"hint, hint"

So I get 2 magazines in the mail now.
One is Glamour. The other is Fitness.

Only problem?
I never subscribed to them.


Is somebody not-so-subtly trying to tell me something?
(and my name is spelled correctly...highly suspicious.)

Rude.

Why couldn't the magazines be called something like The "Your Perfect the Way You Are" magazine.


This reminds me of the time I got emails from several different websites like "Baby To Bee" and "Motherhood", saying "congratulations on your pregnancy! Your baby now has head-to-toe bodily hair, and fingernails! Here is a free countdown to the happy day!"
People. I have never been even close to pregnant. They even had my home address and phone number! Someone was playing a dirty trick!
Never found out the dirty rat behind this kind gesture, but I wish I had thought of it first cause it was pretty funny.
{Except the part where they had all my info and I had to call numerous places to cancel all my "subscriptions."}

Well, I'm gonna go try out some new "Bun-bustin' work out moves" and the new "must-have lip-plumper for spring." Oh wait, no I'm not.

"insert busy signal here"

Holy Mother of busyness. I have been so ridiculously busy. School started at UVU, and I not only interpret classes, but am involved with scheduling, and rescheduling all the 30+ interpreters and transcribers, with the almost 50 deaf students. That is A LOT of work. I worked a lot of overtime this week. I love all the classes I am interpreting so far though.

I also went to a GREAT concert with a GREAT friend this week. My friend Julie (from my Mission days) went to SLC and saw a free Twilight concert in the park of She and Him! (SLC puts on these concerts for free every thurs in the summer, and this was the last one. The first started with Modest Mouse.)


Anyway I, like many of you, LOVE Zooey Deschanel. She (and him) was great! They had lots of energy, and she worked that tambourine and ukulele. If they play anywhere around your city...go! It was a great time. Julie and I had a picnic, (Kneaders, yum!) and caught up since we haven't seen each other in a couple years! Love that girl!.

Anyway, I haven't had much time to blog, and this week may be the same, so just wanted to write a quick one. Oh, and as a last thought from Jerilyn the wise one, (just say it in an Asian accent and picture me stroking an invisible long thing beard.)

"I can do hard things."

I learned that this week, and it just seems more interesting with an accent. Peace out!

Such a great day.

I'm getting on a soap box. But just a little one. Maybe like the size of a hotel box of soap. Ya know, mini.

Yesterday was the Candlelight Serenade Acoustic Festival. It was a charity event to raise awareness in the prevention of Child Sex Trafficking in the United states (it is just as bad as any other country). Its a pretty grim, and taboo subject, but so important. I got the opportunity to volunteer with my friend Wayne from 9-1pm, and got to sit at a booth and talk to people about different organizations and how they could help. We then stayed for the rest of the days events until around 11pm.

They had several bands that played in support of the cause, and that was also great. The bands included, Third Eye Blind, Neon Trees, Allred, Dashboard Confessional, 311, Pricilla Ahn, Reliant K, and several others including some local bands. The music was AMAZING, I just loved it.
(Neon Trees, my new favorite band, and they are from Provo but are now all famous!)


The best part of the whole day though, was just being around so many volunteers who were just there because they were passionate about this cause, and they were just uplifting and good people. Most of the bands expressed how they felt priveledged to be a part of the cause, and in between each band, they had videos, and speakers including congressmen, and film producers, and even one girl who captivated everyone by sharing her story of how she was sold in to sex slavery here in Utah. (yes, this happens EVERYWHERE.) I am so grateful I have had the life I have, nothing compares to the pain and trauma these kids have gone though.

(Nick Hexum of 311)

At the very end, the lead singer of Allred had written a song for the event and all the bands came out to sing it together, while the whole audience waved candles (electric ones, as it was windy) in the air. It gives me chills to think about it. It was such a fulfilling day, and something I was glad to be a part of.



After this big event, I just felt so much hope in humanity, especially because a lot of the the volunteers and supporters of these organiztions were my age and younger. Sometimes I really wonder about the future, especially learning about this horrible "industry", but I saw a lot of great people yesterday, and was very uplifted. It made me feel like I wanted to be a part of something bigger than me, like this event. There was a bunch of money raised, and many people signed up to help, and we wrote letters to our congressmen, in support of the H.R. 5575 bill.
Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional
(ps. seeing him fullfilled my 18 yr old self's dream even though I haven't listened to him much since HS.)

Please take a min and watch this, it is a trailer for the film "Playground." Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, people tend to shy away from talking about it, but its something NO ONE is safe from, and education is always the best prevention.



For more info on how to get involved, go to http://childrescue.org/. Thanks for indulging my serious post. :) Much love!

I'm a weener!!

And by weener I mean winner! And by winner I mean I won a giveaway from one of my favorite blogs, Daydream Believer. I shamelessly entered 3 times, because she said I could, and I won a free book called The Last War. I'm sure I will do a review of it here once I have read it.

I found Jamie's blog Daydream Believer through the "Blogs of Note" section of the blogger dashboard. Her wit and humor caught me especially in her reviews of The Bachelorette shows which she totally hit the nail on the head in a hilarious way. Also she just cracks me up, like in this post which is a bit graphic for the menfolk, but so funny. Also this one about Despicable Me.

She also plugged my blog, which is not nearly as exciting or interesting as hers, but fun to have a few new visitors over round these parts. I love being a weener! Thanks again Jamie!

I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too....

At Target tonight, I noticed a disturbing trend in shoes....

