Hello Again.

Remember how some people blog a lot? I am not those people. However, I will say, I went to Peru last month. It was awesome. That is the understatement of the year. I wish I was still there. If you are my friend on facebook, you have seen a bajillion pictures already and there are more to come. I wish winter would end. I am moving away from Kentucky this year. I have been watching Planet Earth (again) and loving it. My job stresses me out sometimes. I still teach songs to kids in primary. My hair is still brown. What's new with you blog friends?

The long and winding road(s)

I drive a lot for my job. We can talk about that later. But since I drive a lot for my job, I have a lot of time to think. And listen to the NPR. And talk on the phone. And try out scratched CD's I found in the spare bedroom from 2003. By the way, some of them are pretty cool mixes. At any rate, yesterday while I was thinking one of the cooler things about Kentucky in the winter time is that the world is not so drab, ugly and devoid of all color like it is in Utah, making you less likely to want to crawl in a hole and die all winter long. This train of thought led me rapidly to a couple years ago to a different winter, the Utah kind. I was driving to Honeyville(It's a cute name- not that cute of a town), when I work for Migrant Headstart. It was one of those over the river, through the wood drives and it happened to be that time in the morning that sure wasn't light yet and in the shadow of the mountain. Also, very few cars, so kind of a creepy road. Mental picture painted yet? So I'm driving to work, paying pretty good attention to what's going on and a few feet in front of me I saw something in the road. I can't tell you how many feet it was, but if I swerved I would have been road toast. So I hit something with my car at 55 mph, heard the biggest thud ever and kept driving in the bleakness. And then my paranoid mind began to turn. Since I couldn't see it very well, I thought there was no telling what I hit with my car. Naturally my stupid brain went to the ridiculous, thinking it may have been a human, laying on the road at 6 something in the morning, waiting to be hit by my car. A small part of me thought it might have been a deer. So I went to work, did my job, freaked out until lunch, when I called my sister, and told her what I might have done. I told her she might see me next in the paper or need to post bail, since I just kept driving and couldn't tell from the rear view mirror what I hit. For better or worse, my sister and I sometimes have the same brain. I think she laughed, said I "most likely" didn't hit a human, and we agreed that I should make John look under the car when I got home. However, she understood some of my insanity. Which is why I called her. I told John what happened & made him look under the car. He assured me that humans do not leave matted deer fur in your wheel well. Phew.
Here's to less eventful drives this winter.

Hello October

Once upon a time I didn't like fall much. I thought it was just a terrible season in the middle of summer and winter. This was probably when I was like ten years old and stupid. Now I love fall. Fall here in Kentucky is gorgeous, even though it isn't the crisp feeling I'm used to getting in Utah. I remember getting ready for fall in middle school by having a "Back to School" party. Seriously, what kind of nerd was I? Everybody brought a school supply and we exchanged them through some school themed Bingo on hand drawn cards by yours truly. I remember thinking it was pretty fun. I'm not sure what anyone else thought, but I think it happened several years in a row out of fun or pity. In high school I remember fall seemed to be a time of very little sleep due to early morning musical theater practices and whatever else you end up thinking makes you "busy" when you're 17. Dances, talking on the phone- remember using landlines? Weird. I have some pretty fun memories of football games, breaking old wooden bleachers in the rain and not doing homework. Fall at Utah State is pretty much the best ever. The gorgeous drive through the canyon added to naps in the middle of the day on the Quad, crazy roommates, hot chocolate when it starts getting freezing cold all sudden and all things Aggie makes for remembering one of my now current favorite seasons.

Hearing that USU actually won a football game made me slightly nostalgic (if I can say it even though I haven't been out of college for 50 years yet) for some of the fall fun.

A story that's not really about snakes, but sort of.

