Festival o' Trees

The Festival of Trees was good this year, yet again. I don't really have anything new to report, or any good stories, just thought I'd post some pictures of mine and PJ's awesome tree we decorated-which sold on the opening night in auction! Awesome!

December!

Now that November is officially over, so is Blog-every-day month! Ok, I know I didn't do it every day, I missed those three days when I was in Seattle, or as I like to call it, Depression-capital of the world, but other than that, I did it pretty good!
It was hard to think of something every day, and I'm glad I'm finished, and that the month is over because, lets be honest, nobody is important enough to have something interesting to say every day, but oh man, I definitely tried. But now it's over and I'll go back to blogging like, every week or as soon as (I think) I have something interesting to say. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I'll keep up the good (well, not really good) work!

Its cold in winter, right?

So, I get in my car the other day, at like, midnight to go home, and I turn on the heater. I know, earth-shattering to do this in winter, right? Unfortunately, as soon as I turned it on...nothing happened. No heater, no heat, nothing. So that's fine, I think, but I head home anyway. I kept trying it the whole way home, and not once did it start to work. I was cursing my bad luck, but hoped it was just a one time thing.
My theory was proved correct, as the next day, it worked just fine. The next morning, on my way out, I turn it on again, and...nothing again! What the junk? Fortunately, after a few miles (or like, ten) it turned on, so that's ok. Then this evening, I get in for my trip home, and nothing once more! And it didn't turn on or anything. I was bundled up in long sleeves, jacket, coat, and gloves, and still, the ride was a little chilly. I can't help but think how long and cold my winter will seem this year with no heater to warm me up on any rides.
I keep debating getting it fixed, or maybe I'm just having an unlucky couple of days. I'm hoping it's the latter, but if it's not, I'll just keep buying myself warm clothing. That'll work, right?

O Christmas Tree...

Today is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which in our house is decorate the tree day. I chose my colors carefully, yesterday, and today, I set about putting them up. It was a pretty easy tree this year, the only part that took help was winding the lights around the tree, and the silver chain, but other than that, it was pretty good. I chose for my colors silver and teal, and it looks pretty good together. There's not really much else to write on it, so here's a pic of all my troubles:

And I did...

Ok, the results for my race on Thanksgiving day came in, and I'm...ok with the time/place. Last year I finished 43:09, 56th in my age group, 203rd overall. It's not the worst I could have done, but definitely not what I wanted. This year, I finished with a 36:13, 25th in my age group, and 102nd overall. A vast improvement! I mean, I'm sure I could have run faster, but I just ran with PJ, and we kept it pretty loose. Until about the last mile, then I sprinted my little heart out. It was a good run, and I think I felt better about eating all the food I did later. There's no better excuse for running than justification of eating more food!

Same shopping, different year

All right, I've now been up for about 21 hours, so who knows if this will even make sense! Today, as everyone knows, is Black Friday! So I have been out shopping all day. I awoke early to get to Target at 4:30, since everyone decided to open earlier this year. They opened at 5, so we had a bit of time to kill, out in the cold. We hit up pretty much every single store you could think of. I won't lie-I was mostly selfish and bought things for myself instead of presents for others.
We also took in a movie, which, after having woken up so early was probably not a good idea. I kept drifting, but I don't think I ever went to sleep-I was just so beat! I can't believe I am still awake right now-I was falling asleep in my car on the way home, but now that I'm at home, ready to sleep, oh, no dice. This always happens!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is enjoying the festivities of this fabulous day. I ran in the 'Earn Your Turkey' 4 mile run this morning held by Orem city. It was super cold-my legs and hands were numb until like, the last half mile, but it was invigorating!
I don't know my results yet, but I think I did way better than last year-I got sick during last years race, but at least I finished, and that's all that matters. I am glad I did better this year though-I love to improve!
Happy eating everyone!

We...are the champions....for the first tiiiime

Good news, I'm back! A quick jaunt over a few states, and I'm back, better than ever. Well, maybe that's not true, but oh boy, was it fantastic.
We flew out noon Saturday, arriving in Seattle a couple of hours later, and after some eating, driving around trying to find our hotel, we did what we did best-went to the movies. Hey, cut me some slack. Even though we were in a different state, we weren't sure of what there was to do, so we saw The Blind Side, which we really wanted to see. And side note, it was good.
We did touristy things on Sunday, saw the Space Needle, did some exploring of the city. It was fun to see the city from that high up, boy was it cold! I mean, it's cold obviously being November, but holy crap were we cold. I was all bundled up! We saw loads of other Real fans all over the place, and every time we saw one, we'd give the 'hey, we're the same' wave. It was nice.
We went to the game, and it was the greatest game I've ever seen/been to! After a grueling 90 minutes, which ended in a 1-1 tie, we went on to a 30 minute overtime. Still tied after that, we went in penalty kicks. That was the tensest I've ever been in my life. After 7 kicks, it was over. RSL-champions of the league! We won the cup! When Robbie Russell made the last goal, we exploded. We were screaming, jumping up and down, and I must have hugged every person near me. I didn't even care what was going on, I was just going for it. After a long celebration period, we got kicked out of the stadium. We left, singing the praises of our team the whole way.
It was a great weekend-and I'm so psyched we went. Now we're the champs, and it was a great season. I'm glad to be home though, I was exhausted. I've also lost my voice-and it weirdly gets more lost every day. I screamed myself hoarse that night, Monday was pretty sqeaky, then I screamed at a basketball game on Tuesday, so now I just sound like I have a cold. Sheesh. Anyway, best game ever, fabulous weekend, and I'm back! Let the blogging resume.

Radio Silence

All right everyone. The big trip to Seattle is commencing tomorrow morning/afternoon. Since this is so last minute, not everything is coming with me, so the laptop is staying home. Even though I said I would blog every day, it looks now like I won't be blogging for the next few days. Don't be sad everyone, just hold on to the hope that I might have good entries to do when I come back.
Fingers crossed that Real will win, and on Sunday, I will be screaming my guts out, trying to cheer them on. Cheer them on from home everyone, even if you don't watch the game.
Vieve out

A bowl of soup is a lot!

Today was my mama's 98th birthday. All right, jokes, she's not (quite) that old. (ha ha!) Anyway, for her birthday, we went to eat at the Garden of Olives. I couldn't decide what to get there, it took me a while. I was trying to decide between getting the chicken scampi or the soup/salad/breadsticks with the Chicken Gnocchi soup. Finally, the waitress suggested I get the scampi, but instead of getting the salad with my meal, I get the soup. Genius!
She delivered the soup and I ate my whole bowl, it was so good. When our meals came, I was already pretty full from the soup and breadstick, but I ate some of my food. I saved some room, because I wanted to eat some dessert, which to me, is the point of the meal. As we were waiting for the desserts, my ENTIRE family made fun of me for the amount of food I ate! I ate a lot! I know it doesn't seem like a lot, a bowl of soup and a little pasta, but come on. The soup was thick, and the chunks in it were quite large.
I eat a lot-people know this, but I want to reiterate it. I'm no lightweight-I'm pretty sure I can out-eat anyone I know. I'm a champ-and no matter what any of these people say, my meal was not tiny. So there.

It's like my birthday...crossed with Christmas!

Ok, to compare it to those might be a little exaggerated, but oh man, it sure seemed like it. Today after work, I did a little shopping for my tree for the festival. As we were winding down, I commented that I wanted to eat a waffle, since we'd been talking about waffles at work earlier. PJ agreed, and off to Village Inn (Hey, don't hate on the Inn-I love that place) to get some waffles. As we walked in, there were signs everywhere, declaring that Wednesdays there are "Free Slice Day" and I was psyched! Like, it's not a big deal, a piece of pie is only a couple of dollars, but still, to get it for free is so fabulous!
I chose a cherry pie, which was good. I hate choosing a pie, because as soon as I order one, I second-guess myself, then later, I'm always kicking myself for not choosing a different one. This time I could barely choose between the strawberry rhubarb and cherry, and while I wished I chose the other, but I'm pretty sure they would have tasted about the same either way.
This is a nothing post, but it doesn't matter, since no one reads this anyway, but I'm spreading the word: Every Wednesday, make your way on over to the Village Inn and pick up yourself a delicious piece of free pie.

Yeah, yeah. I've heard it before

If I've been to your house, odds are, I've driven myself. You've given me instructions. I've followed them, found your house, and thrown the directions away, assuming I won't need them again. I am again invited to your house, but this time, with no help. And odds are, I won't find your house. I might have been there several times, all within the last few months, and still, I'll have a hard time.
I was on my way to a friends house this evening, and of course, as is usual, I took the wrong freeway exit. I get back on the freeway, then have to Google her name to get her address (thank goodness for Google!) so I can find her house. Don't misunderstand-I go to her house at least once a month and still, after a year, I have a super hard time finding it! I don't get it, but at least I understand how dumb I am, so I know to make sure I have her address somewhere.
Now, don't feel bad, friends. I still can't find the airport. I need instructions to get there, but once there are signs on the freeway directing me, I seem to find it ok. I guess I'm just missing the gene to remember these things!
This won't stop me from finding new places, nor will it make me stop visiting people. But if I'm supposed to be at your house, and I'm a little late-don't fret. I'm probably just in the wrong city.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I have had my room arranged the same way for as long as I have lived in this house. The most I have mixed it up is I've moved the bed about three feet to the right this one time, but since then, I've kept it. It's just hard to do anything different-all of the wires to my TV are all in one corner, and to make it go anywhere else would be too much work. But yesterday finally, I'd had enough.
I knew that if I needed to change things around, I would need the help of my brother Zippy. Heck, I know I'm not strong enough to move anything around, plus I need him to fix all the wiring/rewire it all up anyway. So basically, I gave him the new floor plan, then stood back and let him do all the heavy lifting. I did some guiding as I stood there, grabbed some things once in a while. At the end of, oh, say, 15 minutes, it was all finished. We didn't do anything major, all we did was basically reverse the room. Some things stayed just where they were, the only things that changed were my bed, the dresser and the TV. But just having everything on the opposite wall has been messing with my brain this last day. I keep turning the wrong direction to put something away, and I keep throwing things on the floor instead of where my bed used to be.
I know that the longer I have it like this, the more used to it I'll get, but for right now, it's kind of freaking me out. I love the change though-but I'm holding on, for now, to see how long it takes me until I get tired of this arrangement too.

