Friday, December 18, 2009

My Typical Dilemma...(and solution)

Am I allowed to wear to tonight's party what I wore to last night's party, which is also what I wore to work Tuesday?

I think I can get away with it.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Only having had time to grab a little novelty sorbet and a granola bar this morning before work, I have been starving all day. It is now five. It was only just a couple of minutes ago that I realized I had my uneaten lunch from yesterday still in the fridge. So, of course, I am currently stuffing my face, despite the plans of going to dinner with Mike at six.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Nostalgia

Once upon a time I had a very adorable cake platter (among my many platters. I love platters) that was my favorite and I loved. It even looked good just on display with nothing on it. But a terrible thing happened one day when I dropped it and it broke. into three pieces. and I would have cried if my sister and her family had not been there.

So recently I've been looking around to see if that cake pedestal is still on the market, you know, since it's Christmas and I could maybe get away with saying purchasing a replacement can be a Christmas present. Unfortunately, I haven't found it. But look at this adorable one I did see on the Crate and Barrel website:




And look! Matching plates!






How adorable would it be to serve up on those? There are also matching bowls to the set, that would be so fun to serve frozen pleasures in. Gee whiz, the world is full of beautiful things.


Monday, November 30, 2009

Public Announcement

I am of the firm belief that many of today's styles make girls look stumpy. I see it on blogs, online clothing stores, and in public everywhere, and I have a great fear for society because of it. Please, whatever you do, avoid the stumpiness.
this message brought to you by shirley elizabeth

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Noteworthy

Today is Tuesday and it is the last day of my work-week.

*hallelujah*

Tonight Mike and I are skipping town and setting off for places far more cold (regrettably). By this time tomorrow we will be catching up some sleep at my sister’s in Provo, and by sunset Wednesday should be pulling into my Aunt and Uncle’s place in southern Idaho. All of this (minus the cold) puts me into a very good mood, despite the fact that I was up way too late putting audio books on Mike’s iPod for the trip and woke up with just enough time to not put on any make-up and head out the door. For this reason, I am going to take a couple minutes (waiting to use our super slow printer here at work) and will share with you some of the things making me smile:

•My yawns are so big my that throat makes frog noises at the climax.

•I noticed that Jamyn (our intern, “jammin”) looks very good in the boots she is wearing today. She has good shaped legs for boots. I don’t see that often.

•We received more holiday basket magazines today. I love shredding.

•Mike texted me: thanks for not being super lame/trendy at life. I like that about you.
•He is cool

•Thursday night I found these long-sleeved blouses (yes Heidi, I said blouses – but I don’t know what else to call them!) that fit me amazingly comfortably and sexylike for only $6.50 each and I now own four colors and have worn at least one every day since then. And probably will for the rest of winter. I only wish they had more colors.

•I just realized that I haven’t yet zipped my zipper today.

•One of our trades that would like to gain back our favor just walked in the door (as I type) (and zip my zipper) with two boxes of donuts for us. Among two boxes there’s got to be ONE that I won’t turn my nose up at!

•Ooh just think about all the goodies trades will be sending/bringing us for the holidays! One of the pluses of working for a general contractor around Christmas.

•Mike's the smartest guy I know and fixed our speedometer!

•My Aunt and Uncle have an amazing house and yard/field area. It’s been years since I’ve been there! Although…I’ve never visited in the winter….kinda scared.

•Our printer at the office that acts as a perpetual dog whistle will soon be replaced.

•Road tripping with Mike!!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

i want

… to not have to sing tonight. or perform at all.

… daylight to stay longer. darn solstices.

… to watch alias. i miss sydney.

… saturday to be here already. for real.

… mike.

… to tell a someone a something secret that i can’t tell yet.

… time to read the library books i’ve got before they’re due.

… to quote hook right now.

… something salty.

… to not have to deal with work.

… a smoothie. or perhaps a mushy.

… sleep. naturally.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

For such a special occassion

I’m not really all that inclined to blogging. I often think of things that are noteworthy (I would say), but I’m most likely to either keep it to myself, tell Mike about it, or write it in my journalnotebookthingy. Also, though not often verbally expressed, I have very strong opinions, and writing about very strong opinions requires a well thought and flawlessly written argument. The instances that I have actually taken the time to write out my flawless argument about a topic, I afterward decide that, for various reasons, I am better off keeping it to myself. I have many drafts that will never be posted.