So. . . today at church I am the substitute singing time lady. i do my thing for jr. primary. then as they are dismissing the kids to their classes, they realize they are like 3 teachers short (by the way, this is very normal). they ask me to go sit with the 4 turning five year old kids until they round up a teacher for them. so i go sit at this tiny table made for rats, and start hanging out with the kids. there's five of them and a really cute one i've never seen before. i shoot the breeze with the kids asking them what they like about summer, what their favorite animal is and what is up in the life of a four year old. i then ask the one i've never seen before what his name is, and if he's new. we'll say he say's his name is "neal". neal tells me that he moved on saturday. from nauvoo, IL. and there's a big river there. i concur with neal about the general "bigness" of the river. neal said he moved to lovely kentucky because of his dad's job. and what does neal's dad do for work you ask? make dentures. for some reason i thought that was funny; maybe because of the large number of people i have seen sans teeth. after sitting there for ten or fifteen minutes and wondering how i supposed to teach a class and be the singing lady for sr. primary at the same time, the kids got restless, apparently tired of mine and neal's conversation about dentures. lame. i remembered a time at preschool when sara, amy and i were trying desperately to kill time while waiting for something- probably music time or the stupid playground. we decided that since we had thirty 3,4,5 and 6 year old children all waiting and about to rise up and revolt, we would tell stories. about snakes. strangely enough, they shut up (mostly) and listened to our weird snake stories. i'm pretty sure we kept them quiet for about 20 minutes. magic through our words i tell you. so i started to tell these goobers a story about a treehouse. their eyes got big and i could tell i had them. and just when i got to the good part-- their real teacher came. they'll never even know how it ended. until next time i'm there. which will probably be next week.

Well, it cost less than 5 bucks. . .

I ordered a "BBQ on a Bun" this week when I was out to lunch with a co-worker. What would you think you were getting with this order? Pulled pork? Pulled or shredded beef? Probably in a delicious southern sauce that you would need at least three napkins to clean up afterwords? These were my hopes.
What came to me on a plate was *slightly* different. I received two thick slices of an overcooked, slightly gristly pot roast, with pickles on top on a bun. I was a little confused. Looking at the tab, she wrote down my order correct, but something must have happened in the kitchen. Maybe it was leftover day. And is it really a BBQ if it has no sauce, and was cooked in a crock pot or in the oven? Also, have you ever had pickles with your pot roast? Me neither.

Maybe the waitress misunderstood me. Last week I ordered Honey Chicken somewhere else and I ended up getting Hunan Chicken instead. I think it's my Yankee, Western US accent. I find myself being very aware of all the syllables I say. Especially when most of the people around me are dropping about 60% of them. I can't start to drop syllables, or people will notice and I will sound lame by trying to be regionally "normal". The solution maybe to write down my order, have other people speak for me at restaurants, point or learn to be satisfied with my random, sometimes mediocre, meals that are brought to me.

Hello?

After reading all of your blogs for the past few months, I figured it was high time to come back from lurking and say hello. However, the problem after you have been a sporadic, no, non-existent blogger, is do you give the update of the things in your life that have gone one the last few months, or do you tell the random things that are in your brain or going on currently? Thus the reason I have not blogged.

Here's a quick and dirty-
Christmas in Utah-FUN!
Weather here yesterday- 61 degreess
Me playing the organ in Church since January-Questionable
My new job-enjoying the money, also who does paychecks every week?
GIANT panties in my laundry-Nope. Proud owners of a dryer
Going car shopping after the "big storm"- Freezing, and the "big storm" was 3 inches
Watching The Big Bang Theory- Those are some funny nerds

The BEST manly haircut ever

(This is John by the way). There are a few things that I am not a fan of. 1) Stupid drivers, 2) Bad haircuts. there are a few others, but those aren't important. I had the best haircut ever the other day. Since we have been in KY, I have received a series of really crappy haircuts. So Alicia told me about this "Sports Cuts" place in Bowling Green. We drove by, and saw these dudes cutting hair, pretty ghetto-looking. I didn't care, so I wandered in. Right away they set me in an old-school barber chair, and flipped me away from the mirror so I could watch Sports Center! They had ref's shirts on, and were pretty cool dudes.

