Merry Christmas Mom

The best day of the year

I am Halloween. I am Sacajawea. I hung out with Ron Howard, the robot from Flight of the Concords, Amelia Earhart, and Little Red Riding Hood. So Fun.

I just want to make a note about Ron Howard. This was by far the BEST Halloween costume I have EVER seen. My friend actually shaved his head to look like a middle aged balding academy award winner. That is Halloween dedication. And everyone noticed.

Make the World a Better Place

I am currently a resident of the state of Utah. Utah has a thrift organization that is comparable to Goodwill, or Salvation Army called Deseret Industries. People bring in their old stuff/junk/crap and others pay money for it. One man's crap is another man's...crap. So each ward in each stake of the church does service at these centers and it was my ward's turn. Now, normally I would just pass the sign-up sheet in Relief Society on to the next person with a very valid excuse in my head like, "That's Tuesday night, I'm usually pretty tired on Tuesdays." Or "I would love to serve but DI sometimes has lots of crying children and my hands get grimy when I look through the t-shirts." Thus, preventing me from attending a service opportunity. Well, I have been feeling a little blue lately and I keep hearing quotes and suggestions about how your troubles seems to go away when you serve others.

The point: I signed that sign-up sheet and I marched down to Deseret Industries with my latex gloves to serve Utah's thrift comunity from 6 to 8 pm.

Result: My troubles did not melt away, but I do feel good about my time spent at DI sorting and matching Mens, Womens, and childrens shoes. There are two reasons for this positive feeling. First, I was helping the needy, clothing the poor, serving my fellow man etc. etc. etc. Second, I was ridding the world and indeed the entire thrift community of many bad pairs of shoes. I took the liberty of throwing away every faux flower, plastic beaded, rhinestone studded shoe I saw. I probably threw away 5 pairs of off-white, square toed, low-heeled, size 6 1/2 pumps, 10 pairs of black clunky clogs, and at least 20 pairs of orthopedic sandals. Who is wearing all these bad shoes?! And who, in their right mind, would ever buy a pair of heels made out of colorless acrylic??!! Let's just say that if there are any grandma's who are planning to pick up another pair of elasticized, flat beige orthopedics, they are going to have to look somewhere besides the St. George DI.

A success

I decided on lemon raspberry. This is from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com and it was a very thick dense cake but I thought it was good.

Thanks to my family and best friend for making me feel so loved on my birthday!

I am not afraid of spiders.

Thank goodness.
My roommate and I found this living very near our front door last weekend... It is about the size of my palm.
We decided we didn't want to know anything about it, like does it eat small rodents... or children?

Birthday Cake?

I want to make my own birthday cake. (Is that ok, mom?) So I've been looking at cake recipes and now I don't know which one to make... The problem is that I love chocolate and when I get an excuse to make a cake, I always choose to make chocolate. I know I would like other cakes, but it's so hard to pass up a good chocolate cake. This time I am determined to not make my classic dark chocolate cake and try something else.

These are some of the ideas I've been looking at

This is a Layered Reeses Peanut Butter Cake from PickyPalate.blogspot.com
Looks Sooo Good.

Also: Lemon Raspberry Cake

I can't decide

I've seen your 9 to 5 take away all your dreams

Lately I've been thinking a lot about why I chose my field of work. Not necessarily just mine but everyone's. It seems that lately everyone I talk to is not doing what they want to do, myself included. Why do I go to a Hospital everyday and help doctors by testing their patient's hematology and chemistry levels? I thought it was what I wanted to do, right? I like science, Med Techs have great job security and decent pay. But really, why am I doing this? All day at work I think about what I would be doing if I didn't have to be here. Diane, my trainer at work says that she always wanted to be gemologist, or a cosmetologist. She loves rocks and she loves hair. Why does she come to the hospital everyday too? Dave, another one of my trainers, was a pastor in a church, and then a psychologist, so why does he too come to the hospital everyday instead of doing something he loves like psychology or theology? I look at them as they talk about their past dreams they have long since given up and it truly breaks my heart. I have a few theories but none of them really explain why so many people fall into the trap of doing what is easiest instead of what makes them happy. I think it is probably a combination of fear and laziness. I vow to never fall into that trap. For now, this IS what I want to be doing. I am still too young in this field to reject all it has to offer and I know that there are things for me to learn and to love, I just have to find them.
However, there is nothing in this field or any other that can lure me from what I really want to be: a Mother.


