highlights from a low-key place

Yup. That picture pretty much sums it up. I just spent the last week in a place without any cell phone reception or internet. I loved it. I wonder how the locals survive without those things. The highest moments of stress came while trying to find the perfect beach to take a sunset picture on. I'm not sure we were successful with that one. Oh, there was also deciding what movie to watch each night. Some decisions just take so much out of you that you have to spend the whole next day recovering via naps, gh3 and eating good food. Then, you decide again what beach to go to at what perfect sunset time and come home to the movie decision and the whole cycle is forced to start all over again the next day.

Oh, but I forget that there was a land line that liked to ring at 8am with recorded marketing calls. So, we weren't completely cut off from the world.

And there were plenty of 60 and older couples that would go on their walk through the 'ranchland' at the same time as I did every morning. Their dogs would always bound up and sniff my crotch just to let me know that I really did exist, physically. I don't know what it is about me. On our last night's search for beach sunset pictures, a lady walked her dog by us and it walked carelessly past the two in our group ahead of me, totally ignoring them. Then, sure enough, it saw the inseam of my pants and excitedly ran up to it to sniff, jump on it and basically just say hi. Then it continued on, where I assume it just ignored the last member of our group who apparently didn't have as exciting a crotch as I did. I guess I should be flattered.

Ok, so those aren't very good highlights. Hopefully I can write more later this week when I have more pictures to post.

priorities: perceived and prevailing

Priorities for this week:

1-Get in 40 hours at work (in preparation for my trip to cali)
2-Get a tune-up for my car (also prep for cali)
3-Get the timing belt on my car replaced (cali)
4-Clean my car
5-Write my talk for church on Sunday
6-Finish that dang painting that I've been working on for months
7-Get my shots for our Guatemala trip in 3 weeks
8-Shave my legs (cali)
9-Finish the book I'm reading (Cry the beloved country)
10-Start the next book on my book priority list.
11-Clean my bathroom
12-Get a pedicure with my friends (cali)
13-Get a sub for the temple (guatemala)

Actual (so far):

1-Got a sub for the temple
2-Shaved 1/3 of my legs (cali)
3-Finished Cry the Beloved Country
4-Alienated my mom
5-Halfway through my next book
6-Alienated my sister
7-Cleaned my tub
8-Alienated my friends
9-Got tetanus shot and typhoid pills and the diarrhea to go with them (guatemala)

No worries...I still have tomorrow to do everything else!

mental note: do laundry before next wednesday

I've gotten slack in my compulsiveness to be on time. I relaxed and left work 5 minutes late yesterday to get to my temple shift. I lazily sang along to U2's Ultraviolet Love as i took my usual route that turns at the purple turtle. Then I notice that the road I take that breaks off to the temple is closed and I think no big deal. I'll just go up to highland and take the Alpine highway back down to the temple. The only flaw in that plan is that I wasn't sure which road, exactly, was alpine highway. About the time I was crossing the railroad tracks in American Fork, I figured out that I must have taken the wrong road. No big deal, I think...I've found it before by just looking above the trees for the steeple and driving towards it (all the while thinking how dangerously fun it will be to walk into the meeting late). I spot the steeple and drive towards it. It's just a church. Curse this valley for having so many steeples! I drive east looking for it, then west, then north. Then I just give up and drive back to state st to go a way that I am certain arrives at the temple (since it seems to have vanished off the face of the earth). Traffic is terrible and I end up going the wrong way on state and have to drive a ways to turn around. By this time I'm literally yelling everything but obscenities (come on...I'm driving to the temple) at the top of my lungs in my car. A Harry Nilsson song randomly plays and I am no longer carelessly singing along. It's the mellowest song I own but is helpless against my raging inferno:

Open the window and take a deep sigh.
Think about letting the rest of the world go by.
Taking it easy, is easy as pie....

Says you, Harry.

I finally make it through traffic to the temple an hour after I left work. I throw on my dress only to realize that it is a crinkled mess and has three large, greasy stains right on the front of it. Figures.

conservativity

Ok, so Republicans are called "conservatives" but Democrats (liberals) are the "conservationists". Why is this? If Republicans are so called Conservatives, shouldn't they be conservative about everything? That would include fuel consumption, energy usage, natural resources, spending, foreign policy um...and many other things.

I recognize that I know basically nothing about politics and, I'm not gonna lie, I read up on 'conservatism' on wikipedia and I understood about 2% of it. But maybe this post is more just about our usage of the term conserve. I guess I could also complain about the democrats use of the word liberal. But it seems that would be a topic for a different post.

