boats that morning. I ended up walking to the end of the street and found the restaurant/bar Señor Frogs. A lady on the plane had mentioned that place to use, and the guy who gave me the shells had also said I should go down there. Since I had no interest in drinking, and Alissa and I wanted to try conch together, I just went into the little gift shop for a minute, and then decided to walk back. When I left the shop there was a guy out there holding beaded necklaces, and before I knew it he was putting one around my neck and had shoved one into my hand. He told me he couldn’t charge for them but people tipped for them and that’s how he made his money. He also said that when he put it on me I was officially a native. Haha. I only had a $20 bill but he said he’d give me change and handed me back $10. When I started to protest he said “You bought two of them.” I was so enamored with the city and the people at that point that I didn’t even care he’d tricked me into paying $10 for two necklaces that I could have made myself at home for much cheaper, and I just laughed and said “Oh, ok.”

It was after 2:00 at that point and I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I decided to go back to the ship and get some lunch. On the way back a guy in a Rasta hat came up to me really close and said “Hey sweetie, you want to buy some weed?” I just burst out laughing and said “No, I’m good!” I took my time walking back to the ship, taking lots of pictures of the water and the palm trees and everything else, and just chuckling to myself all the way back. I got back around 2:20, so I left I note for Alissa in our room saying I was at the buffet and went up to eat. After I got done eating I went back to our room and she still wasn’t back. I think at that point I decided to just go lay out on the deck in the sunshine. After doing that for a while, I wondered when the heck Alissa was going to get back, and decided to go back to our room. I can’t remember if it was on the way down or when I got to our room, but I finally found her. We swapped stories about our day, and when she saw the necklace I was wearing she said “Oh, you met that kid too?” Turns out she got ambushed by some kid selling the same necklaces, and he tried to make her buy two as well, but she only had $3.00 with her so he just gave her the one. She spent some time in Africa last year, and when I told her about the guy who gave me the conch shell and was hitting on me, she said for some reason black guys all want a white girl. She told me how earlier that day when she was walking in Nassau some guy asked her “Do you need a taxi?” She said no, and he asked if she needed something else, and she said no, and as she was walking away she thought she heard him say “Do you need a husband?” HAHA! Anyway, she’d had a wonderful day as well, swimming with dolphins and then walking around Nassau. She had lots of pictures to document her experience. I don’t even know what we did the rest of the evening, but at 6:00 we went to dinner.

Night 4, I got:

Starter:
1. Spinach and Artichoke Dip with crisp tortilla chips
2. Chilled Creamy Bing Cherry Soup
Main course:
I ordered: Penne Siciliana—durum wheat pasta, tossed with a sauce of eggplant, zucchini, plum tomatoes, cream, pecorino cheese and Italian herbs
What was brought to me: Bacon Mac N’ Cheese (B.M.C.)— apple wood smoked bacon, with aged cheddar cheese topped with a grilled, marinated chicken breast
Dessert: Grand Marnier Soufflé served with orange vanilla sauce

I had actually been considering the Mac N’ Cheese, but decided against it. Marilyn was sitting next to me and she ordered the Penne Siciliana as well, but they brought us both the B.M.C. She sent hers back, but I decided to try it first, and it was good so I just kept it. Well, it was good, but had a little too much bacon for my taste. I was actually glad I’d kept it though, because when they brought Marilyn her Penne Siciliana I didn’t think it looked that good. I’m sure I would have liked it because I thought the description sounded delicious, but I didn’t mind. I also forgot that I could watch my boyfriend all night if I sat on the other side of the table, and I sat on the side I’d sat on the first two nights.

During dinner Michelle told us a funny story. She said that the first two night when they went back to their room, the towel animal was on Marilyn’s bed, so Michelle got jealous and left a note for the room steward the next night asking if she would please put the towel animal on her bed that night. When they went back after dinner, sure enough, the towel animal was now on her bed. The next day their room steward was laughing and asked them who the jealous one was.

When they passed out the dessert menu, I knew right away I was going to have the soufflé, but Bogdan told us all, “The soufflé is the best,” so everyone except Michelle ordered it. I had been taking pictures of most of the food, and of course I took pictures of the soufflé. They came around with extra sauce and asked if anyone wanted any. I said yes, but just a little, and when Bogdan was pouring it I said “That’s good.” I don’t know if he didn’t hear me or what, but he poured more than I wanted, so I ended up with a soufflé drenched in vanilla sauce, lol. It didn’t matter because it was still delicious. After that I asked him if he would take a picture of our table, so he did. The lighting in the dining room wasn’t very good, so my camera used the flash, and consequently none of the three pictures he took turned out very good. The first one was the best, although it got kind of washed out, the second one was extremely washed out, and the last one just turned out blurry. He brought my camera back and was telling me that he didn’t think the last one turned out, and then he said “I didn’t touch anything!” Lol! When I went to look at the pictures I opened the thumbnail view of all of them and he saw the pictures I had just taken. He said “Hey, that’s my soufflé!” Haha, it was cute. Of course, the wait staff all danced for us again that night. I decided that the next night I need to get a picture with Bogdan.

After dinner we went back to our room and discovered our next towel animal was a rabbit, this time NOT wearing my sunglasses. They used two little black dots for eyes. Yes, it made me laugh. I don’t remember for sure if it was that night, but I think it was, that they were holding a Thriller Dance Class, so we went down to watch. It was mostly little kids on stage, but there were a few adults. It was so much fun to watch! When we got there, without even realizing it, we sat down right in front of Marilyn and Michelle. They had been down there the night before watching the dance class, and there was this little boy, only about 3 years old, that they told us to watch. Apparently the night before he’d been watching the instructor very intently and trying his hardest to dance along. He was so cute! He kept trying to follow along but kept ending up at the very front of the stage in front of everyone, haha!

By that time I not only didn’t even come close to feeling motion sickness, but I didn’t even notice the rocking of the ship anymore.

Day 5, Friday, was our last day and also the day we ported at Freeport. Now, we had heard some things about Freeport that made us wonder if it was really worth our time going there. I had heard that the beach near the port is pretty much just rocks, and that if you want to get to a nice beach or get to good shopping, you need to take a taxi. Alissa had used most of her cash at the dolphin encounter, so she didn’t have much left and we really didn’t want to pay for a taxi, so we decided to just walk around the little shops where we were. It was pretty much just a flea market; there were a bunch of small shops that you could go in, and in another area there were tables set up where people were selling things. We spent probably a couple of hours in Freeport just walking around, and we did buy a few things, but not much. I did find those cute little straw purses for $10 there, and they would even put your name on it for free, so I got one with pink flip flops on it. It’s so cute! I also got a magnet with a little map of The Bahamas. We still wanted to try some conch, so we found a little stand and ordered some conch fritters. They were pretty good, but we didn’t realize how much they came with. We would have been better off just splitting a plate, and I think I only ate about half of mine. After that we decided to just go back on the ship.

When we got back to our room, Alissa decided to organize her suitcase and I went up to the Lido to get a drink. I wasn’t planning on getting any ice cream, but when I got up there I saw that they had a chocolate fountain with shell topping, so of course I ended up getting a couple bowls. Haha! I had discovered a few days before that Bogdan worked the beverage station at the buffet, so I headed over there to see if he was working. He was. I sat down at a booth between both stations and sat there pretending to read, but mostly just watching him. Hahaha!

I can’t remember for sure, but I think that was the day Alissa and I went to the Library to play board games. We ended up playing Trivial Pursuit for Kids. Most of the pieces were missing so we just took turns asking each other questions from the cards. My favorite was when she asked me “What is the favorite color of children under 7?” I was sure she had misread the card because that couldn’t possibly be a real question, but no, that’s what the card said. Turns out the answer was red, although I have no idea where they got there information from. I think we ended up playing until shortly before dinner time.

Night 5, I got:

Starter: Fresh Fruit Cocktail
Main course: Broiled Fillet of Mahi Mahi served with steamed vegetables of the day
Dessert: Baked Alaska— vanilla sponge with assorted ice cream and baked with meringue

That night I remembered to sit on the other side of the table so I could watch my boyfriend all night. Frank and Fred had a habit of forgetting his name and calling him “Bogey,” which we thought was extremely rude, so at one point I said “Or as I call him, my boyfriend.” I then disclosed to everyone at the table the fact that I’d gone up to the Lido deck earlier and spied on him. Everyone made fun of me and made comments like “That’s called stalking!” and “Oh, to be young again.” When he first came over to our table he made this cute pouting face and said “Everybody, tonight’s the last night. If you want I can talk to the captain and see if he’ll give you another cruise.” Lol! Many times during our cruise I’d mentioned to Alissa how cute I thought he was, and apparently that last night she realized it too. At one point she asked him how to say his name and he said “How do you think you say it?” so she said it and he said “Yes, that’s right!” Later she asked him how to say hello in Romanian, so he told her how to say a few things.

Unfortunately I didn’t think the Mahi Mahi was very good. I thought about sending it back, but there just wasn’t really anything else that I really wanted, so I went ahead and ate some of it and all of the vegetables. Michelle ordered the Meatloaf, but she did not like it at all, so even though she felt bad, she sent it back and ordered something else. Later, Bogdan came over and was talking quietly to her. I don’t know what he said, but I think he was worried about her getting something she liked. He was so nice. Later that night and again the next morning he asked us about our experience. He was such a genuine and sincere person and was so concerned about whether we were enjoying ourselves. When they brought the dessert menus I saw that they were having Bitter and Blanc again. I was excited because I had liked it so much, but most other people at our table had a menu that said Baked Alaska. I think only one other person besides me had one that said Bitter and Blanc. We realized they’d given us the wrong menu, so Frank switched with me and said he was going to ask Roy Anthony for the Bitter and Blanc, lol. When Roy Anthony came to take our dessert order, Frank pointed to the menu and said “I’ll have the Bitter and Blanc!” Haha, Roy Anthony’s face was priceless. He moved his head close to the menu and blinked a few times, and I just started cracking up.

Of course, I spent all evening watching Bogdan as he walked around. At one point Marilyn said “She hasn’t taken her eyes off him all night!” After dessert he came over and I asked if I could get a picture with him. I assumed people take pictures with the waiters all the time, so I thought it would be no big deal, but when I asked he got all shy and didn’t say anything at first! People at our table started saying things like “He’s blushing!” and “He’s got a girlfriend!” Haha, I was so embarrassed. After a few seconds he said “Sure!” and came over. I had Alissa take our picture, and I was worried that it wouldn’t turn out because of the ones that didn’t turn out the night before. She said it looked good, so when she handed my camera back to me I looked at it and said “Perfect!” Bogdan said “I’m not perfect, you are.” Haha!

After that Bogdan asked us about our experience, if the food and service had been good, etc. Old Fred started complaining about the temperature of the food and asked if the food was kept under heat lamps or anything. Bogdan gave us a very detailed explanation about the time limits that they have to serve each course, how busy it is back in the kitchen, and all sorts of other details to explain why the food isn’t always piping hot. At one point he mentioned how they used to be able to carry 18 plates out at a time, but after about 3 years of the servers started having back problems, so now they’re only allowed to carry 12 plates out at a time. He said he’d been there for 1 year and he already had back pain. A few minutes after that Frank leaned over to me and said “You might want to rethink this one; he’s got a bad back!” Hahahah! But earlier in the evening Frank leaned over and said…well, I can’t remember the exact wording he used, but it was something like “He really is a solid looking young man.” LOL! Anyway, Alissa and I were kind of bothered by the way Frank and Fred acted toward him, because they kept calling him “Bogey” to his face, and when Fred complained about the temperature of the food and Bogdan gave him that explanation, he didn’t even say anything. When the explanation was finished, Fred just said “Is there going to be a song tonight?” Apparently they always sing the same song on the last night on every ship, and since Frank and Fred have been on multiple cruises they knew the song was coming.

So, they sang us our song, which I got on video, and then, to my dismay, the evening was over. Alissa was a few people ahead of me so I didn’t see this, but apparently Bogdan gave her a hug when she left. Frank was in front of me as we were leaving and he shook Bogdan’s hand, so I thought that seemed like a better idea than just saying “Thanks, bye.” So I reached out and shook his hand, and he held onto it as I was walking away! I was pretty shocked, yet elated. :D

Our towel animal that night was something resembling a seal, and it wore my sunglasses again. Indeed, it truly did make me laugh. I didn’t sleep well that night for some reason.

Day 6, Saturday, we had to get up bright and early. I think we got up around 6:30 or something, because our flight was at 1:50 and we needed to make sure we got to the airport on time. Also, our deck was the first to disembark; I think our disembarkation time was 7:30 am. We got up, got ready and finished up our last minute packing, then went up to breakfast. I wasn’t sure if Bogdan would be working on the Lido or not because it seemed like he was usually there later in the day, but I was hoping that since it was disembarkation day for us and embarkation day for the next group, that he would be up there working, and he was. I said hello to him when we walked into the buffet, and after eating we decided we wanted to say thanks again. We were looking around for him and recognized him by the very top of his forehead, lol. We couldn’t even see his eyes and we knew it was him. We went over and said thank you again and goodbye, and shook hands again. Then we went to our room, got our stuff and disembarked. I was so sad to be leaving. After we went through customs we boarded our bus that would take us to the airport, and we sat there for about an hour before we even left. We took a sad picture on the bus this time, to be opposite from the one we took when we got on it last time. We got to the airport about 4 hours before our flight, so unfortunately we had to just wait around. Our flight to Phoenix was a little delayed, but not much, and when we got there we pretty much just had time to get some food and eat it quickly before boarding our plane for Salt Lake City. When we got in it was snowing. Needless to say, I was even more depressed to be back.

Being back on solid land after five days on a ship and a full day on planes was pretty strange. I still felt rocking for the first couple of days, and the first two nights I was back I woke up in the middle of the night disoriented and confused about where I was, trying to figure out if I was still on the ship. The second night I couldn’t figure out where I was and I could even feel the ships vibrations, which made it even harder to figure out where I was. Since being home, all I’ve wanted to do is go back. I love The Bahamas and I LOVE cruising! I’ll definitely go again the next chance I get.

Carnival Ecstasy/The Bahamas

2012-02-03T16:43:00.001-08:00

Night 2, I got:

After dinner we went back to our room and saw our towel animal was, we think, a dog wearing my new sunglasses. Of course, it made me laugh.

We went to bed early again, and this time the rowdy crowd outside was up until at least 3:30. And of course, there was more “Hey!”

Night 3, I got:

Starter: Mango Cream—iced mango cream soup, spiced with fresh ginger
Main course: Gourmet Burger
Dessert:
1. Hot Chocolate
2. Old Fashioned Apple Pie with vanilla ice cream

Night 4, I got:

By that time I not only didn’t even come close to feeling motion sickness, but I didn’t even notice the rocking of the ship anymore.

Night 5, I got:

Our towel animal that night was something resembling a seal, and it wore my sunglasses again. Indeed, it truly did make me laugh. I didn’t sleep well that night for some reason.

Florida/Universal Studios

2012-01-23T20:02:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: January 12-21, 2012, I went to Florida and then a cruise to the Bahamas. This post is about my experience in Florida and is more for personal journaling purposes (I'm not hand writing all of this!) than me expecting people to really take the time to read this long entry. Plus, I will be writing about my cruise experience later, and that will be sure to be very long as well. I am not expecting anyone to read these posts in their entirety, but if anyone really is interested in getting the whole experience, feel free to read on!

Wednesday night I slept over at Alissa’s house so I wouldn’t have to drive there at ridiculous hours of the morning. On Thursday we got up at 4:30 am and got ready, then her parents drove us to the airport. Our flight was at 7:10 am, so we probably should have actually left earlier. When we got to the airport there was an extremely long line for security. It actually didn’t take too long to go through, but by the time we got to our gate we had already missed our boarding positions so we got crappy seats and didn’t get to sit together. Luckily we were just flying to Phoenix so we were only in the air for about an hour. We had about an hour and a half to kill at the Phoenix airport, and we were starving by that point, so we got some lunch and then wait. Our flight to Orlando took three hours, and we got there around 4:00. Our hotel had a shuttle that picked us up, so when we got to the hotel we checked in and went to our room. Alissa opened the door and said “There’s only one bed?” I said “Uh…there shouldn’t be. I booked for two people.” For some reason they had given us a single bed, and it wasn’t even a big enough bed for us to share, so we went to the front desk and the guy changed our room. No big deal, if that were the only thing that went wrong while we were there, but I’ll get to that later. We ate dinner at a little sports bar in our hotel. The food was ok, and it was pretty cheap. Our room was fine, but as I was getting ready for bed I noticed there were tiny bugs crawling on our bathroom counter. They were in a bag of something that was tucked in with the complimentary coffee and tea, but somehow they had gotten out as well.

Saturday we went to Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios. When we got to Orlando the night before, it was extremely humid and pretty warm, so we figured we’d be ok without jackets. Of course it ended up being freezing all day. I wasn’t going to bring my sunglasses either, but at the last second I decided too. These were my nice sunglasses, I might add. Ray Bans that I had just bought a month or two before. We took the shuttle from our hotel ($40 round trip, yikes!) and got there before the park opened. We walked through City Walk (the equivalent of Downtown Disney) and had been walking for a while when I realized my sunglasses were gone. I knew they couldn’t be far because I had been checking pretty frequently. We walked back and didn’t find them. I asked one of the security guards and he said nothing had been turned in. I decided to check Lost and Found later, but I was pretty bummed that I had lost them.

We lined up and when the park opened we were herded in. We headed straight for Harry Potter world, along with what felt like everybody else. That first glimpse of Hogwarts in the distance was heaven, but I was also excited as we walked through Seuss Landing and when Alissa told me there was a Jurassic Park section. Actually, there are a lot of cool sections at Islands of Adventure. They are as follows:

Wizarding World of Harry Potter (the reason we went)
Marvel Super Hero Island (way fun)
Toon Lagoon (laaaaaame)
Jurassic Park (pretty mediocre)
The Lost Continent (cool)

Harry Potter world was I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E! After years of wishing Hogwarts was a real place, it was soooooo cool to be able to see it right in front of you. There is a ride that is decorated with Tri-Wizard flags and banners, a ride that takes you through Hogwarts, another ride that takes you by Hagrid’s hut, and then the rest is the village of Hogsmeade. We took some pictures and then went to the first ride, called Dragon Challenge, which is a roller coaster. We were in the front row and it was so much fun! It drops you straight down and has lots of twists and turns, like you’re on a broomstick trying to get away from a dragon. The theme of that ride is the Tri-Wizard Tournament and the champions.

