You're talking like a girl again

It was a big news day today, my word. My CNN news ticker was changing all day today. Insane. India and the middle east are without internet for a while. I'm not sure how their banks or stock exchanges are coping. The UNHCR have had to pull out of some of the Darfur refugee camps because of carjackings and other attacks. The U.S. senate passed their version of the stimulus plan. I'm kind of more partial to the house version, but either way, I hope one of them gets passed soon. Britney's back in the hospital (these stories as top headlines actually really annoy me, but whatever). And the governator has officially decided to back McCain.

Craziness.

I must say though, it kept me from being completely bored at work. Well that and my crocheting. I finished another square and have started on another. It's going pretty well. I feel like I'm getting better at it.

So, Godiva has put together a room made almost completely out of chocolate. Apparently anyone who buys a box of Godiva chocolate could possibly win a weekend get away to a replica of this room to be reconstructed in Manhattan in May. It's too bad I'm not much of a Godiva person, because that would be almost as good as staying in an ice castle.

I'm still on a bit of a Sarah Blasko kick, but tonight I've changed it up and have been listening to A Weather. It's nice and mellow and lovely. It makes me feel all twinkly and sleepy and happy. I can't wait for their full length to come out next week. (p.s. if you watch the video on their page, I was at that show hehe. They opened for Bright Eyes at the Showbox last... oh my word... February? March? It was almost a year ago now. Weird. Also, Aaron is really nice. I slept at his house in Portland last May.)

I have been told I should try to find my gateway cheese. i.e. the cheese that will really get me interested in the cheese world so that my eyes won't glaze over when people start naming off cheeses they love. So that I will be genuinely interested in the cheeses they care so much about because not only will I love cheese, but I will constantly be on the search for the best cheese known to man. I need to begin somewhere and let my cheese passion grow to match those of the cheese lovers I know and find so dear. So, my gateway. I need one. Any suggestions?

Well I think I'll go crochet some more. Go Warm Up America!

Central Coast Cali, here I come! (Please don't rain on me) countdown: 16 days. It's so soooon! Yaaay!

One red paper clip

I would like to trade one red paper clip for a house. Hah.

Hey, if Kyle MacDonald can do it, so can I!

I think it's completely nuts but also really cool. We should all trade paper clips for houses. Maybe it would save our economy? (kidding)

Crocheted squares completed for Warm Up America: 2.5

Central Coast Cali, here I come! (Please don't rain on me) countdown: 17 days

Things are good.

I think the weirdness is back...

Watch this show. (You can stream each episode from both seasons). I promise, you won't be disappointed. Especially if you've ever been to a high school. Not even necessarily your own high school. Just any high school. The characters are hilarious. In each episode a new "weird" factor hits the town. Such as all the people on public service signs coming to life, or anyone who has a cold aging between 15-50 years every time they cough or sneeze. My favorite episodes are probably Clones, Bubbleheads and Remotes. I have been laughing for hours.

I bought Brandon's birthday present today. I'm mildly obsessed with this website called Threadless. People submit their graphic art to be made into tshirts and members of the website vote on the new designs. If enough people like it, it gets made into a tshirt and sold on Threadless.com. This is the one I bought Brandon. It's called "I'm Sure I Used To fit." I love that they've got the jaws of life out haha

The past few nights Brandon and I have been discussing lucid dreaming. I'm going to try for the next few nights to make myself lucid dream. I'm really hoping to revisit England or Australia. We watched this movie not too long ago called Waking Life. It's all in rotoscope, which is really cool if you've ever seen good rotoscope animation. I learned a lot about lucid dreaming from that movie. It was really interesting. I definitely recommend it.

So to track my crocheting progress, I am happy to note that I figured out what I was doing wrong on my square, which was shrinking in width as it got longer. My mom couldn't remember how to do the ends of each row (such as how many chains each type of stitch needs at the beginning of the next row). But I have got it all down now thanks to a helpful book, and I will be knocking out scads of crocheted squares for Warm Up America in no time at all!

Lastly, my Central Coast Cali, here I come! (Please don't rain on me) countdown is officially at 18 days. Yay! One less than yesterday!

Blacking out the friction

What is going on?? Southern California has been flooding and much of it is without power. This is just months after their huge wild fires. China has evacuated 850,000 people from blizzards. Pouring rain caused a bunch of car accidents in Argentina. A volcano erupted in Colombia last Thursday. A few weeks ago a volcano erupted in Chile. There have been tornadoes in Arkansas. Unexpected snow in the southeast.