So I then wonder how it is that I have any posts at all, and what circumstances bring me to write one. Today I will attribute it to the fact that I have been super annoyed with work lately, have been super surprised every time that I remember it's still only Wednesday, am super in love with Michael, and am super craving a red-flavored frozen burrito.

During the summer my friend came to me and said, “Shirley I really need your help, come work with me for five days.” So I did. It really was a huge mess, and five days turned into over a month and eventually they offered me a full-time position (although it wasn’t as smooth as that. I worked through lunch and even evenings at home for the small pay I told my friend I’d help him out at, and they finally decided it was time to stop taking advantage of me when I started applying for other jobs.). Since I have worked here, they have fired/lost three people and hired two (not including me). I actually think that the people they have finally settled on can be a very strong and successful team. Let me introduce them to you:

First you have William. He is the fourth (I think) Controller of the company since its birth, two years ago, and my friend from school. We enjoy making swords out of used 10 key tape and discussing the time that we will take over all of the incompetent accounting departments in the world, starting with GRIC. It is probably best to describe him as having the sweetest and most adorable wife and little girl.

Tessa is our Office Manager, whose job it is to respond to the owner’s texts at 3 in the morning on a Sunday and stress over completing the bosses, often silly, demands. Every Tuesday she tells us a new story. My favorite will always be the one where she proudly brought her graham cracker crust pie to a family party to be told by her mother-in-law that you’re supposed to crush the graham crackers, and second is probably the time she tried to cook a steak in the storage drawer under the oven. She just recently found out that she is pregnant with her third and completely unplanned for child and wishes she could talk her husband into naming it Lyric Ryce if it is a boy.

Todd is cool. He is our Estimator and has three daughters under 10 that each probably play softball better than me, not that I’m saying that’s a big feat. He’s an A-league softball man himself and has a goatee. He likes to give me his leftover french-fries from lunch and never tires of staring at me over the half wall that encircles my desk until I notice and jump out of my skin. He has great patience, and I swear I hear him count backwards from ten every time Colby calls him “T-rod.”

Colby and Jaafe (jayph) are the bosses. I’m not all the way entirely sure what they do. It sometimes seems rare to see them in the office for more than ten minutes at a time, always leaving (if they came in the first place) with the same “hold down the fort, Shirley” joke, and when they are gone often call and ask me to look up directions to somewhere, though they pay for the ability to do that on their phones. I can only assume that they are off making business acquaintances or at job sites. The two think that the sole purpose of their fifty-inch computers (okay that might be an exaggeration) is for watching hunting videos and country westerns on YouTube, and consider “black-tie” to be a cowboy hat, a plaid button-down, and one of their 200 pairs of designer, dry-cleaned jeans. Colby likes to talk about the unwritten "agreements" he has with project owners in regards to profit numbers, and we can always tell when Jaafe has been in the office by the icicles hanging from our desks because he was warm and turned the air down to 50.

I am Shirley and I do stuff and have a zit on my forehead today.

In other news, check out these pictures from my phone:

Friday, October 23, 2009

to answer your question

If I were to say why, half of the world, and very likely you, would be highly offended. I just don't care for or subscribe to any of that, and I'll probably always be a disappointment to you because I don't ever plan to. Indeed, my present self would be ashamed of my future self if I ever were to.
Yet what would my future self know? People aren't the type that, in the moment, consider their actions or ideas to be silly or foolish or needing to be checked; that is why so much silly, foolish, and unchecked things or notions get done or inspired.
Granted, there is much silly- and foolishness that I partake in: like eating crackers and cheese right before bed, spilling milk in the car, or spending an entire week of evenings reading my Austen and Bronte classics instead of attending to the negelcted kitchen or cluttered rooms.
But there are just some types of foolishness I hope to always avoid, and if there are steps I can take to make that hope more certain, then I definitely will take them two at a time.


In other news, I have little regard for my bosses. Luckily the people I work with are respectable.

and, three of my beautiful nails broke today. but the fact that I had them is applaudable. Seven out of ten doesn't look too tacky.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

I'M DOING THIS


And I can't frickin' wait! But really I have to. Till February.

