Evolution of Dance

As of late, all of my inspiration is coming from my good friend shameonyou21. Maybe it is because I have no job and I am easily influenced by her corruptive behavior, or maybe she is just so darn inspiring!

Anyway, I got this link from her yahoo page and I must say, it is so hillarious. It brought back some memories which I thought were best forgotten. I bet you will have the same experience and probably even remember doing most of these!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

The Newest Edition of the Jones Family

Wow what a week! I went on a trip to Ohio to visit my family with my mom, and we ended up having to pay an extra $300 to change our flight to come home earlier because the security alarm selling group got moved to Denver from Cincinnatti because it was a much better area. We did get to watch about four days of baseball games, which if you know my family, is a normal way to spend vacations.

We got to fly home on the same flight as my baseball player brother because he was coming home for the birth of his second child. The doctors were going to induce labor Saturday morning, but since my brother couldn't get a flight out from Columbus, Ohio until late afternoon on Saturday, they decided to wait until Sunday morning to induce labor since they were basically working around Mitch's schedule anyway. We arrived in Salt Lake about 9 p.m. Saturday night, and drove my brother home to his house in Springville. We arrived there about 10 p.m. and left shortly thereafter. About midnight my sister-in-law's water broke all by itself. Talk about mind over matter! We have all been fearful that Tavi would go into labor before her husband could make it home for the birth. I guess that baby just needed his daddy to be there before he would budge an inch!

My other nephew has been quite the proud big brother. He gets mad when others are holding his baby brother because he wants to hold him and kiss him all the time. Truthfully we were all a bit surprised, because as the only grandchild on this side of the family, he has been quite spoiled and definately not starved for attention and kisses from everyone around! We are all just waiting to see how long it takes him to snap out of the "proud big brother" mode and try to hit the baby with his baseball bat (he trys to hit everyone else already if you irritate him)!

Without further ado, I want you all to meet:

Cooper Shea Jones

Born May 28, 2006

8 lbs 10 oz. 20.5" Long

Road Rage-"What Not To Do"

My friend Shameonyou21 sent me this e-mail. I felt it was rather appropriate since I have felt like doing this at times. I have cleaned it up a bit, so if I happen to miss a word or two, I apologize ahead of time.

Shameonyou21 Said:

Ok... so on my Yahoo page, I have a blog by this comedian chick in new york that I read on occasion cause she occassionally makes me laugh my butt off. This is a blog entry she wrote a couple of days ago that just really amused me. Just a warning, there is some explicit language do to the fact that it was about a very stressful situation with a fellow new yorker. If you sit in traffic, you gotta read this:

The power of loooooove!

so i get this "john groom's positive quote of the day" sent to me:

POSITIVE QUOTE OF THE DAY -----------------------------

I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend against its force....My love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day.

-- Og Mandino

hmmmmm... well, after screaming at the jack*** guy in the minivan behind me who kept honking at me to turn right into mega traffic and then almost slamming my fist into his skull this morning as i screamed "TAKE YOUR F***ING NINE YEAR OLD PIECE OF CRAP MINIVAN THAT YOU DRIVE YOUR RETARDED KIDS TO SPECIAL OLYMPICS SOCCER IN AND GO HOME AND JACK OFF, FAGGOT..."

yeah, i suppose i haven't really made "love" my strongest weapon today..

let me rewind (i'll pretend i am quentin tarantino by starting with the ending above)

the light turned yellow, so i yielded then stopped since i was not about to plow my Phooka into the traffic...

minivan guy behind me starts honking (i have mini top down, mind you)

i raise my arm like "what the heck do you expect me to do? wreck my car? i'm stopping" (didn't say it at that point)

he starts yelling "YOU F***ING WOMAN!"

--- okay.... um... did he jus--- oh hell no... at this point my blood pressure rises partially because of the full moon still wafting in the atmosphere... and my uterus' ears perked up and said "ess-cus' me? oh no he di'int!" --- seriously, i felt my uterus waggle it's head in a very urban motion... i digress, where was i? --------

riiiiiight.... "you f***ing woman!"

then he proceeds to yell "IT'S RIGHT ON RED B**CH!"

my fallopian tubes have now rolled their sleeves up and started clenching their fists...

i sit (first off, because there's f***ing traffic, and even though it's right on red, it doesn't mean drive into a crapload of cars ---- and second, i sit just to see the vein in his forehead become visible in my rearview mirror)

i yell back "I AM NOT BUSTING MY CAR UP JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE IMPATIENT!"