When I start reading about the death tolls and the amount of damage done by these natural disasters, my heart just breaks for the families stuck in the middle of all this. And it just seems like lately there have been a lot of freak weather changes. So weird.

I woke up to a couple of inches of snow today. Nothing disastrous. Yet. It's supposed to get worse tonight. Particularly because it's a bit warmer with the cloud coverage, which means some of the snow melts, then when the sun goes down it all freezes over and is impossible to drive on. Fun times. Sigh.

So I'm reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's an easy read. I can't decide yet if the instability in voice is intentional or not. I find that when the narrator is recalling childhood memories, the story has a soft fluidity about it, but as soon as the narrator brings it back to her present or recent past, the voice is clunky and I come out of my reading reverie. I guess I'll have to finish it to decide.

Oh! My coat came this weekend! I love it! I'll have to put some pictures up later, but it's better than I'd hoped for! Yay!

I felt like I was back in high school the other day when I found out Death Cab for Cutie are releasing a new album this May. Hah. I remember just being so excited I could barely breathe when I found out Plans was coming out. It didn't quite hit that peak this time, but I am still really excited. I don't listen to them that often anymore (Plans honestly wasn't that great), but I obsessed over them for so long in high school and early college that I just can't help myself. It's that same giddy feeling I got when Ben Gibbard came on the stage last spring. I couldn't keep from grinning and just loving the music.

And also on the topic of things I'm excited about, I cannot wait for 19 days from now. Central Coast Cali, here I come! (Please don't rain on me).

President Hinckley

Oh my. I just got word President Hinckley has passed away. It was about an hour ago. He was an amazing man and he's finally back with his wonderful wife. He'll be greatly missed.

Fo-tah-graf-ee

Well, the crocheting has begun! My Relief Society is doing a service project where we knit or crochet 9"x 7" squares that will be sewn into blankets for "Warming up America" or something like that. So my mom taught me tonight how to crochet. I'm pretty excited. I think I'll do an afghan after we've got enough squares done. I'm surprised at how easy it is! I got this swatch done in about two hours (I started off very slow). I'm quite enjoying myself!

It has thankfully warmed up a bit here. But sadly that is at the expense of the sun. It was very rainy today. I could barely see to the other side of the lake. I kind of loved it though hah.

Someone recently told a story about giving their young child (or maybe their parents had given them as a young child) a camera. Mentioning how neat it is to see what children take pictures of and what things look like from their perspective.

So when Brock wanted to play with my camera the other night, I decided to just let him do it. At first he just liked that pushing the button made the flash go, but he soon figured out that if he pointed it at something, a picture of that thing would show up on the screen in the back. Then he figured out that if he went up to something and pointed the camera at that thing, then pressed the button, the thing he wanted to take the picture of would show up on the back of the camera. Hah!

I left the room for a few minutes and came back in and he was walking up to the curtains and taking pics, to the tv, to the lamps.

Kids are just so smart. I mean he's not even 2 and he's figured out how to take pictures. He even tried to take pictures of my mom, of Tod, he got a couple of me. I love watching children learn and grow, it's just an amazing thing! Being an older sister is really fun sometimes!

Frozen things

Poor Brocky is not happy. I'm babysitting tonight. We brushed his teeth, said prayers and when I put him to bed, he went right down. Then as I closed the door I realized I'd forgotten to turn his fan on, so I ran back in to turn it on and of course that upset him. After about ten minutes of crying I realized I'd also forgotten to put his footy pajamas on over his regular ones. Sigh. So I went back in just as he was settling down finally and put those on so he wouldn't freeze to death all night. He cried a bit more but thankfully he's settled down now. It makes me so sad when they cry like that.

Today was... cold. Very cold. When I got to work the office was that temperature that makes your skin hurt it's so cold. It's been very sunny, which I absolutely love, but the lack of cloud coverage also means it hovers right around freezing all day. I had my little space heater on, which for the most part kept my legs warm as long as they were in it's direct path, but my fingers were burning cold all day (you Utah people know what I mean). I had to take breaks from typing to thaw them out under the desk.

I've been getting the most random application invitations on Facebook today. Earlier it was "What Disney Princess are you?" and then "What Disney song best describes you?" and now it's "What Beatles song best describes your life right now?" I haven't subscribed to any of them, so I sadly can't definitively say what princess, Disney song or Beatles song I am at the moment. I know you were waiting on pins and needles to find out, so I'm sorry to disappoint. Maybe next time.

