How did I get here?

Rewind one year:
Active social life- spending all weekend out with friends and most weeknights.
Serious romantic prospects.
Working overtime (loved job) = lots of extra cash to do fun stuff.
Involved in Ward


Fast forward to Present:
No social life- spending weekends at home - decided what movie to watch tonight and ordering pizza?
OR babysitting for brother and sister (but do love the wee babies).
No romantic prospects.
Working "full time" -hard to focus on work (disinterested)
Moved away from old ward-new ward not as good and starting to attend old ward.


Does anyone get the feeling that I've taken two steps back? Because, I sure do!

This is me

1. What is your occupation? Academic Services, Team Lead

2. What color are your socks right now? Flesh...no socks

3. What was the last thing that you ate? I'm currently sipping a Jamba Juice, Strawberry Surf Rider with a Calcium boost...the breakfast of champions!

4. Can you drive a stick shift? Pat has tried to teach me in the past but I'm not very good.

5. If you were a crayon, what color would you be and why? not sure...green, blue...light soothing tones.

6. The last person you spoke to on the phone? Allen Clarkson from West Virginia. He suggested that we put all the snow in Park City in Tankers that will then explode after all the melted snow then freezes again and expands...killing 3 teenagers in a tanker explosion. Doesn't make sense? don't worry, Allen is a little odd.

7. Who is the person who sent this to you? Kind of swiped it from my mom and Annie

8. Favorite drink? Depends...half Dr. Pepper/half Diet Coke is good (don't knock it, till you try it!)...OJ with Sprite or lemonade... water

9. What is your favorite sport to watch? I don't really watch sports unless you're actually there, then it's fun.

10. Have you ever dyed your hair? So much so, that I'm not entirely sure what my natural color is. I've been shades of blond, i dyed it shades of brown myself that somehow turned into black in college, then I went back to the blond and now i'm back to Brunette...Frank is the master.

11. Pets? No.

12. Favorite food? Again, depends. Love Chinese, pasta, PIZZA from the Pie...oh so good. OH! and their cheesy pull-a-part bread...to die for!

13. What was the last movie you watched? The Philadelphia Story with Sarah...Carey Grant....so wonderful.

14. What do you do to vent anger? Friends, family....i don't really have a filter. I tend to say things that I don't really mean....I think out loud a lot.

15. What was your favorite toy as a child? Nothing really stands out in my memory. I played with dolls and legos and Linkin' Logs...those were pretty cool.

16. What is your favorite season fall or spring? Fall.

17. Cherries or blueberries? I don't like Blueberries...why would you? They dye everything blue. I like the flavor of cherries but not really the fruit itself.

18. When was the last time you cried? I've cried a lot in the months since my surgery...but i'm not sure that really counts because my hormones were out of whack and i had absolutely no control over it!

19. What did you do last night? I was trying to pay attention while the GMAT instructor talked about independent clauses and dependent clauses, phrases and modifiers, prepositional phrases and dangling participles. I was hit with a huge ADD fit and could not pay attention. I then went home and watched the last half of Pleasantville on TV while eating some ice cream. It was a long night.

20. Favorite smells? Baby, rain, ocean

21. What inspires you? My sister and her cute little family. They're wonderful.

22. What are you afraid of? SNAKES! They just creep me out. I watched Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel and it was about catching and studying water snakes....i had dreams about snakes - not good.

23. Favorite dog breed? I'm partial to the Siberian Husky. Misha was the perfect dog.

24. Number of keys on your key ring? One for my apartment, one for my car, one for the mailbox, one for my parent's house and one for the office but it doesn't actually work and i've never actually needed to use it. So, that's 5.

25. Favorite day of the week? Friday because it's the last day of the work week and I have the whole weekend to look forward to.

26. How many states have you lived in? 2: Utah and California.

27. Favorite holiday? Any holiday that I don't have to work and I get a paid day off, is a good holiday. I normally say Christmas/Thanksgiving but right now I am so done with the snow and cold that I don't even want to think about November/December.

28. Ever driven a motorcycle or heavy machinery? I've been on a motorcycle and driven wave runners and a motor boat...that's pretty heavy, right?

29. Ever left the country? Yes.

30. Favorite kind of music? Anything with a good beat, melody and/or harmony and anyone that has a good voice.

31. Last book you read? I have a pretty large stack on my night stand of all the books that I am currently reading: The Screwtape Letters, Elizabeth & Leicester, We Survived, The Odyssey, Zipporah, The World is Flat, The Historian, The Pillars...it just depends on my mood but I'm always reading something.