Now I'm sore

I like myself some high impact exercise. Give me running, Tae Bo, P90x, all of these things are great, I feel really great after I've done these. I'm sweating when I'm done (well, as much as I can sweat) so I know I've worked hard. I don't like low-impact things. I've done pilates, and while I do like that, I always feel like I've barely done anything at the end of the hour. And yoga? Forget about it! All the breathing, and the "lets all work out our chakras" blah blah blah no. But sometimes, you do what you don't like...
In P90X, there is, of course, a load of exercises possible, and they tell you which ones to do on which days. There's the usual things, arms, legs, back, etc, but then they also throw in crazy plyometrics, or kenpo karate. It's actually a lot of fun, and it's always mixed up. Today was my day for yoga, and I won't lie, I usually skip the yoga days, because I figure it's not high impact, so my body won't notice if I don't do it. But today, I had some extra time, so I figured I might as well do it.
I get all in my comfy clothes, pop in the DVD, and go at it. It's an hour and a half long (sheesh!) so I buckled in. There were some things I didn't like about it-the soothing voice of the instructor made me angry, and I don't even know why. I don't like how relaxed they want you to be. They keep reminded me to relax, after like, four times, I'm like, I get it! I'm relaxed! I'm not yelling!
I did like it overall though. It's so hard! Holding those poses is crazy-I can't believe the flexibility of these people. About halfway through, I was covered in sweat, cursing Tony (the instructor) for making me do this, but I lasted the whole time! I was feeling good at the end, and immediately following it, I just felt sore, like every muscle I have was tired.
I don't know that I would like to do yoga all the time, but I think I'll like throwing it in every once in a while. And who knows, if I keep doing this, maybe I'll be one of those freaks who can twist into every position imaginable. Wouldn't that just be great?!

We could take the Cup!

Good news sports fans! Real Salt Lake, my boys, have made it to the final game! Lets be honest, nobody thought this would happen at all, but here we are! We had our game today, against Chicago, and oh boy was it a nail-biter. It was a scoreless game, so we went into overtime. After a 30 minute overtime, we were still tied at zeros, so into penalty kicks we went. Believe me, this was super tense! I was clutching at PJ's leg, basically digging my nails into anything, and wow. We had the first five, and we missed one, and we stopped one of theirs, so tied again. Then we had sudden death. They went, and we stopped it! We went, and...a miss. I was about out of my mind. They shoot again, and Nick Rimando saves again! We shoot....gooooooaaaaallllll!! I went out of my mind. Even though I was watching this from the comfort of my basement (Come on, I can't afford to go to Chicago on a whim!) I freaked out. I started screaming, and I jumped, and there was some definite huggage. My friend Karen called me as soon as it was over, to celebrate, and pretty much all we did was scream on the phone at each other.
After the game, we were so energized up, we took a quick victory lap around the neighborhood, while shouting things to the neighbors, who I think were all just in their houses. I don't know if anyone heard what we were saying, but it felt nice to be shouting it.
The final game, for the MLS Cup 2009 is next Sunday, we'll be playing LA. We could beat them! You never know, especially this year! We looked into taking a jaunt to Seattle for the game, but come on, I'm not made of money. We'll be watching though, you can guarantee that!

3 Good Reasons against Driving Angry

Leaving work today, I was mad. Too many annoyances at the end of the day, coupled with my computer being dumb. So I compiled a list of...

3 Reasons it's not a good idea to drive angry:

1. When I am mad, I turn the radio waaay up. This is always a fun idea when you're driving, but then when I stop, my ears are ringing, and things are just a little muffled. Smart idea...until you realize you're probably killing eardrum.

2. For some reason, I decide to share my anger. So instead of driving like a courteous, polite driver, I decide to make other drivers have it too! I keep cutting people off, like for some reason, this will ruin their night. I can guarantee after the initial "wth?!" they have, they don't think of my for a second. But still, it makes me feel a little better.

3. On the flip side, I take any infraction done to me way too personally. I'm sure the other driver just wants to get home, see their family, but to me, a tiny thing like, not turning on the turn-signal far enough in advance, I take it to the next level-I feel like they have a vendetta against me, and it makes me want to hit their car.

Now don't worry everyone, I wasn't in danger, I knew what was going on, and I was in control, so it's not like there was anything to get worried about. I am far less angry now (because I've been just chilling this evening, nothing to be mad about...) so the next time I drive, I will far more polite. And if I encountered anyone this evening while driving...I apologize.

My, that's deceptive!

I love iTunes. I got my iPod (shuffle) for my birthday a year ago, and it's my favorite thing. It's tiny, perfect for running, and I use it all the time. I got a gift card to iTunes for my birthday this year, which was just fantastic. I used that like you wouldn't believe.
My only problem with iTunes is the 30 second snippets of songs. Lets say you're looking for songs, and you come across one that you haven't heard. You need to listen to it, obviously, so you listen to their snippet. But don't let that be your only guide. Many a time, I have listened to the clip, loved what I heard, and purchased the song, only to find out, when listening to the whole thing that the song actually sucks. And then I'm angry that I have this song that I'll probably never listen to, but I have it anyways.
I mean, it's not like its a big deal, because a song is only like a dollar, but still. Those iTunes people sure do know how to market me a song. And on the same note, I have listened to a little clip, thought the song was awful, just to hear more of it, and turns out the song is actually really good. They're just messing with my minds! Luckily, out of all the songs I've gotten, there are only a couple of songs that aren't good, so my odds so far are pretty good. And believe me, I will keep buying songs.

Well...I have other talents...

I was invited a couple of months ago to a "Stamp & Chat" at Chelle's house. I was hesitant to go, because, well, I have no talent for crafty things, but I went, for funsies, and turns out, it's so much fun! I was nervous to go, because I knew I'd be the dumbest one there, but it was ok. I ask a lot of questions, and I needed to be shown like, step by step, but by the end of the night, I had successfully made 3 cards. And by I had made the cards, I mean, it was a team effort from both Chelle and I, and I think I maybe did 40 percent. Shoot.
I had to skip a couple of months because of previous commitments (which believe me, made me angry at all these things) but finally, tonight, I got the chance to go again. I went early, so that I could make the cards from the previous night, and believe me, I worked myself to the bone. I was a little better this time! I mean, I'm nowhere near where the other people are, but I'm getting there! I feel like in 6 months, I'll be like, halfway there, so I'm working!
My goal is to someday not to have help the entire time. I mean, I know now that I'll never be like Chelle. She's helping, talking, and making her own card at the same time, it's all flowing, like she's not even thinking about it. I, on the other hand, get one part glued, then I have to stop, look at the example, get a verbal explanation, then glue another down. It must be exhausting to have me there, but luckily for me, nobody gets short with me, and everyone leaves happy!
I'm glad that I'm learning how to do this, because it's definitely opening up my eyes and letting me work on getting my craft skills up. I do feel better in my own skill area which is...ok, I'll think of one later, but as of right now, I'm feeling like I could make anything. And I would post a picture of my cards I made, but I think that would take too long, and I'm ready to crash. But maybe I'll post them another time. Because they took me so long, and they look so fab, I don't want to give them to anyone! I want to hold on to them forever.

Another thing to check off my list!

About a week ago, my sister texted me to tell me she was going to be out of cell phone range for a few days, so if I need to text her, she'll get back to me when she is back in range. Shrugging it off, I said ok, and that was that. A day or so later, a friend at work came to tell me she found something on the internet. Bringing it up-I saw-my baby sister was in jail! I was surprised at this-as I'm sure anyone would be, to hear this sort of news. We did some researching, and after a week of her being in there, she could finally have visitors, so of course I rolled up over there to do some visiting.
We got there, and had to go through a metal detector, which took me a few times to go through it. I forgot to take my keys out, oops. Then we had to wait in the lobby, full of people until our prisoner's name was called. I was laughing the whole time! I know it's a serious situation, but I just kept laughing at the whole thing. I couldn't help it! Finally, we went up the longest hallway and staircase ever, where we saw her, standing behind a glass window. I sat at the seat, and picked up the phone. That's right, we had to talk through glass on the phone!
I pulled out all my prison cliches, hand on the glass, swearing to get her out of there, all those things that you've always wanted to do. She was released today, so her stint was short lived-only 8 days. Seeing her in that orange jumpsuit was pretty priceless, though. If they allowed you to take in a camera, or at least my phone, I would have gotten a good pic, but sadly, no dice.
And my friendly tip to everyone: if for no other reason to avoid prison, nobody looks good in that color of orange.