So can I be a Conservationist Conservative? Or do two positives equal a negative... (or depending on who is reading this, two negatives equal a positive. Pick your flavor). Better yet if I am both of those things (which means I'm basically a democrat and a republican) do I cease to exist? Like maybe being both causes confusion in the cosmos and worlds begin colliding in catastrophe. I hope my roomates don't wake up in the morning to find my fiery remains scattered across my bedroom floor.

it's a girl II

Ok, so I withheld some information on my last it's a girl post. The same night we got manicures, I also got my ears pierced! It really is about time that I became a girl. Notice in the first picture how I'm not even flinching? Yeah, I'm tough... or she just hadn't pulled the trigger yet.

It has now been more than a month and, in hindsight, there are a few things I would have done differently. I would have actually read the instructions that came with the alcohol solution they provided me. Which means I wouldn't have spun the ear rings playfully all day long the first couple of days. Which means my earlobes (especially my left) wouldn't have become all irritated (and infected?). Which means that I wouldn't have been laying on my back awake at night for 2 nights straight trying to ignore the throbbing pain. I also wouldn't have been forced to be creative in the positions I slept (a rice bag can perform many functions, I find).

My fav part of the night was the bag they provided me to carry with me to my manicure. It just screamed "yeah, I'm 28...and finally became a girl".

melissa's bottom 10

Please excuse me, as I have nothing to post about today.... Let's face it, there are not many pictures of me that turn out well. So I thought I'd help my humility a bit by sharing the ten worst pics of me from the last year. Think of it as one of those 'get up to date on my life' emails. I'm sure there are some pictures of me out there that are worse that I've just forgotten about or I don't have access to. I'll find and replace, if necessary.



Tonks







I think this one's from when I played the wicked step mother








Office light and a camera phone; not a good combo







I miss my glasses, and do I look 12 here?







Of course, everyone else in the pic looked great








Blurry is always better








Believe it or not, I had actually been awake for at least an hour







This one's like Jon's crooked climbing helmet picture. Clueless






Sick








This is my 'hey, thanks for checking me out' look

tom cruise crazy

Someday I'll be able to play the ukulele like this.

21 things to do in a snow-covered cabin

1- Eat!
2- Play a few GH3 songs on hard before giving up and resigning yourself to medium for the rest of your life.
3- Look for your book, that you swear was just here, for like 20 minutes because you want to read real bad!
4- Read for like 5 minutes before pretending to nap.
5- Pluck out the first half of 'blackbird' on the real guitar 27 times.
6- Play the other 3 'quiet' songs you know 15 times each.
7- Eat 3 deserts.
8- Throw up
9- Go on a walk and do high jumps in the snow.
10- Take turns wearing the only pair of snow boots so you can go sledding.
11- Go sledding without gloves and make your hands bleed.
12- Try hanging upside down on a zipline only to discover that you're too tall and your head is now dragging in the snow.
13- Laugh so hard at the person who ate snow upside down on a zipline that you cry.
14- Attempt to draw a million aspen trees in your journal while sitting on a 40 degree porch.
15- Play the only Mario DDR song on easy, medium, hard, and very hard before switching back to GH3 for good.
16- Watch Far and Away with the lights on outside so you can watch the snow falling at the same time.
17- Open a birthday present every time you hear a bird chirp.
18- Sleep in a cold basement.
19- Discover 2 space heaters as you clean up to leave.
20- Wake up in the morning to an earthquake/tree falling/snow falling off the roof
21- Shovel 10 inches of new snow off the path to the cars so you can leave.

Feel free to use these ideas on your own snow-covered cabin adventure.

soliloquy on irony

I like that it rhymes like a poem. Kind of like a Haiku, only it's not 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5. But, other than that it's very similar.

You know how you hear ads on the radio and think, 'I could come up with a better slogan than that'? Well, I've had my share of those thoughts in my lifetime. So, when I was given an opportunity last week to work in marketing I naturally turned it down. The obvious reason is that it would have been more money and...well...we all know that my goal is to get married to an artist, make less than $10,000 a year between us, build our house out of straw and mud, and live a life (happy life, of course) of abject poverty. Yet, somehow someone of authority telling me that they think I'd be good at marketing boosted my confidence. It's only been a week and I've already had several conversations where I have used the phrases "well, from a marketing perspective..." and "from my past eBay marketing experience..." to sway someone to my 'marketing' way of thinking.

bla, bla, bla...Where's the irony part of this soliloquy.

