sissy's baby and favorites

well i just felt the need to write a quick update here, as the taste of delicious triscuits and candy cane hershey's kisses fades away (two delicious things im greatly enjoying lately). im just gonna talk about recent favorites. songs-stolen by dashboard confessional, kings and queens-30 seconds to mars, karma police -radiohead (thanks to my guitar teacher for reminding me of this one) fake empire-the national, straight away-mat kearney, gravity-sara bareilles. i am really really adoring my ugg boots right now. people, they arent overrated. they are truly fabulous and cozy comfy and i live in them and have actually slept in them cuz they are so comfy i forget they are on and then dont want to take them off when i realize im wearing them and worth every penny. contemplating buying a second amazing different pair but i know dana will give me a what for (whatfor? i dont know how to type that or if thats even the saying) if she reads this and i do. oy. my moroccan oil hair stuff. makes my hair feel like an amazing lil slice of heaven when after i use it and dry and straighten it. very cranberry scented oil mixed with holiday pine smell oil from body shop. amazing smells are never overrated. ok thats it for now. now, the baby. ill just start by saying ive never been around someone when they were in labor. and i was just chilling at my sissys on sunday night. and it just so happens that she was in labor. and it was crazy. and im glad it wasnt me. and so i slept at her house cuz mason obviously was asleep when they went to the hospital and he is the cutest little bug when he wakes up happy in the morning. we had a great time and laughed a lot just getting him dressed. anywho, my sis is amazing and my hero and did an amazing job and went and HAD that baby and he is precious and adorable of course and very quiet and i have seen his eyes a couple times and its so sweet and i love him and his little wrinkly neck when he stretches. life is good. thats all for now.

the awesomeness that is anne

its high time i devote a blog post to my friend anne jackman. and i dont even know where to begin or how to do it justice, but she is pretty much the most fantastic friend one could hope for. and i dont mean that in a trite insincere way. dead seriously, she is a wonderful person and i truly am blessed that she is my friend and has been for the past 15 years or so. and here is why, in no particular order. anne doesnt try to be anything she is not. she is straight up, straight forward, what you see is what you get. i never ever have to wonder about meanings behind her words or guess what she is thinking because i know i can count on her to be honest and give it to me straight. its so hard to find that! truly. i cannot tell you how much i value that in a person. and even moreso, the ability to be straight up but not ever rude. when you go to anne's house to stay, you know you will have delicious homemade-ness in many forms. holy crap the girl ASTOUNDS me with her culinary prowess. i am not even kidding you as i type this i am dyiinnnnggg for one of the incredible pumpkin cookies with perfectly brand new freshly whipped frosting that i had when i was down at annes for the marathon this month. holy frik. amazing. see, for me, i find a recipe or two that work and use them over and over. anne has a talent and interest in finding, creating, perfecting new recipes for friends and family on a regular basis and it makes me soooo jealous! she is so supportive of all those around her even when she may not understand what or why they are doing what they are doing. (like when i came down for the marathon and she had her kids make signs and came down to the course and waited and waited for me, or when we called her the morning after a rainy night camped out in a freakin old riverbed by her house and needed a warm comfy place to go) anne has a way with words. she thinks. she forms opinions. she cares about important things and asks opinions and gives hers and does it in such an eloquent way. she is always trying to do something to improve herself or help her adorable little family. she takes care of people. but not in a babying annoying way. she is organized and on the ball, reliable-the girl doesnt know the meaning of the word flakiness which is HUGE to me. she is passionate about so many things, loves what she loves, hates what she hates, and in that sense we are absolutely two peas in a pod. as years pass, i have pondered many times the reasons i keep in touch with certain people and not with others. it really is a lot of effort to keep in touch with people, and you simply cant really stay friends with everyone. but i stay friends with anne. because every single time i go see her or talk to her, i remember how much i value her friendship. we can always pick up and talk as if no time had passed since we have seen each other, even if it has been months or longer. and it is never obligatory. it is absolutely delightful every time because she always has interesting things to say. and fun. the girl is fun and funny and clever and tells stories like no other (i absolutely nominate her as the one friend of mine that needs to have her own column in a magazine). there are sooo many other things i love about the girl and memories and reasons why she is fabulous. this post doesnt do her justice, but suffice it to say that she is an absolute gem and i hope to call her my friend always. because she IS awesome.

marathon #2 ( ie: seriously, did that just happen?)