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

As nearly everyone knows, my mama is German. Not just by claim, but like literally, full-on, accented with rage, German. I add the "with rage" because for some reason, every time I hear German, whether it be the language, or just English with the German accent, the person sounds so angry to me! What is that about? Good work, Germans, you guys are a people full of anger.
Anyways, there are times where mama will say something that will make me pause, and want to hear it again. Of course, as soon as I say "what was that?" She gets all suspicious, like she already knows that I'm just making her say it to laugh at the accented word. I won't lie, most of the time, this is why I'm asking her to repeat it. And believe me, as soon as this happens, all of the family is in on the conspiracy to get her to repeat, so we all act so innocent. Like, maybe we all happened to shut off our ears at the same time, missing just the one word.
Lately, my favorite words to hear being said are the following: (I'm going to see if I can write how it sounds, we'll see how successful that is)
Penguin, which is just hilarious. Said pin-goo-in
Commitee, being said Comm-ict-tik-ee
Obnoxious. This is harder to write. It's like auk-knock-ish. That's weird to look at!

I know that there are loads more, but these are my favorites for now. Penguin is the one I've been getting her to say more often than anything, and as soon as I hear it, I collapse in a fit of giggles. Even though it's annoying for her to play my "repeat yourself" game, surely, she's gotta love that at least we're listening, right? ...right?

At least I'm better than this!

I have been told over and over that I am a bad driver. I'm sure that most of it is in jest, but I'll admit, I'm not the best driver ever. I mostly get tired when I drive, even when it's like, one in the afternoon. I don't like driving-I know that I have to do it to get around, but I think it's a waste of time. That's the weirdest thing ever, but whatev. I do what I have to.
So I found this video on the internets the other day, and I just wanted to share it, as one of my Vieve's Videos. It's not that long, but boy does it make me giggle. If ever I feel bad about myself driving, all I have to do is watch this to realize, hey, I'm not that bad.


Drive on!

Man, this makes me laugh. Enjoy!

Who knew?

My beloved RSL has advanced to the next rounds of playoffs! I won't lie, I actually didn't think this would be happen. I mean, getting to the playoffs was big enough as it was, but to have made it farther? There had to be so much things that had to fall into place for us to get there, and when it all did, I was shocked and amazed. I totally didn't expect this to happen!
We played Columbus last Saturday, here at Rio Tinto. It was sort of a boring game, nothing going on, pretty evenly matched, etc. In the 87 minute (or so...) we scored! I couldn't believe it-we went crazy. The next game was last Thursday at Columbus. If you know my RSL boys, you know we do not play well when we're not at home, so of course, I was expecting a loss. I know it's bad to say this, but I'm a realist. Anyway, I couldn't watch the game because I had my evening with Comedy Sportz, but I was being updated by the minute by both my dad and PJ. As I got their texts, informing me that Columbus was up by one, then two, then RSL scored, then another score! We're tied? What the heck! Then, miraculously, we scored again, and won the game! I wish so much that I could have been watching the game, but alas, 'twas not to be.
I'm so psyched we won, and I'm not sure when we play next. We'll play either Chicago or New England, whoever wins the game that takes place tonight. I still can't decide which team I want to play more, but whoever it is, wouldn't it be awesome if we went even further? Keep your fingers crossed!

At this point, I should just get new feet

We all know I blister on my feets easily. Usually, it's not that painful, so I just keep going on with them, but the last week or so, I've gotten these two that are just horrible! They're right on the bottom/side of the foot where my big toe meets the actual foot. They started forming like, last week or so, and this week, they've gotten bigger and bigger and now one of them is actually infected. I don't know how that happened, but I'm dealing with it.
I think one of the things that exacerbated the problem is that the last few days at work this week, I had to actually wear real shoes, not the flip flops I usually wear. Walking on Thursday was the worst day ever, it was like every time I took a step, it was like someone was stabbing my foot. I should have cruised around these days in a wheelchair. I don't know where I would have gotten one, but that would have been awesome. Luckily, today it hurts way less than it did yesterday, so maybe I'm on the road to recovery!
I was going to post a picture of the aforementioned blister, but then I realized, no one wants to see that! So just imagine the grossness in your head. Hopefully this weekend, I'll take it easy and just let that heal. I know that as soon as it heals, another will form somewhere on my foot, so it's not like I'll ever get away from this!

Turns out, I do embarrass!

Well, turns out I do embarrass. Tonight, I was at a dinner/banquet for work, and the entertainment for the evening was Comedy Sportz. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's an improv group. Much like that show "Whose line it is anyway?". Love that show. So after a lot of improv-ing, lot of laughing, they ask for a female volunteer. I didn't volunteer, of course, but the people around me did, and the referee came over, took my hand, and led me onto the stage. Turns out, the thing they were going to do was sing to me. So after some friendly banter (I tried to hold my own against this guy!) they stared singing a song to me, and holy goodness. It's such a weird thing to have a lot of people looking at you while people are singing to you about you. Man, I could feel my face was bright red, and I could not stop laughing.
It was really funny though, I have to admit, and it was good fun to get up there. Thank goodness, however, that thats only the kind of thing that happens once in a blue moon!

I do know the difference!

Tonight, as I was washing my face for bed, I used my hand soap instead of my face soap. I realized my mistake 6 seconds after applying it to my face. Man, I must be tired. I'm going to bed.

Cookies, cookies everywhere, and not a drop to drink

I had to make some cookies for a work function, and today was the day I had to do it. (Seeing as how the event is tomorrow night, today was pretty much my last option!) I had bought all the ingredients that I needed yesterday-8 cake mixes, 8 frosting containers, 4 cups of shortening and 16 eggs. I came home from work on a mission-to bake as many of these as possible in the shortest amount of time. I enlisted my mom to help me, and off we went. We worked diligently from the minute I got home, for three hours straight we baked those cookies. Then, a cooling period, so the cookies would be ok to frost, then we frosted them for another hour. At the end of the frosting part, my hands (and the counter) were all covered in frosting. I was a sticky mess. And I went through multiple knives, because I dropped the knife on the floor. I am the clumsiest!
I got done early enough that I could luckily squeeze in a quick run before hurrying to write this before I go to sleep. I'm psyched that we got the cookies done, and now I'm tired. I can't believe that just baking cookies wore me out! Hopefully these things are delicious! I maybe should have tried one. Shoot!

To Draw My Own Conclusion...

I can't actually draw at all. Tonight at FHE, we played Pictionary, and holy cow, I realized how poorly I actually draw. I mean, I've never been creative. I can't draw, I can't make cute things, I've never been able to scrapbook, I just don't do anything like that. I've never really played Pictionary before, so I had no idea what was actually in store for me when they announced it. I went first (curses!) and I drew - wait for it - hair. The easiest word ever! It was my speciality, I drew a stick figure, some strands of hair, and drew some arrows. Man that was easy! We did some yelling, guessing, etc, and then it was my turn again. This time, I drew machine gun. Turns out, my way of drawing a gun is to draw a ninety degree angled line, then add a half circle (for the trigger, duh!) and then some tiny bullets coming out of it. Nobody guessed that right away (shock!) so my next plan was to draw a stick figure (I'm pretty sure that's the only thing I can successfully draw) with something in his hand shooting bullets, then a dead body a few feet away from him. And from this, someone actually got it! I felt pretty good about myself, and at the end of the night, my team won!
We didn't win much, just bragging rights (that's right, suckas!) and we got to get dessert first. But all that I care about is that someone actually recognized my drawings! I'd like to say I'll start playing this game more often, but oh, who am I kidding? I'll be lucky if I ever do again!

Same time...every year...

So last year, I was told that November was National Blog Every Day month. So last year, when I found this out, I tried to do it, and I think I was semi-successful. It might have not been interesting every day, but I think I got one every day. I'm too lazy to check right now, so who actually knows. And since today marks the beginning of November yet again (it happens every year!) I will try again to blog every day. If it's boring, that's ok, and if nobody reads these, that's fine too, so long as I have the knowledge of knowing I gave it my best shot. So here goes day one:
So to start things off, we're not going to be too exciting. Today was Stake Conference for my ward, which means, for me, free get-out-of-church day. I didn't take advantage of that this year though, I decided to head to my brother's ward to check out what his was like. I went there with him, and his ward is...well, its not bad, its just different. You know how you get used to your own, then when you visit another ward, you keep comparing it? That's what I spent the whole time doing. His was noisier, the people were noisier. I'm referring in particular to the girl who sat next to me, who decided the whole time to be highlighting things in her book, with her click-able highlighting pen. Which she clicked every time she used it. I wanted to grab her pen and mark all over her face. But because we were in church, and I'm not a violent person...I didn't do this.
I will go back to my ward next week, back to the things I am used to, but it might have been good for me to do this. It made me appreciate my own ward, so that's gotta be a good thing. If anything, it makes me glad that's not my ward, and sad for him that it's his!

