My Ninety-eighth Post

So... my awesome vacation. Perhaps this will be boring for you to read, but I'm excited about it and feel like writing. It will be six days and five nights of whirlwind activity... except for the times when we plan on being non-active. If you don't understand who the characters are, you should reference the Cast of Characters.

It will start early on Thursday, May 24th. This is my Dad's birthday, and also the day that Faybe will graduate from high school. I will start my grand adventure here in my apartment here in Provo. I will (hopefully find a kind soul who will) drive to the airport (for gas and compensation?) and board a plane headed towards the city where Martin lives. My plane will be inevitably delayed by at least six hours, and I will arrive at my destination to face a very angry sister who will then ignore me during the long drive from the airport to my parent's house in my Hometown, USA. We will then attend Faybe's graduation ceremony, and present her will all sorts of illegal paraphernalia (you know... tortillas, beach balls, hip flasks) that she can sneak in under her gown to entertain her while she sits through 12,000 rounds of Pomp and Circumstance.

On Friday, May 25th, the next phase of the vacation begins. My three sisters (Faybe, Martin, and Mean Mommy) will all pile into Mean Mommy's very lovely minivan (along with Bil and Sweetheart) and we will ROADTRIP! to a very lovely nearby state. We will arrive at our destination in the late afternoon and check into a reasonable priced (aka cheap) hotel. Faybe, Martin, and myself will baby-sit our cute niece Sweetheart while Mean Mommy and Bil go to see an evening performance of Wicked (you know... the musical?). Upon their return, we will then probably get very rambunctious and act like twelve-year-old girls very late into the night. Oh, I can hardly wait.

On Saturday, May 26th, we will enjoy a free continental breakfast (read: free muffins and juice in the lobby) at our leisure before Faybe, Martin, and I brave some form of public transportation to arrive at the theater to take in a matinee performance of Wicked (you know... the musical?). We will then check out of the hotel and drive back home where we will most likely all crash at my parent's house in a drunken... er... sleep-deprived stupor.

[Random aside: If you're wondering why we didn't just all go to the same show, you should stop being silly and realize that a six-month-old baby isn't exactly welcome at a musical performance, no matter how cute she may be. And leaving her at home with her two older siblings would also have been unwise, as she would probably never speak to her mother again... once she learned to speak, that is.]

On Sunday, May 27th, we will probably be awakened quite early by Princess and Little Boy, who will secretly be disappointed that their parents have returned during the night to whisk them away from Nana's indulgent care. We will probably go to church at some point, and then we will have the official celebration of my Dad's birthday.

Monday, May 28th is Memorial Day, but as far as I can tell, it will be a fairly tame day with general family bonding/togetherness activities. Martin and I will probably leave sometime that evening to drive back to her apartment for a Jurassic Park movie marathon... er... I mean, to get some sleep and recuperate from the weekend's activities.

The next morning we will have to get up quite early, as I need to be to the airport by 6am on Tuesday, May 29th for my flight back to good ole Utah. I will then perhaps find a caring soul waiting for me at the airport to drive me back to Provo, thereby officially ending my vacation.

Now, doesn't that just sound awesome?

I thought so.

My Ninety-seventh Post

Miss Uffish Thought was kind enough to loan me Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, which I have spent a large portion of my day reading. I don't think I'm really going to change any of my behavior, but it has made me feel guiltier about licking the cream cheese off of my fingers after devouring a slice of warm banana nut bread... WITHOUT A FORK AND KNIFE! *gasp!*

My Ninety-sixth Post

So It seems I have forgotten how to blog, neh? Well, never fear, I shall overcome this temporary weekness!

Except... I can never think of anything fun to blog about lately. I wrote this up about a week ago, but I had changed my mind about posting it. Since I am now at a loss for things to blog about, I’ll use it anyway. It will be very exciting, but first you will need to know...