he opens his minivan door (looks like the window doesn't roll down more than an inch on the driver's side.) and he starts screaming "WHAT DID YOU SAY, TWAT?" then closes his door

the left ovaries have now started in and are murmuring to each other "did he say 'twat'? seriously? the guy's in his 40s and he said twat? oh man, shit's going down"

woman in the car next to me - around 60 - yells to me "go get him, honey, what a prick"

the light is unbelievably STILL red.

i flip him my british "f" off sign (i DO drive a Mini, I may as well do the brit thing) and yell "WHY DON'T YOU GO AROUND ME, HEAD INTO TRAFFIC AND DIE - DO US ALL A FAVOUR" (not nice, but my netherregions made me say it)

he opens his door again and i see him start to get out of his piece of crap minivan

i yell "YOU ARE GOING TO WANT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE AND STEP BACK INSIDE YOUR PILE OF CRAP CAR RIGHT NOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU!"

he does.

light turns green.

i turn right.

as does he.

he's still behind me. we take the jughandle and are now at a light - he is now on my left side - (his passenger side window DOES roll down)

"YOU'D BETTER LEARN TO F***ING DRIVE, IT'S A RIGHT ON RED LIGHT B**CH."

now, he's screaming like a frigging fishmonger.

i - in my best harpie/fishmonger voice - scream back "LISTEN YOU MISERABLE LITTLE TOOL, I AM IN NO WAY JEOPARDIZING MY $25,000 CAR JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A BUG UP YOUR ASS AND ARE IN A HURRY. BY THE WAY, NICE DENT ON THIS SIDE OF YOUR CAR!"

light turns green. he gets behind me and is tailgaiting... i tap my brakes to piss him off (oh come on, like you wouldn't snap at this point?) oh, and i may have slowed down to the same speed as the car on my left so he was totally blocked behind us. heh.

then i punched the gas and went into the left lane... and then there was another red light ) seriously i live in a town riddled with traffic lights....

he pulls up next to me on the right. and i hear him saying something through the 1 inch crack of a window and i smile sweetly, flip my american bird at him and mouth " 'f' you, loser"...

he now opens his car door and yells "YOU'RE STILL TALKING CUNT?"

and now, scroll back up to the beginning of the post for what I said back to him....

and then he turned right.... i went straight.

my fallopians high fived each other and my uterus gave a sigh of relief.

Lake Powell Adventures

Ok, so my adventures this summer at Lake Powell have finally begun. The not so fun part of it is, I am in the middle of the dessert with an extremely ghetto living situation. I don't know what I am going to do! Just kidding it isn't all that bad. I can do anything for about three months right?

I mean, I don't have to have cable, or a wireless internet connection in my room, nor do I have to have more than one working computer to share between 6000 employees the entire summer in the common room that smells like poo. I guess I can drive 20 minutes to the nearest town, and use the internet in the public library to post messages on my blog for my friends to be able to keep track of what I am doing for the summer right?

Does this mean I am spoiled because I don't like having to do all of these things? I probably have been spoiled, and I should be grateful for any communication with the outside world besides the US Postal Service. Gosh I am a shallow person!

Just a note for all of you who actually check this on a regular basis. Now that work has started and I have to make a little trip to be able to use the computers, I will try to post often, but in all honesty, I wouldn't expect more than one per week. Sorry if this inconveniences anyone, but that is just the way it is gonna be!

Here are a few pictures of my surroundings. I will try to get more once things sort of stabalize a bit and a routine is set. As of right now, I am one of two evening pastry chefs. Things are kind of boring right now because we are still in the beginning of the season, but I will report more on that once things pick up a bit. My shift is from about 2-10 p.m. right now (Arizona time, which is one hour behind Utah time. They are the same time all year round. No DST here!) and I am possibly looking to get a morning job, just to stay busy. I am so tired of sitting around in my "hole" doing nothing but watching episodes of "That 70's Show" and various other DVD movies which we brought with us and bought down there at Walmart (all of which have been watched by this point).

We came down last Friday because they told us that would be the only way to get into our rooms. Human Resources closed by 5 p.m. and would remain closed all weekend. Orientation started early Monday, so in order to avoid getting up at dawn and driving five hours to make it on time. All we did was go to Denny's, and Walmart a few times and just wander around Page, AZ. to give us something to do. We bought a Sega Street Fighter Game that you just plug straight in to the TV. I tell you, we got very desperate!!! Well, here are a few pics to give you an idea of what it is like around here.

This is one view around the dorms where we stay.
No one ever said this place was ugly!


But somebody should have said this place was long ago. "THE HOLE" as
we have affectionately deemed it. This is a view from the doorway. There is
another dresser to the right of the one in the picture.


Another view of my room from the opposite wall.
We bought tri-fold lounge chairs (the blue thing against the wall)
to watch TV or play our video game. That wasn't the
original intention, but since the actual water is a 30-40
minute walk from the dorms, we improvised a bit.