I'm a sissy

I do not do well in scary movies at all. If I'm at a theater, I'm clinging to the hand/arm/leg of the person sitting next to me. Which is awkward if it's not anyone I know, but I'll hang on to whoever I have there. If I'm watching it at home, I'm pretty much sitting on the lap of the person that I'm with. And believe me, there will always be someone there-I will not watch one alone.
This weekend, PJ and I were going to see a movie, but there were several we wanted to see. We couldn't choose, so we did the only sensible thing-we put the names of the movies on pieces of paper, rolled them into balls, and put them on the floor for the cat to play with. Whichever one the cat chose to play with is the movie we saw. We rolled the dice (so to speak) and he chose Paranormal Activity. I don't know if anyone has heard of this movie, but it's a scary one. After watching the trailer (I hadn't even seen it!) we were on our way, and I was doubting our choice the whole way there, but I decided, it's gonna be good, we'll just see it.
Needless to say, the movie scared the living daylights out of me. At the end of the movie, I was curled into my chair, violently gripping PJ's whole freaking arm, and almost hyperventilating. Seriously, this movie freaked me right out, and for the next half hour or so, I was still shaking over it. I do know that I'm a sissy, but still, I couldn't believe this movie. And I made a huge mistake that night-after watching a movie about people hearing scary noises in their house-I chose that night to stay at PJ's, so I was almost freaking out about any possible noises that could happen in a strange house. But I survived, of course, if not a little tired the next day.
Would I do this all again? Absolutely. Even though I hate watching them, I always get such a feeling of relief when the scary part is over, and the anticipation of the next scary moment is just awesome.

Well, we've all done this

This happens to everyone. I mean, it can be as simple as a quick trip to the grocery store, and you end up buying a few things not on the list. But when it happens to you, the severity always seems worse than when you hear it from someone else.
This weekend, I did a bit of shopping, and I went to Old Navy. I just went for one thing-I needed to pick up a pair of flip-flops. One tiny pair of flip-flops, because I was wearing some Nike's that day, and my feet were too hot. When we walked in, we saw signs all over the place saying something about celebrating a 15 birthday or something, which I didn't even pay attention to. We walked about, trying to find where the shoes were, and I started to glance at clothing. I realized that about everything in the store was some variation of 15 dollars. It was either 15 bucks or 2 for 15, that sort of thing, and holy cow, those are some good prices. I was finding so much, it was ridiculous. And of course, its all winter stuff, which just makes sense to buy at these prices! I kept loading things up, pretty soon, my arms were hurting from all those dang hangers.
Finally, I had to tell myself to stop. It was too much-I needed to take myself away from the situation. I dragged myself up to the register, and got the final tally. What was supposed to be a simple trip to the Navy to pick up a pair of 'flops ended up a shopping spree that cost me upwards of 80 bucks! I couldn't believe it. I told myself that it was ok, it would all be needed, etc, but all I could think about was holy crap, that's a giant chunk of change I spent.
So really, this isn't all that bad, and luckily, I stopped before it got really steep. I'm just here as an example for everyone. If you want to keep your spending in check, make sure you stick to the list you have. And if you do stray, realize that once your hands can't hold your items of purchase, you might have gone overboard.

So not used to this...

So, of late, I have been out and about. Not in the normal way, but in a way I don't really do. I am a homebody. I like to stay home, and do really nothing, just chilling, and this suits me just fun. Normally, my weekdays went as follows: I would work, come home, watch me just a touch of TV (usually the Ellen Degeneres Show) and then I run, do some P90X, and by the time I'm done with this, it's just enough time to get ready for bed and then sleeping. I like routine, so clearly, this worked for me.
Then, I decided to get all "active" in my ward, so now, I go to the activities and all that jazz, and this cuts into my time of normal-ness. I understand that its a good idea to go to everything, and all that jazz, but I tell ya, I'm getting worn out! I haven't done my normal thing in like, 2 weeks maybe now. I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but to me, cutting into my routine, even for a couple of days, throws me way off. On Monday we did some FHE action, of sports night, so we played soccer, in which I played with no shoes and bruised the hell out of my leg/foot, and then Tuesday was a Tri-Stake BBQ, so all we did was just hang out and eat with people before going to a Fiesta del Mexico for the Independence day of Mexico. Then this evening, we took a friend out for dinner who's getting married, so by now, I am all out of whack.
I appreciate that getting out is good for me, but I miss doing things my way! I miss doing my evening workouts, and I miss watching my TV shows-which are piling up because it's the dumb beginning of the seasons so now I have a billion hours of TV to watch. I know this whole blog has been a selfish rant, but I don't even care! Tomorrow night, I'll be back into my thing, at least for one night. As for the rest of the time...we'll see what things bring us!

First time for everything...

I don't embarrass at all. Everyone knows this, heck, I usually could care less what people think to be embarrassed by my actions. I think that today, I might have had my first embarrassing moment! Luckily for me, I was only around one other person, PJ (who else would it have been?) and I'm pretty sure that the people who were in their front lawns weren't paying attention at all.
So we went on this looong walk today, to bask in the nice-ness of the weather. We originally were going to go on a hike, but we couldn't figure out where there was one in our area. During the walk, I noticed that the front of my shoes were way longer than my feet, but of course I didn't think much of it. As we were nearing my house, there was a bee that was, I swear, following us. PJ took off running to get away from it, and I just laughed at her. Then that bee came back for me! I tried to be calm, because I hear that's what you're supposed to do to get bees away from you, but that bee was having none of it. I took off running to get away from it, kinda laughing, and that's when it happened.
I don't even know what happened, but all of a sudden, the ground was coming up at me quite quickly. As I hit the ground, hands out, palms scraping, all I could think of was, I should roll when I hit the ground. Why did I think this? I have no idea, but in my brain, I think I thought it would hurt less if I rolled. So I did, I rolled, hurting elbows, scraping legs, until I came to a stop, a little dazed and out of breath, but alive! My hands hurt for the rest of the day, but today, here I am, no worse for the wear. And at least I now know what its like to have a full-out, hit the ground trip. And it was awesome.

Boredom strikes again

So, a looong time ago, I blogged about how I get bored of my cell phones quite quickly. This is still true today. My phones never never break, but after about a year, I just am so sick of them! I got my last cell phone, oh, about 14 months ago, and lately, I've been getting so tired of it. Like, there's nothing wrong with it, and the phones I like always look the same, so it doesn't even matter that I get a new one, but I wanted to! So this week, I finally did.
I got the bug for the new one over the weekend, I saw this phone as I was walking past one of those phone kiosks in the mall. You know the ones, as soon as you glance over at the booth, a salesperson is about ready to jump over the counter to get to you. After I walked away from the super-friendly salesman, I was thinking about the phone the rest of the weekend. On Monday, I did some researching, and I decided I liked this phone, so after work, I hopped myself over to the phone store and bought it! I know I probably shouldn't be buying a phone when I don't need it, but I just wanted it, so I just went ahead and did it. And this is a picture of my new phone:
I love that it has both the bar keyboard, for the regular texting, but also has the QWERTY keyboard for when I feel like mixing it up, which is just a lot of fun. I loves my new phone, and I'm hopingthat I won't get too sick of this one too quickly.

What a fab day!

So, as everyone knows, it has recently been my birthday. Yup, turning one year older, yet again. I got to work on Wednesday, my first day back from vacay, and turn to my desk, and lo and behold, this is what I saw:


My desk had been decorated by Michelle! And such a fabulous job she did. My whole day was awesome. She got me a great present also, and the ladies took me out to lunch at the delicioso Red Robin (Yum!) where I had a super delicious cheeseburger. For a treat, we had cookie bars and ice cream with fudge, which was just awesome. As you can see, I was quite happy

And yes, I did leave this up all day, so working through the streamers and confetti was a pretty hard task. And near the end of the day, I didn't feel like working that much, so I took all the erasers on my desk and decorated my keyboard with them
And yes, it was hard working through those also. Now the erasers live on a different part of the desk. Thanks Michelle for such a great day and the awesome stuff you did!

Things I've Learned: Boston Edition

Ya'll, I'm back! I tell ya, I leave for a week, and come back with a wealth of knowledge. I will share with you my learnings, so that in case you go to Boston someday, you'll have this info to save you any time. Or, if you are just interested in learning things about Boston.

- Boston is the hottest place ever, because of their humidity. This was my first encounter with humidity, and believe me, we did not get along. In fact, we hate each other. I will avoid the states that aren't dry in the future.

- The transit system in Boston is literally the most ridiculous thing ever. I understand how this could save their traffic, etc, but holy crap it's so hard to figure out.

- The mosquitoes there will eat you until you are dead. I have - at last count - 15 bug bites from 1 hour spent outside, touring this one place. I couldn't swat them away fast enough, which is clear from how many I have. I've never itched this much in my whole life.

- Walking for 6 days in flip flops has left me with giant blisters. I know, you people will say, wear regular shoes, but at this point, I have blisters all over my feet, I'm not really sure what to do in the way of shoes anymore.

-I love the Boston accent. It's so fabulous to listen to-and after trying for several days, I can sometimes imitate it! If you know me, you know I am horrible at accents, so this is a victory!

Anyhoo, I'm sure there are many more, but to share them all would take too long! Enjoy my knowledge, and although I had a great time, I am glad to be back.

Greetings from Boston!

