Stuff I do and think

I recently tried to change my blog template/layout thingy and I totally screwed up my list of people's blogs! I was not pleased about this.

Also, right now I am listening to ELISA and it is reminding me of the good times when I lived in Rome, Italy...and can I just say that I absolutely love love love this music, especially late at night when I am all alone blogging and I can crank it up super loud on my ipod. love it.

Question: what is anyone's thoughts/feelings about fine china? I've been given quite a bit of grief for not registering for it.

Today while Russ and I were sharing a salad at cafe rio we decided that it was time to instigate some rules about eating. Well, I guess it was just one rule but I have a feeling more will follow. First of all, when one person has to take a drink they can call a time out and the other person has to stop eating until the drinker has stopped drinking and has begun eating again. I think my next rule will be that each eater must eat the same amount of crappy lettuce pieces (you know what I'm talking about...) so neither eater has to eat more than the other. Who knew eating would ever become so complicated.

Today I went to one of my very best friend's, Mikkal, bridal shower in Salt Lake. I love bridal showers. I have never laughed so hard at the gifts someone has received. I won't go into detail due to the nature of the gifts given but . . . my favorite was the foot long moustache.....??? I am still intrigued.

I believe that there is an unwritten rule in my family that a mother's or father's day present must include at least one item from deseret book. I can't remember a time when this rule did not exist.

weekend recap

Friday: Russ and I helped babysit his sister's 2 kids, Ryan and Sadie. They are SO adorable and Russ was even more adorable when he played with him. He is so good with kids. I am positive he is going to be an amazing daddy to our 12 future children.

Saturday: We FINALLY picked out and ordered some invitations. What an ordeal. Why is paper so expensive these days? And why do I have so many fonts to choose from? So...this is how things typically go when it comes to decisions like this for the wedding. I know for a fact that Russ has absolutely no opinion about what color the invitations should be or if they should be rectangle or square or trapezoid etc...but I still ask him just to be nice and to make him feel included. He, as i previously stated, has not even a trace of an opinion but, to please me he fakes an opinion (or basically points at random colors or fonts etc.) So basically we put on this big show for who knows why. After choosing invites we stopped by to see two of my favorite people, Jessica and Reece. It was good to catch up and receive some good marital advice (for some reason this involved talk of a cat and Jessica's lingerie). I also became reaquainted with a book that I gave Jessica for her birthday last year called DELIBERATE ACTS OF NEEDLESS MEANNESS (buy it for $0.75 on half.com), which is full of purely rotten (and hilarious) things to do to other people. I have to admit that I am a huge fan of "The simple life" with paris hilton and, although I loathe her as a human being, I think that she does some pretty funny (and terribly mean) things to other people and this book reminds me of her.

Poor Russ then got roped into shopping with me for the next 5 hours, by the end of which he could barely walk...the male body simply wasn't created with enough endurance for such tasks. We did take a break from shopping to eat dinner with the parentals. His had never met mine, so we met up at Texas Roadhouse and soon discovered that Russ and I are most likely very distantly related. Both of our old men are from small cities near Dodge City, Kansas, are of partial German heritage, and both have ancestors who are mormon-killers.

I'm trying to think of a way to make my blog as entertaining as everyone else's. My ideas so far:

1. Steal Jessica's or Marissa's stories. They are both talented writers and they get paid to have their ideas stolen, so why not?
2. Write about Russ instead of myself. He is much more interesting and by that I mean that he does way more dumb stuff than I do so the stories would be more exciting.
3. I could start living each day as if I were someone else and then document my experience. For example...tomorrow I will pretend to be Paris Hilton and I will blog about my interactions with other human beings.
4. Move to a third-world country; daily beanerization = good writing material.