Anyone else think of the wicked witch of the east, and her little dead shriveled toes? Do people really want their feet to look and/or feel like that? ew. I even tried them on in hopes that there was some amazing comfort reason for the absurd elastic placement. Nope.
As I was pondering these "shoes" a man walked over with his 11-12 yr old daughter apparently back-to-school shopping. He pointed these out to try on, and as if reading my, mind she said, "Daaaaad, they look like elf shoes!"
I literally laughed and told her I agreed. The Dad gave me a bit of a dirty look, my guess is it's because they were probably the cheapest shoes there, or he was annoyed I was reinforcing the fact that he was an "out of style Dad."

On another note...I may, or may not have bought 4 pairs of (non-withered-witch) shoes tonight. I work at a school so lets just say it was back to school shopping.

Hummus is Yummus

I. LOVE. COSTCO.
I finally renewed my membership to "food Disneyland", and I am thrilled. I got my photos developed there for cheap, and pushed off weaving down the aisles on my cart with a pleased smile on my face, and wind blowing in my hair, happily knocking random items into my cart. The dude whose toes I ran over didn't even seem to care that I had just renewed my membership to pure happiness. So selfish, I mean I'm sure nothing was broken.

(uh...ps I recommend taking a list of "needs" when going to Costco. If you buy more than 4 items, you may just be dipping in to your life savings. I mean...so worth it, but maybe a list is wise. The happy feeling in my bosom was quickly deflated at the register.)

Anyhow, here are some yummies I just love from Costco:

Veggie Chips! Go great with the next item..

....Delicious Hummus...The kind I got is this brand but has sun dried tomatoes in it!!! yummus!

These yummy mini peppers are such a good snack, plain, or with hummus which I just discovered! (or the old staple, Ranch of course.)

...And last but CERTAINLY not least... Dark Chocolate Covered Acai Berries. oh my. these. these are amazing. Just amazing. But beware...these little devils make you feel good about eating them because they are a "great source of antioxidants" so there is a possibility of eating them til you are sick. At least, that's what i've heard from other people, who obviously don't have the self control that I totally have. Just sayin'.

Now I will wait for my endorsment check from Costco for the advertisment.

The pot at the end of the Rainbow...

I keep thinking that one day I will finally get that pot at the end of the rainbow, and everything will go perfect, but I recently got this instead...


Not exactly what I had in mind.

Hopefully I find another rainbow soon. With something a little less....crappy at the end. Or maybe ill even be lucky enough to find a double rainbow!

#6 AND #29

Just as a "progress report" of sorts, of the 30 things I listed a couple weeks ago here, I have mostly been working on #6 and #29.

#6 Enter a Photography contest: Status...taking pictures.
I have heard that the secret to entering a photography contest is to take pictures so you actually have something to enter. I don't know if its true, but the logic seems sound. ha. So I finally got batteries for my camera, and a bunch of film and took pictures. (yes film, if you don't know what it is, look it up on Wikipedia. Its a way to capture pictures from the olden days. Or in my case, photography for poor people.) Anyway I took my DSLR minus the 'D' and went to Provo canyon (Bridal Veil falls specifically), and SLC temple square, and took about 5 rolls of film. That seemed like obvious places to start, plus it was just nice being there, and enjoying the weather and the day. I have yet to develop them due to 'funding' issues though. Its a vicious cycle really, I am poor so I don't by an expensive digital camera, but my film for the regular SLR camera is expensive to buy and develop, especially since I mess up more cuz I can't immediately see my problems, delete them and fix it, like if I had a DSLR. Anyway, here's hoping I can get them developed soon, and there are at least a small handful of ok pictures in there so I can eventually shoot something that I can enter in to a contest. Notice I make no mention of actually winning. :)


#29 Learn and Memorize at least 15 Guitar songs: Status...in progress.
A couple weeks ago, I went home for a week and while I was there I had my Dad play a bunch of songs that I wanted to work on, and I filmed him playing so I could see his fingers and remember the strumming pattern or plucking pattern for each song. I am so glad I did that because I have watched them a lot, and it helps my terrible memory, when I can't quite remember how a song goes. So I have been playing guitar a bunch of late. My fingers are finally just right...nasty and calloused. It makes for more comfortable guitar playing...not so painful.
Here is a little sample of my documentation songs. And my dads skills.

Who wears short shorts...??

Ok, so he's the cutest man in the world, but he IS taken. (sorry ladies) I will pretty much let some of these pictures speak for themselves, but I will just say that the leggy person I am referring to is my Grandpa.

So my lovely mother was here this week, and last Saturday, we went up past Heber, close to Park City last week, to Jordanelle and had a boating day with my Uncle Mark's newly acquired boat. He was kind enough to take us all out, and teach some of the family how to wake board. He is quite the pro boater and wake boarder now, it was fun to see his skills! It was SO nice of him to come down for the weekend from Idaho and take his motley crew of a family out! My (maternal) Grandpa hasn't had much opportunity or need to use a bathing suit, so I believe the last time he bought "swim trunks" was around 1983. That didn't stop him from being his usual self, going around to every person on the beach and on the dock chatting up a storm, using his white legs as a topic for an ice breaker. Enjoy...

The talk of the town:

Kim in the boat, and Mark, the proud owner. (of the boat, not of Kim) :)

Love it!

He was so excited to be riding around in the boat that, he videoed the whole thing...and therefore fell over several times, when we hit a big wake. Don't worry he's only 80 so he popped right back up not missing a beat.

The pro boater! He has some serious "driving-backwards-avoiding-a-collision" skills. :)

The whole crew, minus me and my Mom. I promise we were there, we just have no documentation on film. which was TOTALLY by accident. totally.

(we had to keep reminding a certain someone, that wind is not your friend when 'standing' in shorts)

THE END
(ps...happy birthday to my Dad!! We missed him this week, but he was busy holding down the fort at church and at work, while everyone else was gone. LOVE YOU DAD!)