so i was debating writing a whole blogpost about my running of the st. george marathon on saturday. i had decided no, then i looked at all the books i have about running and different runners' experiences in different races, and how much i enjoy reading about them. and i figure, at some point im gonna forget exactly how it was, so im just gonna go ahead and document it all here, beginning to end, all the crazy, ridiculousness of this last marathon, in vivid detail. i think this is a good thing cuz ive had lots of peeps ask me how the marathon was, and i just say fine, cuz i figure they are just being nice in asking. but some people (other runners) actually might want to know the mile by mile rundown, so whatever your purpose is in reading this, you can skip through and get the gist, or read every blasted word and feel like you were there. so there you go. k ill start off by saying obviously ive been preparing for this for months, and ive done one marathon before, so i knew what i was getting into. and its my own dang fault, my pain, soreness, etc. so i dont expect sympathy either, so ill say that right off the bat as well. im just gonna tell it like it was. so i spent the last week before the marathon asking for suggestions for my perfect marathon playlist, and had put together quite the awesome collection of running music, if i do say so myself. i was super excited to push play and let the tunes carry me through the red rock. theres nothing like hearing a new awesome song when you are in an unfamiliar stretch of road on a cold morning, and i was looking forward to it. (this will become important later). anywho, i drove down to the meeting spot at 3:15 am on saturday morning (they have buses to take you to the start and there were 7000 runners, so i wanted to get on the first bus), boarded the bus in the freezing cold dark, nervous but excited. i had absolutely no idea how the race was going to go, because i hadnt run for over 2 weeks. ive been having major lateral knee pain when i run for the last few months (likely caused by ilio-tibial band stress/tightening/crap-a common runners injury) and the only "cure" they say is to stretch, massage and NOT RUN. i had sorta been ignoring it for a while, figuring it would go away and when it didnt go away but got worse, i decided to just do cross training (biking, stair climbing, elliptical, weight lifting) for the last few weeks to let it rest and take lots of ibuprofen and hope for the best. everyone kept telling me not to do the race, saying it wasnt worth it. well, i simply knew that wasnt an option. i had set my sights on this for so long and worked so hard, i just had to at least attempt it or id always wonder how it would have been. also, i had done a half marathon a month earlier at very near my goal time, and although my knee hurt during the race, i was able to keep going (thanks cindy for helping in the last miles) and finish ok. granted, i couldnt walk well for a few days, but i thought it worth it. and it felt like it got better, so i thought "no permanent damage. im good to go". anywho, i simply couldnt just not do the race. no way. so anywho, we got up to the start line, pitch black, a random stretch of highway outside of st george. the time right before a race is exciting and thrillling, people everywhere, totally different (some peeps doing their 1st, some doing their 101st marathon. elite runners, rookies) but everyone is gonna go the same 26.2 miles on the same road and reach the same finish line. hopefully. so its exciting talking to everyone cuz you all understand certain aspects of the process. anywho, they had fires there to keep us warm, so we sat around for a few hours and chatted. anywho, start time came near, and i went to go drop my clothes off (you put your warm up clothes in a bag and put it on the truck and they take it to the finish for you), which i did-jacket and pants. i started walking away, and as i did, i realized that something was missing. it was my ipod shuffle. my frekin ipod shuffle that i spent forever grooming its playlist and making the perfect mix to get me through the tough miles ahead was safely tucked in my jacket pocket. NOOOOOOOO!!!! this could not be happening, i thought to myself. i ran back to the track and begged for them to let me go look for my bag and get my jacket but they said no, its too late. the runners around me as they realized the seriousness of my predicament begged the clothing drop people to let me go look for my bag. still no. and there i was. music less. with 26.2 miles of endless silent highway ahead of me. oh heres a pic of me at the start, moments before i took of that cursed jacket. see, can you see my poor innocent ipod just sittin there in my pocket?! arg. it took quite a while for this to sink in. i have never ever run a long run without my ipod. and i certainly didnt want to find out now how it would effect me. but i remembered reading a runners world article a few months ago that talked about adjusting to race conditions when they arent what you expect. weather, your body, sports drinks, surroundings, something can always change and "ruin" your race if you let it. so i just decided "well, i guess ill talk to people and just try to enjoy the experience" ha. well anywho, they have "pace groups"-with a pace leader that is very experienced and runs marathons at a certain pace professionally to help people be able to finish at their goal time (its a lot harder to keep a good pace than one might think) so i found the 4hour, 15 minute pace group (about 9:22 minute miles i think) and decided id just go with them and talk to the pace leader to pass the miles. so the gun went off, and 6 minutes later i crossed the start line (when there are that many runners, it takes a while to get there), and we were off. it was pitch black, but i was feeling good. i wasnt cold, and i was enjoying the thrill of starting a race. i could certainly feel the dull pain in my knee, but it was certainly endurable. so i hoped it stayed that way. i ran about the first 11 miles well, right on pace with the group. i talked with "joe" our pace leader, who has paced over 50 marathons. he was awesome and had a lot of great advice and things were going well. i felt like it might be a fantastic race. it just goes to show that you truly never ever know what will happen in a marathon. it is indeed a really really long way. and there are always ups and downs. and sometimes they come and go rather quickly. you see and hear incredibly inspiring things in the course of a marathon. you see the old timers, who have raced like 200 marathons and been to boston tons of times and just keep on trucking along and you have no idea how the are even able to do one mile with their crazy old gait, but they do! its amazing. anywho, i got behind the pace group a bit at the water stop at mile 11, and never caught back up. my whole left leg was aching and cramping, and i simply coudnt bend it to run with my normal gait. so i would start limp running, then my right leg calf suddenly spasmed and my toes started curling up, which i have never ever had happen before. it veered off the the side, and officially freaked out. i had never been in so much pain during a race and had never before wondered if i actually would be able to finish. with my toes curled and muscles spasming i almost fell over when i put my foot down. it was bizarre and im sure looked incredibly strange but entertaining from behind. so i stretched out the muscles that i could and walked as fast as i could. that was about mile 13. and i thought to myself, holy freakin crap. im only half done. and it took me 2 hours to get here. then i did the mental math to figure how long it would take the rest of the way if i walked the whole time. and that freaked me out more. plus, i knew that my friends cindy, anne and her two kids would be waiting for me to pass by. crap. so i hobble/ran/walked/jogged/lurched on. i took the ibuprofen that i had stored in my tank top. the awesome volunteers rubbed ben gay or icy hot or some goo crap on my leg for me at every aid station. (i never thought id be running past a tent with a guy standing there holding out popsicle sticks with big globs of vaseline on them, let alone that i would actually be glad to see him and take and use one of those sticks! chafing is real people. just on my arms though. so that was good). the icy hot wasnt helping as far as i could tell, i still had sharp pain all up and down my leg every time i tried to run, so they ace wrapped some ice on my knee at one station. i tried to run with that for a while, but it just got in the way so i tossed it after a mile. oh, and if youve never raced before, they have photographers all along the route that take pics, which is awesome if you are having a good race, cuz then you can buy those pics later and its cool. but if youre having a pathetic race, its humbling to see them. ya, i already saw some of my pics and well, they capture the essence of it for sure. oy vay. anywho, i continued on, with the lovely encouraging people along the street trying their best to encourage me, telling me not to stop. oh how i wanted to be able to give them something less pathetic to look at. but i just couldnt. ps, if you go cheer on runners, and you are anywhere before about mile 23, do not say "you are almost there!". cuz unless i can see the finish line, it doesnt matter, and it just gives me false hope. so at about mile 16, there was another guy hobbling on the side, and i hobbled past and he said "IT band?" ( i was wearing a strap thing above my knee that most runners would recognize as something you wear when trying to alleviate IT band issues) and i said "yup" and he said "ya , me too. i dont think im gonna make it on this one. im gonna be ridin the meat wagon in. you should come with me. if you are injured, theres no shame in riding the van in." i told him thanks but no thanks. that just was not an option. maybe it was stupid, but i just could not fathom not finishing. so anywho, i continued on, met and chatted with several other injured runners along the way, and i eventually got to the last few miles, in st george. i was overjoyed when i spotted cindy, anne and her kids with their sign. i was just so excited to see familiar faces, and especially loved that anne got so caught up in it that she started running along with me, hollering all kinds of encouraging things. so i pressed on. and i remembered something that joe, the pace leader had said, about finishing strong. he said everyone hurts at mile 20, but if you went out too fast at the beginning you will be dying. and i started wondering, and frankly am still wondering, how much pain does everyone else feel at mile 20? its interesting to think about pain threshold and whatnot, and i really started to wonder if maybe i am just weaker than other runners to not be able to keep pushing my pace when my leg hurt so bad. maybe its true that the real good ones are just the ones that can endure the most pain. well, ill never know. all i know was, i pushed as hard as i could. it was a horridly heinous physical and mental battle. and i came in at 5 hours 9 minutes, about 12 minutes slower than my first marathon. but now i know that i can go for that long without music. oh ill throw in a pic of me and my radically huge blister, which i didnt really feel much and i cant believe it didnt pop. gross i know. and right now as i sit and type this, 2 days later, my legs are indeed incredibly sore, and my knee is still horrificly painful when i change positions or try to walk. so im not sure what that means. i wasnt sore at all after my first. im hopin with ice and rest from running for a while, itll clear right up and i can run the half marathon that im registered for on halloween. so, when i was out on the course, i swore to myself that i would not do another full marathon. i just kept telling myself that bodies are simply not meant to do that. especially my body. im not a naturally talented runner. i have to really push, even to be a slow runner. and when i train for marathons, things just seem to not go as planned. so either, my training plans are bad, or my body just cant tolerate it. so i swore, no more fulls. just halfs. and cross training. cuz i enjoy that and it doesnt injure me. but now, of course, im just wondering. wondering if i did something different, tweaked things, took a different approach, healed my knee, if i could do the marathon the way i want to. or will it always end up this way? hmmmmm. so thats what im pondering. im sure this all seems insane to some of you, but i cant explain it. i just enjoy it. im addicted to running and to races. no i dont enjoy the pain and definitely not every run is a good one. but its totally awesome enough of the time to make me keep coming back for more. weird.