Awesome! The guy didn't talk to me other than to laugh at Tiger Woods, comment on how great the Saints are doing, and wonder who was going to win the Super Bowl this year. No awkward small talk about family, job, etc. JUST SPORTS! 15 minutes later, he spun me around, it looked great, paid my money, and was done. It doesn't get any better than that

A Tannenbaum

I encouraged John to get up with me for Black Friday. We got a few spoils. One of these is pictured below. What looks like a vaccum for dolls is actually the Dirt Devil Versa. When John uses it, it looks like it belongs to Polly Pocket and her friends. Luckily, the trinket cost less than $10. John thinks we overpaid. And should have overslept.

*a small note about Black Friday. We were hanging out, watching a movie that was over by 11 and decided it might be fun to stay up all night since we hadn't done that in a long time. We tried to keep ourselves awake by talking and going to Waffle House. We made it until 1:30, took a "nap" and woke up at 3:30 to go stand in line with the rest of the crazies. Hardcore? yeah, probably not.

Next, I got a Christmas tree. I will admit, we went to the tree lot. And here is our tree.

I really wish that was how nice my tree looked. That is the tree at the Opryland Hotel. Here is the tree in my living room.

Slightly less regal, no less noble. And actually much more real(duh, since their's is plastic, or something artificial and mine is the bushiest fir I have ever tangled lights around). Hope you're all having fun with Christmas so far! Utah had better save me some snow.

It is more fall than winter here. . .

Living in Utah, winter lasts f.o.r.e.v.e.r.
That sucks.

However, because it lasts forever, it also seems to start at the appropriate time. I am really enjoying not freezing right now in Kentucky, but am finding it hard to get into my usual Christmas spirit with such nice weather. It gets plenty cool/cold here at night but we've had some 70 degree days last week which made it hard to think about Christmas(I know for you Christamas haters it doesn't come til after Thanksgiving but oh well, I like it after Halloween) when all of your life memories of the holiday are associated with piles of snow and winter coats. And scarves. And hats. And warm fires. You know, Holiday-ish things. Or cold weather things.

Also, to my disappointment I can't seem to find anywhere in Kentucky or Tennessee where they'll let me tromp through a National Forest and cut down my own Christmas tree. Usually Thanksgiving Weekend is the time for cutting down the tree. Naturally I would get a permit, as we've done for the last four years, but here it doesn't even matter, it can't be done. All they have are tree farms. This is what the website says -" Trees that are unsightly may be earmarked for use as wreath and decorative greenery." And for some stupid reason, I don't want buy a Christmas tree at a tree farm. It just seems wrong after getting to cut my own down for four years in the mountains. My indignation about the tree farm caused me to remember hearing some sappy story at church about three trees growing up in a forest together and the other two got picked to be Christmas trees and then I don't know what happened to the scrawny Charlie Brown tree; probably something poetic. Clearly I missed the point that day, and the fact that I don't remember the story doesn't really help my case either.




Mostly I feel bad for the ugly trees that gets made into wreathes.

Shouldn't touch you with a 98 1/2 pole. . .

I only have a washer right now. I used to have a dryer. But it was involved in a bad day called the "Dryer Fire" of a bad week called "Can't I Have a Break?!", in which it started on fire and scorched the wall, made a lot of smoke, and fire, melted some linoleum and set the smoke detectors off and freaked out my nice neighbor. So I didn't bring that dryer to Kentucky. For now, I wash my clothes in the washer at my house and the cart them to the high class laundering facility near me where the smell of smoke never drifts to the non smoking section of the establishment and no children ever run laundry carts around the laundry aisles.

Monday I attempted to dry everything I owned that I'd washed. Although taking things outside to the laundromat to become dry in the pouring rain does make you question if you could have timed things better. They were wet when I took them, but the fact that for most of the time almost all the water in the world seemed to be coming down made me question how effective it was that I was going to run 4 baskets of clean DRY clothes into my car.

