Thursday, February 26, 2009

Welcome!

For three weeks, I have been trying to mess with my room mates' heads. I have been really busy at work so this has been keeping me pretty entertained.

My room mate Kendra has a Welcome sign in our living room made of individual blocks, one for each letter of the word: W-E-L-C-O-M-E

Jessica and I thought it would be really funny to start messing with it, one letter a day, and see who would notice first.

First, we started to straighten them. Kendra had them kind of artistically staggered. Everyday, I straightened out one letter into a row rather than a zig-zag.

No one said anything and within a week, the whole word was straight as an arrow.

So, then I started jumbling the letters around, one letter a day, until I had spelled "welcome" backwards.

Seven letters, seven days.

No one said a word.

Then, I started turning them upside down, one letter a day. I got to the letter "c" (with it spelled backwards) when I found out that everyone had noticed and they were waiting to see what I would do next.

I believe the real joke was on me.

So were they laughing with me or at me?

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Valentine's Day

At BYU we used to call Valentine's Day "Single Adult Awareness Day." Because when are you, or anyone else for that matter, more aware of your marital status? It used to bother me when I was home alone, or babysitting for someone who had plans, on Valentine's Day. I used to try and make plans with friends so I could say I had plans.

And then I started teaching and let me tell you, the glamour has worn off. After a class party you don't want to do anything other than go home with your xerox box of candy and valentines and homemade goodies, and crash. Also, when you're suspicious about which little germy fingers have been on your valentine candy, it takes the fun away from eating it. In fact, I eat very little of my valentine candy. Especially when it has been taped to a valentine card with three pieces of finger-printed scotch tape. But the candy that's wrapping has been overseen by someone responsible like a parent or the FDA, and not tampered with . . . I'll eat that.

(I do, however, read all my valentine's. Those are cute.)

And this year one little girl in my class who bought me flowers with her own allowance money . . . . ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! They are on my dining room table right now.

But back to my plans.

Because our class parties were on Friday the 13th (I love celebrating any holiday at school if it's on a Friday), I actually forgot today was Valentine's Day until a friend texted me. By then I had been laying around reading for a couple of hours. So I took a shower, put on some clean pajamas, pulled on some blankets and watched T.V.

Yep. That's what I did today. I was going to go out but that got canceled, so I didn't even get into real clothes until 5:00 when I wanted my Diet Pepsi.

I have finished two books, watched two made for T.V. movies, and typed this blog. And I am not in the least upset about a lack of plans. And I will tell you why:

Both movies featured Dean Cain. As I watched him I figured, I am not an actor who once played Superman and is now making movies for Lifetime. Things could be worse.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Blessings

I know I just posted yesterday and I encourage you to read it. Mainly because I like to toot my own horn.

I just got finished reading my friend, Sarah's, weekly "Thankful Thursday" blog. Every Thursday she blogs about something she is thankful for. And I love to read them. Who wouldn't? It makes you feel good. I also just finished reading possibly the 100th "25 Random Things about you" list that someone was tagged with. And I got inspired. Rather than 25 random things, I choose to list 25 of my blessings. Of course I have many more. But these are the ones off the top of my head. If you want to be tagged, go ahead.
So here they are, in no particular order (how could you order blessings?):
  1. The Church
  2. The Saviour
  3. my scriptures
  4. My Dad and Mom
  5. My sister Erin (also my best friend)
  6. Katelynn, Brittanie, Mary, Lizzie, & Holly (My nieces)
  7. Orion, Raiden, Jacob, Seth, Draken, Sam, & Max (my nephews)
  8. Autumn and Emily (my favorite cousins and best friends)
  9. Kathi, Scott and Valeri
  10. a good education
  11. a job I love
  12. food to eat
  13. a house
  14. The temple
  15. books, books, books, books, books
  16. weekends
  17. clean laundry
  18. a good night's sleep
  19. a funny joke
  20. my room mates . . . all of them from BYU to now
  21. Sarah, Rebecca, Praveena, Connie and Chris . . . extraordinary teachers and colleagues
  22. my kids
  23. my health . . . that includes my medication and my VNS implant, which keeps me healthy
  24. a good movie with good company
  25. a fresh, cold, fountain, diet Pepsi

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Books

I am an avid reader. I usually finish a book a week. But this week, after going to the bookstore with a gift card and spending more money than I should have, I can't seem to get started! I choose to blame Twilight,

I finished the Twilight series back in December, before school got back from Christmas. Then midterms and a new nephew kept me too busy to start anything new. But I was getting real antsy because that stupid story line kept going through my head.

I do that a lot too. I replay the plot of a book over and over in my head. If the book was fun to read, its a pleasure. If it was a really good book, I will just keep playing right on to that imaginary next scene, that happens after you've finished the book. (You know, "they lived happily ever after" and then they bought a dog and moved to Canada. Or something like that.) I started doing this when I was just a kid and my parents were reading the Little House books to Erin and me. It came in useful when I was a janitor at BYU, vacuuming offices from 4:00 am to 8:00 am. Anything to keep you awake.

And sometimes, I fix things I found wrong with the plot.

In the case of Twilight series, I was busy rewriting entire books. I've already mentioned my feelings about Twilight in my blog cleverly entitled "Twilight."

But still, the dumber the plot the easier you would think it would be to move on, right. Apparently not.

So, Saturday, I bought 5 books. I love bookstores and libraries. I love the smell and the quiet, and all the books! (I love bookstores just a little bit more because they let you keep your books). I can seldom wait the full drive home. There are exactly four lights between the closest bookstore and my apartment. Its the only time I pray for red lights.

I got home and started in.

Sadly, I have started all of them. I have made it to page 5 . . . of all of them. I just can't move on. They can't all be dumb and it wouldn't matter anyway because I've finished dumb books before (Breaking Dawn, for example). I finally came to the conclusion that if I reread the first book in the Twilight series, I would be over this slump. Most of the plot points that irritated me were later on in Breaking Dawn anyway.

I'm on page 5 of Twilight.