The next ride we did was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which is the one that takes you through Hogwarts while you wait in line. Actually, that was one of my favorite things about Universal, was that you were never just waiting in line; each attraction was completely decorated to look like whatever it was for, and many times you actually watched little videos beforehand. I’ll describe that more later. Like I said, this ride took you through Hogwarts while you were in line, so we saw statues, tapestries, talking portraits, the Fat Lady, the Sorting Hat and we even went into Dumbledore’s office. Another cool thing about Universal, is for the little videos and stuff that you watch, they got the original actors to do them, so we saw Dumbledore in his office and he talked to us. Then we saw Harry, Ron and Hermione. They were talking to us about how boring Professor Binn’s class is. Then we got to the ride. I don’t really know how to describe it other than to say it’s the same concept as Soarin’ Over California at Disney’s California Adventure. You sit in a cart and it moves around while a big dome-like screen projects the images in front of you, so it looks like you’re really there right in front of it. Actually, the whole ride wasn’t like that. Sometimes instead of the screen there were actually things right in front of you. For example, they had a mechanical Whomping Willow, and when you went into the Forbidden Forest there were a lot of huge spiders. Yes, I closed my eyes for that part. I knew it wasn’t real, but I still don’t want to see a giant spider in my face, lol. But as far as what the screen showed you, it was things like flying around on the Quidditch Pitch. Needless to say, it was such a cool and fun ride!

The next (and final) ride in Harry Potter World is Flight of the Hippogriff, which is a dinky little roller coaster that lasts for about 20 seconds. It’s definitely more of a kid ride, but when you’re in line for it you get to see Hagrid’s hut and Buckbeak.

Next we went to The Three Broomsticks to eat lunch. We both ordered the Cornish Pasties because they were the cheapest item, and they also sounded the most like something out of Harry Potter. Of course, we ordered butter beer as well. I also ordered some Strawberry Peanut Butter ice cream that is mentioned in the third book, is approved by J.K. Rowling and is made exclusively for Harry Potter World. I think it was also only available during the month of January. The pasties were ok, and the butter beer was DELICIOUS! The ice cream was pretty good too, although at first I didn’t think much of it.

After that, we walked through the other areas, which I’ve listed above and briefly stated what I thought about them. My other favorite rides were The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman and The Cat in the Hat. As I mentioned earlier, all of the rides are decorated where you wait in line. The Spiderman ride was decorated like The Daily Bugle, The Cat in the Hat was decorated with illustrations and text from the book, etc. Some rides, like Spiderman, had you watch a little video to give you a background/storyline for the ride. Poseidon’s Fury was cool, but it was more of a show than a ride. We didn’t go on the Jurassic Park ride because it was a raft ride that got you wet, and it was freezing that day. We went back to Harry Potter World at the end of the day and went to Olivander’s for the live wand demonstration, which was really cool. There was a British family in line behind us and they picked their two youngest children (a girl and a boy) to “test” out the wands, and at the end they gave them the wands. They were really cool wands, too! Then we walked through Honeydukes, which was extremely crowded and expensive (but everything looked delicious!), and Zonko’s Joke Shop. While we were there I called the shuttle and told them that we needed them to pick us up in an hour. We went on Dragon Challenge again, and after we went we realized there was another track that we could have gone on. L We wanted to do The Forbidden Journey ride again but the wait time was 45 minutes so we just went to one of the shops. Alissa bought a messenger bag, and I bought a hoodie and a different messenger bag that says “Ministry of Magic.” I also bought more butter beer as we were leaving. On the way out of the park we stopped at the Lost and Found in Islands of Adventure as well as in City Walk, but my sunglasses weren’t there. L When we got to the area where our shuttle was supposed to be, we waited for about 20 minutes and they still didn’t show up. My phone was about to die but I called the hotel and they didn’t answer. I kept calling and finally someone answered and told us that the shuttle had run into traffic and it would be 30 more minutes before we were there. We were freezing and didn’t want to just sit out there, so we walked back to City Walk and walked through some stores to keep warm. A half an hour later we went back down and waited and waited some more. I tried calling the hotel again and they didn’t answer. Luckily there are a lot of taxis that line up out there, so after waiting for a grand total of an hour and 20 minutes, we asked a guy how much it would be to take us back to our hotel and he said $30. He was a really nice guy. His name was Lovens and he was from the Bahamas, so we told him that we were going there the next week. He said he’d give us a receipt so we could get reimbursed from the hotel. He said our hotel always had problems with the shuttle, and when we got back and told the girl at the counter that our shuttle hadn’t ever come, she didn’t really seem surprised. By that point we were hungry, so we walked over to a little pizza joint right by our hotel. There were a bunch of people there so we had to wait a long time for our food, but it was pretty good. They had a special for a 10 inch pizza for $5.99. We took it back to our hotel and ate and went to bed, exhausted.

The next day was Saturday, and we had originally planned on going to the temple that day. I couldn’t find any bus routes that would take us there, and taxis are expensive, so I started looking into how much it would be to rent a car. Eventually we decided not to do it, because Alissa’s knee was really hurting her and she didn’t feel like going anywhere. That was a pretty boring day. We stayed in our room and watched tv. Actually, Alissa slept most of the day, but I watched movies on tv. Finally in the evening we decided to go to the mall that was really close to our hotel and get some dinner. There was supposed to be a bus that stopped right in front of our hotel and took us to the mall, but when we went out there the bus drove right by without stopping. We went back in and asked Justin, the guy at the counter, specifically where the bus stop was and he said it was just right out on the street and that there were a bench and a sign there. We walked back out and looked for the bench but still couldn’t find anything. We went back in and he assured us it was there, and that he used to take it all the time. He walked out with us, and sure enough, there was no bus stop anymore. He tried to call the bus’ customer service for us but they were closed. We figured it had to have been VERY recently that they got rid of that stop because it was still showing up for me on Google Maps, and when he pulled up the website, it was still listed. Finally he said he’d have the shuttle just take us there and not charge us, and that we could take the number 4 bus back from the mall. The shuttle driver also told us to take the number 4 bus and that it would stop at the Burger King across the street from the hotel. So finally we got to the mall and ate at California Pizza Kitchen. Alissa’s knee was hurting again while we walked around, even though she’d rested and iced it all day. After we finished eating we went out to the bus stop and there was the number 4 bus. We got on it, and the whole way I had this uneasy feeling in my stomach, worrying that we weren’t on the right bus, but I kept dismissing it because we were on the number 4! At one point I used Google Maps on my phone to see where we were and we were going the opposite direction of the hotel, but I figured we would turn around eventually. So we’re on the bus for a very long time and eventually we go to the bus station and everyone gets off. The driver tells us that’s the last stop, so when we told him where we were trying to go he said we took the number 4 going the wrong direction! To make matters worse, that was the last run of the night and there were no other buses running. So basically we were stranded in downtown Orlando at the bus station at 10:00 at night. At this point we were pretty much freaking out. I called the hotel and asked if the shuttle could pick us up, and Justin said it had just left for the airport for its last run of the night, but he gave us the number for a taxi company. I was really worried it was going to be like $50. I had initially planned to spend as little money as possible in Florida, but we had already had to spend more than we planned on the shuttle to Universal, but at that point we really didn’t have a choice. The taxi came and picked us up, and luckily it only cost $26 to get us back to the hotel, so it ended up being $13 each. Not too bad, but still frustrating. It was at least 11:00 or later when we got back, and at this point we were DESPISING Florida! We had already bought 2 day passes for Universal and had planned on going to the Universal Studios park the next day, but when we tried to schedule the shuttle to take us the next morning it was already booked for the airport all day. At this point we didn’t know what to do. We figured we could take a taxi and pay a fortune, and try and get the shuttle in the evening to pick us up and possibly have it not be reliable. We finally decided that we would just give up the $60 or so we had paid for the second day at Universal and just stay in our hotel room again the next day, because we didn’t feel good about any of our options and we didn’t want to get stranded again.

We slept in til about 9:30 Sunday morning, and after that good night’s sleep, we decided that we would just take a taxi to Universal after all. We knew that there were some that didn’t charge by the meter, because Lovens had given us a flat rate (his wasn’t an actual taxi cab, it was an SUV and he just gave us a price). Anyway, we asked Justin to call us a cab, so he called a specific lady he knew because she charges less. It cost us $25 to get to Universal, and of course that was split between the two of us. Not bad! She had a minivan, and also just charged a flat rate. She was really nice. She told us about some people she’d driven to Universal who tricked her into eating a whole thing of chocolate from Harry Potter World and then when she’d finished told her it was 1,000 calories. Haha! Anyway, we got there around noon, andshe asked if we wanted her to come pick us up that evening and we said yes.

We had a lot of fun at Universal Studios and were glad we went. Unfortunately, the Jaws ride had just very recently closed down, so we didn’t get to do that, but they have really fun rides/attractions there. I say attractions because some of them are more like shows or 3D movies than actual rides. We did The Terminator 3D, Shrek 4D, Twister, Disaster (like you’re on a movie set and they pick people out of the audience to be actors), The Simpsons Ride (SO much fun!), The Mummy (way fun too), Men in Black, E.T. (really cool!) and lots of others. There was one big ride called Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket that we wanted to go on, but when we first looked at it the wait time was 45 minutes. We decided to do other rides and come back later. We didn’t get back to it until the end of the evening and the wait time was 60 minutes! Needless to say, we decided that rather than waiting in line for that one ride, we’d spend the rest of our time going on some of our other favorite rides again. After we were done, we went out to where our taxi was supposed to be, and guess what. She was there! It was great. So after that we were really glad we’d ventured out into Florida again instead of hiding in our hotel room.

Again Again

2010-08-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I made the decision to go back to school. Well, I thought of it a couple weeks ago, but on Wednesday I really decided. Well, let's start at the beginning. Close your eyes and go back with me to Tuesday night...(now open your eyes so you can read this)

I was lying in bed, having trouble falling asleep when, before I knew it, I had come up with an entire movie in my head. I grabbed my phone and used the trusty voice memos app for the first time ever, documenting this new idea. The next morning I was listening to a band I used to listen to when I was a kid, and I remembered imagining one of the songs in the scene of a tv show that I was imagining in my head. I was around 10 years old at that time. Suddenly I realized that if I've always seen things so cinematically that I might as well study film!

Now open your eyes (even though they were already open) and bring yourself back to the present. Today I filled out the FAFSA, and on Tuesday I'll be going into the school to talk to the counselor about the program and such. I plan to attend UVU, but I know BYU has a very good film program, and even though I'd like to avoid attending BYU at all costs if possible, I realize it would be worth my time to look into their program.

Recurring Dreams

2010-06-17T22:10:00.001-07:00

All my life I have had, not necessarily recurring dreams, but more like recurring themed dreams. I want to write them down just so I remember.

As a young child, I had many dreams about being kidnapped. I don't remember having a particular fear of being kidnapped, but I had these dreams many times. My memory could be incorrect, but it seems like I had them nearly every night.

Also as a young child, I would dream about a girl (not a real person, but made up in my dreams) who was always causing trouble and making it look like I had done it. I also remember dreaming about an old woman. I'm not sure if these dreams were the same or not, but I have one vague memory of hiding under a bed in the old woman's house (this could have possibly been an actual recurring dream I may have had at least twice).

One more as a young child. I can't remember if it was a recurring dream or just one particular dream that I still remember for some reason, but there was a lady and several children who would follow me around wherever I went. If I was walking in my backyard and turned a corner, they would follow me. If I went the opposite direction, they would immediately turn and follow me.

Occasionally I have dreams where I'm pregnant, but not very often. I suppose that's normal?

I have had many dreams where I am dying or actually die. Sometimes I even have violent dreams. I have had a glass building shatter and rain down over me, been shot in the head with a shotgun, had my throat slit by The Joker and, as recently as a few weeks ago, had Nazi's carve a Swastika into my lower back with a giant blade (although I know exactly where that dream came from). In these dreams, I can always feel the pain.

I often dream of being in a public restroom (enormous and labyrinthine) but no matter how many stalls I look in, there's always something wrong with each one. Many times there is no privacy either, but I imagine these kinds of dreams are probably common.

Probably my second most common recurring theme is end of the world dreams. Whether it be zombies, aliens, evil vs. good people, flooding or whatever else, it's always a cataclysmic dream.

What I would guess to be my most common recurring theme is being chased and running from one or more people. Like all of these, it's never the same dream, but I'm always running.

One of these days I'd really like to have these analyzed by a legitimate source. No dream books seem to help, although I usually only ever look up the being chased dreams. It's obvious what people will say--"you're running from something!" But I find it very hard to believe that I would be running from something my entire life and never know what it is. Anyway, I welcome any thoughts or comments.

Here I am again!

2010-06-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I have graduated with my Associate in University Studies, which is a fancy way of saying "generals." It's awesome though. I came through with a 3.77 GPA and a capital "HONORS" next to my name on the diploma. I even got to wear honor cords, which is secretly something I've always wanted to do. No official plans on what to do next; I'm considering school in either Florida or the Virgin Islands, but both are far away from anyone I know, so it is a scary decision. I've decided for the time being I will work hard, get out of debt (mostly just school loans) and save up money, and if by that time I'm still not married and not doing anything special, then I will continue schooling. I've probably said this before, but I really want to study Marine Biology. Everything about the ocean fascinates me, and my favorite animal is the jellyfish.

I applied for a full time position at my work, and I felt that the interview went really well. Unfortunately, I didn't get it. For now I'm picking up as many extra shifts as I can and keeping my eyes open for any other positions that I can actually do. Pretty much every opening right now is some sort of developer, engineer or other wise computer whiz job, and since I don't understand the skills required, I have not bothered to apply.

On Friday I went to breakfast with an old friend who I haven't seen in nearly 5 years. We met when we were 16 and he is one of my favorite people. Even though we haven't seen each other in so long, we've kept in touch and we wrote back and forth while he was on his mission. He actually just got back in February (he's my age, he just went later than most missionaries). Anyway, at first I was nervous, but it was actually very comfortable talking to him. I hope we can get together again soon.

Last night I started doing some serious family history. My grandfather was adopted, so I'm doing research on his biological parent's line. Luckily we know his real parent's names! I worked on it for 4 hours last night and have found some pretty interesting facts, such as: many ancestors were born in Illinois, Wisconsin, Canada and even New York, and my third great-grandfather was born in Winter Quarters and actually settled Porterville, Utah. Since I was not born here, I didn't realize I had actual pioneer ties to Utah. I'm also pretty sure my great-great-grandfather was a polygamist. I've found a few names of people who were born in England, and one name of a woman born in Gibraltar, but that's about as far as I got. I'm excited to see where my actual blood line comes from.

That is all for now. Thanks for reading!

An overdue update

2010-04-08T17:05:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in so long, but in all fairness I did warn you that I might not for awhile. Just a quick update, there are only about 2 to 2 1/2 weeks left of school until I GRADUATE! Graduation is on the 30th. Also, the last weekend of April I'm going to Las Vegas with some friends. We're going to see Phantom of the Opera and our seats are right under the chandelier! It should be fun.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for checking in!

Another apology post

2010-03-07T01:26:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I realize that my posts have been few and far between, but that usually happens when I get busy with school. And since this is my LAST semester til I have my Associate's, I'd say I have a pretty good excuse! Until the semester is over I probably won't be writing much, and I'll probably get super behind on all your posts as well. As of right now there are only 12 posts waiting in my google reader, but last time it was up in the 40's before I got around to reading them. So sorry.

On a related note, I applied for graduation and was approved, and I've also registered for graduation. I'm going to the commencement, which is the big ceremony with EVERYBODY who's graduating, and then I have the convocation, which is the individual program/department ceremony where I'll actually walk across the stage and get my fake diploma (the real one won't be mailed for another 6-8 weeks). I'm pretty excited, since this degree very nearly only took me the two years that an Associate is supposed to take. Also, unless I suddenly become interested in studying something else, this is the farthest I can go while still living in the state of Utah. And lastly, I'm just ready for a break! I have to go to the grad fair this week to order my cap and gown. I'm also going to order an honor cord, since at the moment my GPA is 3.77. It will probably go down a little this semester unless I miraculously pull a 4.0, but in my current situation, I don't think it will happen. However, it should still be high!

Additionally, my birthday is on Tuesday. I'll be a quarter of a century old. I've already booked my room at the nursing home. It doesn't help that my oldest nephew will be turning FOURTEEN next month. Blah.

Laslty, this isn't important but it's amusing to me. I took a legitimate element personality quiz, and by legitimate I mean it wasn't a Facebook quiz that a bored and grammatically incompetent Jr. High student made. This is pretty similar to the one in my Acupressure book from back in the day when I was going to UCMT. I would have taken it from that book, except that the book is at my parent's house and I didn't think about getting it until about 5 minutes after I returned home from there. Alas, I will get the book next time I'm there, but for now, here are the results from the online quiz I took. Back in 2004 I was very Earth (Peacemaker), so it's cool to see how much that's changed. I thought the numbers were pretty interesting, and oddly oppositional...

FIRE ARCHETYPE: The Wizard...................................13
WATER ARCHETYPE: The Philosopher..........................12
EARTH ARCHETYPE: The Peacemaker..........................11
METAL ARCHETYPE: The Alchemist.............................10
WOOD ARCHETYPE: The Pioneer................................3

Ha! If I remember correctly, there were only 2 woods in my class. Very strange...

Peak Inspiration

2010-02-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

Here is a poem I wrote back in 2005. I read it again last night and am really quite proud of it. Maybe you won't like it, I don't know, but I do. Just a little background: I wrote this in May of 2005, about a month after a really hard breakup. I went up to Squaw Peak and was watching the sun set over Utah County. The sunset was full of reds and oranges and pinks, which is why I mention fire. However, the rest of the sky was a pale opaque color which looked a lot like an ocean horizon, which is why I mention water. Also, the design of the words was part of what I wrote as well. I wrote it on an envelope containing a birthday invitation. Anyway, you might think it's emo, and maybe it is, I don't know, but like I said, I'm proud of it. Enjoy!