Hey all! I don't even know who's reading this anymore, but I'm sending news via the internets to let everyone know what's going down in beantown. So, we made it here, safe and sound. The flight was long, but I read and played trivia games, and etc, so it wasn't actually too bad. Getting to our hotel took another couple of hours, because this state is ridiculous. There are no visible road signs, I couldn't figure out how to get anywhere, it was just a big old mess, but we found where we needed to go, and everythings been fine.
This morning, we went into Boston, to Harvard, and did some sight-seeing. The buildings here are beautiful! There so old, but they are darling. We went to the bookstore and bought ourselves some souvenirs. After that, we headed over to the USS Constitution, which was awesome. It was super hot/humid here (of course!) so being in the actual boat was super super hot, but it was worth it. I think I took like a hundred pictures, I just kept snapping.
I am not liking the weather here. It's just too hot! Temperature-wise, it's cooler than home, but with the humidity, it's like a billion degrees. I've never been in humidity, it's all new to me, and oh my I do not like it. I feel just covered in sweat, and everything just feels gross! It makes me appreciate our weather, and miss home. Which is not good, we still have a long time. Which is great, because there's still so much that we need to see!
I know it's only been one day, so there's not that much to report, but I thought I'd write right now, while I'm here, nursing my poor feet, they hurt so much after all the walking today. But tomorrow is a new day, with loads of new things to see.

I think I'll go to Boston...

Ok, by now, mostly everyone who reads this knows I am leaving tomorrow, on a jet plane. I do know, however, when I'll be back again, next Tuesday. I am leaving to Boston in less than twelve hours. I am going for a birthday trip, and I couldn't be more excited. I've never been to the east coast, the most east I have been is Denver, and lets be honest, that's not that far from here. But we are following our beloved Real to Boston to watch them play New England. I don't know if we're crazy for following them, or just really awesome. I guess only time will tell...
There are so many things we have to do there, which is why our trip that was originally a three-day trip turned into a seven-day excursion. I keep finding things to do there, and every time, I think, yeah, we can fit this in, so I'm pretty sure sleep will not be a high priority on the list over there. We are flying out tomorrow morning though, and now that I've finished packing, I just wanted to drop a quick line before I hit the sack, I need to be at the airport around the time of bright and early, but we'll make it, and it'll be great. I'm going to try to keep everyone updated on things going on over there, but who knows what will be happening. Bon voyage!

Knock, knock, who's there?

Here we are for yet another installment of Vieve's Videos. I first saw this particular video a while ago, but I hadn't thought of posting it on here, but then I saw it again on Saturday, and I decided to share it. It's like, 5 minutes long, so I won't feel bad if it's too long for anyone to watch, but if you have time, I recommend it.

Gilly

I love this thing. It's so funny to me because it's just so weird. I kinda want to dress up like Gilly for Halloween, but I'm pretty sure that no one would be able to get it. I can do the Gilly dance though, and I'll do that from time to time. Enjoy!

An Open Letter

Dear fellow fans,

I understand that unlike me, you don't go to as many games as I do. I did purchase season tickets for Real, and I understand that you only come once in a while. As some helpful hints though, let me give you some advice, to help you in games. Listen, I'm going to yell in these games. People all around you are going to yell. You should have know this before you came, and to be surprised by it is just stupidity on your part. But if it bothers you, don't sit there all game with your hand over your ear. Either leave, or resign yourself to hearing it the whole game.
Also, I know you like your beer. It is awesome that now you can order yourself some beer, and can drink many cups during the game and get yourself tipsy. I'm just going to say, know your limit. Sure, have a beer. Sure, it's smelly and gross, but if you want one, go ahead. Have two, even. But if you get friendly after two, stop. If you get unbalanced, stop stop stop. If you can't control your drinking, don't have any. If all you do after a few beers is spill your beer all over me, that's just rude. Don't be the douche who can't control his alcohol at the sports game.
And lastly, I know that it sucks when people have to get up to leave during a game. But at halftime, don't throw a fit because someone needs to get up to go the bathroom. You CHOSE to sit near the aisle. If you sit near the aisle, you need to be prepared in advance for people to be walking by you.
I do hope this info helps you, and if you have any more needs, I'm always here.

Sincerely,
Vieve

200 in!

Wow-here it is, my 200th post! When I look back at the ones I've done, I realize...I don't really talk about anything at all! Seriously, I'm pretty sure all I talk about is running and soccer. But it's all I do, so... I think it's appropriate in this 200th entry to tell you that most likely, they will be over shortly. Not because I'm quitting or any of that jazz, but I'm like 75 percent sure that I'm going to die pretty soon. My body is slowly shutting down, and I'm just waiting for it at this point.
Really, it's just a lot of ailments I've got going on. My throat has been hurting for a bit, I have an earache in one ear, and the other one has pain on the outside when I touch it. My feet, between the two, have 8 blisters on them, one of which is on the heel of my left foot, and it's now become infected. I'm actually soaking it in an Epsom salt bath right now, to see if that helps it at all. At least the limping has stopped, essentially. Going down stairs still hurts, but I'm just avoiding those as best I can. In my mouth, I have a cut on the roof of my mouth, but I have no idea where I got it. It hurts when I eat anything salty, which is unfortunate, because I loves me some chips.
I'm not entirely sure when this will kill me, or if I'll heal first. Luckily, some of my blisters have healed-ish already, they don't hurt as badly anymore, and I'm hoping the rest follow suit. If only this one on my heel would feel better, I would feel less like I'm dying and more like I should just take it easy. But hopefully, things will start to get better, and I might live! Because if I died, the seven people who would miss me would just be sad!

I look at it as a suggested speed

Here's the thing. I freak out when I see police cars. You don't get pulled over 6 times in a few years and don't get nervous whenever you see a cop car. This weekend, we went on a hike at this place in Alpine. We weren't entirely sure how to get there, so there was a lot of erratic driving, trying to figure out where we were supposed to turn. We had been on this road for a while, and going pretty fast, when I saw a cop. I immediately broke into a sweat, and looked at my speed. I was only going 40, and I was in a 35 zone. I felt pretty ok, until pretty quickly, they immediately flipped around. In my positivity, I was like, oh, they won't be coming after me. The lights flip on, I pulled over, and...of course, they were coming after me.
I start to panic, and PJ, who's with me, didn't actually notice that we had been pulled over for a few minutes. There were two policemen in the car, and one came on my side, and the other one went to PJ's side and stood back, hand on hip, just in case we were dangerous. Which we totally are! He told me I was speeding at 40 in a 25, and I said that I was pretty sure the limit was 35, and he asked if I was from around there. I explained that no, we weren't, we were just trying to find this river/hike place. He took my license and registration, and then they were doing their thing for a little, checking me out, I assume.
They came back, handed everything back to me, and said he was only giving me a warning! I had never been so happy. I told him he was my favorite, and he was taken aback and said thank you. I'm not really sure why he was surprised to be a favorite after not giving a ticket! He then explained to us how to get to the hike! I was so glad that I dodged the bullet, and hopefully, I'll take the officer's advice and start slowing down. But I kinda doubt that will happen. If I didn't learn that from the first six actual tickets, I don't know that getting a warning will.

Activities seem so good in theory...

I kept thinking like, every day this week of things I needed to write on. I kept having things to keep you all updated on, but then it comes to the one night that I actually have the time to write, and here we are, can barely remember anything. But I'll do my best!
So, we had a FHE activity this week, which was a big relay/game night, best team left standing. I was wearing my lady cop sunglasses (read: aviator glasses, but I think they look like cop glasses) at the beginning of the evening, because it was super sunny, of course. A few hours into it, the sun had gone down, so I put the glasses onto my clothes to hang on. I forgot that they were in my pocket at one point, so when I tackled someone to the ground, they were smashed! I was so sad, they were a favorite pair of glasses. But surely I can find some more, so I'm ok with losing them. Also, later in a race I was doing, I fell in some mud, which wasn't the worst thing ever, but it sucks to fall in mud! The sprinklers were on all night, so the ground was so muddy all over the place. But it was nice and cool all around the park, so that's a plus.
Lately, peoples around me have been doing all sorts of great things for me. On Tuesday, my mama brought me home some tacos, for Taco Tuesday, and then today, she washed all my bedding for me. My brother filled my car up with gas, Chelle brought me a delicious cookie to work, and my dad cut up four pineapples for me, since the electric knife scares the heck out of me. It's nice to have peoples take care of you like this-I hope this doesn't change!
Last night was the MLS All-Star game, which was fun. It kept me up way past my bedtime though, which was just unfortunate! All day I felt so tired, and then I meant to go to sleep ridiculously early tonight, but that didn't end up happening, of course! Right now I'm furiously typing to finish, so I can go to sleep, at the same time I'm soaking my foot in Epsom salts to try to get rid of an infection I have on my foot. I've been getting this massive blister on my foot, and it's not getting better, I think it's just getting worse, so I'm trying to fix it! I hope it works, because this foot is driving me crazy, and now it just hurts, and that's just annoying.
I guess that's really all I have for now, plus I'm just beat! I'm going to try - which is an empty promise, but I really will - to do better about keeping you updated, but until then, these posts will have to do!