The Cast of Characters (or, a brief description of family members that may or may not play an essential role in my vacation):

• Mean Mommy: My eldest sister. Pfft. This title is of her own choosing, and it does not reflect my opinions about her parenting skills. Married to Bil (my Brother-In-Law… get it?) with three children, Princess (4 yrs), Little Boy (2 yrs), and Sweetheart (6 mo).
• Menace: Formerly Menace to Society, but since he got married last year, he is now just a Menace to me. Married to Sil. Since none of you know them, I feel no guilt in revealing the fact that they are expecting their own little bundle of joy in about, oh… eight months or so.
• Martin: At one time referred to as Sundevil, the Sundevil Apostate, or the Sundevil Who Refused to Come to BYU For Some Reason that None of Us Can Understand. She has since graduated from college and so instead, she will be referred to as Martin.
• Faybe: I gave my little sister this title when we were kids, and it has lasted throughout the years. Faybe is actually her superhero alter ego. (I believe my superhero name was the Super-Duper Waker-Upper… my power was being able to wake up small children in time to catch the bus to school. Not nearly as cool as Faybe.)
• Char: Char is one of my little brothers, and he and I are buds. Best known for naming our cat after himself.
• Runner: My youngest brother, so titled because he likes to run. A lot.

Aaaand... now I don't feel like telling you about my awesome itenerary for the last week of May. I guess you'll just have to check back later.

My Ninety-fifth Post

I decided I want to blog about something, but I didn't have a particular something I wanted to blog about. So I just started free writing. Unfortunately, none of the thoughts that crossed my mind where interesting enough for me to want to expound. Instead, you get one sentence from each idea I almost wrote about:

• I’ve always had a hard time choosing subject lines for emails.
• I want to be above reproach. I want to set the example that others point to as exceptional.
• I have a small crush on you, so it makes the situation just a tad weird.
• So please stop trying to convince me it is okay.
• That’s all well and good in theory, but here’s my question: if she can’t take care of herself, whose responsibility is she?
• When she came home much later, I was still watching the West Wing.
• Several people where I work have decided that they just don’t need to come to work anymore.

The end.

My Ninety-fourth Post

Isn’t today just wonderful?

I’ve been just happy all day. This may be due to some wonderful music I’ve been enjoying this morning. Or maybe it’s left over from last night’s IHOP party (which was incredible). Or maybe it’s that classes are almost over and I’m just a few short days from being free for the summer!

Anyway. I had some plans for the day, but they didn’t work out as well as I wanted. Instead, I will tell you what I would have liked to do.

I would have gotten some ice cream. Vanilla ice cream, in a sugar cone. I would have sat out side in the sun, enjoying the slight breeze, and letting the ice cream get just a little bit melty so that I would have to work hard to keep it from dripping all down my fingers. Then I would have gone on a walk. A long meandering walk. It would have involved grass and bare feet. And maybe somebody to hold my hand. That would have been perfection. But this day is so good, I’m enjoying it even though I didn’t get my ice cream or my walk.

*contented sigh*

Now if only the pool would open…

My Ninety-third Post

I’ve spent the last week or so being very, very stressed about a final paper for my favorite (and most challenging) class from this semester. I sort of finished it last Tuesday, and then I had to redo a lot of stuff with it on Thursday. Sometime next week I’ll probably get really stressed about it again before I finally turn it in to my teacher next Friday.

It’s like the paper that never ends!

Anyway. I’ve been staying up way too late the last couple of nights. And, since I haven’t had a lot of free time for food and such, I’ve been living mainly off a package of Oreos I foolishly bought earlier this week.

I’m pretty sure this is not a good strategy for remaining healthy.

Also, I work two jobs. Job #1 is one where I have set hours when I come in every week. Job #2 is one where they schedule me when they need me. I’m not scheduled very much at job #2 because I told them not to.

This week, I switched several shifts (at job #1) with Drazi, my coworker of some renown. It worked out better for each of us scheduling-wise, so I’m really glad we did it. But. Drazi’s shift is longer than my usual one and a lot more taxing on my energy. It was really fun, but maybe not the best timing what with end of the semester stress.