A couple of weeks ago, I used my marketing brilliance to list some rock climbing boots on eBay for my brother. He insisted that we put a $45 reserve on them just to be safe. I did so and about 10 bidders bid back and forth until they reached $41.99 at what point they stopped and the listing ended without selling. Last week, feeling all-knowing, I told my brother that I thought it was the reserve that discouraged the bidders. They didn't know how close they were to reaching the reserve and finally just gave up. I told him I thought we should list them again, without a reserve this time, and then sit back and watch the battle of the bidders!

Yesterday, I remembered that the listing was supposed to end, so I excitedly looked to see how high it had gotten. The winner from NY survived the bidding onslaught with his $1.04 bid. I can't wait to get my 10% cut!

as the blog randomly turns....

deception, thy name is February

I have lived the last 10 February's of my life with these song lyrics as my dogma:

"And February was so long that it lasted into March...."

I always reveled in the irony (is it irony, bog?) of those words because, well...February is the shortest month of the year, right? But yet, in those 10 years, I have come to believe that it really is the longest month. Every January 31st, I brace myself for the long cold February that is ahead. And the cold and snow that I brace for usually lasts well beyond Feb 28th.

This year, February seemed particularly looming considering the kind of winter we've had so far. I have vague memories of years ago when snow was piled so high next to our driveway that we could build huge hills to sled down in our front yard. I always thought my memory scale was just faulty because no recent winter has touched it. This year, of course, has been different. it has made me wonder aloud, more than once, 'Winter does exist!" But then I got tired of it snowing piles every other day. February hadn't even come yet, and I was already sick of winter. That's not a good sign.

Turn time forward to last week and you find me driving through town all bundled up in my down coat with my window down, my sun roof open and the air blowing on cold. Why did I do this? Well, I would think it was obvious. February just isn't right without record cold temps. So even though the thermometer said 45 degrees, chances are it was lying and I would still need my warmest coat.

Or maybe it's that I refuse to get my hopes up that winter is actually coming to an end. Somehow, if I never start wearing my spring jacket, I can avoid the heartache of once more, pulling out the down coat when the temps decide to plummet again.

nothing more than feelings

While drinking our favorite Korean soda last sunday at dinner, I read aloud my favorite part of the bottle to my nephew Sam. "New feeling of soda beverage" I said. He clearly liked that.

Our neighbor Margie showed up and sat down to start eating with us. She takes some soda and Sam says all excitedly to her "you get a new feeling now too!" A few minutes later he declares, "I like my new feeling...I have a new feeling of love for my family. (awwwwwww) what's your new feeling, Margie?!" Margie stammers.... "uuuuuuuh....new feeling, yes!" Then Sam's mom saves her by saying, "I have a new feeling of not being thirsty any more."

Thanks, Sam, for putting us in touch with our feelings again...no matter how uncomfortable.

weekly posts!?

Yesterday, my brother asked if I had read my mom's cousin's tribute (of sorts) to our dad. I didn't even know she had written about the funeral, etc on her blog back in November. Since I haven't written about that whole experience much, and for those who are interested in knowing more about it, here is the link to that post.

We have had so many people give us pages and pages they have written on their thoughts about my dad. KaraLyn's blog includes much of what everyone has been telling us these last few months. Who knew dad was so popular :) We were really happy that KaraLyn's whole family were able to come for the funeral. Most of them live in Southern California and I'm sure they sacrificed a lot to drop everything and come.

it's a girl!

I had my first 'Girly' night last thursday. No, we didn't watch Pride and Prejudice and crimp each other's hair....

We did go get manicures. My first ever! (results shown above...apparently I have also added some bling to my wardrobe) I have to admit that I wasn't impressed: The manicure didn't cure my hangnails and I still bite my nails just as much as ever. Neither did it cure my need for a 'man' in my life. Some of my friends did pedicures and I must say that I was a little jealous watching them in their vibrating chairs with their feet being massaged, scrubbed, lotioned and soaking in hot water. I, on the other hand, was leaning forward anxiously trying to hold my hand in the perfect claw position. I paid $16 for a kink in my neck, basically. It worked out well in the end, though...they gave me a cold greasy egg roll in celebration of the lunar new year. That kept my teeth busy and spared my new paint job from destruction for a few minutes.

Find a Mate in '08!

Ok, so new year's resolutions are a good thing. I can agree with that. But really, I think this falls under the category of a 'bad goal'. Isn't there something about goals that says they need to be reachable? Or that they also have to be something you personally have control over? Many will argue and say this is a reachable goal. Well...you're probably married.

