Sorry, didn't see you there

Ever notice how TV and movie characters seem to lack peripheral vision.  Things don't even happen behind them.  They are to the side and the characters don't even notice.

Dear Texas, How could you hold out on me?

I was reading a book and the guy wanted to buy his girl a "homecoming mum".  The florist asked if he wanted one, two, or three mums and if he wanted real mums or silk mums.  I thought, "I guess their talking about a corsage."  But then the florist asked if he wanted football and cheerleader charms on it.  I thought, "I guess their talking about a weird corsage."  But then the florist asked if he wanted a teddy bear attached to it and the ribbons to flow to the ground.  I thought, "What the...?"  Then the florist mentioned that some girls had to wear special halters to hold up their mums b/c their mums were so heavy.  I thought, "Time for Google!"

I googled "homecoming mum" and I think was speechless for a good ten minutes.  Then I called my sister-in-law to make sure they really existed.  They do.  Then I called my friend who has more Texas pride than anyone, and she confirmed that she wore one.

If you're a guy, you can wear one too.  But it's called a garter and instead of wearing it on a ribbon around your neck, you wear it on your arm.

Anyway, I've decided they are awesome.  So, I think Texas should stop being so selfish and share this tradition with the rest of the country.

Lots a Pomp and Circumstance

I graduated!

Robins

The Robins came back. This will be the third year they attempt to have babies next to our garage. For two summers we've watched the momma robin sit on her eggs. Then we've watched as the momma and poppa work endlessly collecting food for their small offspring. The little birds get bigger and slowly start getting feathers instead of the furry stuff they have as chicks. Then, just as they start to develop a little more- black birds swoop in and eat them. The first year, the black birds got a clean gettaway. The second year, the robins attacked the blackbird, causing it to drop the chick in the neighbors yard. The neighbors dog came out to investigate and scared the blackbirds away. So the robins sat on the fence and in trees calling for their chick. Finally, I snuck in the yard. The dog hadn't bothered the chick, but it was dead.
So, as you can guess, we aren't excited for another dose of nature's harsh reality this summer.

I'm a slacker

Hello 2011. I'm procrastinating my paper and what better way to procrastinate than to update a blog.
So in no particular order, here are a few pictures of things I've done this year. Well, three things anyways.

The ward volunteers at the zoo every year. After we finished we get to roam the zoo. Here's me feeding the Giraffes. I love the zoo.



Our project is to make seed sticks. The zoo sells these for a couple bucks a pop. After making them, we got to each take one to feed the birds. Here's my friend Derek feeding a bird. The seed sticks they sell aren't nearly as seed-filled as the ones we made ourselves. :-)


I just thought this was funny. I can't remember the last time I cut someone's head off in a photo. I'm not quite sure how it happened.


We had a pinewood derby in the ward. Being inspired by a photo of a shark car on my sis-in-law's blog, I made one too. Turns out the shark in her photo was built by my nephew. His was a little more impressive looking.



In January, we did our yearly trek up to the stock show. I love it. Here's me riding an Arabian. We went to a rodeo and a jumping show. It was great fun.


I've also been out to Utah a lot for school. My nieces are tottering about on their feet now. I can't believe how much they've grown!
I'm more than half way done with my Master's now. I can't wait to be done, but I dread it at the same time. What to do.....

I had a small scare the other day with my homework. I jumped on Facebook and all my class cohorts were talking about our upcoming research paper. But they were saying things like- I'm so glad I'm done and Mine isn't quite long enough, I hope he doesn't care. I thought- Wow! Everyone is really getting done early, this paper isn't due until next week. But then I thought- that's strange, EVERYONE is posting about this. Oh crap! Turns out it was due the NEXT DAY! I got it in. But that was one stressful day.

Anyway. Not much of an update, but I really need to get back to homework.

a tad behind, eh?

Update on my life. All is good. Work was really busy during the back to school rush. Now, it's empty. Here's a list of a few things I've done lately.





1.