How old am I?

2010-02-14T17:19:00.000-08:00

Here is something I made today. This is purely me being immature and silly, but it is what it is. I thought it was pretty funny. Enjoy!

And just so there aren't any potential legal problems, I am not a spokesperson for this medicine. I didn't do any research on the product and the side effects are purely fictional. I just googled "overactive bladder medicine" and that's the first one I saw. This isn't intended as a slam on anyone or any thing.

Important to Me

2010-01-26T20:28:00.000-08:00

I know I've been MIA from the blogging world as of late, and it's due to the usual reasons: a combination of being busy with school and laziness. Of course my google reader is all backed up from your posts I have not read yet. I'll get to those eventually.

But the reason I'm posting tonight is this: I just watched a documentary at the school called The Cove. If there is any way you can get your hands on this (I'm sure it's at any Blockbuster, because I checked on Netflix and they have it) then I definitely recommend you watch it. Basically it's about Taijii, Japan's practice of slaughtering something like 23,000 dolphins a year. The town is basically a tourist site proclaiming how much they love dolphins and whales, but what most of the population doesn't know is that every year from September through March they herd thousands of dolphins to a spot so that dolphin trainers who work at aquariums and dolphinariums can come pick out ones they want to buy. This is done in the open and anyone can come and watch. However, all the ones that don't get picked, instead of being released back into the wild, are taken to a little cove which can't be seen unless you are down there, and is also blocked off, and slaughtered. Then they sell their meat, which is crazy in itself because most people don't eat dolphin meat. In fact, the meat is labeled as whale meat and sold in stores, AND contains high amounts of mercury. The team who made this documentary, which consisted of the guy who trained the dolphins for the tv show Flipper, a guy from the military and a couple of professional divers, snuck into the cove at night and placed hi-def cameras hidden in fake rocks and captured the slaughter of one group of dolphins. Honestly, as first I couldn't even cry while watching what they captured because it was just so...shocking. The water in that little cove literally turned completely red. You saw them harpooning all the dolphins until every last one of them was dead.

I don't write this to depress anyone, but honestly, I was so upset that I cried all the way home. I can't ever remember being this upset about a movie, so I felt it was important for me to take action in any way possible. When God put us on Earth He gave us dominion over all animals, and that doesn't include in any way, shape or form: slaughtering, torturing or being cruel to them. The most powerful part of the documentary was at the very end when the man who had trained the dolphins for Flipper, and who has also been banned from attending any International Whaling Commission convention (the IWC doesn't actually protect dolphins, incidentally), walked into the convention with a monitor strapped to his chest, and walked around showing the footage of the slaughter.

Anyway, if this at all means anything to you, please just take a quick moment to go to this website and send the pre-written message to President Obama. Even if you don't believe this is true, will it really hurt to do something that will literally only take like 1 minute? Ok, that's all I guess.

p.s. I found this article after thinking that a girl showed briefly in the film looked a lot like Hayden Panettiere.

Crush

2010-01-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

I have a new secret crush. Ok, it can't really be a secret if I'm posting a blog about it, but still. It's Jesse McCartney. (I'm almost 25 and I still get celebrity and fictional character crushes on a fairly regular basis.)

In case you don't know who he is, he's a singer/songwriter/actor. I heard rumors that he's Paul McCartney's son, but that's not true. Now, don't be fooled by that baby face; he's only 2 years younger than me. So, please, don't send me any messages calling me a cougar.

He has many popular songs like Beautiful Soul, Leavin', It's Over, and his most recent single, Body Language. If none of these sound familiar to you, don't fret. He co-wrote that song Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, which if you haven't heard then you apparently don't listen to any music stations. He also does the voice of Theodore in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies. Anyway, I haven't heard all of his music, and I don't necessarily like everything I've heard, but I have different versions of about 3 of his songs that I really like and have been listening to for the last several hours. In fact, it was on my way home from work today and Body Language came on the radio when I realized I had this "secret crush" on him.

Also, a few weeks ago I watched one of his movies on Netflix. If you have Netflix I highly recommend this movie, and it's on instant watch, so that's a plus. It's called Keith.

It was a really good movie and definitely a tear jerker. At the end I was bawling and thinking to myself "I hate this movie! It's so sad!" But alas, I don't really hate that movie. In fact, I mean to watch it again.

The New Place!

2010-01-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it took a little longer than I thought, but it took me a few days to get all unpacked and get my room cleaned. Here it is, after long anticipation on your part I'm sure, the video of my new place!

On a related note, the other night I opened the fridge and found a blood bag in there. I kinda freaked out a little until I realized it was too thick and too dark to be blood, and I thought maybe it was bbq sauce. I was utterly confused by it until last night when I finally found out. The boss of one of my roommates gave her a blood bag full of chocolate, because apparently "she loves chocolate so much, now she can inject it straight into her veins. Here is a picture for your entertainment.

Today's the day!

2010-01-04T10:47:00.001-08:00

Well, here it is: moving day! I am leaving work in 15 minutes and will spend the rest of the day packing and moving. I'll post pictures when I get all set up!

Time To Move On

2009-12-27T22:14:00.000-08:00

Well, after about a week of searching (although it felt like months), I found an apartment! Well, actually, it's a condo, and a pretty nice one at that. I have only lived away from home for about 4 months in my life, and that was a few years ago. I figure that since I'm going on 25 it's time to stop being pathetic and move out. I'm definitely more financially stable than I was even a year ago, so that certainly helps. Also, we have had nieces and nephews staying with us a lot over the last few months, and this will probably continue for a very long time. Now, I don't really, what you would call, "like children." I love my nieces and nephews to death, but kids in general just really get on my nerves. I've always said I'd rather have dogs than kids. Well, it just so happens my room is right under the living room/kitchen area, where we have laminate flooring, so when anyone walks around upstairs with much more force than a tiptoe, I hear it. Now multiply that by 67, because kids for some reason find it impossible to do anything less than stomp, and multiply that by another 43 for when they wake up at 6:00 in the morning, and you can image how I'm not exactly "happy" with the situation. Anyway, I'd been kind of toying with the idea of moving out for a little while, and last week I finally decided that, hey, with my car recently paid off, and my plan to pick up extra shifts during the week, I should start looking for another place to live.

KSL proved to be the most useful, although I was getting fed up at only finding student housing which is a little more pricey than non-student housing, and most of the listings being in Provo (gag me) for BYU approved housing (double gag me). Finally, late Christmas night, I realized my mistake. I'd been searching "apartments for rent" and hadn't searched "houses for rent" or "condos for rent." This opened up a floodgate of opportunities! Ok, not really. I found 3 listings that sounded at least a little promising, although they were all close to being a little more than I could afford. I called all of them the next day (yesterday); one had already been filled and the other 2 didn't answer, so I left messages. One returned my call. I went to look at it yesterday, and it was nice enough, and my hatred of apartment hunting was strong enough, that I said I'd take it. The deal maker was the fact that the owner knocked off $25 a month, which brought it down to the price I had been looking for all along. YES! The bedrooms are all small, even the master bedroom which was technically the room that was available, but it cost more than I could afford, and luckily one of the tenants is willing to take the master and give me her room. Also, it's really close to my parents house, which means I'll be in the same ward I've been in for the past 5 years, and it will be nice to be so close to home. And it has plenty of parking!

I haven't met the roommates yet, but there are only 2 of them, so that will be nice. Apparently they are 28 and 19, so with me there will be a big age span. Also, the 19 year old is the niece of the 28 year old. Ha! Anyway, I'll be moving in a week from tomorrow, so that means I'll be spending all this week throwing away as much crap as possible and packing up the rest. I'm already planning on leaving a few big items behind, like my super heavy old school tv, the tv stand, and my bed, which is a queen. They have a twin bed they said I could use, which will really help since the room is quite small. Anyway, here are the pictures that were posted on KSL with the listing. I'll take better ones when I get all settled in.

The living room. I love the purple wall!

Living room again.

The cute kitchen.

The dining room. I love the hardwood floor too!

Choose Your Side

2009-12-23T23:22:00.000-08:00

I realize that I said I'd update "tomorrow," and I also realize that technically it's not "tomorrow" anymore, but actually the day after tomorrow. Ah well. I've barely been home today, and the time I was at home was spent looking for apartments. That's right, I'm considering moving out (finally) and am in the process of looking for something. I have a feeling it's going to be a grueling and obnoxious process.

Ok, so I have a confession. When I said there was something I wanted to talk about, it sounded important or gossip worthy. In all honesty, it's not. It's something completely silly. Here it is:

My supervisor/friend loves Twilight and loooooooves Edward even more. I am a Jacob fan. Anyway, one day somebody at work went to Burger King for lunch and received all these coupons for a bunch of New Moon merch. My supervisor/friend took most of them but let me keep the one which advertised water bottles, one featuring Edward and one featuring Jacob. The coupon sat on my desk for a couple of weeks until finally I decided to go ahead and order one. I ordered the Jacob one, and a few days later realized I should order the Edward one for my supervisor/friend for Christmas. I received mine in the mail on Saturday, and the other one yesterday. Here they are, side by side in all their giggly, teenage school girl glory:

Sorry Charlie!

2009-12-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

I know it's been almost a month since I posted, and I apologize. Up until last week I was finishing school. I knocked my finals out in two days, which was really nice. I haven't seen my grades yet but I'm positive I'll get A's in all classes but one. History I think I'll either have an A- or some sort of B. Now I'm just working a lot and trying to enjoy my break between semesters. One more semester til I get my Associate's! Also, I've picked up four extra shifts this pay period, so I'm kinda tired.

I recently upgraded to Windows 7. I love it! I had been considering it for awhile, especially since I found out I could get it for $30 since I'm a student. For Christmas my work gave everyone a $100 gift card to Costco, so I got a 500 gb external hard drive, backed up all my stuff and upgraded to Windows 7! I was able to test it out on one of the computers at work a couple times before I got it, so I knew what to expect and already really liked it! I would recommend every Windows user get it.

I'm excited for Christmas, as I'm sure everyone is. I am officially done with Christmas shopping, especially since the two things I ordered online arrived today. I bought everything else last Friday. I just have to wrap these last two gifts and I'll be all set! Also, on Christmas Eve I only have to work a half day, which is really nice. I'll be done at 2:00, as well as New Year's Eve.

That's all for now, but I'll try to remember to update tomorrow, because I have something special to talk about.

FYI

2009-12-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm writing this post from my new iPhone. Also, I'm listening to the iPod without headphones. Because you can do that apparently. Why wasn't that feature ever advertised?? Or was it and I just never knew about it? Anyway, I'm going to be playing with this thing for a long time and I'll probably never learn everything there is to know about it. I feel like every Christmas has come early!

Thank you, Black Friday!

2009-11-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

I've never really gone shopping on Black Friday before, so I wasn't particularly excited about it this year. However, I was keeping an eye out for iphone deals. I figured if any iphones were on sale it would be on the Apple website, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't find any info saying they'd be on sale, so I wasn't really expecting anything. Well, last night I hopped on the Apple site as well as the AT&T site. I figured I'd have to wait until midnight for the deals to show up in the Apple store, but the AT&T site had refurbished 32 gig iphones for $150! This is $100 cheaper than the refurbs normally are, and HALF the price I'd pay a new one. I was shocked! I didn't want to buy one right away in case Apple came up with a good deal on a brand new one. I waited until after midnight but their store just said it was being updated and would be back up shortly. Finally around 12:30 or so I got tired of waiting, and I really didn't think they would have sales on any iphones, so I went ahead and ordered the refurb from AT&T. I am so excited! I wasn't planning on being able to get an iphone until January. Also, this is cheaper than the regular 30 gig video ipod I bought 3 years ago, which was also refurbished. I have been watching the order all day. When I checked this morning it said "processing," and a couple hours ago it switched to "shipped." Now I'm tracking on the Fedex website and it's "in transit." AAAAAHHHH! I can't wait! I should be getting it on Tuesday, but with any luck it'll come on Monday! Ah, Black Friday shopping without ever having to leave the house. :D

Eclipse

2009-11-22T20:57:00.001-08:00

In case anyone is interested and doesn't already know, they've finished filming Eclipse and it comes out June 30th, 2010. I'm excited, which is why I'm posting this.

I'm on top of it!

2009-11-14T21:34:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't really been present in the blogging world as of late. Indeed, as of this afternoon my Google reader showed 45 posts that I needed to read. I have been making good progress, however. At the moment I have 14 posts left to read. Yes!

So there is about a month of school left, which is completely ridiculous. Time goes by so fast! I'm doing well so far, but there are several things which I've pretty much put off until now, so I will be spending copious amounts of time getting them done. I actually got a lot of homework done today. I got up around 6:30 (on a Saturday, I know...) because I kept waking up all night, so I got an early start on homework. I tried to go to sleep again around 10 but that was a complete waste of time because I still kept waking up. Plus I was feeling really sick all day. It kept alternating between nausea and a stomach ache, but around 3:00 I felt better. It sucked though; I was at the point of wishing I would just throw up so I could feel better, but alas, no such luck.

Last night I made the last payment on my car! The only way to describe over blog how excited I am would be to put a lot of exclamation marks. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, I am waiting until financial aid goes through to get an iphone, which will probably be the beginning of January, but today I was reeeeaalllyyy tempted to go get one with money that I don't really have. But I resisted temptation. Being responsible is really lame sometimes.

Well, I will leave you with some song lyrics. I forgot about this song until it was on a tv show I was watching tonight. I downloaded it and am currently playing it on repeat right now. According to my itunes I am on my 19th time listening to it. I know, I'm ridiculous. But it's a good song! Anyway, here it is: True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. Enjoy!

You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh, I realize it's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Make you feel so small

But I see your true colors shining through
I see your true colors, and that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors, true colors
Are beautiful like a rainbow

Show me a smile, then
Don't be unhappy
Can't remember when I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up, because you know I'll be there

And I'll see your true colors shining through
I'll see your true colors, and that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors, your true colors
Are beautiful like a rainbow

Beat it

2009-11-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

I normally sing in the shower, but I make sure to do so quietly so nobody can hear me. However, yesterday as I was singing "Beat It" I realized that I was singing louder than usual. I also realized that if anyone were to walk by the bathroom they would probably be able to hear me. I was slightly embarrassed but the whole time I was blow drying my hair I still found myself singing loudly. I just couldn't help it! You can't sing that song without really getting into it.

So...

2009-10-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

I just want to say that I love the Yankees and have enjoyed watching the games the last few days. I never thought I'd ever be interested in sitting down and watching a baseball game of my own accord, but that's exactly what I did on Tuesday night. Tonight I even switched from a Supernatural rerun to watch the rest of the game. During the last inning I was as nervous as everyone in the crowd. Anyway, I know at least one person will be pleased to read this announcement.

GO YANKEES!!!

School Plans

2009-10-19T21:18:00.001-07:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but what I really want to study is Marine Biology. Since that program obviously isn't offered anywhere in Utah, I'm working on getting my Associate's in Generals right now, because an Associate's will pretty much transfer anywhere, whereas if you try to transfer individual credits, universities pick and choose which ones they will accept. The plan from the beginning has been to transfer to the University of Washington. I've been very adamant about it, even when everyone kept saying "Why don't you go to California?" But earlier this year I started thinking maybe I would enjoy California. Monterey Bay apparently has an awesome aquarium, and since it's central or northern Cali I think would enjoy it. However, the school there only offers a Master's in Marine Biology, and I'm only looking for a Bachelor's. Well, as it is, I have a list of several schools throughout the country that offer this program, so I figured I could look into one or two other California schools, but the plan kind of went back to Washington.

Recently I started considering looking at schools on the East coast, though. I thought that would be really nice, and if I have to move anyway, I might as well move, ya know? Then I started thinking "What about Hawaii? I'm sure they have a program there!" The possibilities were really opening up! And the thing is, the list I have isn't a complete list of every school that offers the program, it's just certain ones. So last night I started looking at some of these schools online. I looked at Hawaii, New York, Boston and Maryland. (There are also schools in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Florida, Alaska and North and South Carolina that I haven't looked at yet. There are still more schools, but these are the places that sounded good to me.) I quickly got discouraged though, when I looked at the cost of tuition. As I'm not a resident in any of those states it would cost me anywhere from 10-13 thousand dollars a semester. I didn't see in-state and out-of-state tuition prices listed for the school in Maryland, just one price, but I also couldn't find a Marine Biology program listed. I'm not really sure how it got on my list in the first place. Anyway, there was one more place I thought would be fun to look at, and that's the Virgin Islands.

I looked up the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) and looked at the cost of tuition. Not only do they only have one tuition price listed, but it's under $4,000!!!! I've pretty much been thinking about this school all day and I really want to go there. It's pretty affordable, and come on, going to school in the Virgin Islands pretty much gives you automatic bragging rights for the rest of your life. But here's the best part: the school is located in St. Thomas, and guess who's place of employment just happens to have an off site location in St. Thomas? That's right, mine. Now, I don't know if anything is really a possibility yet, but if I end up going to school there I'm going to see if I'd be able to transfer down there. That way I'd already have a job and I'd already know what I was doing. I don't know, nothing is official yet because it's only been about 24 hours since I first thought of this, but it's definitely something I want to make happen!

And the Verdict Is...

2009-10-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

I had my interview for Team Lead on Friday. I knew they were in a hurry to hire because the current team lead has been hired as supervisor for our D.C. office and yesterday was her last day. I went to work on Monday hoping I would hear the news, good or bad, but I didn't. Yesterday (Tuesday) at the beginning of the shift my lovely supervisor Sally said she needed to talk to me. I was sure she was going to say they'd hired someone else. She said "I'd like to offer you" and I got a huge smile on my face, "the position of team lead" and I squealed. I'm so happy! I've applied for this position, and a few others, multiple times over the past couple of years so I'm ecstatic that I finally got it. To make it even better, I get a $2 raise! My supervisor said she talked them up a little bit. :) I signed the paper work today so everything is official. Plus, my supervisor worked it so my pay raise gets backdated to Friday the 9th. I'm really looking forward to proving myself, especially since I've been with this company for 3 years and I love it.