Now, as some people may know, I love and live to run. More than Mike does for college football (mine's year round! beat that!). I sometimes truly honestly wish that I could quit work and just concentrate on my running and being awesome. Honestly, I am not very good -- but I absolutely strive to be. I can run for a pretty long time. I have the endurance to be able to pick up and run an hour after not running for a long time, and I have a level enough head (or maybe it's the opposite) to be able to stand/love an upwards of three hour run when in shape and 80 mile weeks (though I haven't done that since getting engaged). Can you imagine how amazing it would be to be a real runner and just run all the time and do 200 mile weeks? makes my shoulders go weak.

SO. My excitement: I am going to be one of a twelve-woman team to run 36 legs of a 202-mile relay race from Prescott to Mesa. One plus of the course is that it's coming back down into the valley, so there'll be plenty of downhill! Looking at the course map, though, there will be plenty of tough legs, too.


TO MY FAMILY: I hope to claim leg 23 because it passes right by my parents' house out in carefree, and I expect everyone to be out there cheering me on - even if it's at three in the morning.

See? The little black circle is their house, and the red line covering the Carefree Highway is leg 23. Just as I said: right by. If you zoom out it looks a lot closer.

TO MIKE'S FAMILY: Lap 36 (the very last lap) runs right by your house -- even more right by than my parents'. I would draw on another map image, but it would be so zoomed in order to see just how close it passes that people would be able to see in your windows, and that's not safe to post on the internet. We'll just suffice it to say that it is within a two-minute's walk of your front door, right on McClellan and Grand. I do not quite feel comfortable asking for the last leg of the race, since I think that might belong to the captain, but I'll be there all the same.


Is this not the coolest thing? If you want to run....I can see if we're still wanting girls. I don't know yet who all is on the team, or if we even have 12 yet.

Also, to be cool and see cool stuff, visit http://www.ragnarrelay.com/.

Friday, September 4, 2009

What I Pass Up

The debut Kate Spade clothing line is out. It's beautiful. I got to research Kate Spade for my entrepreneurship class last semester. It's a pretty cool/interesting story. From an entrepreneur standpoint.


My life would be a little more sweet with this cardigan. I am infatuated with it, quite literally. I keep a window open in one of my tabs at work and sometimes click over to it just to look at it again.

The problem is that I will never own it. The price of ownership is the same as six months of internets, or 13 tanks of gas, or the cost of repairing my laptop keyboard, or about a million dinners, or the collective cost of all of the wedding presents we will buy till this time next year.

I don't think I could ever really feel right about owning/wearing something - just one little article of clothing - with such a high price. Actually I take that back. I've worn expensive gifts and not felt too bad. I don't think I could feel right about actually buying it. It's not just that I would feel guilty about spending so much on myself or one thing, I would feel less personal integrity. There are things to spend money on, and a wardrobe that makes me feel beautiful is one of those, but I know my Heavenly Father (and heck, my earthly father) is counting on me to find a way to use my resources to help my family and others around me, not just me. But with these ideas and feelings, why am I cursed with such expensive taste? It just makes it so I never buy anything.

And maybe I take this too far, or maybe we're just poor, but seriously, I bought some tan pants, a couple pair of jeans, and some tank tops for EFY last summer, and then the next time I bought any clothing, except for my wedding dress, was my graduation outfit (this past May). Is that sad? I'm getting better though, 'cause I bought a few things with my birthday dinero from mis padres a couple weeks ago.

To close this post up, I will tell of my solution to the cardigan problem. I'm sure I could find a good, adorable cardigan with the same bracelet sleeves for $30-50. Then it's all a matter of cutting up felt into those cute flowers, stitching them in with little beads, and probably replacing whatever buttons it has to be as cute as the ones in the picture. And if I ever get around to finding, cutting, and stitching, I could invite you over to make your own. Though it would obviously have to be in different colors.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Separate Thoughts

I think I am different from some people. Right now anyway.

Work has been really busy and crazy. And really good. I work hard there.

My "Y" key is still off my keyboard. It's because I'm a Sun Devil for life.

There is a giant spider in my office. He hangs out under a skylight all day long and then the next day is on the other side of the room under another skylight.

I love my husband a really lot.

I love my china a really lot. I really wish that my pedastal cake dish was not dead.

I have been running more lately than a doctor would let me if we had the monies to go to one. But just on dirt and if I have to cross over concrete or asphalt I walk or hop across on my left foot.

My co-worker's name is Yvette. She also answers to "you bet."