Just a quick update since I originally wrote this post. Things were going along alright down here until a couple of days ago when my friend/roommate decided she hated her job after two days and called her parents to come get her. She left yesterday afternoon. This is going to be an interesting summer since the majority of the people here are drunkards when they aren't working. Hey, now that is a new way of meeting lots of new friends while I am here...pick up a new habit! Yeah right. Either this is going to suck hard, or it will be a new, fun, and challenging experience for me. Three months is a long time when you are stuck in a "hole" with nothing but four DVD's you have already watched. Maybe I should steal some from my family when I go home next.

Famous Friend

I came home from work the other day with a big note from my sister that said: "Check this out!" She drew an arrow pointing to a folded out pamphlet that came in the mail which looked like this on the front:

This little pamphlet was one of those side folding out things with many pages. The point of the pamphlet was advertising how many bachelors degress UVSC offers. The arrow on my sister's note was pointing to this page in particular:

This picture was also on the UVSC home page for a while. I just feel so privileged to have such a famous friend, and to be able to say, "I know her!!!"

Changes

Change is good isn't it? I hate feeling like an adult sometimes. Having to actually grow up and face the big bad world is kind of a scary thought for me! Some life changes have taken place/will take place in my world in the next little bit.

First of all, for the first time in about 7 years, I find myself without any church responsibility. This minor change took place about a week ago unofficially, and then officially yesterday morning. I have always had at least something to do, so I'm not sure what to do with myself. I will probably get some new position next week, but it is kind of like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

The next change occurring in my life is in regards to my internship to finish up my schooling. I got one! It will be in Lake Powell working in the pastry in the resort hotel in the area called Whaweep which is near Page, Arizona. This unfortunately means some bad news for my friends Streets and Nemesis. My job starts May 1, so I will not be able to go visit them as I had originally planned. Actually it is probably more bad news for me since they are already in the United Kingdom. I am so sad! I had such high hopes for my trip too!

I can't believe I am going to spend the whole summer in one of the biggest vacation spots in the entire state of Utah! I am going down with a friend from school, so I will actually have a friend to start out with. I may actually come home a different color other than white and let's hope that color isn't bright red!

Success!

First off, I must add #'s 21 & 22 & 23 to my previous list. #21 I was reminded of by my good friend Jill, #22 I just remembered today, and #23 happened today. So, "You know you struggle when..."

#21- You turn left on a red arrow, but green light; and or you go straight on a green arrow, but red light.

#22- You drop your cell phone and it rolls under your car in the parking lot, so you must get all the way out of your car, shut the door, and get on your belly to reach under the car to retrieve it.

#23- You are in the "Gap" and while searching through the jeans for your size you notice a size "0 R" and you think to yourself, "What kind of a size is OR?" When in actuality the size is 0 regular.

Now, for my success of the day. Jaime, Kristen and I were shopping at the outlet mall today in Park City, Utah. We went to lunch at a little Mexican restaurant when we arrived, and upon return home we went to dinner at Wendy's. I must say that I escaped the whole day without spilling anything on myself! Not one stain befell my clothes today from food. Another exciting thing is I didn't even spill my water glass, or tip anything else over on the table which has been known to happen on occasion. YEAH ME!

"STRUGGLING"

You know you just struggle when...

1- You run the "Fun Run" (the 1.5 mile run) at school and you come in last place even though you skipped the last lap.

2- You get two traffic tickets within two months of one another, when you haven't received a ticket in 7 years.

3- One of those tickets comes on the morning of your birthday and two people drive by while pulled over on the side of the road and wave at you.

4- You turn the radio up to near "speaker-blowing" level so you don't have to listen to your own voice while singing your favorite Martina McBride songs.

5- You receive your body fat percentage, and you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page only to find out that you are "clinically obese."

6- Your two year-old nephew bats his eyes and tells you he wants to go to McDonald's to get an Egg McMuffin and without even hesitating, you take him and buy him one.

7- You are trying to sit down on the couch and you end up almost falling on the floor instead.

8- You are extremely worried about the shoes the bride has picked out for her bridesmaids because they have a bit of a heel. 'Nuff said.

9- You have to wake up early even on days you don't need to so you don't miss any episodes of one of your favorite television programs.

10- You realize you need your friend to be your personal secretary in addition to her existing church responsibilities.

11- You are trying to plan to go out with friends to eat sushi on the night of your brother's wedding.

12- You go to the airport to pick up a friend at the gate, and you drive down the "taxis, busses, and limos only lane" only to back up to get out, and you realize that had you driven another five feet forward, there was an exit.