Weekend Fun

2009-10-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Possibly going to Lagoon this weekend. There will be a group of people, but the important thing is that someone specific will be there.

Interview

2009-10-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have an interview for that position today. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Procrastination Sensation

2009-10-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be studying for a test right now, so of course I'm blogging and playing on facebook instead. I studied a little, but I just can't focus, and anyway, my show is about to come on. Also, I'm skipping institute tonight to "study."

Nothing really new has been going on. I have no new information to share on the topic of my last post, but we shall see what does or doesn't come of it. Mainly I'm just keeping busy with work and school. I have a test tomorrow and 3 more tests next week, but next Thursday and Friday are Fall break, so that will be nice.

I applied for Team Lead at my work, and should hopefully be having an interview this week. I'm really trying to prepare for the interview and come up with answers to those lame questions like "Give an example of a time when you showed strength" or blah blah blah, whatever. Anyway, I'm really hopeful so we'll see what happens.

I'm considering looking at schools on the East coast for my bachelor's degree, since I'll have my associate's by next Spring. Anyway, I guess that's about all, so until next time...

A Story

2009-09-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

I want to tell you a little story about a girl and two boys: *ahem*

(Due to the fact that anyone and their dog can read this blog, I'm going to change the names of the boys...not that it matters, since if they were to read this it would be pretty obvious it was about them)

Once upon a time there was a girl named Amber. Last year she was at her ward Christmas party when she saw a really cute boy who sat next to her. His name was Dave. Amber tried and tried to get up the courage to ask him out for the next several months, but she just couldn't do it. Then one day, about 4 months later, Amber's mom gave her 2 gift certificates for Chuck-a-Rama. At last, Amber had a way to make the conversation slightly less awkward! She asked Dave if he wanted to make use of the gift certificates with her, and he said yes. They went out at the end of May. Amber had a good time and thought Dave was really cute, but he never called her after that. He would talk to her at church functions but that was it, so Amber figured he wasn't interested and soon gave up. However, every time she would see him, her stomach would give a little lurch and she'd keep her eye on him the whole time. One time he invited her to a movie night at his condo's clubhouse, but nothing ever came of that. Then finally, months later, Dave came up to Amber at ward prayer and offered her a ride to FHE the next day. Of course, she accepted. He said he and his roommate would pick her up the next day. Needless to say, she was excited all that whole next day. When they picked her up she ended up sitting in the back seat with the roommate, who's name was Nick. Nick was more sociable and less shy than Dave. He joked around a lot and laughed at Amber's jokes. By the end of the evening she felt a little interest toward him. The next night was an institute bbq, and both Dave and Nick were there. Amber went and sat by them and they talked for the rest of the evening. Amber found it much easier to talk to Nick than it was to talk to Dave, although Dave was super cute. Also, every time Nick saw her after they first met, Nick would always ask Amber if she had missed him, and she always said yes. Fast forward to Sunday, and Amber was sitting by herself in Sunday School. Of course she knew Nick was there, but she didn't want to stare or do anything stupid. Then Nick called her name and said hello, so Amber went to sit by him. He was just as funny as ever. The next night (last night actually) was FHE again, and both boys were there. Amber was getting more comfortable talking to Dave by that time, but she talked to Nick even more. They still joked and he still laughed at her jokes. At one point in the evening, Nick patted the seat next to him for her to sit by him. That night when Amber got home, she sent him a friend request on facebook. Later when she checked again, he had accepted her friend request and written on her wall, "Yay!!!"

That's the end of the story so far, but I really think I like this guy. ;)

;)

2009-09-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

I like someone...

75 and Still Kickin!

2009-08-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday was my gramma's 75th birthday, and most of her children were there for the occasion.
Not many of my cousins came, but 3 of my 4 siblings were there with their kids and it was a blast! My brother and I played a rousing game of horseshoes earlier in the day, and decided to make a Horseshoe League named The Rogue Stallions. Of course I was horrible at this game and after one and a half rounds only had 1 or 2 points under my belt. After spending a few hours there listening to everyone talking like a bunch of old people, more relatives arrived and we started setting up for dinner. My uncle Joseph is Tongan, so of course he supplied most of the food. He has a pit in his backyard where he cooks the most wonderful pork you'll ever taste in your life. Here is the majestic pig. As you can see, it was as wide as the truck it rode in. After eating way more than any human ever should (and still only sampling maybe half of what was there) we moved inside for a special talent show/program so my gramma could see all of her talented descendants. Many of my cousins sang songs, and my nieces and nephews performed spur of the moment as well. It was very fun! This video is of my cousin's daughter,who LOVES Annie at the moment.

We also had some talent from the Tongan cousins.

Some of them sang 2 songs that they wrote themselves. They were both amazing, but I'm only going to post one video because they take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to upload.

All in all it was a fun time, and I absolutely love spending time with my family! Here is me and my gramma. I love you, Gramma!

Weekend Retreat

2009-08-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

Friday night through yesterday afternoon my Relief Society had a retreat. The first counselor in our bishopric has a cabin up at Lake Schofield so we stayed there, and it was a blast! First let me say that these aren't really "cabins." They're basically nice homes that have an outdoorsy feel because the walls are made of wood. I wish I would have taken pictures of how nice it was inside, but basically there was a full kitchen, several bedrooms and at least 2 bathrooms with really nice showers. This picture isn't of the exact cabin we stayed in, but they are all pretty similar.

Friday night we all wore Sunday clothes up there and had a really good dinner, as well as little talks/lessons from a member of the stake and his wife. I've been staying up til about 3 doing math every night since Friday of last week, so needless to say I am exhausted this weekend. So after the lessons I went to bed even though it was only 11 or 11:30, and everyone was still upstairs playing and having a blast. I put my headphones in to block the noise, and it worked relatively well, but I still didn't sleep very well. I got up around 7:30 or so and went on a little walk. I wanted to get down to the lake but wasn't exactly sure how to get there, so I just went up the road a little ways and took some pictures. This picture was actually taken from the balcony of the cabin.

After breakfast we went on a hardcore walk, involving dirt roads and heat, and was uphill on the way back. We also had spiritual thoughts from the bishopric members wives, so we were standing/sitting out in the sun, and I got a pretty bad sunburn.

Everyone wanted to go to the lake to swim after that, but I was so tired I decided I'd rather stay behind and take a nap, and it turns out lots of people had that same idea. After Otter Pops to cool us down (which worked wonders, by the way) and a delicious lunch of chicken salad sandwiches on croissants, several people took a "power nap" before heading down to the lake, but the girls I rode up with needed to leave so I went with them. All in all it was a really fun time and I'm glad I went, despite how tired and sore I am. After posting this I am going to sleep the rest of the day. Also, school starts this week so I'm excited! Anyway, I keep trying to post a video I took on Saturday morning but it's just not working, so I'll go ahead and post this, and try to put the video up later.

Fear Factor: Round 1

2009-08-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

As recently as Friday night I participated on the tv show Fear Factor. Round one involved a spider and specific weapons on my part, and went something like this:

I stayed up late doing math homework (what, instead of blogging??? I know, I know.) and by the time I finished it was 3:00 am. As I finally decided it was time for bed, I opened my bedroom door to head up to the bathroom when I saw an enormous spider on the floor right outside my door. This was by far the BIGGEST spider I've ever seen, apart from a tarantula. I contemplated taking a picture to document just how big and scary this spider was, but I didn't really want a picture of something that gross on my camera, and I was also afraid the flash would make the spider start moving. However, I've utilized my artistic abilities to draw a picture of the situation. You'll find that it is almost completely proportionally accurate.

I immediately backed up, started making crying/moaning noises, whining for my mommy and doing some sort of freak out dance. Meanwhile, my brain took the rational approach and started evaluating my options. The can of Raid was about 4 feet away, but getting it would mean walking past the spider. The hand held vacuum I use to vacuum up dead spiders was right outside my door, but that would mean reaching in close proximity to the spider, as well as risking the tube flailing around and making the spider run, which would scare me even more. Also, I couldn't risk vacuuming it up and having it not die, because then it might climb back out of the tube. The third option was to get a shoe, which I did, but I couldn't pluck up the courage to smash a spider that big.

Weapon #1: The Shoe

It's a good thing this round didn't have a time limit or I would have failed. For the next 10 or so minutes I stood/danced around trying to convince myself I could take out this spider, and also knowing that I would have to eventually because I couldn't go to bed until I did. During this time I came up with really strange ideas, like getting the ice pack out of the freezer in my mini fridge and dropping it on the spider from a high distance, ensuring that it got nice and smashed. Then I thought "Well if I can smash it with an ice pack, why can't I smash it with this shoe?" My response to that was "This shoe is oddly shaped and I might miss the spider."

Weapon #2: The Board

I finally decided that if I had some way to ensure that the spider couldn't get to me while I reached for the Raid that I might be ok. Lucky for me, I just happened to have this big board in my room, which was previously used for putting together a jigsaw puzzle, but lately has just been sitting here because I'm too lazy to take it upstairs. I stood this board up like you see it in the picture and placed it between me and the spider while I plucked up the courage to get the Raid. This was, by far, the most difficult task of the round. I tried to keep a hold of the board and slide it along as I walked, but my hands were shaking and at one point the board almost fell, which freaked me out even worse because, again, I was afraid the spider would start moving, which I already knew would be the scariest part of taking care of it. The stupid spider must have been asleep, because for some reason it didn't move once during my whole meltdown. I slowly walked the few feet to the Raid, and I can honestly say I've never been more scared in my life. I started shaking and freaking out even worse than before, and it took every ounce of strength I could muster to take those few steps. I was almost paralyzed with fear. After an amount of time that was at least 3 times longer than it should have been, I had the Raid in my hand.

Weapon #3: The Raid (I just realized that it's technically called Hot Shot, but I don't want to retype this post)

I knew there wasn't enough Raid in the can to completely take care of the spider because the statement "Kills on Contact" is a big fat lie. However, it was the best weapon I had. I took a deep breath and began to spray, and as I knew it would, the spider started to run. I ran after it. It ran to a corner by the stairs but I just kept on spraying. It laid there and twitched while I could tell the can was running out, but I kept on spraying until it was completely empty. I wanted to be absolutely sure it was dead so I was going to step on it with the shoe from earlier, but it started twitching again. I couldn't bring myself to step on it while it was still moving, so I ran upstairs to get my next weapon.

Weapon #4: The Hairspray

I dashed as quickly as I could upstairs to the bathroom, grabbed my hairspray and ran back downstairs to the still twitching spider. I sprayed my new weapon until at last my enemy stopped moving. I then stepped on it a couple of times with my shoe, then proceeded with my final weapon.

Weapon #5: The Vacuum

At last I felt somewhat comfortable using the vacuum on the spider. I was pretty confident it was dead, but I was still nervous, so after sucking it up, I placed the vacuum in the center of the storage room, rather than it's usual spot right outside my door. I went back inside my room shaking and sweating. I was pretty hot for the next few minutes. By the time I finished it was about 3:15. I was finally able to get ready for bed, and funnily enough, the fear made me exhausted, and I was able to fall asleep quickly. Apparently, fear is not a factor for me.

*For those who are wondering how the other rounds went, since I had successfully completed the insect round, I had no problems with the other rounds and came off the show victorious. The battles were messy, but culminated with me pushing someone off the top of a moving semi, which was speeding through the desert.

**Also, if you're wondering about the real size of the spider, I'd guess it to be at least the size of a quarter, possibly bigger.

Here it is...

2009-08-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

Drum roll please.......

Remember LAST weekend when I said I'd blog about my post-graduation plans? Well, that day has finally arrived! (Mainly because I should be studying for my math test. Do you see a pattern here?)

I should be graduating next spring with my Associates. So, remember my
survey on cruise destinations I asked you all to take? Well, that's what I plan to do to celebrate my hard work. I have found some SUPER cheap cruises, so after much deliberation and hours of internet browsing, I have decided on a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas. I am sooooooooo excited! It will be stopping in Key West, Florida, as well as Nassau, Bahamas. The excursions I want to do are snorkeling and glass bottom kayaking. There's one little problem, however; I won't go by myself. Some girls from work have shown interest, but I'm not entirely convinced they will follow through with it. One of my good friends was planning on coming with me, but she has recently encountered some family and financial trouble, so I figure it would be selfish and thoughtless of me to ask "Are you still going on the cruise with me??" So we shall see. My parents seemed interested as well when I jabbered about it on our way to New Mexico, and while I certainly wouldn't mind them coming, it would be totally lame if it was just the three of us. But it's over a year away, so I will keep looking.

Ok, my other reason for posting tonight, because I am ridiculously excited about this: I've been drawn over to the dark side and have decided to get an iPhone. After months of deliberation and mind changing (I counted no less than 8 mind changes related to this decision), I've finally decided to go for it. This decision was brought about by the fact that my ipod recently had a failure which doesn't allow me to sync it anymore, meaning I can no longer add or remove anything from it, nor can I charge it with the normal USB cable. I had to get a special cable to be able to charge it, so luckily I can still listen to it, but a fat lot of good that does. I can only charge it at work because my laptop doesn't have the right size of firewire port needed for charging my ipod, and the adaptor I bought doesn't work. So I had planned on buying an ipod classic because the 120 gig is only $250. I had sampled an ipod touch at work and didn't think it was all that neat. But in New Mexico my cousin convinced me of how truly awesome the ipod touch is, so I decided to go for the 32 gig, even though it's....well, really expensive. I figured I could save up for it. Meanwhile, I planned on switching phone carriers and getting a Blackberry Curve in January. Long story short (too late for that), I changed my mind about several different things, but eventually decided to stay with AT&T and just upgrade in November. Well, last night I saw a commercial for the iPhone that actually showed some really cool apps, not like the stupid ones like to view MRI's and stuff. So even though I'd decided against it because I didn't like the idea of having my phone and ipod in one, because if it got ruined or lost then I was out both, that commercial really "peaked my interest," to put it lightly. I just couldn't convince myself that the ipod touch would be sufficient because it does everything the iPhone does except make calls. Plus, the iPhone is about $100 cheaper than the ipod. So I've FINALLY made the decision to go for it. And I'm extremely excited about it. I've spent all day learning about all the cool things it can do and all the cool apps you can get for it. So basically, November can't come soon enough.

Get a tissue!

2009-08-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I know I said I'd update over the weekend with my graduation plans, and I still haven't forgot about that, but I really wanted to post this. It made me cry!

Watch CBS Videos Online

A bit of everything

2009-07-31T16:37:00.000-07:00

Since it's a Friday evening and I'm supposed to be doing math homework, I figured this was a good time to update my neglected blog! It's not even that I have anything important to say. ;)

My trip to New Mexico was a BLAST! I would post pictures, but unfortunately I didn't get to take any. I nearly forgot to pack my camera, which means the fact that I may need the battery charger didn't even cross my mind. As we were on our way Friday morning I pulled out my camera to try and catch some pictures of the scenery. I went to turn it on and it just told me "Low Battery." :( Having a rechargeable battery was a requirement I had when choosing a camera, and while it has been very handy, it sucked this time because I couldn't just go buy some new batteries to pop in. I actually haven't had to charge this battery very often, and the last time I used my camera it had plenty of battery! Then I remembered the last time I used my camera was on the 4th of July at Stadium of Fire. I guess I used all my battery power taking pictures/videos of Jonas Brothers...I'm being completely serious.

Friday night I slept over at my cousin's. I was there most of Saturday, and it was so fun seeing him. I love you, Michael! After that I went with my parents and nephew (who only came to catch bugs. More on this later...) to Golden Coral, then headed over to my cousin Brianna's wedding reception. It was so much fun! Living in Utah, I go to receptions all the time, but this was by far the funnest one I've ever been to! It was so much fun seeing everyone, and even my parents had a good time. My sister Brenda came down with her family as well, so during the daddy/daughter dance my dad danced with me and then her. Then later on he danced with my mom. He never does stuff like that! There was a candy table at the reception, and while I didn't plan on eating any of it, when we were helping clean up I discovered they had Jordan Almonds. I ended up taking most of them home, and am munching on them at this very moment. They are soooo good!

Sunday my other cousin came over with his wife and son. It was fun talking to them. Then we took a walk down to the "river," which is all dried up. I saw a lot of family from both sides on this trip, and I think that's what made it so memorable and fun. We got up Monday morning at 5:30, so even with a long stop in Moab for breakfast and so my nephew could catch more crawdads, we still got home around 2:00 or so. My nephew, who loves insects, came down with us so he could catch them. By the time we got home he had 108 bugs, 3 lizards and 8 crawdads. Ridiculous.

Thanks to some random connections through my good friend Jade, I am getting a Chi flat iron for $45. Mind you, these normally run from at least 100-120 dollars. I'm pretty excited!

Ok, I'd better get going on my math homework, but I will try and update tomorrow or within the next couple of days, because I want to announce my after-graduation plans.

Out-of-Townie

2009-07-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

I'm going to New Mexico for the weekend. If anything worth reporting happens, I will post it when I return.

Happy weekend everyone!

One Question Survey!

2009-07-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

Take my survey!

Awesome Handmade Soap!

2009-07-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not doing this post to try and win the prize, I'm doing it because my sister's amazing homemade soaps really deserve recognition. I have tried several of them and I love them all.

My sister, Kerri, has been making soaps for several months now. She has been selling at boutiques in Utah every weekend all summer, and while she has been doing fairly well, she would really like to increase her online sales. Her website is
messesandmudpies.com. If you are looking for inexpensive gifts, or just for high quality homemade soaps for yourself, this is definitely the place to look. She has beautiful bath bombs in the shape of cupcakes, soapy cakes that come in cute little cake boxes, complexion bars, and more! I'm pretty sure there aren't any soaps over $6. Also, she accepts Paypal, so you don't have to worry about sending credit card information.

If you're looking at all for any handmade soaps, please go to my sister's website. She is an amazing woman and she deserves to do well! Plus, 10% of all her sales go to the Ssejinja Children's Foundation. Once again, her website is messesandmudpies.com.

5 Things Tag

2009-07-05T20:49:00.001-07:00

My friend Jade tagged me in this, however, I'm not sure I even have 5 readers so I'm not going to tag anyone. You can do it if you want.

