view from church

ok, I walked out the back doors of our church yesterday and this is what greeted me.

So much for the smart car....how smart can it be if it scampers up a tree when it gets scared?

Did anyone else see this? What was it doing up there? Maybe it's like what the guy that spoke in the 5th ward stated at the end of his talk: "when you run out of gas, that's a good place to stop."

part 9 of 364

Things that keep Melissa alive:

Part 9: Space Heaters

To illustrate the importance of the space heater in my life, allow me to relate my typical nightly bed routine (keep in mind, I live in the basement):

9:30 - Enter 65° bedroom and turn on space heater. Change to pajamas and exit bedroom, closing door behind me

9:35 - Enter bathroom and perform nightly face routine and teeth brushing

9:37 - Re-enter 70° bedroom and sit in front of my bed next to the space heater with a blanket over me and the space heater to read scriptures and about 1 page of a book before the hard ground causes my sits bones to start to throb.

9:55 - Turn off space heater and light. Enter my bed where I have previously placed a heated rice bag at the foot to warm my feet that are still ice-cubes after sitting huddled next to a space heater for 18 minutes.

11:00 - My feet finally warm up and I fall asleep

So... do I have a circulation issues? How does one keep warm in this stinking cold weather?!

On Saturday morning, our furnace started blowing cold air. Question: why does the furnace wait to die until the coldest day of the season to date? We lived in a 55-60° degree house until Tuesday night, but I was mostly fine because of (you guessed it) my space heater. I didn't really even use it much more than I usually do. Just my same bedtime routine and an occasional 10 minute (warm up my aching bones) sit in front of it during the day.

Now we have a nice new furnace and, of course, the weather has also warmed up.

november concert series: part 2

This was totally a week ago, but it feels like a dream. And yes, I mean a dream come true! I'm almost ashamed how happy this concert made me. If you ever get the chance to see Regina Spektor live, take it.

There were so many things that made me nervous heading into this concert. Like: Where to park? How to get to the concert? How smashed would I get in the mosh-pit? How achy would my cursed flat feet get from standing so long? How hot would I get? How well would I be able to see? How many times would we get mugged in scary downtown west salt lake?

Most of those fears turned out to be unfounded (we only got mugged once). Everything worked out as slick as a schoolmarm's leg (as grandpa would say). Maybe that's because I had a schoolmarm with me (and she really does shave her legs a lot, I think). Luckily we are drinking age, so we could head up to the slightly less crowded balcony and even squish into some seats behind a railing (#1 best part of the night: sitting).

While we waited the 45 minutes as they set up the stage between the opening act and ms Spektor, we were relishing our padded bench balcony seats with excellent view of the poor unfortunate souls on the ground floor. I figured it was a good time for the standard self portrait shot of the two of us. We took approximately 10 that looked like this:And unfortunately the final one was the most decent of me (the only one with my eyes open):

Here's a piece for you to enjoy, though I'm guessing it's not the same if you weren't there.

november concert series: part 1

Busy week for me. I miss the days when I would just sit on the couch and stare, expectantly, at the door waiting for my roommates to come home.

I'm not usually a concert attender (unless it features a symphony and/or the MoTab). I have made a few exceptions in my life. Here is my lifetime list of semi-popular music concerts:

• New Kids on the Block (12 years old, with ear plugs in my ears supplied by the marriott center).
• Lillith Fair (c 1999). It rained (beer and h2o) the whole time, we stayed for Patty, Dar, and Paula then gave up.
• Billy Joel 2007 - (hey, free tickets!) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wow, is that really it? I'm lame... So, considering I've only been to 3 real concerts in my life, going to 2 in one week signifies a busy week for me!

It kicked off Monday night with David Gray. Bad omen of the night: I was sweating the moment we sat down. Did they really have to have the heat on with thousands of people and flashing lights? Did I also have to wear a long-sleeved shirt with a wool turtleneck over it? (ah, my concert naivety)










The opening act came out and immediately started playing. She danced about like I would if I were on stage in front of thousands of people. That just made me like her. She even played the banjo! Ok - mostly, she just held it through half a song, but she did pluck out a few notes at the end. The thing I loved most about her songs are the variety of crazy instruments she used. There was some sort of crazy hand pump organ, a thing you blow into that has piano keys attached (my family totally had one of these growing up!), an instrument that sounded and looked like they were playing a saw and a lute...I think.