Ok, so you're probably right; it "technically" is reachable. And I suppose I might have a little control over whether or not I get married. I mean, I have to be the one to say 'yes' when he proposes, right? Still...I thought I would try to make a little bit more pro-active, reachable, realistic goal: "Find a Date in '08". Actually, I have set my goal specifically as "go on one date a month". How hard can that be?

So far, I have found it not too difficult. All I have to do is inform people (boys) about my goal and they seem perfectly willing to oblige. Or...at least they seem perfectly willing to joke about obliging. So, I have decided to broaden my scope and tell the world (all 3 who read this and probably already know about this goal) in the hopes that you, too, will be willing to assist me in my endeavors of at least one date a month. So, go ahead...let the dates start pouring in! And, thanks, in advance :)

Don't forget to vote!

I want to encourage everyone to vote tomorrow. Please take a moment to review all of the items on your ballot so that you are informed as you vote. You might know that a particularly heated debate has been occuring about referendum 1 in the state of Utah. If you don't know what your view is on this topic, please take a look at this site and read the arguments and rebuttals for and against so that you can make an informed decision about it when voting. I have developed a strong opinion about this topic over the last couple of weeks, but will say no more about it because I feel that as long as voters are informed, they will make the decision they feel is best. :)

Good luck, and happy voting!

Numbers for the neurotic

you'll have to forgive me, but everything seems poetic at 2am.

Just a side note: the hospital wifi is painfully slow. I arrived at 1:30 and it is now 2:20...see how much I've accomplished in 50 min? good thing I have lots of time....

It's amazing how suddenly I'm an expert at this nursing thing. Of course I know just as much or more than the nurses, heck I'm even wearing scrubs to play the part...the beautiful thing is that when I get home, I won't even have to change to go back to bed. And numbers have become our life. Every day it's a different number that worries our bald spots, or, in my case, our stomach ulcers (now that I'm a nurse, I can more accurately diagnose it).

Tuesday morning at 1am in the emergency room, it was blood pressure numbers in the 200's that knawed like a teething child at the holes in our stomachs. 225, 212, 201. sometimes we were lucky and got a 195 or even 185. That night there was also the oxygen levels to worry about, though not as much. 85% or 90%. Somehow Tuesday seems distant and passe' compared to the gaping hole that the last day has left in my stomach lining. This time it's all been about carbon dioxide levels. Let me tell you, if it's not one thing it's another. Some ambiguous number of "50" is what we're aiming for.

having the numbers constantly updated like tickertape right in front of me for 2 hours probably makes me a bit neurotic. The blood pressure monitor might sit at 160 for an eternity of minutes before it finally obeys my telepathic command to retreat.

I find that playing thumbwars with dad distracts him from pulling at his tubes and the "jason mask" they are forcing him to wear. Every so often he will reach up to touch his parched mouth and re-discover, once again, that there is a mask in his way. Everytime it is the same: He will feel the valve in front of his mouth and then work his fingers up from there along the left side of the hard plastic, over his eyes and forehead, he feels the velcrow holding the mask tight to his face and you can see that he is briefly contemplating tearing it off. Sometimes he does. He continues randomly pinning my thumb under his even after I've long since assumed that he's asleep.

One time, I appologize to him for my cold hands and his reply comes out muffled through the mask that it's ok. Then he says something else that I don't understand. I lean in farther and ask him to repeat. "Is that the place where you died?" he says. I briefly hope I misunderstood him.
But I say "I haven't died yet, dad."
He pats my hand and replies, "you lucky kid".

As my shift nears it's end, I'm thinking that maybe I will wait and publish this later, just to make sure. I mean, it is 3:30 in the morning, afterall.

Arriving home, I find that somehow someone else has arrived at our apartment building between the hours of 2 and 4am and stolen my perfect spot. I momentarilly curse night shift workers as I drive around to the back of the lot to find the one remaining open spot. As I walk past the car that stole my spot and up the steps to my place, I mentally take back my cursing and count my lucky stars that I'm not the one that has to regularly be up at this insanely hour.