5 years ago I was:

1- Going to massage therapy school
2- Sneaking into the American Fork rec center on an almost daily basis
3- Tasting Starbucks frapuccinos for the first time
4- Getting ready for someone special to move out here
5- Working my first job as a massage therapist

5 things on my to do list today:

1- Go to church
2- Be lazy
3- Get some sun
4- Go to ward prayer
5- Go to bed early (probably won't happen)

5 things I would spend a million dollars on:

1- Pay off school loans/debt
2- Buy a house
3- Get a brand new car
4- Open up some sort of investment account
5- Finish school

5 places I've lived:

1- 18th Street
2- 1440 North
3- 800 West
4- 2000 North
5- 1120 North

5 jobs I've had:

1- Server at Seville retirement home
2- Harmon's grocery store
3- Massage Therapist
4- Dry Cleaner's
5- Ancestry.com

5 years from now:

1- Be married
2- Be debt free
3- Be done with school
4- Possibly have kids
5- Be awesome

R.I.P. Murphy

2009-06-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, probably around the beginning of the year, maybe before that, my dog started coughing. At first it was just when he got excited, but then it started happening more frequently, and started getting worse. Finally we took him to the vet, who thought it may be his heart, but didn't really seem to know what he was doing. He did an x-ray, and thought he saw something in his bronchial tubes, but was still convinced it was his heart. He gave us some medicine to try, but that didn't work. Meanwhile, Murphy's coughs were sounding more and more phlegmy, rather than just dry like they had before. We eventually took him to a different vet, who tried other things, and eventually we learned he had chronic bronchitis. The vet said he would have it for the rest of his life and there was no cure. He gave us an antibiotic and some cough syrup, but neither seemed to help. We also learned that his teeth were so bad they were getting puss around them. They don't know for sure what causes the bronchitis, but they think that bad teeth can sometimes contribute to it. By this time my parents had already spent nearly $1000 on vet bills. We took him to get his teeth cleaned but that was going to cost a fortune, and Murphy was coughing so much that the vet (the regular vet was out of town) didn't end up doing it.

Then the Friday before last my parents mentioned they were thinking of having Murphy put down. At first I didn't see the necessity for this. My dad said it would have to be a unanimous decision, but neither him nor I could give an answer right away. My mom said for us to think about it. The fact was that my parents just couldn't afford to put any more money into it, especially when medicines weren't working. And, being a poodle, of course Murphy was always groomed regularly, which was also a cost that would have to be cut out. Deep in my heart I always knew what the decision would be, but I couldn't bring myself to make that decision right away. It was very difficult because even though Murphy was coughing nearly all the time, and sometimes sounded like he had difficulty breathing, he was still a relatively happy dog. He still got excited to see us, would follow us around and beg for food, and even attempted to play, even though he hadn't been able to play for a very long time. Every time he tried, he would start coughing and go sit down. I was torn between the fact that I'd be putting down a somewhat still happy dog, the fact that despite being happy, he was definitely miserable to some degree, and the fact that I didn't want to be selfish and prolong his suffering just because I loved him too much to let him go. Then, two days later, Sunday night, I came home and he was in bed. I went to see him and he was coughing so bad and sounded like he had so much fluid that he could hardly breathe. Right then I knew what the decision had to be.

I didn't have a chance to talk to my parents about it because my Gramma came to visit the next day. Meanwhile, Murphy only seemed to be getting worse. Finally, Friday night my parents and I were all in the living room when my dad said that that day when he got home from work, Murphy wouldn't even get out of his bed to come greet him or get a treat. I told them that Murphy, who had been sleeping with me all week, had kept us both up all night because he was coughing so much. I also noted that he seemed barely able to breathe, so we decided to put him down the next day.

My dad didn't want to be there when they did it, and I didn't want to be in the room while it happened, but I still wanted to go with my mom to take Murphy down there. We had an appointment for 3:00 on Saturday. He got excited when my mom asked if he wanted to go for a ride, and enjoyed the car ride over. We had to wait forever for the vet to come in, and Murphy got bored. He kept sniffing around the room, and every time he'd hear a dog making a noise or hear a dog collar jingle he would go over to the door and cry. Finally he just laid down on the floor. Eventually the doctor came in and explained everything to us. We said goodbye to Murphy and I started to leave the room but he tried to follow me. After that I decided to stay, and I'm glad I did. Now I can't even imagine leaving him in there by himself, and even though I hadn't wanted to stay originally, I had always wanted to know that he was gone before we left. So my mom and I stayed with him. It was quick because they gave him an overdose of anesthesia, so he fell asleep right away and then over the next few minutes his lungs and heart stopped. We stayed with him until the vet came in and made sure he was completely gone. It was so hard walking out of the room and leaving him lying on the table, because it still seemed like he should be coming with us.

We are doing ok. My dad was (and probably still is) really depressed about it, because as he says, (and I agree) "Murphy is the best dog we've ever had." We got him in October of 2002, so we've had him for a long time. We all agree that it seems weird not having a little dog running over to greet us when we come home, or not having a little dog under foot in the kitchen when we're trying to cook, or begging for food when we're eating. To me the house feels very empty. I get a shock every time I see his food and water bowl missing from their spot in the kitchen, or see the empty space where his bed is supposed to be. I keep wanting to go see him or call him over to me before I remember he's gone.

He was a very smart dog who knew the meaning of the words ride, treat, go, walk, do you wanna, mommy, daddy, sister, brother, Derek, Amber, kids, and probably others that I can't think of right now. One time I asked him "Are you doing alright?" but he thought I said "Do you want a ride?" and wouldn't calm down until I put him in the car and drove him around the block. His bed was at the top of the stairs. He liked laying up there and barking at anyone who passed, which he did all day long on Sundays. His favorite toy was called Booda, because that was the brand. He had a few of these throughout his life. They are the soft kind with a squeaker and come in different kinds of animals. He knew how to squeak them with his nose and knew what "squeak it" meant. Every time he would make it squeak he would look up at me, wag his tail and wait for me to say "Good boy!" He went a long time without a Booda. Last year I bought him one that is a pig. He was so proud when I brought it home; he started playing with it right away. When my dad came home I said "Go show Daddy," so he carried it in his mouth downstairs to show my dad. Also, he had an enormous under bite, which made him look like he was always smiling.

I was going to upload photos of him to this blog, but there are too many, most are too big and it would take forever, so I made an album that you can view. I'll put one picture up so you can all see how cute he was. There is also a video in the album.

One

2009-06-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

I've worked out everyday for a week except Sunday and Friday. I just weight myself and I've lost one pound. :) Not that much but it's definitely progress. I've been maintaining weight at a pretty constant rate for a long time now, so it's really nice to see that lower number on the scale. I hope this happens every week! It's certainly easier to stay in a routine when you see the results. Yay for me!

Actually, I noticed today that my neck looks skinnier. Maybe that's where the one pound came from, lol.

Fast

2009-06-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update while I'm on break at work:

Saturday I went to the gym and worked out on the elliptical for an hour, burning almost 700 calories. I want to start going in the mornings before work, but as I am in a bad habit of going to bed late and sleeping in, this hasn't happened yet. However, I have got up early(er) everyday this week. While I didn't go to the gym, I worked out on our treadmill for half an hour Monday and yesterday. I didn't get to today because I had to work early, and I will be the rest of the week, but I'll be going to the gym in the evenings. I really feel like I'm FINALLY getting into the routine I've always wanted to be in.

The Sunday before last I got a church calling--ward prayer coordinator. I go to a single's ward, and most single's wards meet every Sunday night and have a little thought/lesson and a prayer. This calling shouldn't require much work. However, last Sunday I received a phone call saying the bishop would like to meet with me for 5 minutes on Thursday. The only reason I can think of is to give me another calling. I know it's not totally unheard of for people to have two callings, but to get them within two weeks of each other? My guess is they want me to be a teacher. I guess we'll see tomorrow. I could be completely wrong about this entire thing. I kind of hope so.

Details

2009-05-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

I promised details of my date, and it is detailed because girls at work are asking for them, so here they are:

The guy's name is Wesley. I first met him last December at my church Christmas party, and the first thing I noticed is that he looks sorta like Adrien Brody, who I've included a picture of. Now, I've always thought Adrian Brody is good looking. I know some people might not agree with me, but I don't care. And before anybody asks, no, he does not have a big nose like Mr. Brody.

Anyway, I've been wanting to ask him out for a long time, but could never get up the courage. We'd talk occasionally at church activities, but for the most part there wasn't much interaction. Then a few weeks ago we were both at an activity together. We talked a bit, but then he went to talk to other people. So when I was driving home I saw him walking. I pulled over and asked if he wanted a ride so he got in. We talked during the short car ride, and I found out that he's done with school, has a good job and has a condo as well. :) All in all I was pretty pleased with the opportunity. Anyway, shortly after that my mom received 4 gift certificates to Chuck-a-Rama (buffet). She and my dad used two, and she gave the others to me. This made it easier to ask him out, because I actually had a plan, rather than saying "Do you want to do....ssssomething...sometime?" and sounding like an idiot. So on Sunday I went up to him and asked if he'd like to go with me. Obviously he said yes (phew!) I haven't been out on a date in...I'm not sure how long. At least a year. So needless to say I was nervous, but excited. We decided on Friday and then exchanged numbers and I said I'd call him later in the week to set up a specific time. I called him on Thursday and, acting like a 13 year old girl, part of me hoped he wouldn't answer. He didn't. I left him a voice mail and am pretty sure I managed to NOT sound like an idiot. Anyway, later that night my phone gave a little ding. I thought it was a text, but no, I had one missed call and a new voicemail. Yeah, sometimes my phone doesn't ring. I was pretty bummed that I missed his call, but it doesn't really matter because I was so tired that I could barely pay attention to his voice mail. Basically all I remember was he said he got off work at 5. I figured I'd listen to it later, but apparently I hit the delete button rather than the save button, because when I went to listen again it was gone. :( Ah well. Friday I texted and asked if 7 was ok, and would he like to drive or should I. He wrote back and said 7 was fine and he didn't care who drove, so I told him he could, lol. So basically by the time I got off work I was starting to get really nervous. I started getting ready plenty early, which meant I had about 40 minutes to sit around and freak out. I felt borderline panic attack. Anyway, he came and when I saw him on the doorstep I thought "He's so cute!" He was a real gentleman too; he opened my doors for me and at the end of the night he walked me to the door and gave me a hug. The nice thing was that there was never really any awkward silences or anything. We just sorta got to know each other. He told me funny stories and I laughed probably more than normal people would have. I don't really feel dumb though, because I thought they were funny. At one point he was eating this little pickle and was telling a story. He stopped talking and I thought he was just chewing, but then his voice got all horsey and he was like "That was a sweet pickle. I thought it was a dill." Not really that funny sounding, but I couldn't stop laughing. It was just really cute. He's a really nice guy and I hope to have more chances to at least get to know him.

:)

2009-05-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

:D :D :D:D :D :D

Date

2009-05-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

I have a date this Friday night. Details to follow. :)

Las Vegas

2009-05-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

I know this is 2 weeks late, but before you judge, please consider this: In order to write this post, I first had to take my sd card out of my camera, put it into my computer and then copy my pictures to my computer. This is way harder than things used to be. I remember when all you had to do to get your pictures was take your film to the store, fill out an envelope, drop it off to be developed, and go back to the store a few days later to pick them up. You could pay extra to get it back in an hour, but who wanted to bother with that? I personally think the best way is how we always did it at my house--send the photos to a company called York. And by send, I mean in the mail. You'd get your pictures in a couple weeks, and with barely any effort or money on your part. But noooo, they had to go and make things so complicated. So I'm sure you can understand why it took me so long to write this entry.

Ok, actually, uploading my pictures took much longer than I thought. I tried two different websites, which means I uploaded and put captions on everything twice. I doubt you all care about that, but I just want you to know that I've spent the last couple of hours uploading and putting captions on these photos for you. The album can be found here, so that way you can all look at them, and allowing me to avoid using blogger's awful photo uploading system. Also, I took significantly more pictures than I thought. I did the whole pictures-on-the-strip thing when I went last year, so I didn't take a whole lot this time, and a lot of them were me messing with my camera settings and taking multiple pictures of the same thing, or at different angles. Anyway, here's my (hopefully shortened) account of my trip: (nope, sorry, this entry isn't short. I did my best, but I just hope it takes you much less time to read it than it did for me to write it)

Day 1 (Saturday): Hit the road at about 8:30 in the morning, right after I nearly choked on the Oh's! I was eating. That's what happens when you try to finish a bowl of cereal in 30 seconds. We rolled into Vegas around...well I forget the time because the clock on my phone didn't change automatically, but I think it was around 12:30 or so. We drove around trying to find an In-n-Out, then had lunch there. It was at this time I noticed my chapstick was melted. At this point we'd only been out of the car for no more than 5 minutes. After eating awesome food, some immature flirting of sorts with the guy who took our order, by persons other than me, and after getting a dirty look from a couple I accidentally dropped my tray on, we checked into the Excalibur (home of the Tournament of Kings and the Thunder From Down Under). It was very hot outside and I was feeling tired, so when everyone else went to walk the strip (lame), my friend who lives there picked me up. Her and her friend were hungry so we went to Olive Garden. I was still stuffed from our lunch, but couldn't resist the bread sticks and salad pushed in front of me, and glass after glass of water. (I don't understand how anybody can comfortably live in Nevada. No matter how much I drank and how little time I spent outside, I spent the duration of my trip in a constant state of thirst.) My friend Tina wanted to see our room so after hanging out at her house for awhile, we headed back to the hotel. This is when the pictures of the moon, which are in my album, were taken. Bruce Almighty was on tv, so we watched that, then I went to bed at 11:00. That's 3 hours earlier than I normally go to bed.

Day 2 (Sunday): We slept til 9, which means I got 10 hours of sleep. This is about 4 hours more than I'd gotten any night that week. Hung out in other room while 3 of the 4 girls I was with went to the Luxor to look for a swimsuit (one girl had forgot hers). We then hit the pool, which consisted more of walking in the water for a few minutes, then laying out, then getting back in the pool, etc. Eventually I got tired of this, since I prefer swimming, which was difficult since the deepest part of the pool was only 3 or so feet. Also, laying out was pointless since I had just applied SPF 50 sunblock. The sun felt nice though, but eventually I went inside. Upon arriving at my room I realized I'd grabbed the wrong key, so I headed back down to the pool but met up with the girls on the way. We showered, then went over to MGM Grand, I can't remember why. We ended up doing the CBS thing there. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, in the MGM Grand there is a place called CBS Television City. Here you can watch shows for them and tell them what you think. It's free, so we thought it would be cool. However, we didn't realize that they give you a butt load of coupons and TWENTY DOLLARS CASH. Pretty sweet deal. Basically they were having people test shows that had been picked up for CBS's fall lineup. We watched a show called Three Rivers, which is a medical show. It was sorta interesting, but I don't think it's something I would watch regularly. We received a coupon for $10 at the CBS store. They didn't have any Criminal Minds merchandise, and since the CSI t-shirts were $22, I went with a CSI mug, which was pretty much the coolest thing there, unless you're a huge fan or Survivor or Two and a Half Men. The mug was $14 so after the coupon I only paid $4, which I used from the cash they gave us. After that we made up our minds to go see the Tournament of Kings. As we walked down the hall from our room, we walked passed a room with a woman screaming in pleasure. It was pretty funny, especially since my friend initially thought she was being attacked and was about to call the police. I told them I wanted to slip my $20 CBS cash under the door. Anyway, the Tournament of Kings is a dinner show, similar to Medieval Times. They feed you dinner (all of which you eat with your hands) and you watch a show complete with hot guys on horses doing things like jousting. We almost didn't go because tickets were $60, but in the end we decided we really wanted to. It was definitely worth the money. If you ever have the chance to go, I would certainly recommend it. They feed you a whole Cornish game hen, broccoli, potato wedges, a roll, and this awesome apple cobbler type thing, as well as all you can drink drinks (until they stop coming by to refill them, which I wasn't pleased about). They also come by and take your pictures, then bring it to you in a special cover thing, so you think "Hey, a free gift!" Then after you get attached to it they come by and tell you if you want to keep it it's $20. No way, it was an awful picture anyway. The show has assigned seating, and we were in a section called dragon. This had no meaning until all the "kings" or guys on horses came out, and each king represented a country, or in this case, a section of people. I began to think we were jipped since dragon isn't a country, and all the kings had come out and we had clearly been overlooked. But then Mordred came out, blowing fire and all, and said he'd be sending his Dragon Knight. This was cool, but we still got jipped since the Dragon Knight didn't actually compete in events, only came out for a big battle at the end, and OF COURSE was defeated by King Arthur's son (after taking out King Arthur first. Yeah dog!). It was still really fun, and they used "pyrotechnics" and cool acrobatic people, not to mention eye candy galore. We went to the 6:00 showing and that was the first real food I'd had all day, other than a muffin and crackers in the room that morning. For some reason I just wasn't very hungry throughout the trip. We also bought monorail tickets earlier that day, which we rode up to the Hilton after the show. Our intention was to get to Circus Circus (not my idea), but we ended up not actually on the strip anymore, so we had to do quite a bit of walking in the dark to get back on it. My ankle and foot had started hurting for some reason, and by the end of the night it had moved all the way up to my hip and was really painful to walk on. My foot actually didn't stop hurting until I had been home for several days. Well, we finally made it back on the strip via the Sahara, which is next to Circus Circus, but it still looked far away, so we decided not to go there. They wanted to go see the Sirens of TI (Treasure Island), so we walked all the way down there, and we had just missed the show. The next one didn't start for another 40 minutes, so we decided to skip it and instead walked down to the Bellagio to watch the fountain show. Since we arrived just in time for one, we stuck around the extra 15 minutes and caught another one. Then we walked to Bally's, where the closest monorail entrance was, and then one stop later we were at our hotel. This means we nearly walked the WHOLE strip, since the Sahara and Excalibur are on opposite ends. I was a little mad, since my feet were killing me, my hands were swollen from the heat, and it defeated the whole purpose of buying monorail tickets. Anyway, we got to bed at about midnight, and the next morning some of the girls went back to the pool while me and one girl slept til 9:30. Again, more sleep than I got at home.