The Power of Vieve

So, in general, I don't like children. Everyone knows this. There are moments when I'm around them that I'm like, hey, these tiny persons are ok, but then a few minutes later, I realize that no, its actually not like that. But anyway. I do, however like my nephews. I do like my niece, lets not leave her out, but she dislikes me very much, which I don't know why. I'm aces! Just ask the other kids. Out of the 3 nephews I have, one of them likes me the best, that's my Nathan. I'm not really sure why, but he thinks I'm too cool for school, so he does what I say, regardless of what that is. This past Sunday was one such event.
I went to visit my sisters' new place, which I hadn't been to. They were giving me a tour, and Nathan and Jack came with the sis and me around the house, the yard, etc. They were showing my their pool/clubhouse and I said to Nathan, "you should jump in". His mom, my dear sister Katja, told him that he better not, or else he'd be in trouble. He had resigned himself to this, and then I said to him one more time, "you should jump in". He of course, was fully clothed. He looked at me, looked at his mom, asked if he would get in trouble. She laughed and said no, and then he asked (another 15 times...) if she was sure he wouldn't get in trouble. After being assured he wouldn't get in trouble, he went for it. Just ran over to the pool, and, very gracefully, I might add, just jumped in the pool. Not even a cannonball, just a little jump. He got out, and looked like this:
So good for him, he did just what I said! This is why I like to hang out with Nathan-through thick and thin, I know, he'll do just what I say, regardless of what his mom says. I can't wait to see what else I can get him to do...

This is what comes of doing good!

I haven't given blood for a long time. Not because I am against it in any way, it's just that when you get a tattoo, you're not allowed to give blood for a year following it. My year after my last tattoo ended a few months ago, and I've not had the opportunity to give until today. I only have one good vein, on my left arm. I've never had a vein visible in my right arm. So today, I get there, and answer the questionnaire, (which, by the way, I find so funny to answer) and then I get all set up. They sectioned off the arm, drew lines on me, and put some of that iodide stuff. I was totally ready.
She puts the needle in me, and it seems ok, but after a few seconds, she kind of frowns at my arm, and calls over this other guy to "take a look at this". I perk my ears up, because nobody likes to hear that. So then he does some stuff, asks how it feels, then says things should be ok. I'm sitting there for a bit, doing the squeeze-every-5-seconds thing, and then the girl comes back over. She looks for a few seconds at my arm, then calls another girl over to take a look. Well, by now, I'm thinking this is a huge mistake. She then informs me that I've clotted too early, so I've stopped giving the blood, or something. They fiddled with the needle for a minute or so, which hurt the whole time! They take it out, and I don't know what they're talking about, because I kept bleeding a lot. They had to change my gauze and everything. They wrapped my arm, and I left, with a juice box (that of course I spilled on my white clothing) and a Fig Newton.
As the day went on, my arm just hurt the whole time. Near the end of the day, after I take off the tape, I see my arm and see this delicious bruise:

I don't even know if you can really tell from the picture, but yeah, it's quite bruised. Not only is there that purple-ish part that's totally visible, surrounding it is also a deep purple bruise. I can't believe all this happened, from me just wanting to do a good deed. Well, never again, I tell you. Never again.

Nuggets of Info

Well, ya'll, it's been a crazy few days. I have many informations to share with everyone, so I decided that instead of doing multiple entries to catch you up, I'd just do one, with nuggets of fun for you!

I cut my hair this weekend! Not just a inch, to trim off the dead ends, I cut off almost five inches. Its not too short, thank goodness, but for right now, I miss my hair. I miss how when I used to swing my hair, I'd feel it on my arms. Now...I just feel the air. But I keep telling myself, hair grows. And it'll be healthy hair!

I had a great 4th of July. I didn't do anything crazy, I mostly just spent the day outside, but it was nice. Ended the evening with a fabulous thing of fireworks (purchased at the Costco) and had a fun time. I ended up meeting a tiny child who I actually liked! She gave me a hug at the end of the day, it was adorable.

I have been eaten alive by mosquitoes of late. I have about 4 on my legs that look just gross, and they itch all the time. I tried so hard not to scratch them, but it's so hard!

I went to FHE-for the second week in a row! Now don't anyone think I'm getting too active though-we're just trying this on. We played volleyball and kickball (and I played some soccer with a friend) and I got a massive bruise on my ankle. It's about the size of a small apple. It looks awesome! I would have posted a picture, but I can't seem to get it to take right. Sorry, peeps.

I think that might be it for now. There are of course more things to talk about, but I'll see if I can't get those to be their own entries.

Google, thou art replaced

As everyone knows, I love Google. I love it on the computer, type in anything and you can find anything! I use it the most on my phone though, I just text to Google, and I get movie show times, weather updates, phone numbers of restaurants, a lot of info. I use it all the time, seriously. But now, I have a new favorite.
I heard of this new search thing from PJ's dad, he asked if we used it, but I never had even heard of it before, then I forgot about it until just barely. I read about it in my beloved (yes, beloved) Entertainment Weekly. It's a service called Cha Cha. All you do is text it a question, and a real live person (not a computer) texts you back. I was so excited to try this-to see if it worked. So yesterday, I typed my question, which asked what the Spanish word chivo meant in English, in case you were wondering. A few minutes later, I got an answer back, and Iwas in love. This is my new favorite thing in the world.
I keep thinking of questions I should ask it, but I just don't have anything that I can think of. Rory used it today, and asked Cha Cha if anybody texted back a thank you when they asked something, and they answered back that nobody usually did. I just thought that was funny. So now, I will use this often. I might still use Google for word definitions (it just seems easier) but for everything else, I'm going to use my new toy. I recommend to everyone to use this bad boy, if you text at all. You just text to Cha Cha (242242) and it's free! (Well, standard rates apply, if you don't have a text messaging plan) Use it!

BTW, I didn't mean for this to sound like an infomercial or that I'm pimping it, I'm just loving it right now.

First!

This'll be quick, because I'm pretty sure that everyone that reads this blog already knows this. But what if someday I make myself a book from these blog entries? I'm gonna want this in here! So today was my work summer party. These are never very fun. I'm sorry, but I loved them back in the old days, when we'd go to the water park, have a big barbecue, it felt like a big family party. Now its like, you get a barbecue, that's it. I think there are games and stuff going on there, but I can never hear a dang thing being said!
Anyway, so every year they have a run in the morning, a "Fun Run". I don't know why they put those words together. Maybe because they rhyme? I mean, it's not horrible to run, clearly, I enjoy it, but come on. I'm never really having a great time. This is a short race, two miles. This is my second year running it, the first year, I showed up late, half-ran it, and finished. But this year, myself and a friend had a bet-type thing going on about it. We kept trash-talking each other about who would win, that sort of thing. So this morning, I got to the race with her, and we took off. I got into my comfortable pace, and she stayed with me for a bit, then lagged behind just a little. I kept going, and finished. In first place! (Of my age group) And also, I was the first female to cross the finish line, so that was pretty cool.
I know it's just two miles, so I shouldn't think I'm the best runner in the world, but I never place in my runs, so this was awesome to me. Maybe now I can start doing this more often-taking a place. It's a great feeling!

It all fits together...

I'm not a patient person. I'm pretty sure every person who has ever met me knows this. I know, it's a personality flaw, but I'm ok with it. Because of this, I never choose activities that require lots of thinking and time. But here is the day it changes. I've decided to put together a puzzle. It's only 1000 pieces, but I'm going to give it a go. I put it together years ago, with the help of a few of my siblings, but this time, I think I'm giving it a go alone. I caught the puzzle bug over at PJ's about a week ago, her family just had one out on a table, and whoever wanted to just sat and started putting it together. Even though mine will be out, I think I'd be the only one who works on it-which is ok with me.
I'll post the picture of the puzzle when I'm all finished, but don't hold your breath. With the way I accomplish things, that isn't likely to happen until September! Hopefully I won't give up halfway through.

I really do love these!

I made some more Oreo Truffles today (I know, I'm addicted. I can't help myself) and I used some new chocolates, and a different way of doing things, it was a lot of fun. Basically the reason I'm posting about this is because I wanted to share my awesome pictures. Enjoy!


Pretty much, when we got done making them, there was a lot of chocolate left over, so I just kept eating it, and of course, food ends up everywhere. It was a good time, and I love eating the end result!

Just keep running, just keep running...

Good news, I finished my race, injury-free! The night before, I was doing my pre-race dinner of pasta (this time, we made our own pastas. I chose wagon wheels-delicious!) and we were doing a puzzle after we ate, and I was feeling so sick. I don't know what was going on, but oh man, I was feeling awful. I went home, and went to bed, hoping that maybe it was just my stomach being retarded. I had an ok night of sleep-it wasn't awesome, but at least I got some sleep. When I woke up in the morning, my stomach didn't hurt quite as bad, but at least it wasn't horrible. I ate a bite of banana, and went on my way.
I got to the race, and waited around, shooting the breeze with people. When it got time for the race, we lined up in the chute. The gun went off, and away we went. PJ and I had a really good starting pace, we were passing a lot of people. There was a big hill in the first half mile of the race, and we took that, staying with our pace. We got to the top, feeling good. After about another 3/4 of a mile, I picked up the pace and kinda went on my own. (I'm not horrible-PJ told me to!) I kept my pace going through the whole race, and when I saw the high school, I picked it up a little more. What I didn't realize is that we had to go all the way around the track, which, I hate doing track stuff. I made it ok, but then when we got to the curve of the track, I slowed down, dang it. Then when I was a little away from the finish, I just sprinted it in-my ending time was 24:35. I was 272 overall, and 9th in my age group. Not bad!
As soon as we crossed the finish, there was a 10-15 year old kid behind me who immediately vomited like, 4 times. I felt bad for him, but yuck. I was just psyched to have finished, and to have beat my old time. I'm hoping that with every race, I just get a little quicker!