13- You have to refer to most of your life as one big giant "ski break." (A ski break is a term which I got from my favorite missionary companion which basically means the dumb, stupid, embarassing things that you do--like my list here).

14- You are forced to carry a Tide Stain Stick in your purse because you cannot get through a meal without spilling something on yourself. (Some people just can't help the fact that they have a "built in shelf" that catches any remote food particle that may possibly fall out of their food).

15- Because of reason #14, your decision on what to eat that day is based on the color of shirt you are wearing, will it hide a possible spill?

16- You have to get your daily outfits approved by your little sisters.

17- Your friend absolutely refuses to play Monopoly with you because you "supposedly throw things," and they are afraid of you.

18- You will not speak your mission language to friends actually from that country because they speak English better than you.

19- You have to transfer half of your personal belongings from the passenger seat to the back seat, and from the back seat of your car to the trunk whenever you have a passenger riding with you.

20- You have to make lists which point out why exactly you struggle.

Let's face it. Some people just struggle, and some of us struggle more than others!

The Impossible Day

In my defense, I wrote a post about a month ago but the stupid blog-spot decided to only post one paragraph. I tried to save what I had, and hurry and re-write it, but then the website deleted the entire thing. Anyway, I got busy and all of those fun excuses. After that it was just a matter of being stubborn since all I got was crap from Kristen and Jaime. I can't help myself! That’s why they call me stubborn!

For this post, I decided to write a bit about the day which nobody thought would ever come and then post a couple of pictures from the day. The day of which I am speaking is my brother Brady’s wedding. The blissful day occurred on February 9, 2006. For those of you who remember the day I said that he finally announced his engagement, yes it was just a short time ago, and yes the wedding did take place rather fast. From the outside looking in, everything was great. The flowers, the awesome decorations, and the gigantic buffet table which included all-you-can-eat shrimp and cocktail sauce. From the inside looking even more inside, I have come to a few conclusions about Mormon weddings.

Conclusion #1:

Wedding receptions should only take place at reception centers. This is not only a stress free tip for the parents, but it saves each member of the family the headache of setting up, and what’s worse, cleaning up until all hours of the night after the couple has already left. Some people spend more money dressing up the LDS chapels to not look like the church that it is. If they don’t have the usual sheet cake/frozen cheesecake crap, they are spending BOOKU bucks on catering that nobody else really appreciates. They are just there for the free food anyway. Most probably didn’t even bring a gift.

Reception centers do all of the decorating and catering, all you have to do is pick the menu and the style of cake you want. The other great part about reception centers is the fact that all you (by you I mean the couple and the families of the couple) is show up and then leave when it is over. If nothing else, please make sure you have other people doing all of this. The last thing anyone wants is to have to stay and clean up after you have already had a long day. I have been on both ends of the spectrum. The reception center vs. the church gym, and I personally have to choose the reception center. Brady’s wedding was in a church, and we got very lucky. The stake was a having a Valentine’s dance the following night, and said they would clean up if they could use the decorations. Despite this, we were still there cleaning until 2:00 a.m.

Conclusion #2:

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER get married around Valentine’s Day! Brady was a bozo, and didn’t get his act together in time to give his poor [wife] any time to plan anything, except for the weekend before the most expensive holiday ever. Many items, specifically flowers in this case, were like twice the price as they would have been even two weeks before. I guess the “custom” is that the groom pays for the flowers. In our case however, we were quite shocked to learn that the bride (ok, so it was pretty much mostly the bride’s mother) spent over $1500. Not only did every table have a big vase of flowers, each of these vases had roses in them. Roses are the worst during this holiday. I think they almost triple in price. The four, 8 ft. buffet tables were strung with roses, the bridesmaids had roses in our bouquets, and the bride had a huge bouquet of roses. While talking to my sister who got married in July, she said that she spent barely $40o and she had two receptions! Just say NO to February weddings!

Conclusion #3:

It is a very good thing that only Brady has to deal with the mother-in-law. The woman drives me nuts! Going back to my first conclusion, families should just show up and let someone else stress out. We were supposed to show up to the church no later than 5:30 p.m. for pictures. When we arrived at exactly that time, the mother of the bride is running around in sweats setting up the place with her husband and son also in casual attire. The photographer arrived shortly there-after, the bride and groom just got there and spent almost an hour just getting ready. The bride (her name is Lauren by the way) asks her mom to help her, and the mom tells her she is too busy getting the rest of the stuff set-up and helping get the food ready. Since my mom wasn’t doing anything, she went and helped her, but come on lady, FORGET THE DUMB FOOD AND HELP YOUR DAUGHTER GET DRESSED FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! IT IS HER WEDDING DAY!