My apartment smells different everytime I walk in it.

I really like the book I'm reading to Mike right now. I like it more than he does. He doesn't like books as much as I do.

Mike needs a haircut soon.

Lately, the easiest/best-looking hairstyle for me is a low, messy fluted bun. or two. with a ribbon around my head. I think I've been wearing ribbons in my hair for always.

In high school this girl made fun of my ribbons. I don't remember if I cared or not.

Cows. Gee whiz.

I love throws so much. We got some for our wedding and had some already. So now we have a bunch. And I love them so much. I only use one throw, though.

Playing a piano is better than playing a keyboard, but playing a keyboard is better than not playing a piano.

We won't buy a house for a while. We don't see any reason to, and rather think it would be foolish.

I like when people get married.

There's a big patch of drywall replaced on our wall. I wonder what happened.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I recently (yesterday) got a new phone to replace my poor chocolate, which has chunks missing out of it from the many times it has gone flying across various parkng lots. While transferring my pictures over, I realized I have a lot of this one little kid, so I decided to tell you all about him.

This is my nephew Carter. He is one of many (many many many), but he is seen so often on my phone because I lived with him and his parents for a year. His cutest year.

Here is a list about things that Carter likes:


Carter likes watching TV. ...
.............during haircuts.

............sitting in laundry baskets.

.............while on the phone.
(this particular morning I had come out of my room to find him sitting there. like that. just watching his morning cartoon.)

................and always with his lechejugojuice

Carter likes lechejugojuice. ....

Now, Carter has never been to Jugo Juice, a shop in Mesa. The picture above actually means nothing to Carter because he can't read yet. Carter's parents are both fluent spanish speakers, so they birthed a little white boy that speaks a jumble of spanglish. This is the basics of the most common interchange in that house:


Carter: I want lechejugojuice
Mom: Que dices?
Carter: Pleaseporfavor (while rubbing his belly)

He doesn't always stick to just his milk though -- not if there's a Camelbak around. If it weren't for this kid, I wouldn't have discovered the lifesaver of a water sprayer that a broken mouth-piece is. Heaven on a hot day.

Carter likes eyewear. ...

......of all kinds. And looks good in it.

Carter likes to dress up. ...

.........in anything that's around really.

Here is one of Carter's best. This is from the early days of potty training. Those are boxers.

Carter likes eating. ....

..............and making a mess of it. You should have seen this meal. With each bite, more made it on his body than made it to his mouth. He was confused as to why I was cracking up.

.............and here is a classic Carter. This was either his birthday or the day after his birthday. He had just gotten that dinosaur and loved it. When I walked up to him and found this sight, though, he turned to me and said, very sadly, nearly on the verge of tears, "The dinosaur ate my muffin."

So there's Carter. He's pretty cool. I hear that nowadays he's growing up more and is far more interested in Batman than anything else (even Veggie Tales). Yet, I'll always remember him best as the kid that would come into my room at seven in the morning and casually open the conversation by saying, "So, how was work honey?" because that's a natural conversation starter, and the kid who runs up and down under the rain run-off,

and the kid that is for hours entertained by my toothbrush sarcophagus.

(and can say it, too)

Monday, June 15, 2009

You know those Four Peaks you can see from the Valley off in the distance (that everyone knows about - unless you're like a couple of my friends....go here or here if you are)? On Saturday Mike and I climbed (literally) to the highest of them, Brown's Peak. It is described by other hikers/climbers as a class 4 and "for experienced climbers only." We're monsters.

At the top we could see the entirety of both Roosevelt and either Apache or Saguaro (not sure which one) lakes, and the whole rest of the Valley and beyond. Mike tells you more about it at his new hang-out, mikeshikes2009.blogspot.com. Check it out.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

To Potential Interviewers/Employers:

There is something I would like you to be aware of: my personal and family plans are, in fact, none of your business. In fact, you should not even think about or consider them when looking at hiring me. In fact, it would be illegal for you to do so. In fact, if someone with the same or lesser qualifications was awarded a position over me and I felt it was due to your consideration of my womanhood and potential to become pregnant, I could sue you. In fact, women have won millions.

Now, I would never try to be misleading in this area, and, were my own plans disjointed with the company's plans for me, it would simply be a position I could not accept. For this very reason I have not interviewed with the big accounting companies: I cannot promise the completely devoted years of service I would be under contract and expectation to give after the years and dollars they put in to train and mentor me. But one thing I can promise is to fulfill any contract or expectation that I do accept.