moved slash new car too

hey all. ive been gone a while. i realize this. i moved to salt lake city. im in the cutest little apartment ever in the avenues. there are no white walls which makes me very very happy. and its fantastic and tiny but lots of space in just the right places (ie my bathroom countertop). i adore it. im not gonna talk about leaving vancouver and how sucky and hard it was cuz theres no point in that. just know it was sucky and very very hard to pack up my life and actually drive away. but life in slc has been great so far. i accepted a job with a rehab company and will be working at mainly the VA nursing home and sometimes hospital and some other facilities. ive been hangin with dana and dan a ton (they claim they arent sick of me ...but i have my doubts. ) dana has fed me about 70% of the meals ive eaten since arriving in utah. bless her heart. really and truly. shes freakin pregnant and taking care of her child and cooking and im napping on her couch. its good times. anywho, my ward is huge. i walk to church in under 2 minutes. oh, but the stake center is a good 10 minute walk. i dont feel the need to say much more right now and this is quite the boring post. im even bored writing it. usually i entertain myself at least a little bit. ok, and i also bought a gorgeous new fantastic car that has taught me that all those years owning a cheapie car (which i loved dearly, dont get me wrong. it was very very good to me) really help me appreciate a nice vehicle ohhhh soooo much. oh my ..the leather. the beautiful nice smooth leather that doesnt absorb my sweaty stink when i get in after working out. and the amazing bose system, and controls on the steering wheel, and six cd changer that actually plays burned cds, and being able to unlock it while im walking to it, and the beautiful sunroof, and a cigarette lighter that doesnt blow the stereo fuse (yes, that happened all the time in the mazda. well, until i stopped pushing in the cigarette lighter). and THE V6! sweet mother it is divine!!!! so, ya. its been fun. and i have free cable in my apartment and watched iron chef america yesterday and i hate the host but i love watching them concoct crazy a dishes. oh and heres a pic of francisco. he loves his new home on my dash.