Day 3 (Monday): Got up, got ready and checked out of our hotel. We went to a restaurant called Claim Jumper because they have this chocolate cake called the Motherlode that one of the girls wanted. I ended up getting fettuccine alfredo, which is always good. The cake they got was $10 but quite enormous. What they didn't finish they took to work the next day. When we finished eating we made our way down to see the temple before hitting the road. On the way there we passed streets called Memory Lane and Straight Street. I made up the scenario that Straight Street doesn't allow homosexuals and that the residents sit outside their houses with shotguns. Anyway, we stopped for pictures at the temple, which is very beautiful, but hard to see because of all the palm trees in the way. There's also a street across from the temple called New Moon Way, which is in the picture album. If you don't understand the significance of what I just said, that's ok. We also passed a house with awesome landscaping and a giant cactus in the front yard, which is also in the photo album. Anyway, after that we headed home.

Three things I would recommend to anybody going to Vegas:
1. By a monorail pass. It has several stops along the strip and an all day pass only costs $13. As long as you don't make a stupid mistake like we did, this cuts down on walking and being in the heat. Probably the smartest money you'll spend while there. Plus, the voice over system says really amusing things, like:
-The word monorail comes from the Greek roots mono, meaning one, and rail meaning, well...rail.
-Upon exiting the monorail, please check your surroundings for personal items. Rumor has it that Howie Mandel likes to check the cars for loose change after his show at the MGM Grand.
-This monorail was the first self-operating monorail system in the world, so if you think you saw Toni Braxton driving, you should really get some sleep.

2. Do the CBS tv thing. Even without all the incentives, it's still a free activity that's really fun. You just watch the show, then use a touch screen computer to give them your opinions on it. Plus, you get to go home and tell people you made twenty bucks in Vegas.

3. Go see a show. Any show will do, as after seeing just one, I realize that Las Vegas shows are pretty much required to be phenomenal. Probably some of the best money you'll spend.

ROAD TRIP!!!

2009-05-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

So my New Mexico trip has been cancelled. I was very sad to hear this news, and even sadder when it came right after I started having a bad day. However, this news wasn't all bad, because a bunch of girls I work with are going to Las Vegas this weekend, so I told them I wanted to come along. It will be me and four other girls, and funnily enough, I only know two of them a little, and the other two I don't know at all. I don't care though; from what I know of them they are fun and cute girls, and besides...girl's road trip! YEAH! We're staying at Excalibur and the rooms are already paid for by one of the girl's mom, so all I will have to pay for is 1/5 of the gas and whatever food I need to eat while I'm down there. I have no idea what we're going to do but it'll be seriously sweet, I know that much. We're leaving Saturday morning and coming back Monday, so I'll be MIA until then (because I always update so freqently anyway), but will be back with hopefully interesting pictures. If you're at all interested in staying updated as to my whereabouts or doings, you can always check here. I won't have internet but I can update that from my phone, so if you're really bored or are stalking me for some reason, feel free to track me there.

Some Random Stuff

2009-05-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

I was eating a brownie a few minutes ago and contemplated this important concept:

Why are they called "brownies" when they aren't actually individual pieces until you cut them up? What I mean, for example, is yesterday I said "I'm going to make brownies." However, when they come out of the oven and are sitting in the pan, they looks no different than a cake, but you don't say "I'm going to make cakes," you say "I'm going to make a cake." Even when you cut it into pieces, you still don't say cakes, you say slices of cake, and you certainly wouldn't say "I'm going to eat a cake" like I said about a brownie at the beginning of this blog. People would think you were a fatty. So why say brownies? Why not slices of brownie? Or better yet, slices of brown? Even "brownie squares" would work. What I'm driving at is that we, as a society, need to be more consistent in our speech patterns.

Last Thursday I went shopping with a friend. I needed new jeans and have recently discovered that I really like the ones from Aeropostale. They're inexpensive and comfy. When I got to the store I noticed that they had hardly any jeans left. Apparently they think people don't wear them in the summer. (Or am I the only one who does? Does everyone think I'm weird now?) I finally found two that were in my size, and they were both short in length. That was a bonus! They were normally something like 30 or more dollars, but the sign said $9.99. I got to the register and after the girl scanned them in I asked, "These are ten dollars, right?" She said, "They're actually $7.50, but you can pay ten if you want." I was ecstatic! (About them being so cheap, not that she was willing to let me overpay.) Now, fast forward to yesterday when I put the second pair on. I noticed that whoever made these jeans only sewed half of the belt loops on. They are on the left side of the pants, but there are none on the right side. I considered for a moment taking them back, but then I remembered the difficulty in finding the ones I wanted, and I also remembered that they were only $7.50. I didn't really see the need for belt loops anyway, and thought they must just be like sock garters, which aren't necessary, but people believed their socks would fall off without them. I forgot all about my quirky pants until later that day when I went to the bathroom. I undid my belt and...it came halfway off, swinging wildly. :( Lesson learned. Belt loops are necessary. Turns out the jeans I was going to give to D.I. will come in handy. I just have to remove the belt loops and sew them onto these new ones. And by that I mean have my mom sew them on.

Lastly, I'm going to New Mexico this weekend to see my favorite person in the whole world. It'll be a really quick trip; leave Friday afternoon/evening and turn around and come back at 7 Saturday morning. We're just going to pick up my grampa, so why even bother going, right? Because for the hours of the night I can run a muck in another state and not get in trouble, because in just a few short hours I'll be over state lines again. I've had a need to cause some trouble! No, actually it really is to see this person, even if it is for just a few hours. I want to find some movies to upload on my ipod for the drive. Any suggestions?

My Favorite Boys

2009-05-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

On Facebook there have been Top 5 lists popping up on pretty much every category you can imagine. None of these tickled my fancy, although I did decide I wanted to make a list of my 5 favorite TV characters. These characters all happen to be male, and I also find them very attractive. You may not agree with me, but I don't care. Nobody's forcing you to read my blog. Now don't get me wrong, I love these characters for more than their looks; however, that just adds to my liking. So here they are, in kind of order. The first two are definitely in order, and the others are kind of interchangeable.

1. Dean Winchester from Supernatural

This guy is seriously my obsession right now. Not just the character, but the actor as well, although liking a character usually peaks my interest in the actor. Dean is super hot, sexy and tough. He has an arsenal in his trunk to take care of any evil supernatural being. He loves heavy metal, his classic car and will do anything for family. He puts on a tough front, but more and more we get to see his soft, sensitive, teddy bear side. He is played by Jensen Ackles, who hasn't done many "big" movies, but has been in Days of our Lives, Dawson's Creek and Dark Angel.

2. Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds

This guy is literally a genius. He is 27 years old and works for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI (profilers). He has a photographic memory, Doctorate's in Chemistry, Mathematics and Engineering, as well as BA's in Psychology and Sociology. He's also working on another BA in Philosophy. He's skinny and a nerd, but I think he's super cute and funny. The actor's name is Matthew Gray Gubler, and while he hasn't done much acting in anything I've heard of (he did the voice of Simon in Alvin and the Chipmunks), he directs. He has some interesting videos on his website, one being a music video he directed for The Killers. It's really funny and definitely worth a look if you like watching music videos.

3. Greg Sanders from CSI

Greg used to work in the forensics lab, but later became a full-fledged Crime Scene Investigator. I haven't seen any of this current season so I'm not sure what's up with his character at this point, but he is also really cute. He's your typical guy, goofing around at work. He changes his hair style and color a lot, but I always think it looks good. The actor's name is Eric Szmanda. The only thing he's been in (other than an episode here and there of several random TV shows) that I've heard of is Rules of Attraction, and even in that, I think his character only had a small part. Also, while doing a Google image search for Greg Sanders, I came across this guy, who is apparently a composer. I just thought the picture was funny, since it was in a sea of image results for a fictional character, so just know that when I say "Greg Sanders," I don't mean this guy.

4. Sawyer from Lost

Sawyer is the bad boy of Lost. His real name is James Ford, but adopted the alias after...well, I won't say in case anybody reading this hasn't watched season 1 but plans on it. Anyway, Sawyer puts on a tough front but he genuinely cares about the people close to him. He does his best to take care of everyone who he feels is in his care. I don't know much about the actor. I had to look up his name (Josh Holloway), but I know I've seen him in an episode of CSI. Looking over his bio on IMDB, I think it's worth noting that in 2001 he was in an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. I wasn't even aware that the show was still around then.

5. Lex Luthor from Smallville

Lex is, of course, Superman's nemesis. He isn't even on the show anymore, which is good, because the whole Lex-Clark dynamic or whatever you want to call it was getting a bit ridiculous. His character has definitely run his course, but they didn't get rid of him until they had truly shown his evil nature. Up until about fourth season or so, he had been trying to fight his evil side, but eventually it won. I didn't like him much after that, but for about the first three seasons I looooooved him. He was played by Michael Rosenbaum, who has been in such movies as Sorority Boys, Sweet November, The Racing Stripes, and others that you may or may not have heard of.

Honorable Mention: Bart Simpson (no, I don't find him attractive, so just calm down)

We all know Bart, so I'll only say this, which you may or may not know: His voice is done by a woman. I'm pretty sure this woman does other voices on the show, but IMDB is not listing it, or has it listed in a very weird way that I cannot figure out. Anyway, if anybody is still reading this post, that's my list of favorite TV characters, who all happen to be boys (girls are lame).

8 Things I Stole From My Sister

2009-04-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

8 things I am looking forward to:

1. Being done with the semester
2. Eating healthier and exercising regularly
3. Going to New Mexico this summer
4. Paying off my car
5. Fulfilling my phone contract so I can switch to something cheaper
6. The book club at my work
7. No more snow
8. Staying in bed all day and watching Criminal Minds

8 Things I did yesterday:

1. Got up before 9 am on a Saturday
2. Took my Yoga final
3. Saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop
4. Chose water instead of Dr. Pepper
5. Studied for my last 2 finals
6. Vacuumed under EVERYTHING to get any dead bugs killed by the bug bomb
7. Did laundry
8. Watched Supernatural

8 Things I wish I could do:

1. Go on a date
2. Go on a cruise
3. Go to Hawaii
4. Hop in the car and go to New Mexico
5. Move away from Utah and start over
6. Put pink in my hair
7. Get married
8. Get my dog better

8 Shows I watch:

1. Supernatural
2. Lost
3. Criminal Minds
4. Smallville
5. CSI
6. Kyle XY
7. The Simpson's
8. Anything good on History, Discovery or Travel channels

Good News!

2009-04-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

I forgot to update this when it happened, but the other day my supervisor pulled me aside and told me she'd gotten me bumped up an additional 37 cents! Not the biggest raise, but it's bigger than they usually are (between 15 and 20 cents). And they'll be implementing a new system soon which will probably get me another significant raise, so I'm not complaining! Anyway, I have four days of classes left, so I'm having to spend my whole weekend on homework that I procrastinated until now. I told myself that the next time papers are required for a class, and the teacher tells us about them on the first day, I'm going to just do them, instead of putting them off until the last week of the semester. Anyway, I'll update more later; I'm busy busy busy today!

My current...place in life

2009-04-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in quite awhile, so this is going to be an all-encompassing post, with some random things happening in my life right now.

The semester is really winding down. I only have 11 days left of classes, and 2 of those days are Saturday sessions of yoga. I'm really looking forward to Summer vacation because just a few nights ago I realize how worn out I really am. It'll be nice to sleep in a little and only have work to go to during the day. I think I finished up my financial aid stuff for next year, so now I just have to study for something called the Compass Test. If you haven't taken an ACT or SAT, or if your scores have expired (like mine did; apparently they're only good for 2 years), then you have to take this test to determine which math and English classes you need to be in. I already took the English portion of the test and will be finished with those requirments once this semester is over, but I still need to take the math portion. I have some study material I'm going to use before hand, since I haven't taken a math class since 2002.

For my Fine Arts requirment I'm taking an Intro to Music class this semester. We have to go to four concerts/musical performances, and of course, I put it off until the last minute. There was a free concert at BYU last night so I went to that. I knew it was going to be religious since the poster said "The Message," but I thought it would be an LDS concert. Boy, was I wrong! The concert was put together by BYU's Baptist Student groud, and the performer's name was Larnelle Harris. This guy has won something like 5 Grammys and the Dove Award (I'm pretty sure that's a Christian music award) 11 times. Needless to say, it was nothing I've ever experience before, but it was FUN! It was exactly what you'd expect a Southern Baptist concert to be like; clapping along, praising Jesus, all around good time. I felt the Spirit very strongly, though, which was nice.

I've been at my job for almost three years now. I really enjoy the work and the people, but I've gotten screwed over in pay for a long time now. It's a long story, but I'll just say that for a long time they've been hiring people at more than what I make. I've talked to supervisors about it and nothing ever changed. Well, today my supervisor pulled me into a room and said that she was looking at everyone's wages and she hoped mine was a typo. She said I'm only making about 15 cents more than people who have only been here a year. So she said she's going to see what she can do to get me making more. She can't guarantee how much she'll be able to do, but she wants to try to get me between a 25 and 50 cent raise. She also said something about wanting it to work retroactively, which I'm not really sure what that means, but it means a lot that somebody's actually going to do something about it. I didn't even mention it to her; she noticed it on her own.

Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment. I'll try to be better about updating, but that might not happen until next month.

Feeling Feminine

2009-03-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered something about myself, something that I would like in a man. I've kind of noticed it a little bit before, but it didn't become a full blown realization until Tuesday night. I went out with some friends to Applebee's, and it was their karaoke night. I wouldn't really recommend going there on Tuesday nights unless you like to wait an hour and a half to be seated, and enjoy listening to horrible voices singing Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys and N'Sync. I'm not exaggerating at all. Anyway, one of the people there was a guy in my ward who I've known for a couple years or so. Several months ago I thought I would maybe possibly be interested in him, or at least that he could potentially be something like that. Whatever. I didn't pursue it too aggressively though, and shortly after gave up when I realized that he wasn't the least bit interested in me that way. I didn't feel bad though, because I'd never fully started to like him. He's a fun friend at any rate. But I've noticed that when we hang out, there's something that sort of bothers me about him, something I have a hard time putting my finger on.

Well, one of the last times we hang out I noticed how...comfortable (I guess is the right word) he seemed around me. I don't mean that in a good way. I mean like, he had no issues about farting in the car, swearing, and whatever else I may have blocked from my memory that night. Now, I'm not saying I have issues with people farting, but it seems to me that that's the sort of thing you save for someone you've spent a lot of time with, or you are close with, not someone you've hung out with in groups once or twice a month. Anyway, that's not why I'm writing this post; in fact, I forgot all about that until now, but it does tie in to what I want to say.

So Tuesday night I noticed that he kept swearing, which bothers me more and more seeing as how until about a month ago he was Elders Quaram President. Now, I don't have a problem with people cussing, per se, but lately it's bothered me that guys have no stipulations about swearing in front of women. Back in the day it was something that you just didn't do. Now it doesn't seem to matter. Anyway, it turned out our waitress didn't charge us for our drinks. My meal cost me $7.50, so I just gave her $10, because I had been hoping not to have to spend more than that, and I would have had to pay more if she had charged us for our drinks. After I paid, I figured out that the $2.50 tip I gave her ended up being about 33%. I've never tipped that well before, but it was such a small amount I didn't care. Well, this friend was sitting next to me using the tip calculator on his phone to figure out how much to leave her. He didn't want to give her too much because he didn't think the service had been anything exceptional. This other guy and I started teasing him about how much time he was spending on the tip calculator, and he said to me "Up yours." Hmm...I'm not sure anyone's ever told me that before. It's not that I found it offensive, I know he didn't mean anything rude by it, but it still sort of bothered me. That's not the sort of thing you usually hear a guy say to a girl. This really got me thinking once I got home, and I realized what my problem with this guy is. He doesn't treat me like a lady, he treats me like...well, I can't even say he treats me like one of the guys, because it doesn't even feel like that. He treats me like an "it." And then it hit me: I want to be treated like a lady! I may not feel like a woman yet (I still feel like a kid), but the fact is, I am a woman, and I would really like to be treated as such. I want men to watch their language around me. I want them to be comfortable around me, but I don't want to be treated like a guy. I mean, my ex farted around me all the time, and I've had friends who have done the same thing, but it just feels different with this guy. And I don't mean that guys need to suddenly start treating me differently, but come on, now and again it would be nice to feel like a female. I'm just curious, does anybody else have this problem? I don't know if it really pertains to anybody else, because the few people who read this are married, but I dunno...it's weird. I'm just tired of being treated like a man.

The No-Wedgie Guarantee!

2009-03-16T17:03:00.001-07:00

Tired of trying to inconspicuously get rid of wedgies? Are the bullies at your school making your life miserable? Is your underwear making your life miserable? Well, not anymore! Introducing the Hanes Wedgie-Proof Guarantee:

This amazing new product uses a new, patented, never before used material--cotton! Cotton has been carefully formulated in a lab by mixing other secret ingredients. This secret composition allows your unmentionables to stay in place--no matter what! Included in this no ride up promise is the money back guarantee. If, after purchasing and wearing this product, you still have wedgies, just call our toll-free number, inform us of the circumstances surrounding your latest ride up experience, and you'll receive a full refund--no hassle! What are you waiting for??? Make wedgies a thing of the past! And don't forget to bring a camera to school to capture the looks on those bullies faces when, no matter how hard they tug, pull or yank, your underwear now stays in place!

The Sluggie

2009-03-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Forget that silly purse post I said I'd do next, this is way more important!

Oops...Sorry

2009-03-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

So I sort of...forgot that I had a blog, which is why I haven't updated. But not to worry, you haven't missed much! I can't think of anything particularly special or important that has happened lately; it's pretty much just work and school for me. However, I have been catching up on Supernatural because I haven't been keeping up this season. If you've never watched it, it's basically about two (super hot) brothers who go around and get rid of all sorts of supernatural beings/creatures, such as ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, and basically any sort of creature that's ever existed in legend. One episode even had a creepy killer clown. It's kind of silly because I hate watching scary movies, but I can watch this show all I want and am still ok. Although I watched an episode the other day that made me jump 3 or 4 times, and I had to sleep with a nightlight on. (Bloggers keep each others secrets, right?) Anyway, that's about all I've been up to in the last couple of weeks. Also, tomorrow (Monday, the 9th) is my birthday. That is all, so I'm going to just leave a couple of videos that I really enjoy. To my great annoyance (since I just spent the last 40 or so minutes attempting it), embedding a good quality version of these videos has been disabled, so I'll just post the links. Enjoy! Next time I'll do that little purse post.