I have a question for you. Even if you were to consider that I have motherhood plans in my future, why would you not hire me? Would you prefer that the mothers of the next generation are uneducated and inexperienced? Would it not profit the world, this country, and even your community to have mothers that have worked through an education and applied that education through experience to gain true learning about people and the working of the world around them, who can then use this all in teaching and raising their children? With this in mind, who do you expect, if not you, to hire these future mothers? Another company? And who do they expect?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A Post about my Pooch

Now this is a fact: during the semester I gain weight. It's not like I'm putting on the pounds, but I tend to get 5 or 6 pounds heavier than during the summer and winter breaks, in which it just goes away.

I don't consider this a very big deal, and is all very easily explained. Simply, during the semester, no matter how I try, I have a very hard time getting time to do the things I love. My runs become shorter, sparse, and then non-existent. Saturday morning hikes become sleeping-in catch-up marathons. My wake-up therapy (crunches) turns into alarm abuse. At first I don't know why I'm not quite satisfied with myself in my blouses anymore, but I soon realize my pooch is less than sexy and my hips a little softer.

I love my body. Body body body. Yet as the semester progresses, I get a little more sad at myself. Not just 'cause my body turns soft, but also because I become soft physically -- sixty crunches hurt, sore after runs, wiped out from a short swim. I yearn and can't wait for the return of my three hour runs, 800 consecutive daily crunches, and racing up mountains.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I work for good men.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

From my blog page I clicked on "Next Blog." I was taken aback by the page I saw. The first thing I thought of was Lauren Face. To experience this for yourself, visit http://palomasrio4to.blogspot.com/.

On a side note, as a result of this, I am slightly disgusted at my past. A certain spanish speaking fella used to call me dove, or paloma.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A Novel

One of the biggest reasons that I am so excited to graduate this May is that instead of spending my evenings studying or doing homework that time will be open for my own personal reading. I love to read. Read read read. I have been swept away by all kinds of books: I love historical fictions, sci-fi is so cool, I can’t draw myself out of love stories, I live in fantasy, and some of my favorite books are the retellings of old adventures and fairy tales. Nearly every book I have read I have read more than once (my favorites many times more), and, something Mike can attest to, I analyze them to pieces. I finish every book I read, with few exceptions (like Wicked, for example. It got so offensive/pornographic halfway through that I threw it away). I have a difficult time thinking of a book I read that I didn’t like or get something out of.

I’m pretty sure I can attribute my love of reading in part to my sisters. For the first eleven years of my life I was the youngest of six sister readers, which left quite a library at my disposal. Mandy (ten years my senior) would pass a book she had finished onto Julia (three years) who would pass it on to me. This is how I had already read books like Les Miserables before middle school. I realize now that even then I was analyzing the literature. I remember running to the dictionary for help on words and meanings, sometimes just reading the encyclopedias for a day for context, and of course Julia, Valerie, and I would discuss with each other (when we weren’t putting on light shows with out light-up shoes on the top bunk). I also remember how we would be grounded from our bedrooms and from our books because our mom “wanted to see our faces.”

So I’m a reader.

Apparently the BBC believes that most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books listed below. That surprises me, and I kinda don’t believe it. I have read thirty-seven and a half from the list. Half because one of them is the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and I’m pretty sure I’m still short some. I noticed that the majority of the ones I've read are in the first 50. I can’t really say if this is an inclusive list, but how many have you read?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (a bunch)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Monday, February 23, 2009

HAIRCUTS

After checking in at Robert and Heidi's reception,

(what a shame we missed this part) Mike and I got to spend a couple hours with Tyler, Hannah, and Rachel (nephew and nieces), though Rachel was asleep for most of it. Not too long into the night Tyler called on a dance competition to his favorite song, Let's Get It Started (Black Eyed Peas). Now, picture these two throwing down the dance moves:

Quite the show. I guess that some kind of close bond develops between dancers on the same floor, because Tyler soon felt comfortable enough with Mike to start the following conversation:

T: Did you get a haircut?
M: Yeah, Shirley did it. Didn't she do a good job?
T: Oh. Well, did she cut a lot off?
M: yeah...
T: ...and just leave it around here (as he traces Mike's horseshoe with his finger).
M: Uh, yeah.
T: Yeah 'cause there's not a lot here. See, feel it (and after rubbing the top of Mike's head brings Mike's own hand up).