I am sure that Lauren didn’t think anything of it, because her mom is that disorganized all the time. I felt bad for the poor photographer and videographer who just wandered around taking pictures of whatever and whoever they could. The pics I am posting up came from my sister Meagan’s camera and a couple maybe came from me. Neither of us, strangely enough, took any pictures of the bride or of the bride and groom together, so I have to apologize up front for that. The reception started at 7:00 p.m. and when the first few people came, they were forced to go watch the video for a bit while the photographer finally got some pictures of the families (the bride’s family to be more specific was still taking pictures).

Conclusion #4:

Ok, so it wasn’t all bad. Like I said before, from the outside looking in, you would never know, but I have been trained be overly picky! All in all it worked out very nicely. Brady really wanted my older brother Mitch to be able to attend and be around for the wedding since he missed my sister’s wedding in the summer due to his baseball season conflicting. We didn’t know at the time when Mitch was leaving to go to spring training. We thought it could be toward the end of February, but again, Brady & Lauren wanted him there so they wanted to make sure they did it fairly early in the month. As it turns out, Mitch left exactly one week later.

Hey look I found one!

My Brothers & Nephew (Taylor, Thad, Easton, Brady, Mitch)

The church before the lights went off. The buffet table is in the middle.

The top of the cake.

The Loverly Sisters! (Meagan & Ericka)

Check out these hotties! My favorite is the one in the middle!

Look out all two year olds, here is possibly the cutest of them all!

The white chairs were rented because the mother of the bride
didn't like the way the church chairs looked. Lauren's mom is the one
on the far left. Then Meagan, my Mom, Ericka, and Gage (Meagan's BF)

I think the guy is trying to dance, but at the buffet table?
All he has to do is move about five feet the opposite direction
behind those tables in the foreground and he is on the "dance floor."
This pic shows some of the decorations. The lights and ball things
were strung horizontally across the ceiling of the church gymnasium.

"TOTEMS"

Before I begin with my real remarks, I just want to make mention of a few things.

First of all Merry Day-AFTER Christmas! I meant to write, but just haven't gotten around to it. Even though my semester is over, I really haven't had that much time. Work has been out of control. I worked a 20 hour day last Thursday-from 7 a.m. Thursday morning, until 3 a.m. Friday morning. Not only that, but I had to be back to work again Friday morning by 9 a.m. No excuses though, I have been a very naughty girl, and good old St. Nick probably should not have visited my house, but since Easton (two year old nephew) slept over, the big man didn't have much choice!

Second of all, remember when I told you that my brother Brady decided he was in love? The impossible has happened. He has finally proposed, and will be getting married in February. It is such an unbelievable occurrence, that it should give some of us women out there a tiny bit of hope. Boys are just lame and sometimes just need a little patience and sometimes a threat to spark their interest and make them realize that they are dumb and should probably just listen to what women have to say to begin with. It would probably save them a lot of time and kissing up (or just kissing us).

So now, the real post. On Friday, Christmas Eve Eve, I drove Jaime to the airport in Salt Lake City. Her flight was not until 9 p.m. that evening, but with the mass of people headed to the very same location because of the apparent holiday which was upon us. Jaime, being the very smart girl that she is, knew she needed a little extra time to make sure she didn't get into a bind with the extra security and random extra screenings and such which was apparent she may have to encounter. We needed to arrive no later than 7 p.m. to account for all of this extra stuff.

Neither one of us wanted to travel in 5:00 rush hour traffic, so we decided to leave Orem at 3 p.m. and just hang out until she had to go to the airport. There was just one problem though. Once we arrived in Salt Lake, we didn't know what to do. Not enough time for a movie, so we thought we would walk around the mall so I might actually get some form of Christmas shopping done. That plan back-fired in a hurry because apparently the malls are undergoing a major remodel and so there are like zero stores. I got very annoyed and irritated and Jaime is not feeling very well. We decide to walk over to Temple Square just to see what was going on. This whole thing only lasted about one hour, and we still haven't any ideas of how to spend the next hour. We figured we would drive around and try and find a place where we could get some ice cream or something.

We drove around downtown for a while, without any luck. We drove more toward the airport to find a place closer that might be a little closer. We found ourselves in the ghetto of West Valley, Utah--which is not the place for two young single girls to even get out of the car--even if a very fabulous ice cream shop such as Coney's or Cold Stone were to pop up. Luckily for us there wasn't one, cause I think I would have found something like my tire jack with which to protect myself if any such place were to exist. We drove up and down Redwood Road with nothing but a few fast food places like Wendy's, Carl's Jr. and McDonald's.