Skittles ruined my life

Today at work I somehow got into a heated argument with my coworker about skittles and whether or not each color has an individual flavor. I was POSITIVELY ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that each color of skittle has its own flavor and that, if I had a bag of skittles in front of me, I could blindfold myself and guess the correct color of each skittle placed in my mouth. I KNEW for sure FOR SURE that these things were factual. My coworker proceeded to tell me that he had had this very same argument with a number of people in the past and that he had done the blind taste test on at least 20 people and proven that, in fact, each color does NOT have its own flavor due to their incorrect responses. To confirm his test results he had also called the customer service number on the back of the skittles bag and the representative told him that all skittles were in fact the same flavor. However, a bag of original flavored skittles does have a different flavor from a bag of tropical skittles. Tropical skittles, though, are all the same tropical flavor regardless of the color. Even after hearing all of these facts I was adamant that I, having been born with superior taste buds (i've been claiming this for some time), would be able to distinguish the flavors of different colors. Fortunately, my coworker just happened to have a bag of skittles in his candy stash in the corner. Eager to prove him wrong I immediately closed my eyes and began the test. Much to my surprise, I utterly and totally failed. I SWEAR that one tasted like grape!!!!! Not even ONE of my guesses was correct. NOT EVEN ONE!!!! I was baffled to say the least. My life would never be the same. My belief in the candy industry plummeted and is now at an all-time low. How could I have been so deceived? For any of you out there who believe, as I once did, that you too have superior taste buds and could most definately pass the blind taste test, I dare you to try it. You will be sorely disappointed. Don't let it ruin your life like it has mine.

Neglect. And possibly the longest blog post you have ever encountered.

It's been almost a month since I last updated my blog so I'm going to attempt to make up for my neglect with the following updates. Here's what has been happening in my neck of the woods in the last 4 weeks:

May 9th: Removal of wisdom teeth.
I decided to take advantage of my parents' insurance while I still can and get rid of those little buggers before I am married and poor and insurance-less. I still can't believe that they can cut holes in my flesh, pull all four teeth out, sew my mouth back up, and shove some gauze in my wounds in less than 30 minutes. I was completely and utterly useless for the next 24 hours and my wonderful mother nursed me back to health. I seriously underestimated the magnitude of pain that I was to experience after the surgery. I've had several people tell me that their wisdom-teeth-removal experience was a breeze...that they had no swelling...minimal pain.........what gives? Maybe my pain tolerance level is at a record-breaking low right now. The pain wasn't the cause of a whole lot of concern.....but I did begin to worry when the left side of my face was STILL numb a week after the surgery. I finally called the doctor and she assured me that it was normal. Still, i worried. My engagement pictures were in 5 days. Don't worry, the numbness SLOWLY removed itself from my face. Not enough for me to be satisfied by the time my engagement pictures rolled around though. I feel like fat (numb) face mcgee.

May 22: Engagement pictures
I am such a complainer when it comes to pictures of myself. I absolutely do not think that I'm photogenic and I hate hate hate my profile in pictures. Also - hatred abounds for my serious face. I look mean/mad/not pretty. I had a great photographer though, she got some really good shots of us and they actually turned out really well. Here are some of my favorites:

Wedding Plans
Planning my own wedding is so not as fun as i thought it would be. Stressful, Confusing, Aggravating, ....planning my wedding is all of these and only a tiny bit fun. Most of the stress comes from the fact that I am on a budget and that I am a brat and I just want to have what I WANT. Seriously, I am such a brat. My first thought after discussing budgets with my parents is "its my wedding for crying out loud! just give me what I want!" I hate money. its ruining my life. Since I have been nothing but a Debbie-Downer so far in this blog-post I will now change my attitude and write only happy, uplifting comments. Here are things that I have planned so far:
colors - pink and orange. not hot pink. dark pink, light pink, tangerine....all these are good.
flowers - I'm so over gerbera daisies. and roses. I'm doing ranunculuses (plural??), carnations, dahlias, peonies, ....can't remember what else.





cake - so far the only plan is to have chocolate.
dress - bought it. its getting hemmed.
invitations - I have spent hours and hours trying to create my own, find cheap ones online or in stores, attempting to spend as little as possible but not look cheesy. I have almost completely given up. I don't even want to think about invitations. Emails anyone?
reception - my mom's friend's back yard. I mostly chose it because it is almost completely 100% shady (as in protected from sunlight....not sketchy).
honeymoon - riviera maya, mexico. priceline.com. el dorado royale adults only all inclusive spa resort. sounds like heaven to me.


