Saturday, November 29, 2008

Thankful

My favorite definition (courtesy of Webster): Impressed with a sense of kindness received, and ready to acknowledge it; grateful.

I have been infintely blessed in my life, to which I will be eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for the life He has given me. In no particular order, I am most grateful for:

-My parents: for teaching me to love reading and learning, for teaching me the gospel and loving it, for listening, for calling at random times
-My big brothers: for being protective, but not necessarily wanting to admit it
-My big sisters: for setting such beautiful examples of what I want to be
-My brothers-in-law: for being amazing to my sisters, being such wonderful fathers to my nieces and nephews, and giving me hope that there are honrable, preferably available, men out there...
-Good friends
-Books, reading, the smell of a new book, the smell of an old favorite, the excitement of a new story, the cozy familiar of an old story, the beauty of the right words in the right place at the right moment, the clever dialogue, the well-placed joke, and the never-ending joy I get when I have time to enjoy it all!
-My laptop
-My notebook, pens and paper, lists, Sharpies, Crayola Crayons and Markers, dry erase boards
-hobbies, crocheting, sewing, crafting, writing random thoughts, blogging, reading the news, watching the news, debating topics with good friends
-being easy going: this is kind of random, but I usually don't get worked up about stuff. I get along with just about anyone (there have been some very few EXTREME exceptions, one of which I'll blog about later because it's just too funny to keep to myself). I enjoy being in a diverse group. Last night I had the pleasure of enjoying such a group over the longest game of Settlers of Catan I have ever played in my life (4 hours). All ages, backgrounds, and differing viewpoints. We laughed a lot and just generally enjoyed each other. I've met people over the years that just can't get along with certain types of people, girls who didn't get along with roommates, etc. What a miserable way to live!
-the internet, facebook, Google in all its awesomeness, the fact that I can still access the BYU library from Tallahassee, online news access
-Adobe: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash Animation, Dreamweaver, seriously, how cool is this technology that is at our fingertips? How lucky/blessed are we to live in such a time!
-the ability to write well, quickly, and, strangely, better when under pressure
-Photography, my camera, still moments of life
-my cousins and their blogs: growing up in GA I didn't have much contact with my cousins in UT and over the past year or so it has been sucha blast to reacquaint myself with them through their blogs :-)
-my grandparents, my heritage, their stories, their lives, their memories, their hugs and kisses, their homes, their food, their children
-... and surely many more things that I have failed to mention!

Monday, November 24, 2008

7 Random Things...

My bro, Jon, tagged me (punk), so here are seven random facts about me:

1. I broke/dislocated a guy's finger on a date once.

2. I have a 3rd-degree black belt in taekwondo. I can probably kick you in the head. Does that count as two facts?

3. I've been kicked by my father. Many times. Don't worry, we were sparring in a taekwondo class, so it was legal. I kicked him back. We're good.

4. I've seen more movies filmed before 1960 than most people who have actually lived during that era.

5. I like to crochet :-) and cross stitch... and other random homey things.

6. I grew up reading comic books, science fiction/fantasy, and watching GI Joe and Transformers with my brothers. I tend to have more in common with 12-year-old boys than with girls my age. Sad. But true.

7. I am secretly (or not so secretly if you're one of my roommates) addicted to "17 Kid and Counting" and "Tom and Kate Plus 8." Yea for TLC!

Now I'm taggin' Karen, Ariel, Jen, Michelle (spreading the love to the family :-D ), Fernando, Pec and Marissa.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Love It

I really wanted to entitle my post "Come What May And Love It" after Elder Wirthlin's talk from conference, but Pec beat me to it. So I modified it :-)

It's been a while since I've written a real post. It's like journal writing. I keep thinking I'll just wait until something interesting happens. Then I have a moment to sit down and realize all sorts of things have happened and, gosh, I'm more interesting than I thought! Okay, maybe not to that extent, but this month has surely not been a latent one for me.