Learning of new artists always excites me so I visited her website yesterday and found this jewel of a "hello there" page:

"Welcome to my web house.

I suppose this means I'm a grown up now and shouldn't eat chocolate biscuit cake for breakfast.

Starting tomorrow.

Feel free to look around and stay awhile. Like my real house, I'll continue to add things until one day I can't find the cat and have to move,

Lisa

ps. thank you to my mother for knitting the wallpaper"

Reading that made me want to try her chocolate chunk cookie recipe also posted on her site. Too bad I don't know what "preheat your oven to 150 for fan ovens or 170 for fanless" means. (Cooking overseas is so confusing!)

The simplicity of her songs were a great contrast to David Gray's electric guitars and drums. I have to admit, I liked the songs best that were just him on the piano or acoustic guitar and his base player.

ps... you can download a free Lisa Hannigan song here at Amazon. Do it!

late bloomin' and bloomin' late

Mom always said I was a late bloomer. So, now that's my excuse for everything. Apparently it took me about 15 years longer than most girls to decide I actually wanted to be a girl. Maybe I didn't realize that most boys want to marry a girl. Not a tomboy who plays with snakes.

About 3 years ago, I decided it was time to start fixing myself up to be more attractive to the boys. These "fix-ups" included:

• Getting Lasik so I could once and for all dump my glasses and nevermore look like an alien in photos (at least from no fault of my glasses).
• Getting my ears pierced for the first time ever!
• Growing my hair out
• Starting a more aggressive face routine that requires morning and night dedication
• Working out more = once a week
• Using the "natural glow" body lotion. Now instead of fluorescent, I am just an incandescent glow in the summer.
• Learning what eye shadow was. Thanks, Tia!
• Kicking the board shorts habit
  
• Getting my first (and last) manicure
• Working at the temple (not only makes me a woman, but an old woman at that)

Next week, I will perform my latest transformation attempt by visiting the dermatologist to see about having my mole removed. Yes. THAT mole. You all know it. My mole and I have been inseparable for a lifetime (not for lack of trying, though). About 10 years ago, I went to my dermatologist and asked him to remove it, but he refused saying that it would create too big of a scar on my face if he cut it out and he didn't want to hurt my dating chances by creating that scar. Well, news flash for him: since none of my other amazing transformations have gotten me the dates, this HAS to be the culprit! So, I'm determined it must go. And I will go see the only dermatologist in Utah valley that takes my insurance to make it happen.

Fingers crossed...I'll let you know how it goes!

favorite things

Here are a few of them:

Favorite t-shirt:

Favorite depressing/wishful anonymous quote about my life:

"Girls are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree.The boys dont want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy."

Favorite cited quote: (I've been trying figure out how to say this ever since Prop 8)

"There are civil rights involved in this -- the right to speak your mind, to participate in the election, but you don't have a civil right to win an election or retaliate against those who prevail."
-- Dallin H. Oaks

Favorite horrifyingly depressing movie:

Seriously...I couldn't sleep afterward

Favorite new clothing item:

Plaid jeans from target. Without the heels, of course.

Favorite winter-time tradition that I just started:

Lining my nostrils every night with Vaseline to avoid nose bleeds at my desk, in the bathroom (don't ask), at the temple, and while driving.

my newest stallwart friend

Yes, I realize that's not how 'stalwart' is spelled, jenny jo....

Over the last several months, I have come to a realization: My favorite stall in our shared work bathroom has become my own personal stall. It doesn't matter if I wait until 4pm to use it for the first time in a given day...it always has the seat up to welcome me when I arrive (a sign that it hasn't been used since it was cleaned the previous night).

It used to not be this way, I promise. But, layoffs over the last year have apparently slimmed down our (and the lds church department who we share the bathroom with) female bathroom users. There are still a few other women at my company (who I assume still use the bathroom), but they must just use other stalls. I'm not going to say which stall it is, just in case some of those other women read this and want to steal my unused sanctuary. But there are at least 6 stalls in there and considering that I think there are only 5 women currently at my company, we could, in theory, each have our own stall! (I have not seen any church employees in there for months now)

On a bathroom related side-note: Stacey and I discovered the public bathroom bizarro world: Football games! I'm sure many of you already know this, but it's been a while since I've been to a real football game (is BYU considered real?....). So, at halftime, we braced ourselves for the long bathrooms lines only to discover that the men's line was HUGE, and the women's only had 3 people in it! More football games for me, please! And this time, I'll drink lots of water before hand.