Middle Child...sorta

Your Personality Profile

You are nurturing, kind, and lucky. Like mother nature, you want to help everyone. You are good at keeping secrets and tend to be secretive. A seeker of harmony, you are a natural peacemaker. You are good natured and people enjoy your company. You put people at ease and make them feel at home with you.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

I even went to the concert!

Your 1996 Theme Song Is: Who Will Save Your Soul by Jewel

Who will save your soul when it comes to the flower Who will save your soul after all the lies that you told, boy Who will save your soul if you won't save your own?

What's Your 1996 Theme Song?

Salt Lake County Correctional Facility

11:14 pm - 801-261-9551
11:15 pm - 801-261-9560
11:16 pm - 801-261-9556
11:17 pm - 801-261-9561

That's how many phone calls I received from the Salt Lake County Correctional Facility last night. I answered the first one because I didn't recognize the number and someone calling that late (after I had been in bed for an hour) it must be an emergency.

I answered the second one because I hung up on the first one before I heard who was actually calling. I still couldn't understand who it was the second time and I just didn't answer the third and fourth time. SO if anyone tried to call me last night from the Salt Lake County Correctional Facility and I didn't answer, I'm sorry. Try speaking clearly next time!

Thoughts

I went shopping with my mother this weekend for new pants. I've lost quite a bit of weight since the surgery (relatively speaking) and since I could pull my pants off without unbuttoning or unzipping them, I figured it was time to invest in some new pants. I went to several different stores and tried on more pants than I ever have before and it was still incredibly difficult to find pants that I liked and felt comfortable in. I ended up buying two pairs of pants that I'm not over the moon about but was convinced by my mom and the sales clerk to buy them. All this shopping and trying on of clothes made me realize a few things:

ONE: What mean spirited group of fashion designers thought it would be a good idea to have the same number mean different actual measurements depending on the store, style and brand of clothes. I tried on the same size pants that I had at home...the ones that were now too big for me, and I could hardly get them buttoned. I don't understand how one size can be so different. It's frustrating and just plain old mean.

*TWO: I've found that most women are generally unhappy or insecure with the way they look. We all have our own issues. For me, it has always been my weight. It is something that I have struggled with for years (little did we know that it really wasn't anything I had too much control over). Being overweight, how ever much or how little, you happen to be, is more than just a dress size of a number on a scale. It's a state of mind. It's a dangerous state of mind. If you feel fat or gross in the clothes you are wearing or just in your skin, the number on the scale isn't going to make a difference and people telling you isn't going to make much of a difference either. In high school I had all the psychological symptoms of anorexia but none of the outward/physical manifestations due to my other medical issues. And those issues stay with you. They don't go away because you happen to lose weight. I act excited about the weight loss because I think I should be and people expect me to be but really I'm skeptical. It won't last or it won't make a difference. I've never felt especially pretty or confidant in the way I look and it's silly and naive to think that by loosing weight any of that is going to change. I have to change the way I see myself and that doesn't change with the number on the scale.

THREE: All the people that complain because they have nothing else to do should be put into a room together, lock the door and throw away the key.


*disclaimer - I am not anorexic and I am not depressed. These are things that I experienced in the past and I am now simply giving voice to ideas and thoughts that have been rolling around in my head. These are reflections on my life, thoughts, feelings and experiences that have shaped my life and who I am today.

For Patrick

This was on my facebook profile but I'm deleting it. I just thought it was funny.

"I like the word 'creepeth'. It's one that you would have trouble fitting into everyday conversation... Back in Genesis, everthing and everyone was always creepething around when everything dark and lush and overhanging, and the snakes talked and you strucketh your brother for the smallest of reasons, and the smallest of smotes would almost always kill."

-Stuard Murdoch, Belle and Sebastian

Holiday 2007

I got a digital camera for Christmas and since then I've been taking tons of pictures and these are just a few that were taken over the holidays. I wanted to load them in the reverse order but once I got started it was hard to rearrange them...so they're a little random. But they're of Christmas morning, my apartment all decorated and hanging out with friends. All in all, it was a pretty good Christmas and there will be plenty of pictures in the future thanks to my brand new super nifty digital camera!

Please tell me he's joking...

On my lunch I was reading different newspapers and articles online about the New Hampshire election and I found this little gem of a quote from Huckabee:

"If they're not going to vote for me ... let the air out of his tires. Shovel your snow into his driveway," he said. "Don't let this person do damage to this country while you're trying to do a good thing."

Please tell me he was trying to be funny....