I did a few towels and when I put them away I noticed something silky, and figured that I had just washed and dried a half slip accidentally with them. I thought nothing of it.

Until yesterday, when I was getting out a dish towel. I picked up the slip and found this-

Yeah. NOT A SLIP. GIGANTIC GRANNY PANTIES BELONGING TO SOMEONE ELSE.

I need a dryer.

3 years, A road trip. . .

We celebrated our anniversary yesterday. 3 years. Who knew we'd be in Kentucky?! John found a delicious restaurant called the Brickyard Cafe and then we walked around the tiny historic part of Bowling Green in the dark.



We made it to Kentucky! What a long drive. Seriously. I am so glad I have no children or pets. the pets would have died for sure and I don't know what we would have done with children that entire way. I must admit that on our way here we did hit three birds. They got in the way of our giantic Penske truck. Sorry friends.


All our stuff is out of the moving truck and still needs to be put away. We got into Bowling Green on Friday, and it seems to be slow going getting all our crap put away. I threw so much stuff away, gave more away to D.I. and still don't have room for all the stuff here in our new place. Go figure.

Once I get everything put together I'll post some pictures and give a glimpse into my Kentuckian life.

Try spelling Kentucky instead. . .

About that whole Tennessee thing- It has turned into a Kentucky thing. Plans have changed and we are actually now moving to Bowling Green Kentucky. For reals. No Switching around this time. We'll be moving mid August to the likes of this.

John flew out to see the campus and got to take all these pictures. He said most of the buildings on campus looked like this.

Classic southern rainstorm that starts and stops within minutes. Can't wait for the downpour.

Getting info from the locals.

Our future home.

We'll still be in a fairly similar location, just a little farther away from Nashville; it takes about 45 minutes to an hour from Bowling Green. I'll still be able to see the Grand Ole Opry, hit the Honky Tonks, and become a famous country singer.

*please don't think I'm serious about the last one*

Also, in my excitement, I have for the first time added music to this blog. All are Kentucky themed as you will notice. If you hate them, don't worry, I'll take 'em off once we move out.

Some updates

We are officially moving to Tennessee! I am so excited!

I am less excited about the expense of moving and taking a turn of driving a 16 foot moving truck that is towing our car across America. Oh well. It'll be an adventure. I google mapped the drive and brilliant google told me I could do the 1,700 miles in a day and and hour. Did you also know you can map you travel by foot? However this is what google says about walking.

Walking directions are in beta.
Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.

Walking directions to Murfreesboro, TN

1,654 mi – about 22 days 10 hours

Somehow it's less mileage if you walk. Go figure.

Earlier this month, we had some fun for my birthday. John took me to baby animal days again, we went out to dinner at our favorite italian place here in Logan, went to the temple and had an awesome day. John looks nearly hairless because I buzzed him for military training. Just in time for some pictures. Please ignore his slightly squinty eyes. I am proud that mine are open. This is an accomplishment.

T-e-n-n-e-s-s-e-e

Lately I either I really love or hate getting the mail. It's either medical bills, or letters about grad school. Let's talk about grad school letters. So, John has applied to 4 so far and has heard from 3. He's been accepted to Pacific University in Oregon, Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and made the alternate list for Western Kentucky University. Western Kentucky told us they'd let us know by July, but pretty sure we will have decided by then. We're leaning towards Middle Tennessee State and have wanted to go there for over a year, so we're pretty stoked to have heard from them this early after applying the beginning of March.

I've been looking up apartments, rental trucks all sorts of moving stuff figuring out how we'll get to do this whole thing. It's gonna be fun.

10 Things

I've been "tagged" by Andrea

I'm having a hard time coming up with ten things about myself but here it goes...