May 17th: Baby Carter's first birthday party!
My adorable little nephew turned 1! We all went up to Logan to celebrate...I bought him the cutest present ever. it is a backpack/leash.... he wears the backpack that looks like a stuffed monkey (so cute!) and the tail of the monkey turns into a leash for his mommy or daddy. The monkey even has a pocket on its back to hold a bottle. i can't wait to see this thing in action. After playing with baby and his toys Russ and I somehow got roped into playing with my sister's husband's best friend's four kids (they are babysitting while their parents are out of town). These kids are incredibly adorable so I didn't really mind being roped into playing princess and dragon or whatever... it was just a little bit exhausting!

May 26: Memorial Day
I memorialized and mourned the loss of my ancestors by placing flowers on their graves at the Logan cemetary. I actually didn't even get out of the car because it was pouring rain. Afterwards my family and I and Russ went to my sister's husbands parents house in Logan for a BBQ. Bevin's dad made buffalo burgars and this guy doesn't mess around...those burgers were enormous. i almost needed two buns to cover one burger. I played with my baby a little....mostly we just sat around and ate and ate and ate. Then we played battle of the sexes, which almost always proves to be a mistake. My family always ends up getting into the same arguments before we can even finish the game. The male questions are too easy....we, the females, are always too vague in our answers...etc.

May 30: Ironman at the Motor-Vu drive-in in Riverdale.
The drive-in is so underrated. Sure its customers are 99% white trash but I can overlook that insignificant detail when I am required to pay only $6 for a double-feature AND.......BONUS! For no extra charge I can be eaten alive by mosquitos. Equipped with enough snacks to feed EVERYONE at the drive-in (7 boxes of crackers, fruit snacks, licorice, diet coke, mountain dew), Russ and I and Russ's brother and sister hopped in my mom's mini-van and headed to see Ironman in all its glory. Its been two years since my last drive-in movie and I forget how silly people can be. Directly in front of us a mother and father decided that it was safe and definately not inconsiderate to other movie-watchers behind them to allow their two little girls to sit on top of the cab of their truck to watch the movie. Not only were they blocking our view of half the screen but they couldn't make up their mind about which position on the top of the truck was the most comfortable. this must have been their thought process..... "should i put my feet up and my head down....no, i'll put my feet over here and move my head around every 3 minutes so it doesn't stay in the same place for too long. Oh wow, i'm sick of this position....i think i'll spend the next 10 minutes repositioning myself and using my pillows and blankets as flags to let my parents know that I'm okay." I usually don't confront people about things like this but someone had to do it...so I kindly asked the parents if they could ask their daughters to lie down and stay put for the rest of the movie. The girls were able to do this for only 5 minutes after which they again began the above thought processes. Fortunately their parents were kind enough to make them move down to the truck bed. Disaster averted. UNfortunately I fell asleep during the last half hour of the movie.

I'm it. thanks to Jessica.

How To Play This Game of Tag:

Post these rules on your blog.
Answer these 15 questions about yourself on your blog.
List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.
Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Here it is...

JOYS:
01. Pumping iron at gold's gym. thank you endorphins.
02. Head scratches.
03. Motorcycle rides

FEARS:
01. Getting into my car late at night and discovering that someone is in the back seat waiting to murder me.
02. Having ugly children.
03. Getting caught up in worldly things.

GOALS:
01. Become an expert rock climber.
02. Bear 10 perfect children.
03. Live for more than 4 months outside the state of Utah.

CURRENT OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS:
01. My sweet, wonderful, adorable fiance. Sometimes when I can't stop thinking about how sweet and wonderful and adorable he is I lean over and whisper in his ear that I am obsessed with him. Sorry to be so gross.
02. Shopping online.
03. The color pink. I swear this has no connection to aerosmith.

RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS:
01. I actually like sushi. It was a surprise to me.
02. I diagnosed myself (with the help of WebMD) with costochondritis.
03. I can say the ABC's backwards.

I tag Sara, Katie and Passely