volcano

so, ive always loved volcanoes. well, geology in general is totally fascinating (its one of three things i would major in/do as a career if i didnt love and was established in my current career. the other two being exercise physiology and hair). i even always wanted to live close enough that i could go to mt st helens when i found out about it (wow, and here i am. that reminds me i need to go again before i leave). so anywho, going to crater lake oregon has been on my to do list for a while. and well, time is running short here and i decided that was one thing i really didnt want to miss before i left (much less likely ill make it out there once i move to utah) so a friend and i decided last week that we were gonna make it happen this last weekend. and we did. but i really want to not forget about the experience, so here goes people. it might be a longy (this post). and i mean really really longy. well, we took off saturday morning after our 5 k race in ridgefield, wa (which was fantastic, i won a raffle and got a rad hat and a little band thing to clip my race numbers into which im so nerdily excited about cuz i hate pinning them. ive always wanted one but couldnt bring myself to actually buy one. ps, people, if you enter races with lots of slow people, its way easier to win awards. last week i won my age group in a 10k race, then at this 5 k i took 2nd in my age group and 6th overall woman! so i got a cool red ribbon, which hasnt happened since field day in elementary school. super awesome! ). the drive down was great, uneventful, good conversation, good tunes. we got to the first lookout of the lake and pulled in and WOW! seriously breathtaking. its a super intense color of blue because of the depth and purity of the lake and its just immense and strikingly steep. so we chilled and absorbed for a while, then decided we best get moving on to get camp set up and whatnot. so we jump in the car, giddy and ready to go. i turn the key, and something happens that has never in my life happened. nothing. i turned the key and there was absolutely nothing happenin. not a sound, not a click, not a blasted thing. i pushed the clutch in, turned the steering wheel, jiggled myself around a little just for good measure, and tried again. about 28 more agains actually. nothing. nothing. nothing. kami (my awesome travel buddy) and i look at each other with that same unmistakeable facial expression. the one that says "frik. frikking frik. what do we do now?!?!" so we get out and pop the hood and pretend to look at it, but mostly to attract some passerby that might be a car genius and super eager to demonstrate his skills to strangers. and to look pathetic. no takers. so we wander over to the closest man, and this is how that conversation goes: Kami: "hi, excuse me, do you happen to know anything about cars? " Man: "nope." ...............awkward pause..... Kami: "...cuz the thing is, our car wont start and we were hoping you might be able to help us out". ya. it was awesome. so he and his wife did meander over and look at the engine and confirm that, yes, he does not know a thing about cars. but luckily by now, our ploy had worked and some young hippy rebel types overheard us and wandered over as well. well, they discovered that i apparantely had like surpassed the normal amount of corrosion anyone has ever seen on a car battery ever before in the history of car batteries. they couldnt stop talking about how much corrosion there was (it sorta looked like my battery puked, there was all this fluffy blue stuff burbling up out of the "contact" or whatever) so anywho, i luckily found that i had jumper cables in my trunk somehow (im pretty sure that dad insisted on throwing them in there when i moved out here or something. thank GOODNESS!) so we cleaned off what we could of the corrosion, hooked those babies up, and she started right up. yay!! we were good to go. so we headed off to the campground. (we had planned to backpack in off some unknown road and camp in the backcountry, but we were too late to get a permit and well, the car sitch threw a wrench into all our plans) so we got in and registered to camp for two nights at the campground which was 7 miles from the actual crater lake. well, we both held our breath as i turned the car off to try and restart it on its own, just to see if it had been some fluke. and sure enough, when i turned the key, the nothingness returned. BLAST! so we found some nice peeps, they jumped it and went on their merry way. we waited a bit, taking care of some stuff, then i went to back out to go to our campground, and talk about bad timing, i freakin stalled my car that ive had for 6 years! well, that actually happens regularly (my sissy swears i have the most horrid clutch ever, and she says its hard to get used to. so....ya. ), but ya, suck! stuck again! so it was my turn to ask someone to jump it. and there were tons of people and cars around. lots of tourists. from not america. so i slowly made my way to the closest car of young friendly looking tourists. but their door was open and i was sorta blocked and i felt silly and i opened my mouth to say something, but then they werent speaking english so i lost my nerve and just walked away. ya and they totally saw me. ridiculous. but anywho, we found some other nice guys who gave us a jump and i was very careful backing out and we were on our way again! so we went to the campsite, i backed in for easier access when we would have to get jumped when we left. we set up camp, roasted some delicious weenies with pillsbury biscuit dough and enjoyed the tranquility. pretty uneventful night, except i learned that when you just have the marshmallows and not the chocoloate and graham crackers, you can eat lots more marshmallows before getting sick and they actually taste way better. so that was awesome. morning arrived. a glorious sunny perfect for hiking morning. so we planned on hiking up to the lake and hangin out up there then hiking or hitchhiking back to our campground if we were too tired. so we set off on the backcountry path. we had a wonderful time hiking through, beautiful scenery, we even made a snowman (high elevation so lots of patches of snow, which became significant later. oh one of the pics is of me running across the "magic glacier" cuz it was amazing and the mosquitos were so horrific everywhere on the trail except ont this patch of snow, or "glacier" as i liked to call it), we hiked for a mile on the pct (pacific crest trail) which was just lovely. then as we neared what should have been the last couple miles, it got a little trickier finding the path, cuz it was covered in snow in parts and there were several clearings and possible paths. we had seen little blue signs on some trees as we hiked, so we assumed they were trail markers so we kept looking for them. and usually found them. but then we couldnt see them at all. or a trail. but there was a stream bed/ravine to our left and it looked like a ridge of some sort up above us so we just went ahead and hiked on up towards that ridge. i thought for sure we were close to something. i got up to the ridge and looked around...and it was just a clearing. and i saw nothing anywhere near to help us get out. no blue dots, no trail, nothing. and i had a little panic moment of "crap. do i have ID on me? are they gonna find me unconcsious in the middle of this clearing? am i going to die right here?!?!" then kami turned her head to the left and said "oh. theres the road." YAY!! we did it! we freakin bushwacked our way to the lake! (well, the last quarter mile or so. :) so we hiked around and had an absolute blast. then we decided it was time to head out. and decided to try our luck on the road. so we started strolling down with our thumbs sorta carelessly dangling out, not really insistent or desparately sticking out or anything. and we didnt get too far before this very lovely jeep stopped and said "we wish so much we could help but we have kids and no room for you! sorry. " oh. k. but thanks for stopping and getting our hopes up. ya but we walked not far at all before this huge handicapped van stopped and threw open the door and there was a little square of carpet in front of the guy in his big wheelchair. so we hopped on in. i told them what had happened as we drove and they were super stoked about helping us fix our car. they were nice guys. not the most clean or well kempt, but they were our knights in shining armor that night. i went and got a coke from the store (the only thing i retained from our "car fixing" enrichment activity years ago- use coke to clean batteries) and they cleaned off the corrosion, jimmy rigged the battery connection with a screw or something and then told me to fire her up. i thought there was no way itd start on its own just after a cleaning, but it totally did!!! it was amazing and i sure learned my lesson. heres the best part. we thanked them profusely and tried to offer them money, and the guy in the wheelchair (the dad of the crew, who had been hollaring instructions from the van the whole time) yells out "gimme the towel!!"(my roommate has an awesome sham wow! lookalike thing they had been using). thats what he wanted for all their time and effort. a sham wow! (which is a FREAKIN AMAZING thing if i do say so myself). so we gave them the wanna be sham wow, hugged them all, and they were on their way. wow. goooood times. we fire roasted the weanies again (the biscuit dough got dropped in the dirt and pine needles and was beyond washing or picking dirt out) and had a delightful dinner knowing that we would not have to leave the car running everywhere we went the next day, as we had planned. oh we went to an awesome fireside chat at a little ampitheater by the campground by ranger don. he talked about solo hiking the pct and appalachain trail (the night before ranger mike talked about how crater lake was formed which is AMAZING and sooo freakin cool but i cant do it justice on here. go research it). so pleasant and enjoyable, those old park ranger dudes. another fantastic night of delish hot chocolate and marshmallows. next morning i was overjoyed to find that the car continued to start up on its own, and BONUS! the check engine light was off! so we drove around the whole rim of the lake, hiked down to the rocky shore, dipped our feet, slept on the rocks, and just enjoyed the majestic views which are amazing. we headed home and saw a young cute hitchhiker on our way out and we thought "karma. we gotta give this guy a ride" so we did. nice guy. his name was nate. and he harvests pot with his friends when hes not hiking around the country. nice. welcome to oregon. so we dropped nate off at his little town, and had an uneventful but completely enjoyable ride home. so throughout those several days, i did lots of sweating and zero showering and felt like i was well on my way to dreadlocks. but thankfully, i just got my hair done and it survived. no dreads. for now.

ode to my sissy

well, i promised that i would get around to dedicating a post to each of the faithful readers of this blog (well, the ones i know about). and today....its my sissy, dana. cuz she has been an IMMENSE help to me in the last months as ive been deciding about the move and a multitude of other things. doug and marie, if you read this blog, im sorry to dissapoint you if you thought i was gonna write about your cat. i love her too. but she didnt drive me all around and let me use her car to find an apt in salt lake. but shes a funny cat. ok, im getting off track. my sissy. where do i begin. i was reminiscing the other day, as i looked at the mound of clothes on my bed that needed to be put away, on the days when i shared a room with dana. and when mom forced us to clean it, it was an alllll day endeavor. and rarely was totally done. and it reminded me of dana reading from her journal back in the day (when she was like 6 or something), when every other entry started or ended with "i hate natalie! she is so annoying!" or something along those lines. im pretty sure we never would have guessed we would be roommates in college and bff's. seriously, we have spent so much time together talking and analyzing and discussing, she pretty much knows whats going through my head in any situation. and she then uses that information to help me. usually to keep me from doing something totally ridiculous. (and then when i do those ridiculous things cuz i didnt consult her first, i can hear her voice...."oh natalie. ohhhh natalie. sweetie. ") most of my dating behavior she is somehow able to understand and summarize very succinctly so that somehow even i can see whats really happening and it just makes everything ok. i love her for her last motivational words to me as i nervously talked to her the night before i ran my marathon. "Natalie, even big fat Ron finished." (referring to the big dad on the biggest loser that walked a marathon). ya. she can always make me laugh about anything, mostly cuz she knows what i would think about things and she knows that i think im funny, so she just says what she knows i would think. ok, and she is ridiculously funny herself and says things that would only come out of her mouth. my co-workers get to hear all kinds of dana/nat chat cuz i call her about every day at lunch and chat with her just cuz its nice. and again, with the laughter. i need it. i cant tell you how many times shes listened to the same stories/scenarios with different and sometimes the same boys over and over, in minute detail (seriously people, when i tell a story to her, i give every little detail and then i realize that what im saying has nothing to do with anything. i remind myself of that part of win a date with tad hamilton when petey says "i cannot remember a time.....before you started telling that story), and she never acts bored or annoyed (well, but its always productive annoyance), she actually seems to enjoy it. i love that she took care of me when we were roomies and made me burritos when i would come home (with my pants leg ripped up cuz i forgot to peg them before riding my bike) and act all helpless and silly. she still takes care of me, even when i, the big sister, come to visit her and she has an 18 month old and is pregnant. i love that she is excited to get her hands on my money (ha ha ha) when i move so i can be smart and budget as good as she and her hubby. (im dead serious about weekly budget meetings you guys, so dont think im just saying that). she is wise beyond her years and works so hard to make sure her little family is happy and healthy (see her hubbys blog post for more on this. its adorable) i love honk-shoo, wa-ee, and moist coins. she always says she wishes she could spend money on cute clothes and dress nice like me, but then when i come to visit, she always looks absolutely adorable and makes the most out of her very cute wardrobe (ok, that sounded a little condescending. thats not what i meant. what i mean is...im always a little jealous of at least a few of her new clothes items). i love that she toughed it out living in the houseboat with me and the mice for a bit just so we could be together (remember that awesome pic of us on the front porch and you are looking off all artsy like into the distance but you look TICKED! ha ha). i know that was pretty rough. she notices things that people are good at and things they are trying to be good at and she tells them. and she helps me not be annoyed at everybody all the time. haha. its pretty sweet to have 3 amazing sisters, especially when one of them is crazy just like you. sorta.

simple

ive been sitting here for at least a good 2 or so minutes deciding exactly how to describe the couple of weeks since my last post. wow. ill just say i wish id saved my ridonculous post idea cuz i would have had a WHOLE LOTTA ridonculous to add. except, its not really blog appropriate or explanable (perhaps explicable is a better word choice, seeing as how its a real word, but i like explanable better. yes i know, this is hypocritical coming from me, the grammar/pronunciation/word nazi, but its my blog. so i dont care.) but these weeks have truly been an interesting study in humans. and behavior. and motivations. and me. and what i like. and what i cant stand. and how i respond to things. and i dont know how or if this is even related, but im gonna say, i feel like im pretty simple. im made happy by very simple things. my friend once told me that i live a decadent (and yes i absolutely just looked up that spelling on an online dictionary ) lifestyle. i disagree somewhat. some things are important enough to me to spend money on, yes. but they differ from where he spends his cash, so it seems decadent to him. cuz when it comes to food and stuff like that, as you can see from previous posts, im not impressed by gourmet. there are lots of seriously cheap, simple, delicious things. trying out fancy or highly rated new restaurants really doesnt interest me at all. too many flavors at once annoy me (i love eating with you guys dana and dan, but i fear you think i dont appreciate your amazing combos. its not that they arent amazing, im just a simple girl) too many toppings on pizza totally grosses me out (especially a whole lotta meat. ick. plain cheese is just fine with me. or bbq chicken). yes, its nice to have some nice things. some pricey jeans. a real tiffany bracelet. high thread count sheets. those things have been worth every penny to me. but i also once lived in teeny tiny room in a "houseboat" (not really a houseboat. it was a house, but the kitchen had wood paneling everywhere and creaked and felt exactly like a houseboat). i paid $75 a month for the "hotbox" as it was nicknamed. seriously, you walked in and pretty much hit your shins on the bed. well, you would have if i didnt have the bed up on about 6 cinder blocks to fit my stuff underneath. and i had a pole against the wall on which to hang my clothes. i paid less to live there for an entire semester of school than i paid for my first month of rent in my apt when i moved to vancouver. but it was college. thats what you do. anywho, my point is.....um. crap... i think my point was that sometimes i feel like gettin by in a crap house paying next to nothing, and sometimes i feel like shellin out a bit more cash to live alone in a way nice place. sometimes i feel like buying the best running tights that exist with all kinds of science and technology behind them, and sometimes i feel like buying cheap shorts. and as i type this it seems to contradict my feeling that i am overall pretty simple. but it doesnt. cuz i said so. and as previously mentioned, this is my blog so what i say goes. but, as i think on this idea of simplicity, maybe thats why honesty is such a big deal to me. its straightforward, its simple, and you dont have to worry about keeping different stories straight for what you have told different people and whatnot. im sure there are many that would argue that honesty is anything but simple because what if that honesty hurts peoples feelings and yada yada yada. but for me, its pretty simple.

ridonculous

so my friend told me the other day that ridonculous is a real word. its like when ridiculousness is boundless. more emphatic. im a big fan of that cuz i like precise words that really emphasize my meaning and i use the word ridiculous a lot so its nice to have options when things really really blow my mind. like today. when i heard something from someone that i hardly knew, that he had heard from someone that i knew even less than him. and that something that i heard was about me and decisions in my life. and it was off. wayyyyyyy off. and im just thinking to myself "wow. seriously!? people really sit around making up things about other people's lives?" ya. apparantely so. and ill just say, im not gonna whine about "i hate all the silly gossip in the singles ward. you hang out with someone once, and everyone thinks you are engaged " (very nasaly whiny voice is necessary when reading that, so if you didnt do that in your head the first time you read it, well go back and read it again, the right way darn it!!) yes, people, that gossip is gonna happen. it just is. i get it. cuz we are all trying to figure out who is dating/who is into who so we know who not to flirt with and whatnot. it effects us in a way. not that its right to do that. but i get it. but this, out of nowhere, purely about me and my life and personal relationships!? wow. its rather ridonculous. here are some other ridonculous things:

• the semi truck that i saw crumpled and bent and stuck in a little tunnel. wow. really dude? you dont know where your truck will fit and where it will not? huh.
  
• swine flu coverage
• ok the media in general.
  
• people thinking the media is reliable
• me. im ridonculous a lot of the time. and im not afraid to admit it. i eat one of 3 meals for lunch every single day, almost without exception (my turkey/pepperjack/spinach wrap, carrots, grapefruit, or chicken noodle soup, carrots, grapefruit, (maybe wheat thins too), or white albacore tuna with cranberries stuffed in the halves of a bell pepper, carrots, grapefruit, and wheat thins. ok, and now and again, if i feel i simply must go out, i get the steak salad from chipotle.
• im gonna write more ridonculous things later. im tired now. feel free to add your own. i didnt even go into the ridonculous things that some crappy drivers do, cuz that will get me worked up and annoyed. and i want to sleep happy.
  

the trainer

k. so you are all asking yourselves "why the crap did natalie post pictures of a hot shirtless guy on her blog. shouldnt she be through that whole "posting pictures of hot guys" phase by now?". well, yes. i should be. but as i said, i am endeavoring to capture the absurdity and awkwardness that IS me working out with my personal trainer, Taylor. (ever since i mentioned it in my last post, ive been laughing to myself about it so i need to just do it already. plus, since i will only be working with him for like 2 more months (ack! it makes me wanna puke just thinking about that, cuz he is the best trainer ever, gonna be very hard to replace), i gotta get some of this down in print, lest i forget about it when i leave...) so anywho, thats him. and yes, when i saw him i thought the same thing you all did.. "what the?! thats gonna suck to do really ridiculous things and be sweaty and gross all the time with this guy watching my every move. " so ill just go ahead and say, to put your minds at ease, its really not so bad. k, taylor happens to be really good at what he does, and from the first second we started training, he has been amazing and totally professional and for some reason, he just makes you feel pretty ok and not dumb about what he is making you do. but man, i can only imagine what its like watching me sometimes, and im truly impressed he doesnt burst out laughing on a regular basis. i guess those are the kinds of things they teach you at trainer school. and im gonna go ahead and say it, im pretty dang impressed with myself that i still, to this day, have never farted in front of him. i mean, thats got to be a record, right? maybe im way off on this, but training seems to be the "perfect storm" when it comes to potential for that particular humiliating moment: the flexing, moving, holding, pushing, sometimes early in the morning with weirdness in my stomach. ya ive been waiting for the day when it just happened. so far so good. ya, ill have to ask him about his percentage of clients that can claim that distinction. anywho, i can remember so vividly one of our first sessions when i was doing a "plank" on the mat (you hold yourself parallel to the ground, on your toes and forearms, trying to hold yourself steady and pretend like you dont know that everyone on the cardio equipment behind you is pretending to look at the tv but they are really watching your clinching/quivering glutes and arms as you try to hold yourself in this wholey unnatural position). taylor was sitting next to me, calm as a warm summer morning, no cares in the world, counting down ever so slowly. ok, let me pause here to say people, i am a major sweater. seriously. i literally ring out my ponytail in the sink when i get done working out. my roommate has witnessed it many times. so im there clinching and sweating and i feel a huge drop of sweat...sliding....ever so quietly and annoyingly down my forehead...to my nose, and off the end. (a lot like that scene in mission impossible, when tom cruise is suspended above the computer and the drop of sweat rolls off and he catches it in his hand. only it somehow wasnt as awesome when it happened to me) it splashed down on the mat, i swear it was so freakin loud and i felt like it was going to splash onto the person next to me. and i was there, clinching, flexing and helpless. taylor continued to count down....ever...so slowly. all he said, was "it happens" when i glanced up at him, with a horrified look on my face. and thus it began.

so we went through several months of training much like this, him pushing me and helping me do things that i had never in my life conceived of, let alone imagined myself being able to do. but when you've got someone there watching you, and you know they arent going ANYWHERE until you do what they say, well, its pretty motivating. at some points, you forget that you are actually paying this person to stare at you and not leave you for one second, but stay with you and make you do all the most uncomfortable and annoying positions/movements imagineable. it really wasnt so bad at first, cuz i couldnt do much, and we mostly just worked out on machines and stuff. and then, as i started to get fitter, well that brought a whole new awesome world of humiliation. a world of plyometrics and swiss balls. wow. ok so swiss balls are awesome and ya, great for "core" work. cuz whatever you do on it, you have to work harder to stabilize and whatnot. but, being a ball, it does have a tendency to move around, and yes, to roll. and combined with my lack of coordination and strength, well, hilarity ensues. so i dont know what made taylor think that i could do a push up on a swiss ball (maybe the fact that all his old lady clients can do it. i dont know. ) but at first he held it and i tried, gosh i tried my little heart out to go down but i just kept losing my balance and flopping around. so finally, hes just like "just go down and bounce off it and come up". ya. ok, i want you all to stop now. and picture this people. picture yourself. or me, either way. in push up position, hands on a big huge ball. so i try to go down and bounce off it, and sure enough i managed to flop down and bounce some body part off of some part of the ball, and then it all just happened so fast and i lost control and, well, i didnt come back up. i am fairly certain i ended up in a pile on the sweaty mat with the ball rolling away. it may or may not have hit some innocent people warming up next to me.

so time went on, and i learned and got stronger, and didnt hit myself in the face or head with the weights/bars as often. wait, i still do that pretty regularly. anywho, i think it was when i started running and training for a half marathon when plyometrics were introduced. so, plyometrics are "fast twitch" muscle exercises. they include lots of "exploding" (when taylor says that, it means, like being powerful and strong when i jump, not the gastrointenstinal type of exploding that one might associate with this type of exercise. although.....:)), jumping, quick movements, obstacles, steps, etc. IE: things that look super awesome and cool when athletic people like Taylor do them, and incredibly ridiculous awkward and sympathy-inducing when folks such as myself attempt them. it just feels so funny when you jump with no real purpose in it, like, you are not jumping over a log or a puddle. you are just jumping. up and down and over and across. your hands and arms sometimes get confused about what they should do and where they should go. (ok, mine do anyway). so taylor had me bounding through the gym, and squat leaping and what not. and it wasnt toooo bad. then, came the day. the day for which the girls were so ill prepared. k i will not go into details here, for the sake of the male readers of this blog. but ill just say, not all jumping is created equal. there are certain ways to jump that make it, ummm shall we say, a little more annoying when you are a girl. a girl...with not small at all sized girls. (as my sweet niece Lexi has always called them "chesties"). to make matters worse, i happened to be wearing stretchier pants with a not super secure wasteband, and as i did these intense, fast twitch, explosive jumps, well, my plants kept slipping down (just enough to be annoying cuz, due to the type of jump, i couldnt use my hands to pull them up. luckily they never slipped down quite enough to make this experience extra horrifying) even taylor's professional calmness could not overcome the awkwardness of this one.

however, it turns out personal training is super good for your health, and CLOSE TO as ridiculously entertaining as my dating life. im super glad i discovered this. really though, in the end, i absolutely recommend the personal training thing, in case you are wondering. it adds a whole new dimension to working out, and its amazing what you can actually do when someone else tells you that you can. plus its good to have someone guaranteed to be there to witness the funny awkward ridiculousness that is bound to happen. cuz i hate it when i have a really good fall or something and theres no one around to laugh about how funny it looked. its a total waste.