One place, however tempted us on this dark and deserted armpit area of the state of Utah. I have spent most of the night trying to find some kind of picture of this place because I don't feel that describing it will give you what it truly deserves. I will take a picture though when I go pick Jaime up from the airport in about a week so you can laugh along with us. Anyway, the place was called Totem's. It is apparently a hotel, a bar, a nightclub, and a western steakhouse restaurant all in one. It looks like a cheap run down motel that you would find in small hick towns in Southern Utah--you know what I mean Shameonyou21. The only difference is that this place had two wooden, carved totem poles on either side of this ghetto, wooden sign that in giant letters with bright lights shining on it read, "TOTEM'S."

First of all this struck the two of us as being very funny. I don't know if that was because of where we were, the enormous amount of caffeine that was in at least my system, or what. As tempted as we were to go check it out, I think this place really just scared the living daylights out of us. So much so, that Jaime suggested we just drive through Carl's Jr. cause it was in more of a lighted area of business. She also hinted that she didn't mind going to the airport a little earlier than originally planned. She said it was because of how close we were, but I think Jaime just really wanted to be around all of that extra security at the airport cause she was wanting to get the heck away from there. On top of it all, I then, had to drive all the way home by myself with nothing but my thoughts of being killed in a drive by, and weird Country Christmas songs playing on the radio about seducing Santa Claus, which then terrified me to the very core of my being. Let's just say I am glad that traffic was light, and that no cops noticed me going 80 the whole way home.

The New Pride & Predjudice

Ok, since I hadn't completely ::hanging head in shame:: seen the BBC version all the way through, nor had I ::hanging head deeper in shame:: read the Jane Austen novel before my friend Jamie begged me to go see this movie, I didn't have much on which to base this new production. I heard from both Streets & Nemesis that even though it will never replace the BBC version, it was still very good. Normally, I can't completely trust anyone else's criticism about movies unless a good number of them say it is crap or otherwise, good. So when these two lovely ladies both, among others, said the new version of the film was good, I figured I could see it and be alright.

You have yet to hear the best part of it all though! I went, I saw it, I loved it, ::lifting head up slightly:: ate turkey, (the next day) giant photo of me on the front page of a newspaper section, cleaned my room, (that actually took place over the two days following Thanksgiving) and did all my laundry while watching the last five and a half hours of the BBC version on the Biography channel!!! (I missed the first little bit because I happend to be looking for a movie to watch on Direct TV after deciding my laundry needed to be done before my room could be completely finished) ::head is slowly lifting back up to normal, upright position::

The funny part was that the washing machine apparently had a heart attack because it hadn't seen so much dirty laundry at one time! (Note to readers, I did not cram everything I own into the washing machine at the same time. They were normal size batches, it just so happens that there were quite a few normal size batches). The [water] hose broke and flooded the laundry room with about two gallons or more of water. I noticed it during a commercial when I went to check on the status of my current load in the washer. I quickly informed my mom who along with my grandpa, came down to see what the heck was going on. Grandpa being the fix-it-man that he is, pulled out the dryer to see if he could get to the washer and figure out the problem. I was just standing there, so I sneaked back upstairs to watch the show some more and continued to check on the progress of the situation with my mom and grandpa during the commercials! I think I am officially hooked! P&P party anyone?

Turkey Day Surprise

I want to start out by saying that I hope everyone had a marvelous day--regardless of the fact that a few of you didn't get a vacation or even celebrate this wondrous occasion!

Anyway, I had every intention of for my next post writing a smorgasbord of things, but this morning my phone rang and my friend says to me that I am now world famous, and everyone is going to know about my cooking ability. Very confused, I asked him what he meant by that. He then proceeds to tell me that he stopped to fill up his car at the gas station and he decided to purchase a newspaper. Apparently my picture was in the Deseret Morning News, Utah Valley Life section of the paper this morning.

Do you all remember that big dinner we had at UVSC and how a photographer asked if I would pose for a few pictures? Nothing ever came of it...or so I thought. He made good on it today, and all the neighbors have been calling us today wondering if we had seen it. We were running late for lunch over at my aunt's house, so we didn't stop to get a paper until afterward and on our way home. We stopped at four different gas stations to no avail, and just as we were about to give up, we noticed Carl's Jr. has newspaper stands outside by their entrance. We went over and noticed they didn't have any of the actual newspapers left, but noticed the Deseret Morning News, Utah Valley Life section of the paper with my picture huge on the front cover! They were free so my mom took like six of them! I just thought it was this little article with a few small pics in the middle of the section of the paper that nobody really looks at! I didn't sign up for the cover of the whole entire separate section of the thing!

The website doesn't have the cover and stuff, but there is a nice article about the program and at the bottom is my pic that was on the front. I am not quite sure what to think about it all! My family thinks it is pretty cool, and I guess it is, it's just kinda weird for me I guess.