Also, job #2 has started getting busier with the approach of the end of the semester. So I have been working a lot more than usual there too. I really do like working at job #2, but it has its own accompanying stress factors too.

I worked over 9 ½ hours yesterday. And then I came home and just wanted to go to sleep. So I intended to. But instead I watched Oh Brother, Where Are Thou? And then I was going to go to sleep. But instead L’Afro came over and I sort of tagged along with her and krebscout on several adventuresome projects. At about 3am, I fell asleep on the couch while they where chatting like little old biddies. (I think they were there until almost 5am last night... er... this morning.) Then I woke up at about 7am and staggered back to my room to sleep for another hour or two before waking up and cleaning for cleaning checks.

I think I’m surprisingly happy despite all of this. That may have something to do with the fact that there was lemon cake when I woke up this morning. Mmmm…

P.S. The reason I was going to blog was to talk about time warps and alligator cakes. Since I didn’t actually mention either of those things, I will instead just dedicate this post to them.

For all of those time warps and alligator cakes out there, this one’s for you.

My Ninety-second Post

My sister, Martin, just discovered this blog. I knew eventually somebody from my family would find it. She told me that now she knows about it, she'll be reading it regularly to correct me when I'm wrong about something.

Great.

Anyway, Martin is about 40 years old and lives alone. Well, unless you count her six cats. Then you wouldn't say she lives alone because you would be busy trying to count her six cats. Let me save you some time: there are six of them.

And she thinks the only thing grosser than Rolos are Kit-Kat blizzards. She can’t stand them.

And she's unemployed.

And she hates Christmas.


(Just try to correct that, Martin!)

My Ninety-first Post

Sometimes people do things because they like you and don't want to hurt your feelings. You shouldn't get offended. They do these things because they like you. That's something to celebrate.

Also, sometimes cleaning really can act as a stress reliever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I IMed my sister the other day, and when she didn't respond, I wandered away from my computer. When I came back, I found the following message, apparently sent by my 4-year-old niece, Princess:

* hi eT ES [pRINCESS]
* DO
* you want me to sho you sam beg nambs
* 100 788966775 452909 446464 67677 67778 56661 9687 796887 69687 646 56657476566b6767 556675475 575 2358385476 44646546 576 587r6 5575700 4646 23566767 46511 778800444 68687 646465 46e64 664658 6575 664655 5764657574 475
* do you want me to caont to
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Isn't that amazing? She's FOUR! She's not even supposed to be able to read yet, much less type some-what coherent messages to her aunt about big numbers. Her spelling is definitely non-standard, but if I know the general context of what she's saying, I can definitely understand. For example, from a grocery list:

tarteas = tortillas
joses = juices
aegs = eggs
ches = cheese
apl-sos = apple sauce

Isn't that cool? I have the smartest niece in the whole world. And she's cute too.

My Nintieth Post

This is my second post in one hour. Sheesh.

Good things for today:
*My mom is awesome (see previous post)
*I wore my impractical lipstick and felt great about it.
*I finally got to see my lantern alight and glowing. Mmmm... firelight!
*I figured out why my work was scheduling me for weird times.
*I saw both Tangerine and Quandary while I was at work. Only one of them saw me.
*I had an interesting lunch with a girl I barely know. It was surprisingly un-awkward.

A guy from my ward just knocked on the door and offered to give me and/or my roommates a "really good" hug for 50 cents each.


I considered it.

My Eighty-ninth Post

My mom is in town. Today, she took me to the store, picked up an Easter basket and told me to fill it with whatever I wanted. The following is a list of what ended up inside of said basket:

bread
an kite
5x7 picture frame
Reese’s eggs
hair clips
starburst jellybeans
hair elastics
bubbles
sunscreen
apricots and mangoes tea lights
impractical lipstick
mascara

Some of these things I picked out. Some of them my mom picked out. You should try to guess which is which.

Also, I love my mom.