Dean screams like a girl
Jensen Ackles (Dean) doing Eye of the Tiger

Get this offer while it lasts!

2009-02-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

Tired of paying full price for makeup?

Tired of getting the wrong shades and looking like a clown?

Tired of feeling ripped off?

Then keep reading!

Once upon a time I signed up as a Mary Kay sales consultant. I was active in it for awhile, until I finally decided I didn't have enough motivation, or even care enough for that matter, to continue on with it. Unfortunately, I had bought a lot of inventory and had only sold some of it. Consequently, I have quite a bit left that I am still trying to sell. I am currently selling everything for 50% off, which is what I paid for it, so as you can see this is a great deal. You are getting quite a bargain for some awesome products and I am getting rid of my inventory. I have quite a bit of makeup left, not so much skin care but I do have some. These are great products at an even better price (once again, HALF OFF!), so all silliness aside, it's a win-win situation for the both of us. If you're interested in getting any feel free to email me at amberc123@gmail.com or contact me on here. Also, if you could spread the word to your friends and family that would be extremely helpful. I am really tired of having these products taking up space and they would be better served on people's faces. :)

Randomness

2009-02-19T23:26:00.001-08:00

First off, I'm posting this on here (as well as craigslist and ksl) because I'm desperate: I have an extra AT&T line I REALLY need to get rid of. There are only about 10 months left on the contract and if needed I can proivde a Nokia 6126. This is a flip phone with internet and texting capabilities, mp3 player, bluetooth, camera, video and micro sd card slot. I would also be willing to give you $30 to take it off my hands as that's what I'm currently paying for it. The line would be transferred over to your name, and you get to decide what plan to put on it, i.e how many minutes, if you want texting, internet, etc. iPhones require 2 year agreements no matter what so if you're looking to get one this probably isn't for you. However, if you're just looking for a good phone/plan without signing up for 2 years, this is a great deal. If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact me and I'll give you my number.

Secondly, if anyone knows why muscles persistently twitch or anything you can do about them, please let me know. The muscles under my left pinky have been twitching on and off for 3 days now. It's really getting annoying.

That is all.

Creative Project

2009-02-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

My Humanities class requires me to do a "creative" project this semester, which I wasn't looking forward to because I've never felt very creative in any way. My sister is the creative one. Anyway, since I got a keyboard for Christmas I wanted to compose a song for my project, because when I was a kid I wrote songs all the time. But not having played the piano in 12 years caused a bit of a snag in that plan. It's too hard to write a song when you're having to relearn the piano entirely. Then my teacher showed us a bunch of projects that people had done in the past. A lot of them were very unique and cute and it made me really want to do something special. However, as the due date (this coming Friday) drew closer and closer I decided just to do something simple. My dad likes to paint and my niece has been coming over to learn how. She slept over last weekend so I planned to just learn with her. Unfortunately, I got really sick on Friday and that night when I came home from work my dad was sick as well, and there was no painting going on. They painted the next day but I wasn't able to join in because I had other stuff I had to do. By this point I was getting very concerned about the upcoming due date. I felt like the Brian Regan skit about the science fair project; you wake up and think "Oh crap, that's due today. I've had 9 months to work on this and I haven't done anything!" I've known about this project since the beginning of January but I didn't realize it was due so soon. Then I started to get another idea... I really like photography and I've taken a lot of pictures outdoors and up in the canyon, so I thought maybe I could just re-create one of those. I can't draw worth anything but I wanted to try and just use colored pencils to recreate it. I chose this picture:

The outline was easy enough to do and pretty soon I had the 3 hills colored in, as well as the sky. But there wasn't much substance; it was just a lot of green and blue. I needed to do the trees but, well...that didn't work out too well. I drew a few trees but there was no way I'd be able to cover the whole thing and make it look good. This is when I switched gears. I found an easier picture that did require a lot of drawing but thought I did a good job. I got it all colored as well and am really pleased with the outcome. The top picture is the photo I took a few years ago. I love planting flowers every spring, and the first year I started I picked out 2 lilies--one pink and one red. This was the first pink one that bloomed:

This is my re-creation:

I actually really enjoyed doing this and think I may have found a new hobby.

Hopefully this will be the only post like this...

2009-02-13T18:42:00.000-08:00

I don’t want to fall into writing whiny, emo teenaged posts, but I’m a little….discouraged, I guess you could say. I’m not just writing this because tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, although that doesn’t help. It’s just frustrating not having anyone. I know I’m still young and by anywhere but Utah’s standards it’s perfectly normal that I’m still single, but I am in Utah. I turn 24 next month, so like I said, I’m still young. But I don’t really have any single friends left. I have a few in my single’s ward but they’re more of acquaintances who I get together with sometimes. All of my close friends are either married, engaged or dating, but mostly married. In fact, a lot of them are having babies now. It wouldn’t be so bad if I at least had some prospects, but I don’t even have those. I’ve watched the last 5 or so guys I was interested in get in a relationship or get engaged/married. It’s so frustrating! And lonely. I think what makes it even harder than normal is because my last boyfriend became my best friend, so when we broke up I lost both, and neither has been replaced yet. It’s like I have a double void in my life. Now, I don’t mean I need a boyfriend to be happy. I’ve learned how to be happy, and I am. I’m NOT one of those girls who sits around wishing and complaining that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. I’m not depressed because no boys like me. I’m not like the typical teenaged girl who needs male attention to have any self-esteem. I’m not like that at all and I hate those girls who are. But I guess in my mind I’ve come to intermingle the terms boyfriend and best friend. I feel like I need one to have the other. And I’ve had several best friend throughout my life who were girls, but for one reason or another we always grew apart. But I prefer male friends. Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to have girl friends and girl’s nights out, and it’s not that I necessarily “get along better” with guys, but I think I get closer to guys and build stronger friendships with males. I wouldn’t say no to a girl best friend right now, but I need someone. It would be nice to have someone just text me during the day, or to be able to do the same to. Or to talk to when I need to. Either way, the only guys that are interested in me are ones who just want to make out or hook up for the night, and I’ve never been that girl. I’ve only kissed 3 guys in my life and I dated all of them. I’ve never kissed anyone I don’t know or just met, even though I know plenty of girls who have. I’ve just never done that. I know there are plenty of good guys out there, so why can I never find the ones who appreciate my integrity? All my life I’ve been told how amazing I am and that whoever I end up with will be lucky, and I do believe that I have a lot to offer and deserve someone really special, and I KNOW I’ll find someone eventually, but I just wish it wouldn’t take so long. No, not even that. I don’t mind if it takes a few more years, I just wish that I had opportunities to date and chances to form relationships with people in the mean time. Even if they don’t work out, I’d still like the chances.

Vista

2009-02-12T23:27:00.000-08:00

It took me about a week to upgrade my computer's memory and reinstall Windows Vista (don't ask why it took so long, the story is almost as long), but I'm finally all done. I haven't used Vista in a very long time, but after spending hours I've finally got it (mostly) all set up how I want it. I've gotta say, everything looks so...pretty. I don't really know how Vista does it but all the colors are so vibrant and everything looks so clear. It really is pleasing to the eye to look at. And it has a sidebar on my desktop that lets me see my website feeds without me having to open up my internet. Fun. :)

I can't wait for the 3 day weekend! I've been feeling crummy and having lots of headaches since last Friday, so it'll be nice to just relax. Oh, and Twilight is in the dollar theatres now so Jade and I are going to see it on Saturday. Well, that's about all I guess. I want to go to bed but my computer's in the middle of installing 70 or so updates. I'm being completely serious.

Great Music

2009-02-10T17:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't been online much lately. I was without a computer/internet from Saturday night until last night, but hopefully that won't be a problem anymore. Although I do feel like I completed about 3 self-taught computer crash courses over the weekend. Anyway.

A couple years ago a band on Myspace sent me a message, telling me to check them out. Now, I never like getting messages or friend requests from bands, because if I like a band I'll find them, ya know? Although there have been a couple times when I was contacted and ended up loving the band. This is one of those cases. The band's name is Touriste and they are in England. Never made it big, just a local band, but I always loved their music. They used to have songs up on their page for download, so I'd take whatever I could get. They released a couple songs on itunes which I bought but that's about it. Well, about a week ago they posted a bulletin saying they weren't around anymore and hadn't done anything for about a year now. I was so depressed! It's stupid but it felt sort of like losing a close friend. I sent them a message asking if there was a way for me to get the rest of their songs, because they had several on their page that I'd never heard before. After a few messages back and forth, they sent me this link where I was able to download around 14 of their songs, including the ones I already had and the ones on itunes. They told me to share the music, and there was also a text file in the download giving permission to share these songs, so if you're one of those crazy people who feels morally obligated not to download illegally, have no fear. If you're interested at all, just click the link above and there should be a code at the top of the page (mine was only 3 letters) and click download. I'm sure a page will pop up trying to get you to subscribe to the website but don't be fooled. There's a "free" option. Anyway, I REALLY love this band! There are very few bands/artists that I like this much but I've never met anyone else who knows who they are so I'm a little curious to see what anyone else thinks. Feel free to download and enjoy!

grumbles

2009-02-06T17:10:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't it seem a little much for your work to hold an "annual" meeting (which they've never held before) that is a 6 hour event and REQUIRES you to be there the entire time? In the email it says, and I quote, "Attendance is required (which means that you will need to make arrangements to be there, i.e. school, children, etc.)" I'm sorry, but as important as my measly 4 hour a day job with ridiculously low pay is, I set school at a higher priority. There's a reason I switched shifts and worked out a schedule that allows me to do both. It wouldn't be such a big deal if I could come later, because I wouldn't have to miss classes, but I think this is a little excessive. Come on, a SIX hour meeting? Excuse my language, but who the hell wants to sit in a meeting for 6 hours, even if there are prizes and food? Even our parties don't last that long. And then am I expected to go to work after that, essentially working a 10 hour shift that day? I'm sorry, but what are you going to do if I show up after my classes? Fire me because I went to school while I wasn't scheduled to work?

Funny Story

2009-02-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday during institute my teacher was talking about how all his daughters always liked to be wrapped up in blankets. I absentmindedly started thinking about the Snuggie, when suddenly my teacher said "It's like that thing, the Snuggie." I gave a snort of laughter but apparently this thing is even more widely known than I thought, because everyone else started laughing too. My teacher made a comment about how it was a great invention because the company is making millions off it and some guy said "It's the stupidest invention." Really, isn't it just like wearing your bathrobe backwards? Only the Snuggie looks like it's going to fall off at any moment. They shouldn't really say "one size fits all" because the people in the commerical are drowning in it.

Also yesterday, I upgraded my computer's ram (memory) from 500 megabytes to 2 gigs. And guess what? I installed it all by myself. That's right. How many of YOU could have done that? Really, I just watched a couple videos on youtube; that's the only reason I was able to. At work when I told my friend about it, she asked how I felt, and I said "I feel like a strong woman. I feel like I have a degree in computers. Ok, maybe not a degree, but I feel like I just completed a computer course." I'm quite proud of myself.

Google Game

2009-02-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

I've done this before (not on my blog) but not with as many questions so I decided to do it again.

Instructions: Go to Google (or whichever search engine you prefer) and type in your first name and the phrase. Copy and paste the first sentence/phrase you get that makes sense. Please keep in mind that these are search results and not actual facts.

Q: Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search
A: Amber needs a boyfriend on Flickr

Q: Type in "[your name] looks like" in Google search
A: Amber looks like she's about to strangle Jenn's pictures

Q: Type in "[your name] says" in Google search.
A: Amber says "But He wants me to give my dreams over to Him."

Q: Type in "[your name] wants" in Google search
A: Amber wants it, and what Amber wants, Amber gets

Q: Type in "[your name] does" in Google search
A: Amber does Hip Hop

Q: Type in "[your name] hates" in Google search
A: Amber hates the Jews (I promise I don't!)

Q: Type in "[your name] asks" in Google search
A: Amber asks Dani why Kris didn't sign her card

Q: Type in "[your name] goes" in Google search
A: Amber goes to camp

Q: Type in "[your name] likes " in Google search.
A: Amber likes this boy and his name is ally and she sleeped with him last night (Nice grammar. Isn't Ally a girls name?)

Q: Type in "[your name] eats " in Google search
A: Amber eats Amanda out (great...)

Q: Type in "[your name] wears " in Google search
A: Amber wears a shirt

Q: Type in "[your name] was arrested for" in Google Search
A: Amber was arrested for allegedly having sexual intercourse with one student and oral sex with two students.

Ok, I'm seriously considering changing my name now. Wow........just wow.

Issues

2009-02-02T13:01:00.000-08:00

I know I post a lot of SNL videos, but I really like that show. This was from last Saturday's episode and it's pretty funny. I really just like the way he pronounces certain words, like "issues." Enjoy.

Fight FOCA

2009-02-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

FOCA, or the Freedom of Choice Act is a piece of legislature that President Obama has promised to sign. This law would eradicate state and federal laws that the majority of Americans support, such as:

Bans on Partial Birth Abortion
Requirements that women be given information about the risks of getting an abortion
Only licensed physicians can perform abortions
Parents must be informed and give consent to their minor daughter's abortion

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide.

FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial birth abortion, and on all other protections.
FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.

FOCA would erase these laws and prevent states from enacting similar protective measures in the future.

Please, if you are in any way, shape or form pro-life (of if you have any common decency and are against the murdering of babies) go here and sign the petition:

Phone Numbers That Just Won't Die

2009-01-31T23:01:00.000-08:00

(I tried to find a video for this post, but couldn't, and since I don't know how to make one with my computer, you'll just have to settle for a description)

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a Simpson's episode entitle Sunday, Cruddy Sunday. In this episode, Homer and Bart go off to the Superbowl so it's just the girls at home. Marge and Lisa are looking for an activity to do. They pull out Vincent Price's Egg Magic, which is basically just painting faces on eggs. However, there is supposed to be a pair of feet included in the box, but it's not there. Marge calls the company, despite Lisa's comment that the craft kit was made in 1967.

As I watched this and the moment I heard Lisa say "This was made in 1967, they're probably out of business," it reminded me of something that happened to me just a few days before, which I had completely forgotten about until that moment. In fact, before I even consciously realized it, I said aloud "Well, Spice Advice is still around."

A few days prior I was emptying the dishwasher. My mom had put a spice container in there to be washed. Now, when I say spice container, I mean the little bottle that spices come in. Normally I wouldn't have paid much attention, except I think we've had this bottle for as long as I can remember. In fact, we have at least 2 of these. I guess my mom bought them in like the 70's (judging from the orange) and just keeps refilling them.

Anyway, I noticed there was a number on the back for something called "Spice Advice." I wondered if this phone number was still in use for that purpose, so I called. Yes, it was indeed Spice Advice. I thought briefly about actually talking to somebody, but I couldn't image what on Earth I could make up to say. What kind of question would you have about spices that required you to call a toll free number? At any rate, this story probably isn't as amusing to you as it was to me, but coupled with the Simpson's episode, I was laughing pretty hard. Especially since both number were still working for their intended purpose.

Survey

2009-01-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

I've always loved doing these, so here it is:

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? No
2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Hmm...I can't remember. Maybe a few months ago? Unless you count getting teared up during movies and from being emotional over nothing. (That "special" time)
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Only slightly
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Ham
5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? No way dude
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I hope so. I do think I'm pretty funny.
7. DO YOU USE SARCASM? Yeah
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I'd like to attempt but I might chicken out
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Fruity Pebbles, Waffle Crisp
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Yes
12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? French Silk
13. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Hmm...hair?
14. RED OR PINK? I love pink way more than I should
15. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? Weight
16. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? None of your business
17. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?? If they want to. To be honest, I enjoy filling them out more than I do reading them
18. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Pink pajama pants, no socks
19. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Nothing, I muted the tv after the news ended
20. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Probably pink...
21. FAVORITE SMELLS? Vanilla, when guys smell good from cologne
22. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My friend Jade
23. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO POSTED THIS NOTE? I don't know her but I enjoy reading her blog
24. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? I don't usually watch sports but basketball is fun and my ex got me into baseball
25. HAIR COLOR? Dark brown
26. EYE COLOR? Green
27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yep, for 10 years now
28. FAVORITE FOOD? Fettuccine Alfredo
29. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings
30. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Can't Hardly Wait
31. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Tan
32. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer, the winter is ugly
33. HUGS OR KISSES? Both are good, but probably hugs
34. FAVORITE DESSERT? Brownies
37. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Ha, Breaking Dawn for the 3rd time
38. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Psh, who uses mouse pads anymore? Besides, I have a laptop
39. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Reality Bites (oh wait, I guess that's the last movie I watched but I only saw bits and pieces from the middle on so it doesn't really count)
40. FAVORITE SOUND(S)? Twigs breaking/gravel crunching under my feet
41. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? The Beatles
42. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? California
43. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Hmm....no?
44. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Farmington, New Mexico
46. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER? N/A

Lost

2009-01-22T18:15:00.000-08:00

So the new season of Lost premeired last night, but I didn't get home from work until after it had already started. As there was NO way I was going to turn it on in the middle of the episode, I waited until lunch today and watched it online. It was, of course, everything I had hoped and more, fulfilling all my dreams and leaving me with a sense of pure and utter hope. It was so good that the final scene actually gave me chills (I know, I'm a nerd). When it ended I felt the inevitable longing and excitement for next week's episode. I got to work tonight and was discussing it with a friend, when he told me that there were actually, TWO (2) episodes last night. Apparently I had only watched the one, and when I found out there was another one I squealed. Haha! Now I can't wait to go home and NOT do my homework so I can watch Lost!

Oh and Kerri, didn't Sawyer look awesome? When he asked for that guy's shirt I was like "What?? WHY?!"