computer clock

so ever since i moved here to the couv, my clock on my laptop has been wrong. its on utah/idaho time. and i went in and corrected it lots of times. but it never stays. it always goes back to utah idaho time (mountain standard time, as it were?). so i just stopped trying to fix it and i just know when i check it to subtract an hour. its like my laptop has been fighting me living in washington or somethine. so it wins. my clock will be right again. ya, its lookin like ill be moving to good ol SLC in late july-ish. im working out the details to transfer for work cuz that would be freaking rad. so things are gettin worked out. but ya, its time. and im super excited. i hope you utah dwellers werent really offended at the grass post. you guys arent brown grass. you are the pretty beautiful flowers in the grass. and, in my defense, i did say that it just LOOKS brown from over here, but i know itll be green and beautiful when i get there. im super stoked to be closer to family and friends i havent seen much lately. so thats the dealio folks. im not gonna go into how/why i made the decision or all the things im going to miss cuz i just dont wanna go into that yet. but its happenin. and heres some other noteworthy happenings from my weekend:

• i went to a crazy interesting hip/hop show which actually didnt feel at all like a hip hop show cuz there was a definite lack of afroes and lots of white people, there was a tuba, and a full band, and there was def more of a "jam band" feel to it. they are called "roots". but i did have a fascinating conversation with a very attractive black guy outside the venue as i waited for my buddy. first time ive heard a sorta hick-ish accent from a black guy. hes from LA but went to school in montana. good times.
• i got super crappy plantar fasciitis ouchiness on my long run saturday morning and it has me really really worried, what with my marathon a mere 7 weeks away. curses.
• i watched a totally freakin awesome cover of a great bob dylan tune at our ward variety show (joel feik rocked the harmonica like nobodys business and alyssa held it steady with the piano)
• i leg wrestled a bunch of girls
• i got a pie right in my face for the first time ever. im glad i dont have to go my whole life wondering what thatd be like. turns out, its pretty difficult to see immediately after receiving the pie in the face.
  
• i had it confirmed by two different girls with awesome hair that i really need to master the wrapping the hair AROUND the curling iron thing to have really great curls. the ends are the key. dont curl the ends, thats what makes it modern. thanks jessica.
• i had a fabulous easter sunday, basket, bunny, jelly beans included (thanks roommate!!!) and a wonderfully delicioius easter dinner with good ol friends and cute chubby babies that i couldnt stop pinching the cheeks of.
• i reconfirmed my complete and absolute love/obsession with my new perfume Chloe. wow. i cant stop smelling myself. so delicious. and doesnt give me a headache. which is pretty amazing.
  
• ok and this wasnt on the weekend, it was today, but i did master...well....got closer to being able to do the wrapping the hair around the curling iron curl thing. it was fun. and looked part awesome, part bizarre. but i dug it. makes me able to keep growing my hair.
• ok, and also today, i reminisced with my trainer about all the awkward things he has made me/seen me do in the last year and a half. mostly when he made me do a pushup on the swiss ball. ....ok and most of the plyometrics we do. k i need to dedicate a whole post to him and our experiences soon.

k i gotta go night night now.

grass

the grass isnt always greener on the other side of the fence. sometimes its pretty brown actually. maybe your grass is really actually a very awesome shade of green. and you are content and happy with it. but you have to go over to the brown grass anyway. not because of the grass, but for other reasons. but then when you get there, maybe you will find that the grass that looked pretty brown from far away is really actually greener than you thought. and then you love it. and you might miss your other green grass, but guess what? all you gotta do is water that browner grass and it gets nice and green. and then maybe you might find a husband hidden in it. haha. jk. gosh i didnt set out to be all metaphorical and cryptic tonight, but i havent the time to be anything else. and i dont feel like spewing the actual thoughts in my head right now. cuz my head is throbbing cuz i laid out in the sun a bit today and sweat a lot and am probably dehydrated. so when im dehydrated, i want to talk about grass. i adore the smell of fresh cut grass.

inner monologue

is it just me, or does anyone else find the concept of our inner monologue fascinating? dont you ever wish you could listen in on other peoples inner monologues and see how closely it matches your own? what if you are WAY off and have an inner monologue that is way weirder than anyone else. ok, given the fact that we are all human here on the same planet, thats probably quite an unlikely scenario. i dont want to read minds. not at all. i think it would drive me nuts and frighten me im pretty sure. but it would just be interesting to get a snippet. does your inner monologue ever make you laugh? not because you remembered something funny, but because of the way your brain worded something that you thought? or just the fact that you had a certain thought out of nowhere? i sometimes work with people that have little to zero language ability. theyve had strokes, and they either cant express anything, or it comes out completely wrong, or they cant understand anything, or only very simple things, or any combination of those scenarios. and i often wonder what is going on with their inner monologue. cuz science tells me one thing... but, really? i just dont know.

a fine line... need your thoughts, people...

k folks, there are only a few loyal readers to this blog, but the majority of you are happily married people that i respect and i admire your relationships. yes, it appears ive departed from my originally intended "superficial blog"-ness. but whatever. its on my mind. and ya, sometimes its pointless and silly to talk and discuss too much about relationships and dating and "right-ness", and im sure when i meet "the right one" as everyone calls him, this will all be a moo point (yes thats right, it will be a cow's opinion :), but i just wanna throw this out and see what ya'll think. so, my recent dating intrigues have caused me to think. and i had a few epiphanies on my saturday morning run. ill share one. so it seems that very often, there is a very fine line between completely right for you and totally wrong for you. sounds absurd, but think about it. and, as my wise sis said (i think? didnt you say this part dana, or was it me? well, whatever) someone said that this rightness or wrongness can largely depend on what you choose to put up with or ignore. i have been interested in guys and trying to get to know them and overlooking some things that i wasnt too keen on cuz thats what we are supposed to do, right? cuz no one is perfect. so i focused on the good. but then as soon as its not working out or we break it off or just, whatever, well...suddenly those negative things combine and assault me with all their force and i get really and truly completely annoyed and disgusted with these guys. i know i know, sounds like bitterness because the relationship didnt work out. no. its not like an "i hate you cuz im all scorned and whatnot" kind of thing. i definitely dont hate them. i just am very aggrivated and have no desire to spend time with them. and just a few days ago i was totally into getting to know them and enjoying every moment with them. when considering them and some aspects of their personalities, id think, well thats very opposite of me, but that could be just what i need to even me out or make me better or whatever. like i said, i know yall are gonna say im overthinking this and when i find the guy, i wont have to consider all this crap. but i really dont know about that. im 29 people. ive dated a lot of different guys. and i just dont know if itll fall into place easily for me. anywho, so if you feel like giving me some help or your thoughts on this one, id love to hear/read it. i feel like this is a downer blog. this isnt a downer people, i just find it a fascinating concept. nothing really fun or blog worthy has happened lately other than dating haps/mishaps, so this is all i got folks. oh, and i bought an amazing state of the art GPS watch thing to track my pace and distance and all kinds of crap while running. and then i did a run with it and, well, it was just overkill for what i needed. and the one function i really needed to be accurate (pace) was not really. so it didnt do me a ton of good. so i took it back. which is not a very natalie thing to do. but i feel much better since i did. ill stick with my awesome, cheaper sports watch/heart rate moniter. its served me very well. sometimes, we really dont need new things that we really want to need. that goes for the google phone too. i want it bad. but im stickin with my dash. it loves me and i love it. the new down alternative pillows i bought at costco, however, have been a 100% awesome buy that i am grateful for every time i lay my head down.