Here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again...

Well, ya'll, it's time for another one! I know, I write about this all the time, and here we go, we have a new one going on. This weekend, Saturday morning, to be exact, I have another race happening. It's not a big one, it's a 5k only, but I'm excited for it. I love doing 5k's! I'm hoping this time to get my set a PR, and since I've done better every race, I think it could happen! So long as I don't get hurt or anything during it, or beforehand...
My new shoes that I got (a week ago today!) are doing ok. My first run that I had with them last week was bad-when I got done, my feet hurt so bad! I was so mad at the guy who sold them to me. But I held onto them, and now, a few runs later, they're doing good. I have no problems with them or anything. At least that won't get in my way!
So wish me luck, everyone. Hopefully I'll do well, and if not, meh. It won't destroy me. Lets be honest, I didn't prepare for this very much. For instance, I ate a ton of Oreo Truffles on Wednesday, and then tonight, I did a quick run, then right after, I decided to go ahead and eat some nachos, so I did. And now I have a stomachache, so this might not have been the smartest move, but oh well. Fingers crossed that I finish!

Most addictive, indeed.

There are many things people will rarely hear me say. "I'm engaged", "I'm pregnant", "I'd love to see if that toe is infected". Another is "I'm going to a ward event" be it FHE, a regular activity, or any of these things. But hold on to your hats, peeps, because that's what I'm saying! I went to FHE tonight, ya'll! I know, totally crazy, but we did it. Normally we avoid these activities, not for any particular reason, except that it's on weeknights when I'm usually running, but when we found out what the activity this was, we decided it was just up our alley.
Tonight, it was a dessert tasting. That's right-something I'm totally good at. We made Oreo Truffles. And by we, I mean PJ, but I totally helped. And by helped, I mean, supported. I was a good supporter. They were delicious, if I do say so myself. We went to the activity, and there were delicious treats everywhere. I tried to get a little of everything, and I'm pretty sure I did. Ok, there might have been a couple I didn't get, but mostly because I thought they looked gross. But of the things I tried, they were all soo good. I was pleased. There was voting at the end, Best Tasting, Best looking, healthiest, and guess what! Our dessert won "Most Addictive"! They are quite good. I'm going to have to make some soon and share it around with all of my (4) readers.
We also got to play a little soccer during the night, to work off a little of the calories we racked up by eating all those desserts. We got to know a little some of the people in our ward, so all in all, it was a pretty good evening. I might have to start going to more of these.

Maybe not.

It's not my first time...

Tonight, after our fabulous Memorial day barbecue, Rorizzle and I sat down to do some chilling. I was thirsty, so she got me a new drink she had, which she said tasted gross. It was some cranberry drink. I tried some of it, thought it delicious, so I drank the whole bottle. (the bottle was only 10 ounces, so not a big deal) I was feeling thirsty again, so I got another one and drank that one too. 10 minutes later, I'm jumping all over the room, asking everyone who wants to go on a walk. People are looking at me strangely, and asked me what's going on, and Rory said that I was probably feeling the drink kick in by then. Confused, we all turned to her, asking what the junk she was talking about. Turns out, the drinks she was giving me weren't only cranberry juices-they were cranberry juice energy drinks. Yep, I failed to look at the label, so I drank myself 20 ounces of an energy drink.
I never drink caffeine or anything like this. My drink of choice is water, Propel, this sort of thing. Once in a while, I will drink an orange soda or a root beer. There are times, once in a blue moon, I will drink a diet coke, but that's rare. I don't react well to stimulants, they affect me so greatly. For the next hour or so, on our walk, (Rory went with me thank goodness) I'm jumping around, pumping my arms all over, basically being like a five year old kid. After a while, it was leaving my system, so I calmed way down, and now, a few hours later, I'm pretty sure the whole thing is out of my system.
Now I've learned (and yes, I should have known this before) that I need to check things out before I take them from people. As I'm looking at the labels now, I can clearly see that the name of the drink is Cranergy, which should have tipped me off, but that's ok. It was a delicious drink nonetheless, and maybe in the future, when I'm needing a pick me up, I'll drink one. The odds of that happening are slim to none, but hey, it's something to keep in mind.

I'm famous!

Ok, maybe not really. Last night, we went to the Real game. Which, by the way, was a total freaking disappointment. You know me, I love my boys in red, but lately, I'm so angry at the way they're playing. It's like, they forgot how good a team they are, and now want to play like the Real of '06, the worst of the worst. I'm hoping they'll get over this and start to play like champs, because just watching them lose over and over again (we're currently on a 4 game losing streak!) is not at all fun.
So we're at the game last night, and they're announcing the starting line up for Real. As always, PJ and I were the only people standing in our section, screaming our hearts out. I noticed after a while that a cameraman has his camera pointed at us, and he left it there for a like, a full two minutes. I didn't see ourselves on the jumbo screen (which, yes, we were on that earlier, too!) I wasn't sure what was going on. After the game started, I got some texts from my familia, all telling me they had just seen me on tv! That's right, PJ and I were on tv! Luckily, my parents had kept it on their Tivo, so I got to see it too! We're standing up, cheering and yelling, then I yell at another friend we had sitting by us to stand up, she gets up, we cheer a bit more, and then they cut away from us. It's not a big deal or anything, but it's pretty cool.
The next day, PJ got a text from her cousin saying she saw us on the news last night, and that's pretty cool that we were on the news!
Also, I was perusing the internets at Real sites, just for funsies, and I saw this picture on one of them! I don't know if you can see us, but, if you look for us, you can see us.So there you have it. We're all over the place! So now, I have been on tv, and on the internets. So yes, I am famous. And no, you can't have my autograph.

Days that make you go aaaahhhh....

It seems to me that I work all the time. I never have any time, and on top of that, I swear, every moment for me lately has been planned, as soon as one thing ends, another has to start. But anyway. At work one day, Chelle and I were contemplating how awesome it would be to have a mental health day. You know, take a day off of work, when you're not going anywhere, you're not sick, you just have a day for yourself. We decided that we should totally do that. I took this day on Thursday a few days ago.
It was awesome! I loved it-I totally want to take more of these. I woke up at a leisurely pace, took my time getting up. I finished a lot of my Tivo (which was so full, but now that season finales of everything have run, I have no tv! It's fantastic!) and ran, took Sarge into the vet (where he got some shots, nothing major) and finished off the day watching my Thursday night tv. I didn't have to be anywhere, I didn't have to do anything that I didn't want to. There was nobody around to answer to. I think it should be a requirement to have to take one of these a month. I don't think that's something that'll catch on, but holy cow, how awesome that would be. Take notes, those of you who have employees. Give those people some much needed time off, for no good reason.

Like I don't have enough already!

Ok, everyone, brace yourself for some exciting news. I got a new puppy this weekend! We'd been talking about getting one for a while, my sister wanted to get a Lab, I wanted a smaller dog, we couldn't ever decide on getting one. Finally, this weekend, we had some time, so we just decided to go for it. We hopped in the car and went on down to the animal shelter.
We looked at the dogs they had there, and they were not that many choices. We knew roughly the animal we wanted to get, but not for sure, depending on what we found there. We saw a few ones that were cute, but not really what we were looking for. We saw this one little fella-a border collie mix dog, which is one we wanted, but it was a male-and for some reason, Pops doesn't like the male dogs. But he was so cute, we got dad to bend after sending him some pictures of the dog. We made our choice, and adopted him!
We even knew his name after a few minutes with him. We named him Sergeant. Well, his full name is Sergeant Spots, and we call him Sarge for short. He is a live wire. He jumps around all over the place, he bites all the time (ok, it's just puppy playful bites, so they don't hurt) and he is just generally so much more energetic than our other dogs. He's only 5 months old, so I imagine he'll calm down after a bit. We took him on a walk today, and he got tired after a while, I'll have to work his stamina up a little.
He's a fun little dog, and I'm glad we got him. I can't wait until he's acclimated into the family, and the other dogs are still getting used to him, and I think jealousies are getting smaller between all of them. I'll keep everyone updated on any goings on with him.

When it rains, it pours

Well, I'm back! Ok, not everybody even knew I was gone, but here I am again! (I really should update this thing more often) So this past Friday, I flew out (on a jet plane...) to the fabulous state of Colorado. Real had a game there this weekend, and since it's the only there of the season, of course we had to go. It was very late minute-we literally decided during church last weekend. We quickly booked everything that afternoon, and the hotel we chose to stay in is the same one the team stays in. I like when we stay in the hotel, we get to see them. I wouldn't say I stalk them, I'd say...we're friends. From a distance. That they don't know about. But we got to the hotel safe and sound, and late, so we pretty much just went to sleep when we got there.
We awoke pretty early the next day, which sucked, after being in so late, but that's ok. We were going to hit the gym (yes, I'm one of those people that uses the gym and exercies on vacations) so I was getting ready for that. The time was about 7:30-8:00, and all of a sudden, the fire alarm goes off. Luckily, since I was a quick dresser, I had my running clothes on already, but PJ was still in her PJ's (ha ha!) but when the fire alarm told us all (yes, it talked) to go outside, using the stairs, we listened, and started making our way down.
Unfortunately, our room was on the ninth floor, so going down took a little bit of time. I, being helpful, called out the floor we were on every time we got to one, and I don't know if the half-asleep people on the stairwell liked that, but whatever. I really don't care what strangers think of me. We finally made it downstairs, and outside, where there were groups of people, all huddled together in the cold. We had been outside for maybe a minute, when they told us it was safe, and we could go back to our rooms. We all went in, waited for elevators together, and went about our business. There was one person I felt bad for, a girl who had been called out of the shower, and was in a robe. Yeesh.
The weekend had no good events for us almost! Real lost the game, 2-0, which just sucked. We didn't play that well, and the ref hated us I think, but it was fun cheering with all of the other fans. It rained during most of the game, which made it cold, but not freezing, thank goodness. And, as it turns out, the team wasn't even staying at our hotel!! The entire reason we were staying there, and it didn't even happen! I was so disappointed by this. I didn't even get to see any of them outside of the game. Plus, our goalie was injured in the game, so our third-stringer had to come in, and our best defender was thrown out of the game. Not our night!
Besides those bad events, the weekend was a lot of fun. Riding an airplane is always fun for me, and I got home early enough to do my laundry, so that was awesome. Hey, I take pleasure in the little things! And hopefully, Real will kick some LA butt when we take them on on Wednesday.