The past two weeks have really been amazing fun. Last Sunday a few of the girls in the ward thought the ward wasn't being social enough (some newly formed couples in the ward sort of broke up the band, so to speak) so they put together a pre-Thanksgiving bash. They sent out a facebook invite and told everyone to bring something. There had to have been at least 40 kids there. Bonfire outside, lots of yummy-ness inside. I was there until 12:30 AM or so just chatting and playing games. The kids in this ward really are a good bunch.

On a side note, some mild banter between me and one of the guys there turned into a small wrestling match. The guy won, but I put up a good fight. I had him in a headlock a few times, but just couldn't close. For a skinny guy, he's stronger than he looks... Poor guy was embarrassed afterwards, though. "Man, that was stupid of me to wrestle with you. I could have hurt you... my pride got in the way. I'm sorry!"

Nice kid.

This Friday I had Thanksgiving meal #2. Elder and Sister B prepared a most awesome turkey meal for Friday Forum lunch. I got to help since I don't have classes on Fridays. It was also the first time since I was, maybe, 5 that I've had a turkey cooked in the oven. Growing up we'd almost always either deep-fried the sucker or smoked it. It was delicious. I love the B's!

Friday night was also our ward camping trip. I froze my tail off (who knew it could get so cold in Florida?!). But it was spectacular to be out in nature. No lights, no noise, just the beach and the stars. Oh yeah, did I mention we were camping on an island? Yeah, it was cool. We actually weren't terribly close to the beach, but our campsite was within walking distance and we all took a moment to check it out. We had everyone turn off their flashlights so we could thoroughly enjoy the stars. Absolutely beautiful. I met some people I wouldn't have known otherwise and got to know people I already knew better. Great weekend. Also, yea for living in UT for 5 years. I was perfectly warm in my sleeping bag thanks to a lovely winter-wear underarmour shirt my bro got me covered by my most-awesome Adidas hoodie, two pairs of socks, and my lucky BYU fleece blankey that my Guelita made me one year for Christmas because I'm her favorite (okay, so the other 40 something cousins also got a fleece blankey, but whatev... I'm still her favorite). I didn't sleep due to the GROUND, but I was warm so I didn't mind. The power of layers!

Prior to the spectacular loss of BYU to Utah yesterday *hangs head in shame*, I made a small gift for our institute director, Brother B, who is a Utah alum. Sister B (his mother) was my partner in crime. She rather obtained a recent photo of Brother B and his family from their Disney World vacation a few weeks ago. I photoshopped BYU t-shirts on all of them (which, with seven kids, took a LONG time). And Mini Mouse became Cosmo the Cougar. I emailed the new photo to my folks and they printed out a banner-size copy of the photo along with 8 11X17 versions of it and overnighted the whole set to me (yea for Mom and Dad!). Also in the package was a huge banner of the BYU logo with the cougar on it. Wednesday afternoon Elder B played distraction while Sister M (the institute secretary), Sister B, Michelle (one of the YSAs) and I put the photos up all over the building. One wound up in the men's bathroom (not me! it wasn't me! I swear! Sister B! Sister B! she looks so innocent, but really...).

The reaction was classic. I should have taken photos, but I didn't think to bring the camera. Brother B was a good sport. He said he'll keep everything up for a week. Good times.

So things are good here in Tally. The next two weeks will be beastly with final projects, but the good news is I am done by December 8th with everything and then I can relax!

Cheers!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Prop 8 (CA), 2 (FL), and 102 (AZ)

Glad to say Prop 8 passed in CA, Prop 2 in FL, and Prop 102 in AZ. I came across this article written before Prop 8 passed and thought it worth sharing (Mormons rock!):

http://www.sacbee.com/391/story/1308945.html

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Little Red Hen

Check out this great little story courtesy of my friend, Pec

Bolt

Can't wait to see this. The hamster totally reminds me of my brother, Jon.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Comcast Commercial

I laugh every time I see this: