Monday Night Confessions

 

• I can’t eat food at home with a big fork.  I have to use the smaller forks.  When I go out to eat I am fine with the big ones but not at home.  I am a freak.
• Today for breakfast I was running late (there’s a big surprise) so I ate bbq potato chips.  Delicious and nutritious I’m sure. 
• I have been frantically reading the past few days.  I have a 3 day training this week that I am going to and I was supposed to be all done reading all 6 books.  I am done with 1.25 so far.  Wish me luck reading the rest before Wednesday morning at 8:30!!
• I am staying over in a hotel for the training and I won’t have Internet in my room (it costs like $14 extra  a night) and I think I might climb the walls with no Internet for that long.  I have serious addiction issues to the Internet and I don’t remember my life before it came along.  Honestly what did I do all the time without the Internet? 
• I hate staying in a hotel without John.  I get so bloody scared out of my mind and I don’t sleep good.  I hear things and wig myself out.
• I do love having per diem money to spend.  I get $44 a day for food and since I can’t eat $44 worth of food everyday that means spending money.  I love spending money, but with my luck it will snow the whole time and I won’t want to go out shopping.  Stupid snow anyway. 

Happy Monday Everyone!

High School Memories

Today I was reading a headline about how the space shuttle returned to earth after their last attempt had been scrubbed and I started laughing thinking about what that meant in high school.  Why on earth we called things what we did I have no idea.  I tried using some of these phrases when I moved to college and people looked at me like I was crazy.  Here are a few of my favorites phrases and memories from high school that I can remember.  If I leave anything out let me know. 

• Skode:  A Skode was a loser, a nasty person, or someone you just didn’t like.  If they were really nasty you called them skodie, “Oh sick he is so skodie!” 
• Scrubbing:  To scrub meant to make out.  Here was a typical conversation, “did you hear that Betty totally scrubbed on Tom last night in his truck up the canyon?”  No one ever asked if you made out with someone, they asked if you had scrubbed with them yet.  Weird.  What a weird, weird term for this.
• Got On:  This also meant made out, here is how it is used, “Did you hear that Betty totally got on Tom last night?”  Mostly it was used in a derogatory gossipy sort of way.  If you found out that someone got on someone else it usually meant scandal.
• Stoner:  These were the kids who hung out in the very back parking lot of the Annex playing hackie sack on breaks and during lunch.  Nothing like stereotyping people you know nothing about. 
• Cowboys:  The Cowboys would hang out in front of the heaters in the front entry way of the high school.  They were usually the only ones with real trucks complete with gun racks full of guns that back in the day were perfectly acceptable to drive on school property. 
• Cruising Main:  Friday and Saturday nights back in the day when people used to cruise main, it was a happening place.  At the end of the school week people would ask if you were going to cruise and if so they would see you there.  The turnaround used to be the old car wash and the Homestead with the 7-11, and the Hi-Way Market as meeting spots in the middle for everyone to park their cars, look cool and blare their music for all to hear.   
• Asking Out:  Do people ask each other out anymore?  I love that in high school if someone liked you and you liked them then your friends would broker the deal for you to “go out”.  “Tom totally likes you and wants to know if you want to go out with him” his friends would tell you and your friends.  After some careful deliberation you and your friends would decide if this was a wise choice or not and relay the answer back.  If the deal was struck you were then someone’s girlfriend many times without saying 2 words to your new boyfriend.  This is pretty much how I started dating my very first boyfriend.  Oh the good ol’ days!
• School Store:  How many people can say that their high school didn’t have a real cafeteriato eat in?  Not one time did I ever eat at Afton Elementary, I usually ate at the school store.  I loved their pizza pockets, cheese burgers, and deep fat fried burritos with a little cup of real sour cream to dip it in.  Theircandy supply was endless and they always stayed right on top of the latest and greatest candy trends.  We would always walk over there first thing in the morning to buy a 25 cent pack of gum to start the day.  Going in the morning or on a break if you were fast enough was the only time you could make it to the front counter without being squished by the other 95% of people who also chose not to eat at the elementary school. 

Do I Have A Void In My Life?

I often wonder if I am missing out on life for not reading certain books and watching their subsequent big budget movies.  I hear all the time that I “have to read this book” or that I “must watch that movie” and I find myself wondering if I am really missing out or not.  I am not going to lie, 99% of the time I choose to not read these books after the like 20th person has told me that I “have” to.  I am stubborn that way.  It then turns into this hilarious creature all its own because once I set my heels in and refuse it drives certain people crazy.  Here is my list of books and movies that I have never seen.  

• The DaVinci Code
• Harry Potter
• Lord of the Rings
• Twilight

 I need you to tell me which ones I am fine not reading or watching, and which ones really should be on my reading list.  Are there ones that you would recommend just the book or just the movie or do you think I need to do both?

Black and Whites

I love black and white photos.  Here are a few that I did of my sweet little niece.

Monday Night Confessions

I totally forgot yesterday was Monday and all about my confessions so I am doing them tonight instead.

• When I go to a restaurant I have an obsession with making sure my table is clean when I leave.  I have this fear that the waiter will think I am a slob in my real life if I don’t clean it up.  That and the fact that when I used to work at Gunnar’s Pizza in Afton I hated it when people would come in and totally trash the table and the floor and the booth and then leave like $1.50 for a tip.  If they had a kid I could understand but these were adults trashing it.  So I have to leave a clean table, I even wipe up the crumbs. 
• I can no longer hold my head high and call myself a pretend vegetarian.  I didn’t even come close to Lent or any other goal I had set for this project.  Sorry I let ya down T and Melissa, but I am not sorry for that steak I devoured at Texas Roadhouse last weekend. 
• 8:00 AM church might kill me.  I won’t lie, I have missed my fair share of sacrament meetings this year.  But I make it to YW right on time (10:00) every week.  That has to count for something right?!
• Shopping on Etsy is like surffing the web to me.  I get on and want to look around but for the life of me I don’t know what to type in.  So I just stare at the things on the front page and then close out of it.  Seriously what do you type in?  What do they have?  What am I looking for?  Way too many questions.
• When I was younger I used to love eating buttered toast.  But in college and A) not being able to afford butter and B) being on a perpetual diet, I developed a love for dry toast with nothing but mustard on it.  Terri thought it was sicko and John still kinda does.  But I tell you what, every once in a while it is the greatest thing ever.   
• I don’t believe in UFO’s, but I swear one night in high school driving home late I saw one over our canyon.  I even stopped and stared but then I got scared they might beam me up so I drove as fast as I could home. 

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I hope you all have a great week!

Carissa

Here is my sister-in-law Carissa.  She and Nick are having their 4th baby this summer, and this is her current baby B. 

Wide Open Spaces

I am not an outside girl.  I have never staked a claim on this title and I never will.  I don’t think camping is the all time greatest thing and I am not a hiker who eats trail mix.  I’m just not.  However growing up in Star Valley, and in particular my canyon, I learned to love the outside and the quite calm of the wide open spaces.  You grow accustom to this way of life and while you can adapt to the city and even learn to love living in one, there is always a part of you that yearns for wide open spaces.  A place you can breath and think and feel alone yet safe. 

Throughout my life I have always been able to count on the canyon I grew up in to help me feel peaceful.  Sitting on the porch in summer staring up the road while the wind blew the trees and the grasses.  The creek that runs next to the house flows softly by and you can go for hours with no one driving past.  You are alone, no neighbors, no cars, nothing but quite,  and I can find calm there.  It calmed me and made me feel like life was going to be ok. 

I miss home and I miss my canyon.  Living in SLC I never found a place that made me feel the same way as home.  There were always too many people, and it was always too far of a drive to find the kind of place I needed.  

However here where I live now I have been able to find the space that I crave.  Within 5 minutes I can drive out on the high plains and see nothing but fields of golden grasses with small snow capped mountains in the distance.  While the mountains are not the ones of my childhood the space and freedom this area provides me are.  Here the sky seems to never end.  Large white clouds and beautiful blue sky with the wind rushing by are like heaven to me.  I love it out there.  I can calm down and find peace and think.  I can feel free.