Elena Marie Moreno, My niece. Born August 30, 2008

Mammoth and Sandiahhhhgo

I recently returned from a trip to California for a family vacation and a roommate's wedding. I truly had to say goodbye to the best roommates ever and Congrats Lexi and Andrew!
Hopefully someday I will again be able to call California my home.
Photo of the week goes to- Jackie! Nice.

1. Vaseline
2. Nordstrom
3. rex lee
4. booksss
5. slurpees
6. hair straightener
7. guitar
8. hint of lime
9. internet window shopping
10. Aloha
11. ipod
12. eyebrows
13. namaste
14. walk
15. bike
16. Indian meets Avril
17. Alice meets Chesire
18. Azusa rooftops
19. cashmere
20. happy sushi
21. bts
22. phantom
23. paper plate art
24. balschwacker
25. pool
26. panclogs
27. the club
28. quesadillas
29. looney
30. gmail
31. popping tubes
32. chili dogs
33. mini wheats
34. muffin tops
35. fish tacos
36. friends

Befores and Afters

I moved. My new residence is St. George, Utah. My new room has a lot less color but a lot more organization.





































































Ladies and Gentlemen: This is a modern miracle of closet organization. This closet is at least one-half the size of my old closet and yet somehow...it fits.

Finally...

Good News. I finally finished a triathlon. It may not have been organized by USAT (USA triathlon organization) But I think it was legit. My friend, Elizabeth, who was supposed to do the real triathlon with me, drove out to Salem and we swam, biked, and ran the whole course. It was awesome and I finally feel worthy of the title: TRIATHLETE.




This was our transition area.
Finish line cartwheel

Prince Eric IS the hottest

Can anyone resist that dark, wavy hair?
And who wouldn't want to be the princess of the sea?

Life is Full of Disapointment.

Update: I am not a triathlete.

I am only a Bi-athlete.

Due to unexpected weather conditions (40 degrees, rain, wind) the bike portion of my triathlon was canceled because it is dangerous to bike on wet streets.

I am sad. I trained for SOOOOO long. For a TRIathlon, that's three sports, THREE.

It was a big-time let down. I ate so many carbs. Instead of burning them all on Saturday and feeling like I accomplished something, I am now trying to work off all those stupid carbs!!

Other than that, it was crazy. I was so nervous the day before I was physically sick and I ordered a wetsuit that didn't come in time so my mom and I were at Cabellas at nine o'clock the night before buying a wetsuit.

Overall is was a crazy experience and I am glad I did it so now I know more what to expect. I still think I would have finished and maybe not even last.


I am still training because I still want to complete a triathlon. I don't know when, but someday.

I am in Love

--with a pastry chef?



OK.

Hold it.

This was sent to me by my roommate who is a baby in the world of road-biking. This is almost enough to discourage anyone from riding near any road.

For those of you with weak constitutions- don't click on this link.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/06/02/mexico.bikers.ap/index.html


Yeah, I know.

A few things. I got to home. Amazing. My WHOLE family was together. Amazing. We all went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Not Amazing. (really? George Lucas, really?) All four of my siblings and their spouses and children sat on the same bench again at church. Amazing.

Also, my fav thing at home is bath time for the babes because they are happy which makes everyone else happy. And they are so funny.

Just in case

you didn't know.


It's still winter here.

Random Memories

I was just looking through my blog and realized I don't put many pictures up so I went through and picked some random pics of my life in Provo. Here goes:



This is at "Music and the Spoken Word" at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I had never heard the Mo Tab sing inside the Tabernacle before and the acoustics were unbelievable. The official chorus of the United States Navy the "Sea Chanters" were there singing with the Mo Tab as well. A-mazing.

This is a picture of my bed when one of my ocean-loving friends came over to visit but I wasn't home. He had taken the refrigerator magnets off and spelled, "OCEAN" and then written a note about how he had looked for some kind of ocean or beach food in my cupboards but only found green beans. It was so funny and cute and the best part was that this is exactly what my mom used to do when I lived at home. She would always leave little presents with "Jeffery Bear" or tuck him into my bed and things like that. Good Memories.




These pictures are from the Holi festival or festival of colors at the Hare Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. Once a year the Temple follows the Indian tradition of celebrating springtime by throwing brightly colored powder until everyone looks like something out of a 1980's Jim Henson movie. I wiki'd the Holi festival and it said that they believed springtime brought about many viral illnesses and that the powder has some kind of medicinal benefits. Who knew? If you really want to know what it's like, just picture Woodstock but instead of everyone being naked, we were covered in colored cornstarch. And the music was more Punjabi than Janis Joplin...


These are some pictures of the loves of my life, my roommates. I've had so much fun with them and I will miss them so much when I leave this place.