Help a Fellow Blogger Out

2009-01-20T21:00:00.001-08:00

I'm doing a survey for a paper I'm writing for school, and I need at least 50 people to participate. It's only 5 questions so it won't take more than 30 seconds of your time, and it's really simple. Just go here to take the survey. I'll be eternally grateful to you! I almost offered up comments for everyone who participates as an incentive, because I know how much you all love comments, but then I realized I have no way of tracking who takes it. However, if you're really concerned about comments, then let me know you took it and I'll uphold my end of the bargain.

Thanks a lot!

I Remember the Cool Days

2009-01-18T16:13:00.000-08:00

As I said recently, I've been watching reruns of Doogie Howser lately. Seeing as how it started in 1989, it's a pretty nerdy show to watch now. Regardless, I have found myself getting really into it. For example, I watched an episode the other day where Doogie wants to take his dad's BMW to a party with the "cool" kids, and I automatically assumed he'd get caught. However, even though he got extremely close to getting caught, he actually got away with it in the end. I actually said out loud "I can't believe he got away with it!" Which proves I'm even nerdier than the show. Anyway, during a different episode it showed some high school seniors on the football team walking, and I had to take a screen shot because their pants were awesomely folded over and rolled up. I remember my sisters doing this and I always thought it was so cool. Sorry, the quality isn't so great. Also, check out those high tops!

One more detail

2009-01-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

I forgot to metion in my last post that my car was running while I was locked out. Which means I must have hit the lock button before I turned the car on; other wise it wouldn't have locked because if the keys are in and the door is open it won't lock. Haha what luck.

Stupid stupid stupid

2009-01-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

I feel like such an idiot. I'm standing in the cold morning air, locked out of my house AND my car. I'm going to be late for school. When I got in my car I must have accidentally pressed the lock button on my remote and didn't realize it. I got out to scrape my windshield, and upon attempt to re-enter my vehicle found it to be locked. Lucky me. I called my mom and she gave me a number to call, but it was wrong. I called back only to get another wrong number. Finally I just called 911 and they gave me the non-emergency number. Anyway, an officer finally came and now I'm at school, having just barely missed the shuttle so I'm stuck waiting for the next one. My class starts in less than 10 minutes and I'm trying to not even think about how late I'm going to be. What a great morning!

Sorry

2009-01-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

I realize that I haven't updated since the Dr. Pepper incident, and for that I apologize. I really haven't had anything interesting happen to me since then. School started last Wednesday so that's been fun and really busy. I'm taking Astronomy, Humanities, English 2010, Intro to Music, Power Yoga (on Saturdays, so yes, I have school six days a week) and an Institute class. Phew! It's fun though, and I don't think I'll ever be as busy as I was last semester with Anatomy.

I did finally donate blood last week as well. I'll be eligible to donate again on March 2nd, which is exactly a week before my birthday. I thought donating on my birthday might be kind of a cool thing to do. You know, give service instead of making the whole day about me.

My weekend was (extremely) uneventful. I don't have any single friends so I stayed at home. Did homework and a bunch of other stuff I didn't want to on Saturday. I've also been watching season 1 of Doogie Howswer all weekend.

Pain

2009-01-06T17:06:00.000-08:00

Mistakes can be painful, but sometimes doing the right thing can be even more painful. I experienced this first hand today.

I worked out on the treadmill, but didn't have time to eat a very big lunch before heading to work. Consequently, I was still hungry when I arrived at my place of business. I decided just to buy a drink because they're cheaper than any snacks in the vending machine. Normally I'd go for a Dr. Pepper, but some stupid part of me decided to get diet (my first mistake) so as not to completely ruin my workout. (Would that even make a difference?) I've had Diet Dr. Pepper a couple times before and it always tasted fine. Plus, if forced to drink Coke or Pepsi, I'll gladly take a diet because I think they taste better. I know a lot of people would disagree, but that's me. So I get my Diet Dr. Pepper out of the vending machine, and as I start drinking it, I notice it has a funny taste to it. This bothered me, but I tried to drink through it. After all, I'd spent 50 cents on this!

Now, due to the expensive nature of the equipment at my work, we are not allowed to have food or drink past a certain point. I was obediently behind this invisble line, talking to some co-workers. One of them is an older lady who has lots of interesting stories. She happened to be telling one of these stories (involving BYU and how poorly they pay their employees) and was at a funny part. I had just taken a swig of my drink and was trying very hard not to laugh, (this all happened very fast, as always happens in an emergency) so I thought, I can't spit this out all over the computers! Subconciously I must have really closed my throat and mouth tight, because the Dr. Pepper went up my nose, but instead of shooting out my nostrils, it settled somewhere I've never seen before. I'm guessing it spread through all 4 of my paranasal sinuses because the back of my head burned for at least 10 minutes afterward. In fact, it's been over an hour and I still feel a little funny and I have a headache. Alas, trying to do the right thing and not let a sticky brown liquid fly over all of the machinery (mainly because I knew I'd be in trouble) caused me the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced, and that's not an exaggeration. I didn't even know how to take care of it. I thought about snorting some water, but I figured it would probably be better just to let it pass on it's own.

Obligatory "Things I've Learned"

2009-01-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

Everybody seems to be posting blogs about what they learned in 2008. I think that is a good idea because I learned a lot of really important things the last couple of years, and especially this last year. I feel like now that I've learned these things, I will be able to get through anything life decides to throw at me.

I've learned where TRUE and utter happiness comes from, and that is through my Saviour, Jesus Christ. I've learned that when I give up trying to control situations and just turn that control over to the Lord, trials are much easier to get through. I've learned it does no good to worry about things because it changes nothing and just stresses you out.

I've learned (and rediscovered) new things about myself, such as who I am, what I want out of life and talents and hobbies long since forgotten.

I've learned that I am much stronger than I thought, and that it's easier to change the things you don't like about yourself when you spend your time with positive influences and good people. I was able to get over and move on from a couple very big situations faster than I'd ever thought possible. I was expecting to be hurting for a year or more, but instead I moved on in less than 6 months. I've also learned that I am stronger when I let the Lord lift me up.

I've learned to tell the difference between lies and truths, as well as how to see through
words and situations to discern those lies or truths. I've stopped giving my trust to those who don't deserve it, and feel confident I can continue that even though the year is over.

Most of all I've learned the power of the atonement and the love God and His Son have for me. My faith and regrown testimony mean everything to me and I would never do anything again to lose that. I never want to give it back.

In closing, (I sound like I'm giving a talk) I want to leave the lyrics to a hymn that most people have probably heard, but has become really special to me:

Come, Thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise His name, I'm fixed upon it
The name of God's redeeming love
Hitherto, Thy love has blessed me
Thou hast drawn me to this place
And I know Thy hand will lead me
Safely home by Thy good grace
Jesus saught me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Bought me with His precious blood
Oh, to grace, how great a debtor!
Daily I'm constrained to Thee
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

New Years Eve

2009-01-02T17:42:00.000-08:00

My night was interesting. I went to my friend's party. They live in a trailer park so parking is limited anyway, but I've been there before and I knew where I could park. The roads had not been plowed and there was lots of snow on the sides, but I did my best. The party was fun. We played games and had food. Around 1:00 am we were playing Scum when there was a frantic knock on the door. My friend's neighbor came to tell us we were getting towed. I went out and my car plus one other had already been towed, and they were probably on their way back for the third car. It was upsetting because my parents were out of town and I know that getting a car back is pricy, so I was worried and didn't know what to do. My friend's husband went to find the number of the tow company their park uses, then called them up. The guy on the phone was just laughing at him, and I was wondering what the point in even calling them was. I know tow guys never give anyone a break and just say "I'm just doing my job." It was really frustrating though, because apparently there are yellow lines, and you have to park within those yellow lines. However, since the park hadn't bothered to plow, no yellow lines were visible. Obviously, if I couldn't see the lines, the tow company couldn't have either. Well, my friend's husband comes in and tells us the address where they took our cars and also says we don't have to pay. He told the tow guy that he was going to take pictures and prove that we were parked within the lines and that they had no legal right to tow us in the first place. I've never heard of tow guys letting anyone off the hook before, so I was shocked! But really relieved. After that everyone went back to continue the party, but I decided not to press my luck and just go home.

When I left the house earlier that night I left a few lights on, but when I pulled up there weren't any on. I was nervous about that. Then I thought maybe my parents came home early, but they still usually leave the porch light on. I went inside and realized the power was off. All of my neighbors still had power though, so I figured I could probably just flip some switches in the box and it would come back on. The entire house was out of power though, which I thought was strange. The first thing I did was look for a flashlight. I found one, but the batteries were dead. I spent about 10 minutes trudging up and down stairs trying to find another flashlight, spare batteries or a candle, and I couldn't find anything. FINALLY I found another flashlight that worked. I began the search for the fuse box or whatever it's called. I couldn't find that ANYWHERE! After probably about another 5-10 minutes of searching for that I realized it was covered up by a canvas. Stupid. I flipped switches around but that didn't do any good. By this point I was getting really upset. I knew I couldn't leave the power off because all of the food in the fridge would go bad, and I didn't want me or my poor little dog, who'd been following me around nervously the whole time, to freeze. At this point, at about 2 in the morning, I gave up and called my sister Kerri. Her husband is a pro whenever it comes to anything mechanical or electrical, and I hoped that since it was New Year's Eve they'd still be up. Luckily they were, and her husband said to flip the breaker outside off and then flip it back. I did that and it didn't work. Kerri said to try flipping it off for a few seconds before flipping it back on, but then I realized that it was flipped off in the first place! I flipped it on and it worked. I got off the phone with Kerri, but then discovered that a few rooms in the house still didn't have power. I remembered a couple of the switches being flipped off when I was trying all the different switches in the first box, so I flipped them on and it worked. By this point it was only 2 1/2 hours into the new year and it had proved to be horrible. After that though, I was able to relax and everything's gone smoothly since.

Here is a picture of my awesome little dog, Murphy, who helped me get through it all:

100 Things (I may or may not have done)

2008-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

RULES: There are 100 statements and you bold the ones you have done. Grab it and play for yourself!!

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to Disney World

8. Climbed a mountain

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. missing

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept in an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitchhiked

23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a marathon (well, a 5k)

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo's David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. missing

55. Been in a movie (well I was supposed to be in a music video but all my shots got cut)

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. missing

65. missing

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle (although it may have just felt like it was speeding to me...)

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Read the entire Bible

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chicken pox

89. Saved someone's life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Lost a loved one

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (I have been there, but I don't know why anyone would want to swim in it. It's stinky and the beach was covered in seagull carcasses)

97. Been involved in a lawsuit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee (wasps, actually)

100. Read an entire book in one day

Selfish

2008-12-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

I'm reading the Twilight series again, and I'm on Eclipse right now. Today I started chapter 19, entitled "Selfish." I have enough problems with Bella as it is. She's whiny, obnoxious, selfish in the way she treated Jacob, and over-emotional. I can live with all of those things. This chapter, however, makes me soooo angry! She manipulates Edward into staying with her rather than going to fight with his family, even though she knows how important it is to him. She tells him she can't stand it if he leaves her again, using those words because she knows it will hurt him, when in reality, he wouldn't actually be leaving. He'd be gone less time than he leaves her for a hunting trip, and she handles those all the time, notwithstanding the pouting and tantrum throwing. She uses those words on purpose because she knows it'll get her way. While she's manipulating him she goes on and on about how guilty she feels, but I think that's bull crap. She doesn't feel guilty at all, otherwise she wouldn't be doing it. She just plows on through with her guilt trip without a moments hesitation. Then, Edward starts comforting HER! He says, "You gave me two alternatives that you could live with, and I chose the one that I could live with." That's not what happened at all! Edward just refuses to believe that Bella could ever do any wrong. Sorry, I'm probably getting more upset about this than I should, but it made me really mad when I read it again. She's only doing it because they won't let her be in the clearing with everybody. I can understand why she wants to be there and that she wants to help, but the truth is, SHE CAN'T HELP. There's absolutely nothing she can do. She can't attack anyone. She can't even run away fast enough. She'd probably just trip and fall anyway. She thinks that she could distract all the newborns with her scent, which she could, but who's to say that one of them won't sneak past the Cullen's or the wolves? She's such a baby. She's like, fine, if you won't let me be in the clearing then you have to stay with me. Ugh, I think Bella is the worst possible person to write a story about. There could have been someone so much better as the main character in these books.

Christmas

2008-12-28T10:37:00.000-08:00

I had a good Christmas. It was very quite. There was supposed to be a big storm on Christmas day (which I don't think ever came), so my parents tried to reschedule our Christmas dinner. All my siblings and their families usually come to my parents for dinner and to exchange presents, mostly for the grandkid's benefit. They switched it to Christmas Eve instead, but my lovely sister Kerri and her family were the only ones who could come. All her kids are very quiet and well-behaved, so it was nice. The ham was the best I've ever had. After dinner the kids opened their pajamas and then we popped in The Polar Express and had root beer floats. I stayed up til about 1 in the morning watching a video of Christmas cartoons my gramma recorded years ago. I've watched it pretty much every Christmas I can remember. I skipped the first cartoon, Santa and the Three Bears partly because it's boring and mainly because the sound was all muffled. I fast forwarded to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, then watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (one of my favorites), How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and ended off with Frosty the Snowman.

I slept til about 9:30 (probably the latest I've ever slept on Christmas, but now that I'm the only one left at home there's no reason to get up at 5) then got up and had a french toast breakfast with my parents. We got to presents around 10 and that didn't take long. I got a piano keyboard which is something I've been wanting for at least the better part of the year. I used to play piano really well when I was young, but I stopped playing when we moved here. I'm pretty much having to relearn how to play. The hardest part is trying to read the music without having to study the notes to figure out what they are. I'm sure it'll come, though. I've been playing a lot. I also got several pajamas and a space heater for my room. In my stocking there was several items for a survival kit, eight packs of gum and a necklace with matching earrings.

I didn't do much later in the day and I didn't even bother doing my hair or makeup. I played my keyboard for awhile, then watched the 4th and 5th Harry Potter movies. On Tuesday I decided to have a marathon and watch them all, but it actually took me three days to get through them. I'm a nerd, but I don't care. I love Harry Potter!

No plans for New Year's yet. Two of my friend's are having parties so it's just a matter of deciding whose to go to. I'm pretty sure I'll be the only single person at both of them so I can't use that as a factor in making my decision... :(

Mom Jeans

2008-12-23T14:16:00.001-08:00

My sister requested that I put this up here, which I'd thought about doing anyway, so here it is, the mom jean:

My dad's response to this video was "I don't see what's wrong with them. They look normal to me."

In case you, too, have trouble understanding what's wrong with these jeans or want a closer look, here's help:

Of course, if the enormous, elongated butt is the look you're going for, you're all set!

Milkshakes

2008-12-21T15:34:00.001-08:00

This is a funny video regardless of whether or not you've seen either of these movies, but if you have, I'm sure it's that much better. I've only seen No Country for Old Men but it's even funnier for it.

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Blood Drive

2008-12-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

Twice a year my work holds a blood drive, and twice a year I sign up. Until recently these were the only times I ever donated, but a couple months ago the Red Cross called and asked if I could come in and donate. I did and when I was done I was told that I would eligible to donate again on December 11th. I figured I'd be ok because my work's blood drive is usually around this time.

The end of November rolls around and there are posters at my work saying the blood drive will be on December 10th. I sign up figuring that one day won't make a difference. So on the 10th I go downstairs and after I've read the notebook they always make you read and sat for about 10 minutes after that, they scan my card and tell me I'm not eligible til tomorrow. I don't understand how a mere 10 hours or so would have made a difference in my RBC count, but whatever.

Btw: a cool website to listen to the "radio" on is last.fm
pandora.com is ok but you're more limited on what you can listen to. I've only used last.fm a couple times but I like it so far.

About Me

2008-12-19T20:23:00.000-08:00

Well, in case there's some random person reading this who doesn't know me, I'll introduce myself. I'm 23 years old and I live in Utah. I'm going to school to get my Associate's in Generals and then I'd like to transfer elsewhere to study Marine Biology. I really enjoy school and it keeps me really busy. I work for a family hisotry company and when I actually sit down to do it, I enjoy doing family history myself. I love swimming and photography, as well as reading, playing the piano, music and movies.

That's really all for now, I guess.

Change

2008-12-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

I've changed my mind again. I'm going to start using this blog again, and here is why: Lots of people I know are using these and I think it's a good way to keep up. Also, everyone else has really cute layouts and puts a bunch of pictures up and everything, so I'm going to try to do the same thing. Anyway, I'll be deleting all these old posts and changing things around so hopefully soon (since I'm in between semesters at the moment) this will be a completely new blog. :D

Amber's Place

Carnival Ecstasy/The Bahamas

Carnival Ecstasy/The Bahamas

Florida/Universal Studios

Again Again

Recurring Dreams

Here I am again!

An overdue update

Another apology post

Peak Inspiration

How old am I?

Important to Me

Crush

The New Place!

Today's the day!

Time To Move On

Choose Your Side

Sorry Charlie!

FYI

Thank you, Black Friday!

Eclipse

I'm on top of it!

Beat it

So...

School Plans

And the Verdict Is...

Weekend Fun

Interview

Procrastination Sensation

A Story

;)

75 and Still Kickin!

Weekend Retreat

Fear Factor: Round 1

Here it is...

Get a tissue!

A bit of everything

Out-of-Townie

One Question Survey!

Awesome Handmade Soap!

5 Things Tag

R.I.P. Murphy

One

Fast

Details

:)

Date

Las Vegas

ROAD TRIP!!!

Some Random Stuff

My Favorite Boys

8 Things I Stole From My Sister

Good News!

My current...place in life

Feeling Feminine

The No-Wedgie Guarantee!

The Sluggie

Oops...Sorry

Get this offer while it lasts!

Randomness

Creative Project

Hopefully this will be the only post like this...

Vista

Great Music

*grumbles*

Funny Story

Google Game

Issues

Fight FOCA

Phone Numbers That Just Won't Die

Survey

Lost

Help a Fellow Blogger Out

I Remember the Cool Days

One more detail

Stupid stupid stupid

Sorry

Pain

Obligatory "Things I've Learned"

New Years Eve

grumbles