I went to the Paint Mines a few weeks ago. This picture doesn't really do the colors justice, but it's really colorful. Apparently, the local Native Americans used to come here to get pigments for coloring stuff. I look forward to dragging my nieces and nephews there. I think they'll enjoy scrambling around.

2.



Went to the Utah State Fair on my last trip to Utah. My favorite exhibit was this sculpture made out of butter. Yum. What I wish I had a picture of was the funeral home cubicle. It was set up next to the arthritis magnet bracelet place. The guy manning the exhibit was watching Burn Notice on his laptop. I'm not sure why I found it so entertaining.



3.



I went fishing a week or so ago with Dad. I caught SIX fish. Kept three, threw three back. Dad got a few fish too. Don't feel bad about me out-fishing him, Maya brought him a dead fish on their walk the next day. Thoughtful dog, eh?





4.
I went Rock climbing for the first time. It was at an indoor rock wall. I was terrified and concerned that I would freeze at the top. But it was great. The walls went sixty feet up. Lots of fun and I didn't die. I didn't take my camera though. Boo.

So, that's it. School is coming along. I've been writing some websites. It's actually kind of fun. It'll be nice when I'm more familiar with everything. But it's kind of magical that the code I put in actually produces something.
Anyway, kind of an unexciting post, but there you are. I've updated.

Here you go!

Curtis showed me this over the weekend. Thought you all might enjoy it.

Any fears of Flying?

It's been a while since I've posted about DIA and it's stunning artwork, so I thought I'd write a fun blurb about what flyers see on their journey through DIA.

1. Licky the Carniverous Pony (to my family), Bluecifer (to Coloradoans) is the greeting you get when you drive up to the airport. With his visible rib cage, this poor guy clearly hasn't eaten since he killed his creator by collapsing on him. His adorable glowing eyes might make it hard to resist the urge to stop and give the old boy a pat, but unfortunatly, there is no where to stop by this statue, so you have to continue to the airpot.

2. Anubis, a God of the Dead and Mummification is the next statue to greet you. He's just a temporary edition- an advertisement for the King Tut Exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. One might question why a statue of Anubis (God of Dead) was chosen to be placed next to the airport instead of Nut (Goddess of the Sky), but I think his presence is comforting to most travelers. I mean, look at his cute ears.

3. Once you enter the airport, everyone's favorite mural is there to greet you.

This stunning mural leaves me speechless everytime I see it.

There's nothing like a few well placed pieces of art to say, "Have a Good Flight!"

A few pics from my school trips

Lena playing on the floor.

Anna kept raising her head up and then flopping on the ground. At first I think she was sleepy, but then it became a game.

A guy was practising the organ. It was SO LOUD!!!! I can't imagine a whole choir singing as well. It must be deafening. Maybe I'll try to go hear Sounds of Sunday sometime.

Convenient Lousy Introductions

Just a little ranting.
My sister and I watched a movie during which a classic error is made. A boy and girl are in love, but haven't yet professed the love. The boy introduces the girl to another girl. "Sally, this is Jill." Girl number one thinks girl number two and boy are dating. Confusion commenses. Girl number two is actually related to boy. Eventually the error is realized and everything works out.
What a easy and perfect upset for a new relationship to hit. Realistic too, right?
WRONG! The reason this doesn't happen in real life. 1) No matter how close siblings or cousins are, how many have you mistaken for dating? I don't mean at a quick glance, I mean after watching them for five minutes. NO, it doesn't happen. No siblings cuddle (or at least they shouldn't be) in such a way that you'd mistake them for dating. 2) The second reason this doesn't happen is that in the real, non-hollywood, version of life, you state your relationships when you do introductions. "This is my cousin, Jill." "This is Pete, my friend from school." Unless the relationship is obvious or you don't have one, people typically state their relationships, especially when introducing to people who are significant to them.

Am I wrong? Of course not. In real life have any of you had this issue? Please let me know if you have b/c that has got to be an entertaining story.
That was your cousin? Dang! We could have hooked up months ago if I hadn't been under the impression you two were dating. Imagine someone saying that to you. *awkward*-in so many ways!