why i love stina and shawn

i love old friends. friends that can pop in whenever they are in town and its awesome from the first second you see their faces until you hug them goodbye. you enjoy every catching up moment and it feels like they never left. i love it. stina and shawn are two such friends. and maybe now that im dedicating a whole post to them, they will have the guts to comment on here and not be blog stalkers :). heres why i love these people. i know i can count on shawn to wear flip flops, cargo shorts, and his sweatshirt , regardless of the weather. and i can count on stina to wear something cute and stylish and to have rad, unique hair that i would not like on ANYONE else but her. i know i can count on them to be non traditional, but not in a "look at how not traditional we are" kind of way, but just in a regular, this is who we are and what we do, cuz its what we want to do, take it or leave it kind of way. i love that they didnt stand up in the clark ward when their engagement was announced, even under pressure from the pulpit. i love that stina is amazing and made me feel like maybe i actually could give birth to my kids with no epidural (yes, all my sisters and sisters in law, i know you are laughing hard right now). i love that they make delicious food from natural ingredients and that stina uses not one, not two, but MULTIPLE cookbooks already. i still think about the amazing pizza you made me on a regular basis, stina. i love the memories of when they were here and how i was third wheeling it with them on their first sorta date thingy. i also love thinking about how delicious those amazing cupcakes were at their reception. i love people that are easy to hang out with and love. they are chill, relaxed, but extremely entertaining. shawn is the most mellow human ever born and stina definitely has the sass and energy to balance him out perfectly. its so easy to laugh and have fun with shawn and stina. its a given. and their 2 month old adorable baby boy, ira, is definitely a way cuter than average 2 month old. i wasnt just saying that you guys. he really is adorable. which is a relief because we all hate lying to the parents of ugly babies. so keep the cute ones coming, you two, cuz i dont ever want to have to lie to you! ok, well i have to go now. oh and to anyone other dear friends who read this, i love you too, and your day will come, with your very own blog post. today is just a very thankful for stina and shawn day.

the year thus far

so my year started out awesome. new years parties in the past have always been a let down. nothing particularly crappy happens, ive even gotten some rad random new years kisses, been in times square in nyc (did you know they freakin lock you in there from like 5 pm on, and you cant leave!? except i shmoozed a cop i think to get out to go to the bathroom at a bar then we decided it wasnt worth it and we wandered around nyc talking to random people for a while and then watched the ball drop on tv from our hotel in queens. it was hilarious. and satisfying. but thats not the topic of this blog, crap, i went off on a tangent) and whatnot. for some reason i always build new years up in my head every single year and then its just not great. so i decide to forego the usual young single adult dance and try something new. so i convinced a few other crazies to do a midnight 5k fun run (the "first run") in downtown portland. well, it was cold and rainy, but awesome. we ran along the river at night, protected by cops, which doesnt happen too often, so i have to take advantage of any midnight sponsored runs cuz i love night running. no new years kiss, but whatever. we then went to an after party and had amazing fondue and i played some old school contra on the nintendo. (i really and truly just cant get into the wii thing. sorry people, but i think you are all crazy for liking it so much. i just ...dont....see...it. the fun of it i mean. man im gonna get burned at the stake for saying this crap) anywho, good ol super contra, thats the way video games aught to be- just lazering big aliens with horrid graphics so you cant actually like see a realistic disgusting violent bloody scene like other games. man, contra really just brings back the memories of sleepovers back in the day, at rebecca's, with the hide-a-bed and butter mints. anywho, so that was new years. and although ive complained that its ridiculous that they hired another speech therapist at my facility, cuz they can hardly keep ME busy, it is sorta nice to just make the newbie work all the holidays. she doesnt mind, and hey i covered them myself for like 3 years so its time. anywho, so me and roommate just hung out most of the day. watched "elizabethtown" twice, our new years custom. what a fantastic movie. pure magic i tell ya. anywho, since that illustrious beginning to the year, the time has flown fairly uneventfully. i didnt sit down and write any resolutions. cuz they are silly and people like almost plan to break them. my goal making is ongoing. and i already have some big ones planned for the year, so i felt it unnecessary to sit down and write out some others just to say i did. my favorite gay nurse bff at work came up to me and asked "is your new years resolution the same as mine?" and i said "to get a boyfriend?" and he said "yup". but then i corrected him, actually mine is more along the lines of married and pregnant. in that order. and we chuckled. we chuckled a lot. but its true. i mean, its obviously not really my resolution, but its certainly what id love to happen this year. k not pregnant quite yet, but the marriage thing, well that wouldnt be so bad. i love my job people. im very lucky ive gotten to do all i have. but people at work (those that havent talked to me for more than a few minutes) assume that if you are an adult woman in a professional position, and you come across as confident and good at what you do, that you are a feminazi and that you curse men and marriage. no. no not me. my priority is marriage and family people, in case any of you were wondering. and then everyone asks, "well then why the crap are you so picky and why arent you married yet?" well people, because i havent found the guy im supposed to marry yet, thats why. its pretty simple. anywho, life is great. there has already been a lot of good music in my life in 2009. and i got to eat at fatty pattys with my roommate and her parents and i got to chip tile off our wall which was way cool. roommate got a little crazy when she was snowed in and started remodeling the kitchen. aaaahhhh roommate. i havent cut my hair yet. i resorted to watching videos of people chopping their hair on youtube (dont worry, i took breaks in between haircuts to watch "models falling down" videos as well.) ya, people, say it. im obsessed. i know it. but for the time being, im still growing it out. just for the h of it. and to see how creative i can be with my styles. i bought some amazing new boots that are crocheted with big buttons on the side and up to my knees. they are simply incredible. and worth the wait (thanks dana and dan for being my financial advisors). ok i gotta go clean now.