Comparison

After reading a post on my friend Nemesis's blog, I decided to do the same, so I could brag a little too. Not that it is completely fair, because Easton is a boy and Savvybaby is obviously a cute little girl. I kinda like the match, what do you think?














On a different subject, I am Sous Chef this week in the restaurant. That means that I am pretty much in charge, other than the fact that Chef will be there and he is really in charge. I guess that just means I am second in command! Today was dumb, just for the fact that I sat on my butt and just did dishes pretty much. Things won't really pick up until tomorrow which is just me prepping out a banquet mostly by myself, and then normal stuff in the restaurant on Thursday and Friday.

Just an FYI for those who may be interested, it is Japanese week. Being Sous Chef is kind of a busy and yet scary thing at the same time. If stuff goes wrong, I am partly to blame. I don't anticipate anything happening like that because we are usually on the ball, but the thought still scares the crap outta me! I guess this job is kind of a privelage. We only have this week and next left in the restaurant. We had to cancel our last week in November because we have too many parties to cater. We found out today, that some guy who schedules events for the McKay Events Center forgot to put some parties on the calander, so our catering manager was quite schocked when they called to confirm their menu choices. That just means that we have nine parties in only three days. NO PROBLEM!

Dumped On

Ok, so there comes a point when you just hit rock bottom with your current situation. One comes to a crossroads where more than anything she knows what she needs to do, but doesn't have the ability or power to actually make it happen. Does anyone know how to get lots of money so I can pay my tuition to finish one more semester of school and pay off my loans as well? CUZ I NEED TO GET THE HECK OUTTA HERE!

Since this post isn't meant to be depressing or anything, as I am a tad frustrated right now, there is one bright spot in the whole thing. I am not home nearly as much anymore to recieve half of the blows I normally do! YEAH!

My Weather Pixie

Ok, so since some of you wouldn't respond to my request for help on figuring out the weather pixie andl inks to others' blogs, I have spent the last several hours figuring it out myself thank you very much!

Now that I have said that, my cute little weather pixie I chose simply for her hair. I want to do my hair like that! I don't like the whole cat thing going on though. First of all, I don't like cats. Second, it is creeping me out. It is moving all over the place, and I just don't like it!

Follow Up

I took Chosha's advice, and republished the Ice Sculpture post in the correct order. She made it sound so easy, and really I didn't even realize I could change the date on it and re-post it. Anyway, thanks for the tip!

Just a quick follow-up for you all about the Pink Elephants post. We got all the shirts re-printed with the "o" in the correct place, and gave them back to the BYU Spanish Club girl who placed the order, etc. She takes all these 50 shirts to give to her professor, and he doesn't think they look very good! If someone had no idea that there was a mistake in the first place, and looked at the shirt, you can't tell me that they would even notice! STUPID BYU PROFESSOR!

We had to reorder all the shirts and basically re-do the entire job over again. Granted that is probably what I would have done if I were on the other end of the spectrum, but given the fact that I am not, I AM TICKED! Ok, ok, I am settled back down now. It probably just gets me a bit more upset than it normally would for the fact that:

A. The messed up shirts will probably come out of my paycheck and sit in a dusty pile until next summer when my family decides to have another messed up T-Shirt yard sale so that all of the Polynesians in the area come to and try to bargain me down from $1.00! (I have nothing against Polynesians, nor do I intend to make this into a racial thing, it is one true example I have seen while having these yard sales my entire life).

B. They are the ugliest things on the planet anyway, so even if I try to stick them out front for some cheap Joe Schmoe to walk in and buy off a table for $1.00, I still don't get any of my money back!

C. I went through all of the hallucinations of seeing pink elephants instead of orange contruction barrells, and the dizziness, headaches, high feelings FOR NOTHING!

That's all for now. Hey Nem, I will make that shirt for you and send it off as soon as I can. You may have to realize that my "as soon as possible" could take a while, but I will try!

Pink Elephants

To start this post, I must apologize to my friend Nemesis about a comment I made on her blog about being on drugs. Nem, I think I have topped it all!

Yesterday when I arrived at work, I was quickly informed I spelled something wrong on 50 shirts, and we had to find a way to fix it, so that those 50 shirts weren't coming out of my paycheck. The shirt was for the BYU Spanish Club and on one side of the shirt it was supposed to read something like "los cortes de la muerte." (For those of you who speak Spanish, which I don't, will have to forgive me if you understand this next phrase). Instead, I spelled it "los curtes de la muerte." Apparently the latter phrase means something really bad in Spanish--which the customer did not tell to us.