Skunks are not to be trusted!

So, at the end of a dream (I won't bore you with the beginning), a skunk started chasing me around a street. It wouldn't leave me alone. When I slowed down, it would turn and try to spray me. Obviously, I would start to run again, so it didn't. Some friends showed up and ended up being chased as well. One of my friends got tired and refused to run anymore. The skunk ran up to him, hid behind him and gave me a frightened look as if I was the one chasing him! Everyone felt bad for the blasted skunk.

So then I woke up ticked that the blasted skunk got away with acting the victim. He was chasing ME!

soooo... who do you like?

Yesterday, Shauna and Mom and I went bowling. During our last game, Sha saw some guy bowling in an odd way. So, I tried it at the end of my game. I got TWO strikes in a row! I can't wait to go bowling again.

And Yes, I own a bowling ball and for some reason we have bowling pins in our garage. Sha and I laughed when we got our bowling balls for Christmas. I feel like I should be a super bowler now. I'm still barely breaking a hundred.


My jeans are dying. I only have two pair of jeans any more. The other pair are high-waters. When I put these jeans on, my feet always go through the knees. It's kind of awkward. Speaking of awkward, have you ever thought about what an awkward word "awkward" is. I mean, how many words have two Ws the way awkward does. It's even an awkward word to write. Especially in cursive.



These are my nieces. It took some effort and about six pictures before I finally got them both laughing. They are so cute. There's something fun about a baby's laugh. It's so infectious. Even looking at the picture, I can't help but smile.

UGH!

Has anyone else been strangely unmotivated this week? I have a paper to write, journals to keep, and lots and lots of stuff to read. Usually i don't have a problem keeping up, but this week everything takes sooo much effort. Boo.

ZOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

This past weekend, I went to Utah for one of my classes. For those of you who don't know, I'm going to library school. I'm getting my Master of Library and Information Science. I'm doing a distance learning class where I fly into Salt Lake City every month for class. Oddly enough the school is actually in Kansas. So I fly from Colorado to Utah to go to a school out of Kansas. Whew.

When I got my rental car (see below), my first thought was, hey, this is about the size of Marie's car in the Bourne movie. Then naturally at that point I started looking around for Matt Damon or some other well-built government agent who, despite being a seasoned assassin, was really just a good guy trying to find himself.



The man never materialized (story of my life), so I had to be satisfied with zipping around Salt Lake (this little sucker has great zipping power- all those rogue agents missed out) on my own.
I gotta be honest, I never really felt that bad for Jason Bourne. I felt worse for all the poor bystanders whose possessions were destroyed in his car chases. I mean, sometimes they were in third-world countries. Those people can't afford to be replacing cars and stuff. My favorite part, of course, is in the second movie where he causes a huge car pile-up during a car chase scene while trying to find a girl to apologize to her for killing her parents. AHHH, what about those people in the cars?! hmm, have I blogged about this before.


This trip I also stopped in at Temple Square where I took a couple pictures, dodged sister missionaries, did half of a tour of the conference center, and felt awed by the temple, as I always do.

All in all, a pleasant trip.
Oh, and school was nice.

Waiting Waiting Waiting

Look at me! Two post in a row.
My sister's roommate lent 'The Blue Castle' by L.M. Montgomery to me a while back. I loved it. So I ordered my own copy a weekish ago. It's back ordered through Borders. They warned me it would take a while, but I'm getting impatient. WHERE IS IT?
Anyway, you should all read it. It's about this girl who lives an incredibly dull predictable life and then finds out she has a year left to live.
If you look up the gutenburg project online, you can read it for free.
That's it. I just wanted to push this book on you all.

If you haven't...