Dumming down the information age

My current job has certainly helped me feel a little more computer savy than I have previously felt. I can do things now that I never dreamed I'd learn to do a year and a half ago. But with so much new knowledge, comes a higher level of responsibility. I feel to warn all you out there (all 2 that read this) that are thinking of jumping on this information bandwagon. Deep down, something tells me that perhaps instead, I my intellectual level is moving in the opposite direction. I had this thought while simultaneously trying to instant message with a six month old baby, a decapitated head, a bag of sweedish fish, and what looks something like a miniature shark. No matter that they were, in return, IMing with a picture of snow white. How proud I was that I was able to keep each conversation straight (for the most part). Don't you love it when you accidentally IM your friend with, "Sweet!" when they told you their grandma died (Oops, I meant that for the sweedish fish who got 100% on a test)?

I'm claiming nothing new here, but sometimes I forget that there is a real person on the other end of that conversation. Sometimes I might forget to talk to them that way. Just because they don't answer right away doesn't mean they are shunning me. Maybe....just maybe they have other things to do besides be at my beck and call constantly. I guess this is why we save time by responding with "ROFL" instead of "that's funny" or "AYBABTU" instead of "all your base are belong to us". I kid you not....that's real.

Interestingly, I thought my sister and I rather randomly came up with "lawl" to replace "LOL". But, no....I don't think so. Unless we're more trend-setty than we know. I found it when looking up that wiki link above. (seriously, you need to do this: go here and look under "variations on the theme". Excuse me while I pause to bask in my new-found knowledge of how popular I am.... "But wait!" you say, "isn't this off wikipedia? The place where anyone can edit anything themselves on there? How do we know that you are not the one that put 'lawl' in the 'LOL' entry?" Hmmm...just trust me on this. I'm not that computer savy.

'and call it a jubilee'

I heard my mom use this term once, when referring to taking a year off from having a garden. It also is the key title of one of my favorite songs. I looked it up in the dictionary and here were the parts that (ever so losely) apply to my meaning today:

1. often Jubilee Bible In the Hebrew Scriptures, a year of rest to be observed by the Israelites every 50th year, during which slaves were to be set free, alienated property restored to the former owners, and the lands left untilled.
2. often Jubilee Roman Catholic Church A year during which plenary indulgence may be obtained by the performance of certain pious acts.

Couple of things I would like to say in relation to this:

A- When I declare this year my "jubilee year", it's not because I feel I deserve it. Frankly, I don't. I'm not 50, nor have I been in bondage for 50 years, let alone the 28 of my life. I definitely have not performed any pious acts to make me deserve a "jubilee year". Nonetheless, I would like to say I declared this my "jubilee year" back when I booked my first trip in February. Soon after another one was planned, and another, and another...and...another (insterestingly, of those 5 trips, I only went to 3 different places).

B- When I declare this my Jubilee year, it's *mainly* because that's just how it has turned out. I mean, have you noticed that I haven't blogged in like 6 months? It's because it's my "Jubilee year". What about all the vacations I've been on? Jubilee. All the money I've spent? You know the answer. My messy room? -- of course! Ok, so maybe it's more of an excuse than a declaration.

Now I'm trying to figure out what else I can add to enhance my year off. I mean, really...the year is only half over and I don't really have much planned for the rest of the year. Is it just going to be a "Jubilee Half-Year"? Heavens. I hope not. I would welcome your suggestions of more fun "Jubilee" activities I can perform this year. And to make this more of a challange, let's say that it has to range somewhere from cheap to cost-free. Let's face it, all this playing has not helped my bank account.

#1 - I'm impervious to being tagged

Chain letter-schmain schmetter.

Here are the rules:

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the '7 weird things about you.' People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 7 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 7 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

jojoba only tagged one, so that's all I'm going to do.

ok, um....7 weird things (this shouldn't be hard):

2) my nasal cavity is ashamedly small and refuses to drain properly. Though, I find it interesting that it never had problems draining until I got a sinus infection a year ago. So *suddenly* my nasal cavity shrunk and my mucus thickened and it's all 'normal'? And it had nothing to do with my sinus infection? Mom always said I was a late bloomer. I guess this proves it.

3) I have a disease that causes people to gain 50+ lbs in rapid succession, yet I am begging to gain 10lbs so as not to look so skeletor-like (imagine him without the muscles).

4) I am rational (okay, not all the time). I find that that makes me weird.

5) I wear glasses. There are two of us out of 40 here at work that do such an inhuman thing.

6) I have short hair. I'm the only one at work that is so weird.

7) If I make a commitment to do something semi-important with someone (like attend and help with a very good friend's birthday party), and a guy asks me out for that same night with not much notice, I will gently tell him I have plans and could we do it some other night...I know..."weird".

ok, I'm gonna have to think about who to tag.