Here are the rules for the Honest Scrap Award:

A) first list 10 honest things about yourself-and make it interesting even if you have to dig deep

B) pass it on

1. I think that no one remembers me but I remember everyone. I remember a little boy named Nathan Sharp from first grade, but if I ever ran into him I would absolutely never say hello because why on earth would he remember me? I remember people I have never been introduced to, and remember random things about them. I don't like to say hi to these people if I ever see them again because I don't want to freak them out. However, if they do remember me, and I am in my "I don't want to freak you out by appearing too friendly and remembering you too much" mode I look like a jerk.

2. I really like Christian music. Especially Christian Rock. There is this Time Life special with this christian rock concert CD special that I have been wanting to buying for probably 7 years. Someday I'll break down.

3. I hate laundry. If I could assign a task in my life for someone else to do, aside from working, it would be my laundry.

4. I miss living in this crazy old house I used to live in with a weird cat. The house was kind of falling apart, but it had character, it had a yard, the cat liked me, and I had a fireplace. It was cozy.

5. I am so excited to move.

6. I love getting together with the girls. They know who they are. It doesn't happen as often as it should but when it does, We have a blast. There is something so amazing about getting to be with those people who have known you since you were nine and so silly. They mean the world to me.

7. I wish that I could pull off brown hair. I have tried it several times. Every time I try it, at the beginning I like it, and then pretty much I end up thinking, yep, that's not for you. Go blonde. I just have to face it. I look better as a blonde. Try as I may, am not suited for the brown hair, though I desperately want it.

8. I hate having to list my hobbies for whatever is asking. I feel like I have either no hobbies or lame hobbies. I love to read, but I think reading doesn't sound super cool. I also like to sing and play the piano, but now that lumps me in a the category of Miss Mormon UT Sweet 17. So to not appear dull, I have to reach back and think of hobbies that I formerly had. . . let's see. Soccer. I used to play soccer. That will fill up one blank. I don't mind saying politics because that's something I'm interested in, but oftentimes people want to get into a big debate or discuss Rush Limbaugh, both of which don't lead to a night of fun. . .

9. I thought Twilight, in movie form, absolutely blew. I'm sorry. If you loved it, that's totally cool with me. It was to angst-y for me. I couldn't handle it. John and I decided to save our money and see it at the dollar theater instead of the regular priced ones. We should have saved it and seen it at. . . wait. . . we should have never seen it. We actually walked out. Not offended, mind you. I thought the books were pretty good for young adult fiction. B grade. The movie just was not doing it for me. I know Edward was a vampire and all but the creepiness was just bizarre. And not in a hot vampire-y way. Oh well. I am not a teenage girl. The movie was not made for me.

10. I hate tomatoes. I hate 'em.

it's going to be an adventure.

sara has convinced me into going to hip hop hustle with her tonight. i'm not sure how it will go. i'm willing to be a yes man. i've been listening to some pump me up music and i've got my game face on.

You ordered the pizza to where?

Maxalt is not good for me. I have figured this out.

I have had a lot of headaches. They run in my family and they suck. Also, before you suggest that maybe I should eat healthy, try drinking Mt. Dew, get a good night's sleep or something else logical, I should tell you all these things have been tried. So- in the last few weeks I've had an MRI, (seriously, what's with all the banging!), IV therapy and have tried out some medication to try to make it so I don't have headaches for 95% of my waking hours. Since I have migraine and tension headaches I get to try to figure out which kind of freak headache it is and then, if I guess right, take the right drug, I might be right and my headache might go away. Wednesday after work I had a headache and decided to try out a migraine medication sample since I was pretty sure it was that. Due to the events that occurred because of me taking this crazy drug I have no idea what kind of headache it was or if the headache even went away.