Result!

Ok, I know it's been a really long time since I've posted, but things have been so busy. There are many a thing I need to blog about, but I'll just go from the last thing I've posted about. I did indeed run the SLC 1/2 marathon. 13.1 miles of running, sprinting for some of it, and by the end, I was pretty dead. For those of you who haven't heard of my results yet, here they are: I finished the marathon in 2 hours even. Ok, to be perfectly precise, 2 hours, 0 minutes, and 42 seconds. Not bad for my first one, I think. My placing was 1504 out of 4139. Top half! I was a little proud of myself for that. A bit of trivia, I was 171th place out of 557 in my age group. I'm not sure why I'd need to know that, but I do. Nice.
Some stories from the race...I got to the starting line after the race had actually started. I took Trax up from my hotel to the start line, and it ended up taking forever to get up there. We (when I say we, I mean myself and the other random people who happened to be on Trax with me) ran from the station to the start line, then started the race. I had a really good pace for the first few miles, I finished the first 4 miles in 32 minutes, which, for me, is a super good pace. I kept going at that for the next few miles, then started to get a little tired and my pace slowed a little. It wasn't until mile 10 that I started to wear down, and then, mile 11, we started to go uphill. It wasn't a slight hill, like I'd been told, it was a big one, and I slowed waaay down going up it. When I reached the top, though, I was so happy. I picked up the pace a little at the top, and after another mile (so now, we're at mile 12) I noticed how close I was to the end. A really fast-paced song started on my iPod, (the best kind!) and I ran along with it, which put me at sprinting. There were people all along the sides of the streets, cheering for everyone coming in. This pumped me up also, so I sprinted the last mile in as fast as I could. My lungs were burning, I felt like my legs were going to die, but I did it, I finished!
The people that met me at the finish line (my fam and PJ) all told me how angry I looked coming into the finish line, and having seen the pictures now, yeah, I look totally pissed off. Unfortunately, you guys can't see the pictures, because I can't figure out how to get them to save here. I think I have to buy them before I do that, and I don't think I want to buy them. But at least I finished, and I hit my goal of finishing in 2 hours, so I was happy. I got some really good looking blisters on my toes, one of them a blood blister, which actually finally popped today. Gross. It took me a few days to recover, and now, I'm finally doing some good runs again. I will do anothe 1/2 marathon-in September. At Disneyland!

I've got nerves of steel...

Right now, I actually don't feel like I have nerves of steel. I'm nervous. There, I said it. I'll admit it. I know it's dumb to be nervous now, but I am. Tomorrow, Saturday, I will be running in my first ever (and maybe my last, let's see) half marathon. I am both excited and totally completely dreading it. I think I can do it. I have done the distance once before, so I know it's been done, but I feel like tomorrow my body will freeze up, or after a few miles, just give out. But in my logical brain (the one that rarely comes out) I know that probably will not happen. I'm going to think positively now, and know that I can do it.
I pretty much just have one goal. Well, two. My first is to finish, and my second is to beat the other people that I know that are running the race. I think I might be able to do that, and that's what will push me over the finish line. I don't care if I have to crawl over it, I will finish this. I love being competitive, I'm glad that I found something in this race to compete with someone about, even if they don't necessarily know about that.
Well, wish me luck, everyone. I'm sure things will go well, and I'll post the results at some point tomorrow (if I find them out myself) so you can see that I've at least finished the race. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank

Spring is (sorta) here! Along with the warmer weather and the soccer season starting, it's also the start of racing season. I had my first race of the year yesterday, the Provo City Half-Marathon & 5K. For this race, I chose to do the 5K. PJ was originally going to race with me, but due to an injury, she was forced to sit this one out.
We showed up to the race Saturday morning, bright and early, since the race started at 8:10. PJ came with me for moral support, to cheer me along, which was awesome of her. The half-marathoners race started at 8:00, so as soon as they took off, we all lined up in the chute. The starting gun (or maybe it was a cannon? I'm still not sure) went off, and off we went. I started off with a really good pace, and was doing pretty good. I decided to follow the pace of this guy in front of me, but when we went up a hill, I passed him, so that ended up not being the smartest move. I kept going and kept passing a bunch of people, which was a new thing for me.
I finished with a time of 27 minutes 26 seconds, which is my fastest 5K to date. I was 88th overall and 29th in the women's overall, which I consider to be pretty awesome. I was glad to have gotten this out of the way, so that I'll be all ready for my next race, which is in 2 weeks, which I'll write more about later. And today, I'm just dealing with being sore-which I am just a little, so I'll just rest up.

Home opener!

Everyone, it's here. The day I've been waiting for since last October has finally arrived. Soccer season has started, yes, technically, but in my world, it doesn't start until tomorrow. We have our first game at Rio Tinto of the year. Our boys in red are taking on the Columbus Crew. I'm not going to lie, I don't know how well we'll do, but you can guarantee I'll be screaming my head off no matter what; whether in anger or happiness. We have a great team, we'll have the whole crowd, we'll have just a slight advantage there. We need all the help we can get.
The one thing I'm not looking forward to is the cold. As we've been experiencing lately, the weather has not been good. Some might even say, super crappy for this time of year. But, I will show up in my seventeen jackets, scarves, gloves, blankets, whatever I can get my hands on. I'm hoping that it doesn't actually snow or rain during the time of the game, but really, it very possibly could. That will be unfortunate, but it's not enough to keep me away.
Really, what else can I say? I'm psyched for tomorrow, I'll be happier if it's not freezing, but I'll take what I can get. Think warm thoughts!

Avoiding pain is my forte!

I'm doing a lot of running right now. I have a long race that I'm preparing for that's in about 3 weeks. I'm doing well in keeping to my schedule. Of course, with all this running comes the general wear and tear of my body. I'm constantly sore, going up and down stairs is ridiculous, and my back is usually sore (the dreaded "runner's back"). I had a super long run yesterday, so today my quad muscles are so sore. Just moving in positions hurts. Oh man.
But anyway, along with the muscles, blisters are sometimes involved. I usually don't get blisters, only once in a while, and they usually disappear quickly. I got a blister on my third toe on my right foot. I know, the third toe is such a random place. It's not the longest toe, or the biggest, it's just...there, hanging out, and I got a blister. At first, it was just a nuisance, but it just kept getting bigger, and hurt more. Yesterday, after my long run, and the walking I did all day, the blister was killing me, and I'm pretty sure it had grown from being just one the top of my toe to the side of my toe as well. As we watched the Real game last night (grrr) I decided I'd had enough of it. I'd been told over and over not to pop the blister, but I was at the end of my rope! I iced the toe (to prevent any pain, to numb the toe) and after I felt nothing on it, I got a pin and popped the blister.
It was so much easier than I thought to pop it! Immediately after it popped, all this gunk started coming out. Never having had this happen to me, being my first real blister, I was informed that the gunk coming out was pus, and I was completely grossed out. I cleaned it up, did all that jazz, and for the remainder of the night, my toe throbbed. It didn't hurt or anything, just...throbbed. Today, the toe is a different color than the rest, and it doesn't really hurt, just when things hit it or rub it or anything.
At least the blister is gone (for now, and so far) and I'm hoping it doesn't come back. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if it hurts when running. And now I know what to do when I get a blister in the future-even though it's something they tell you not to do.

The first game...my first disappointment

Well, ya'll, the first game of Real was this weekend. Sadly, our first one wasn't at home, we played the new team, Seattle. I was totally psyched for this game. It seems like its been forever since our season ended, so thank goodness it's finally here. Sadly, our team was not put together very well! I don't know if its just because it was the first game, or because we didn't play at home, but oh my heck we were so sloppy! Passes were horrible, no shots were really good, they just all around weren't impressive. I know that as the season goes along, we'll get better, and I hope it's soon. We have the home opener this week-on Thursday. I know it'll be freezing cold, but it's totally worth it. To see my team play is one of the things I love. I'll totally brave any cold to watch it. As long as it doesn't actively snow or rain during the game, I'll be fine. I'm hoping we'll do good in that game, but as we're playing the MLS champs from last year, I'm not sure we'll be successful. But I'll cross my fingers, and hope. I'm just psyched the season has officially started!