In, order to salvage the shirts, we have a high pressure type squirt bottle that, when filled with lacquer thinner (paint thinner) and squirted onto incidental ink splatters, they are removed. We tried a shirt, just spraying out the "u" and it worked pretty well. So we showed the customer and she was very happy it worked out. I proceeded to start working on the rest of the shirts after we got the ok. After about 10-12 shirts, I started seeing spots, and getting a slight headache from all the fumes, so I took a break from spraying out the shirts. As I was walking toward the dryer to dry the shirts I had finished spraying out, I noticed the embroidery machine needed some attention, so I started to fix the problem and back up the design so it could catch up to the other stations. I started getting dizzy watching it back up, so I had to just put the shirts in the dryer and go sit down for a bit!

Remember that there were 50 shirts and I was only about a fifth of the way done spraying the suckers out. To make a long story, even longer, (just kidding) I inhaled about a gallon's worth of fumes I would imagine by the time I finished that 50th shirt--I was flying higher than ever! My cousin started joking with me about how I will probably be seeing things on the way home all around my car, etc. Right away, as soon as I get onto the freeway from the on ramp in Provo, I see orange construction barrels, which then as I am talking to Jamz on the phone, I tell her I am seeing pink elephants. Obviously, Jamz is quite confused, so I tell her again that these orange construction barrels remind me of pink elephants. Now Jamz is starting to freak out, wondering who I was, and what the aliens did to me when I was abducted--apparently that morning!

I imagine some brain cells were lost in the process, but at least now I have an excuse for why I am the way I AM!

Pudding Fiasco

Let's play a little game shall we?

Question: How big of a mess can one person make using Jello instant pudding?

Answer #1: A normal person wouldn't make one.

Answer #2: Me? About 3 feet tall, 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, and about 4 inches deep.

Ice Sculpture

As some of you already know, we did ice sculpting in class a couple of weeks ago. These ice sculptures were used at the big scholarship dinner on we had last Friday, so they had to be presentable. My partner and I chose to make a lighthouse since the theme for my cold hors d'eurves project was dealing with seafood (you know the whole 'coastal' thing). We searched the internet and found some ideas, knowing full well this whole idea of scupting this structure could go to pot at any given moment. It doesn't help that people like Bossy were telling me that it was going to be so hard to do, and we might want to pick something else. To heck with them! As we already all know the ice sculpture turned out great, so Bossy can just kiss mine!

I was very nervous to attempt this ice sculpting idea for many different reasons. Let me relate my fears to you like this:

1. I am not artistic/creative in the least bit--let alone try to create something normal out of a 30"x40" block of ice! Who do you take me for, Wonder Woman? HARDLY!

2. We had to use chain saws, chisels, and power tools. I struggle every day trying not to burn myself on the ovens or cut myself with my knives, and you want me to pick up something that has the potential of cutting off my foot?! Yeah right! My good friend, Shameonyou21 and her mother, put it perfectly when they found out what I was doing and and what I was using to make this ice sculpture. She said,

"It isn't so much the fear of you having to use the chainsaw and power tools to do this. That is scary enough as it is. But it is the thought of you using these things that scares me the most!"

Ok, so that was pretty much it. Those two fears really encompass all of the other little fears that go along with it. Here are a few closer pics of what we made, even though there were a couple from the blog that had the pictures of the dinner.

The one on the left is the one we got off of the internet, and the other two are just different variations of the one I made with my fellow sculptor! These were taken inside the walk-in freezer at school, so I apologize for the quality of the pictures, some people just don't know how to use a camera. The middle picture has something in front of it, so it looks a little wierd in the corner. As with many things, you would have had to see it in person. It was amazing to see what any amature could do with the right tools!

Exciting Information

So the other day when I decided to wake up [at noon], first words out of my mom's mouth were:

1-Tavi is pregnant
2-Brady is in love

Tavi, for those who don't know, is my sister-in-law. She just found out that she is going to have another baby which will be due around June. Nothing is for certain yet, she still has to go to the doctor. We are all kind of hoping for a girl--not that we care if it happens to be a boy, just hoping for someone who might be able to calm Dennis the Mennace (Easton) down a tad.

As I am sure you are all falling off your chair with disbelief, Brady, my brother the commitment fobe is in love with the very girl who told him she wasn't going to sit around and wait for him any longer. We all really like her--especially because it takes a very strong woman to be able to give Brady the kiss off! After she did that, Mr. "I am lowering my standards a little" decided that he really liked this girl. I guess he finally told her the other day that he loved her, and she returned the sentiment.

This appears to be headed toward marriage, which is good, but then all of the attention is going to then be turned toward me. The focus has been primarily on Brady and how picky he was, and how he was never going to get married. I better hurry and move out and stop working for my father or I am going to get real tired, real fast of the criticism once Brady decides that they are going to get married!