After I took it I got tired. Made some soup. Took a small nap. Couldn't wake up. Thereby, burning an entire pot of soup. John was a good sport, said hey let's get some pizza. I figured that since I burnt and ENTIRE pot of soup somehow, I could be in charge of ordering pizza. I called ordered pizza. Got ready to pick it up and was so strangely dizzy I almost fell over. So we decided that john was the DD for the pizza run. John called from the pizza place to ask where I had ordered the pizza. Well, normal people order pizza to the location nearest their house. People on bad medication order pizza 15-20 miles away. Luckily the people were nice enough and had our stuff ready in a few more minutes. It was a strange night. I went to bed at 7:20, vowing to never take Maxalt again since it made me a stupid dizzy weirdo. And that's what I told the Dr. the next day.

TIME

I could write about the fact that I found a dead fly in my semi-stolen breakfast cereal.
I could write about how we are freezing up here in the cold north.
I could also mention what a terrible blogger I am even with the new addition of a laptop and wireless Internet.

But instead, I will say that Christmas was great, we took a long drive down to Phoenix where the weather is absolutely fantastic this time of year, I still have my crazy job, and John has joined me as a USU alumni. With this new found alumni status comes the need for a job. Cross the fingers.

We have been enjoying the public library and the fact that it is a free activity in this freaking economic mess. The BBC's Planet Earth is a recent borrowing. I love it. I could watch nature shows for hours. I've also revisited a few novels I haven't read since Jr. High; say "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok. Let's just say I didn't really know how to say his name til several years ago. I've also been reading some good trash books. Now by trash, I don't mean "trashy" or "seedy". I really just mean mystery, suspense\thriller books that I can read in a day and a half, be totally into, finish, and never think of again.

Aside from our books, I got a subscription to TIME magazine for Christmas. I love it. It is definitely the best thing I get in the mail. I think I especially like it since I'm not in school and we don't have cable. It makes me feel as though I actually have some idea of what's going on. Not saying that reading a magazine makes me an expert on international affairs, but it's a start. I've really missed taking classes and having the opportunity to learn, pose questions and think analytically. I am looking forward to when I can work with the political science part of my degree.

My job right now is challenging and I enjoy it, but not mentally challenging in the way other things I enjoy are. I think that is one of the things that scares me a little bit about being a mother. The possibility of less mental stimulation in certain things. Not saying that you're not using your brain, but in different ways. Secretly I'm a little nervous. Talking to people with kids they always assure you that it's worth it. Of course. I won't debate that.I'm not saying that moms of young kids don't have anything important to think about. The focus is different. But it still doesn't change the fact that I'm a little worried of my head turning slightly mushy and feeling out of the loop someday.

Reading TIME as a bedtime story could work, right? ;)

Finally. . .

Graduation Day!

'Tis the season

I love Christmas songs. I start listening the day after Halloween. Because of this, I definitely think I am in the know about the good, bad and ugly Christmas songs. Beware, your favorite song may be on my ugly list. . .

Songs I secretly love, and am a little embarrassed to love them so much
This Gift- 98 Degrees
It Must Have Been The Mistletoe
Santa Baby
Last Christmas (I Gave You My Heart)
Hey Santa- Carnie and Wendy Wilson
The Chipmunk Song (especially the Jaci Velasquez version)

Songs I Openly dislike, and it may be just the artist, not the song
Mary Did You Know? - Wynona Judd & Kenny Rogers
Just hate it

Christmas Shoes- Bob Carlisle
Too sappy for my cold, black heart

The Little Drummer Boy (only when it is sung. by anyone ever)
Mostly not enjoying the Davie Bowie version, but pretty much everytime I hear rum-pa-pa-pum I want to poke myself in the eye. You should know however, when it's done by an orchestra or any other instrumental version, I think it can be decent

Silent Night- Wilson Phillips
Boo. Stick to "Hey Santa".

O Holy Night- any time it's countrified
Why massacre such a lovely song by twanging it up?

Run Run Rudolph
Makes me feel frantic. I don't need any more of that in the Christmas season

* If you'd like a laugh, or just to get a little freaked out, look at the link on "Hey Santa" for the music video through youtube. Priceless.