If you haven't seen the new BBC Emma, you ought to. It's excellent. I can't help but smile when I think of it. WATCH IT! I think it might be even better than their 1995 Pride and Prejudice. *gasp*

Also...
This past weekend, I had my first class. I was worried about being in one class for eight hours, but it went surprisingly fast. It's a change to go to school with adults. I like it a lot. My classmates are amazing and really smart. It's a little intimidating because I'm not brilliant, I'm just me. They also like to talk. Oh, my goodness, do they like to talk! I mean, they are all quiet during lectures, but when we get into discussions, EVERYONE has an opinion. I can't help but laugh that for a bunch of introverts, they sure talked a lot. But i like them all a lot and am glad that they are the ones I will be in class with for the next two years.

Also...
My nieces are ridiculously cute! I saw the twins this weekend. Anna is smiling a lot and Lena is so much more aware of her surroundings than last visit. There is something really special about a baby's smile. I just want to EAT HER! No, not really, but I do love her smile.

Also...
Valentine's day is coming up. I've never considered myself to be the rebellious type, but the more people complain about the holiday, the more I like it.

Also...
why are you still reading this, didn't I tell you to go watch Emma?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
I love you all and hope your Christmas is wonderful.

Disney and an update

Okay, here are a few pictures from our DisneyWorld trip.

The day we went into Magic Kingdom, we got approached by this smooth talking man. We were sure he was going to try to sell us a vacation package. We were wrong. He asked if we wanted to be the Grand Marshalls in the parade. So we met him in the afternoon and he took us to Mickey's limo.

Even the wheels have Mickey ears.

Here is a view from the car of the crowds watching us.

We were told to wave and smile the whole time. My smile muscles started to spasm during it. Definitely a strange sensation. It was a whole lot of fun though and an absolutely awesome experience.

One of the horses on the carousel has a gold ribbon on it. That horse is Cinderella's. Shauna is on it.

Me with Frozone.

So, this isn't the most detailed picture journal of the trip, but a couple highlights. It was so much fun. AND it was really empty. If I'm lucky, this will become a frequent vacation spot for me.

The GRE went okay. I didn't do incredibly well, but I did well enough to get in. Turns out my GRE prep book wasn't as thorough in the math area as it claimed.
My interview with the school went well. I need to get a couple recommendations in and then my application will be done. My interviewer was pretty encouraging about my chances of getting in. The application committee will review it and then let me know.

The school is out of Kansas, but has a campus in Salt Lake and Denver. The program starts every two years in each location. The SLC one starts in Jan of 2010 and the Denver in Jan of 2011, so I'm actually applying to the SLC program. The program is mostly online, but I do have to go to a few weekend classes. If I go full time, I can be done in a year and a half, but I am told most people take it a little slower and do it in two.

So... hopefully I'll get in and be in school and a lot of debt soon. Oh, it's a Master of Library Science. I'm going to be a librarian.

One day more

Tomorrow I take the GRE. I'm a tad nervous, my practise tests weren't that impressive especially in the vocab area.
On a lighter note, I went to DISNEYWORLD a few weeks ago with my fam. It was so much fun. We also went to Cocoa Beach one day. The water was warm and wonderful. I love the ocean. *sigh*
On monday I have a phone interview with the school I want to get my masters at. Cross your fingers.

Aliens and their relationship with earth

Over the weekend, I watched Knowing. I don't have a clue what that ending was all about, so if you know, enlighten me please. Some aliens, who for some reason care about earth, took children and bunnies to a new planet because...why? Why did the aliens care? Why bunnies? What was the tree supposed to represent. Anyway, it put in my mind all the other alien movies I've seen, Independence Day, Mars Attack, Close Encounters, ET, Explorers, and the latest Indiana Jones.

I've decided that Explorers is my favorite. For those of you who haven't seen it, let me give you a quick synopsis. Three kids (the explorers) build a space ship out of trash when one of them dreams the design. The dreams are sent to him by aliens. The kids get to space and meet the aliens who've been sending the dreams. Apparently, the aliens watch tv and they start quoting movies. Then, the final twist, the alien's dad comes home, is mad that his kids sent the explorers the dreams, and sends the explorers home.

Okay, so how disappointing is that! Humans finally have encounters with aliens and they spend their whole visit quoting movies.