Also in the vein of random questions, when editing my blogspot profile, there's an option at the bottom of the page that says "give me a new question." If I check the selection box, then press save, it gives me a new random question. One of my most recent ones was "You can punch a hole in an apple with a straw. How do you suppose that makes your milkshake feel?" All I can think of in answer is, "taken advantage of."

What's your answer?

Lost in that good feeling

Well my vote for top 3 in Project Runway is obviously out. I'm just glad Christian and Jillian are still in. And Christian's outfit this week was fierce! He totally should have won! The fact that Ricky is still on is a joke. I mean his clothes up till now have just been so blaaaah.

I listened to Sarah Blasko in the car today. It's been ages since I listened to her. It brought back great memories of Australia. Her voice is so delicate, which matches her features. Seeing her in Brisbane was a definite highlight. So lovely.

I'm sitting here staring at the screen trying to think of something interesting to write, but honestly, I don't have much. I'm happy. Things are good and they're getting better. That's a bit boring, but I'm ok with boring.

One small thing of note: someone I trust said to me today "the opposite of love is indifference." I thought that was interesting and true.

I've been wondering how my cousin Carolyn is doing in the MTC. Maybe I'll track down her address and send her a letter.

I know I'll be safe in these arms

Aaaaaagh! Sometimes! I love Brandon so much! That I want to run around screaming it for hours on end! haha

He is seriously perfect. I don't even understand how I got so lucky. Man.

Ok, sorry, that was really mushy, I know, but I just had to get it out.

Anyway, Urban Outfitters shipped my coat today. Finally. I am so excited. I've been wearing the same purple plaid coat (as seen in my profile pic) for over two years now, and it was time for an upgrade. So I bought this pretty little thing online for about 30% of the original price. The yellow so completely matches nothing that it actually kind of goes with everything. I love it!

Also on the topic of shopping, if you live in the SLC area, I have a new blog you should check out: www.yourheartout.com. I read it semi religiously, taking notes for when I move back down there. They've got tips on the cutest clothes shops, restaurants, furniture stores, and other miscellany in the Utah Valley and surrounding area. It's great if you're looking for one of those hidden treasure kind of places, or if you want a knick knack that's truly original. I highly recommend checking them out.

Well, it's mon pere's birthday, so I'm off to celebrate old age hah. Wishing you all the best of evenings!

Jumping ship

Seriously, if I have to deal with any more death this year, I'm going to build a cabin in the woods somewhere, never to be seen or heard from again.

Heath Ledger died today of a possible drug overdose. None of us knew him personally (that I know of), but it adds to the tragedy that has been recurrent this month. About three weeks ago, my coworker's mother was found dead in her home. They still don't know the cause of death - though they suspect drug overdose - which has been hard for their family in the grieving process. It would be hard to move on with unknowns like that.

Last Wednesday I attended the memorial service of a friend of mine who was slain by her husband a little over two weeks ago. It's been hard dealing with this death because I know her family very well (I dated her younger brother in high school and grew up in the same ward as them) and knowing they were now missing a beloved sister, daughter, and mother compounded my own grief over her loss. Kristy was intelligent, beautiful, happy, and knew how to bring out the best in other people. She was one of the first people I visited when I moved to BYU after high school. I looked up to her and really hoped to be as good, outgoing, and happy as her some day.

One of the comforts I've had in this, and that I know her family has had as well as they deal with this trial, is that if any person could be spiritually prepared for something like this to happen, Kristy was.

I pray for her family daily, especially her two little boys, who are now without a mother or a father. It's heartbreaking, but she lived a good life and I know for a fact that there are thousands of people who have been touched by Kristy's presence in their lives.

It's been hard to understand the why's in these situations, particularly because they've all been such unnatural deaths, and there have been others, though more distanced from myself, but I've also learned a lot about the grieving process and what happens to us when we die. At Kristy's memorial, the focus was on living an exemplary life, like the one Kristy lived, and knowing that our life is not over when we die. We simply exit one room and enter another, equally or more full of loved ones and friends than the one we just left.

I'm so thankful for the Gospel and the knowledge I've been given in this life. I'm grateful for the Plan of Salvation and the guides and examples we've been given to find our way back to our Heavenly Father. It's hard to lose a loved one, but it's comforting to know we will see them again. I'm so thankful for that.