I guess I should have been more careful with the cleavers!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Check it.

Nothing got done at my office today before lunch.

This is why:



aw he's waving.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

stuck

Everyday my husband takes the opportunity to tell me, "You're crazy. You are absolutely nuts."

It's okay, though, because I threaten his life expectancy just as often, or more.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Moses was an avatar.

Disclosure

Last night I stayed up till way super early this morning working on an audit project. I'm pretty sure I dominated it, which is needed for passing the class and always makes me feel good (I gain life-substance from writing killer papers). Currently, though, I am dying due to lack of the sleeping-substance (and a random unfulfilled morning craving for green beans). This is all my fault. Most often when I stay up all night studying or working on a paper it is not because I put it off forever, but really because it just took me that long to feel good about it. This time: not so.

So what was I doing instead in all that time that I could have analyzed the company and written it up? Here is my list:
  • (I love green)
  • Thursday after classes in the hours that I had just waiting for Mike I...blogged, browsed the nets, and watchedd an episode of the Office (but Mike would kill me if he knew!)
  • Friday after work I bought fruitsnacks for $1 at Safeway (I think that sale is on till tonight) and watched a movie with Mike. Didn't even think of the paper.
  • Saturday morning I slept in. Mike woke up, put my adorable shelf liner in my kitchen drawers (!!! I love it! It's still a surprise every time I open one!), went and helped people move, and then played basketball. I finally woke up, scrubbed the bathroom and the kitchen (bing!), did all the laundry (really, laundry takes up so much time. a perfect procrastination-time-filler), and started one of my favorite books again, A Tale of Two Cities. Mike says I read everything that's not my text book. Could be true.
  • Sunday was the Sabbath (BUT we did go to my parents and score major shopping in their pantries!)
  • So comes Monday. The day before it's due (at 7:30am). I have work all day, but get off way early. Perfect time to get to school work! But no. I invite Natalie over and we chat (hopefully this becomes something of a regular thing), and, since I have no willpower when caught up in a story, turn again to my Charles Dickens.
  • At about 9:00 Mike opened pinball on his computer. He played some games, and after totally sucking I had to take over. I played one game (without having played before) and beat all of his high scores by about three million. It took him about two hours to beat it. I rule. Disclosing this is the sole reson for my blogging today.

After trashing him, Mike made me start my project. I stayed up till the way early in the morning and am now very tired.

I also do have to add how Mike let me sleep till 6:45 and set up the printer so I could print my assignment and made lunch and breakfast for himself and me and pointed the space heater towards my side of the bed so it'd be warmer when I got up and even started packing my gym bag for me.

Friday, February 6, 2009

“I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries.” -Stephen King

The sole purpose of this post is to express my disappointment in Burger King fries. If you don't care about that, you may move on.

I'm not at all a fast-food person. Mike got a gift card to Pete's Fish & Chips so we used that the other week, but besides that I really can't remember the last time I got fast-food. Except for freedom fries. For some reason at the end of the day I crave -- hard core craving -- salt. Salt and ice, but not together. Very often this translates into a craving for freedom fries. I honestly only give into this craving every couple months (although when I was going crazy with work, school, and wedding prep Mike was very kind to me and turned his head when I indulged a little more).

Yesterday Mike had class till nine. My last class ends after 4:00. One thing I love about a schedule like this is that it gives me an opportunity to hit up the SRC every Tuesday and Thursday. After I had finished there I mosied over to the MU to set up camp for the evening. And then the craving struck. I turned the idea over in my mind.

I had only $10 in my account since Mike and I have been putting all our monies into his.

Neither of us were going to get any form of dinner till we returned home at 9:30 or later.

Freedom fries isn't much of a dinner.

I had just swam over a quarter mile and then run about four, dropping on the field every four minutes to do 60 crunches (I think up interesting workouts for myself. but it works for me. I used to do cartwheels every time I turned around when I would do speed runs on the canal). I could afford it.

Unhealthy is unhealthy no matter how you say it.

I can convince myself I lack the willpower.

Pansy.

I walked downstairs and got two orders of fries from Burger King. I was really excited about this, because I love freedom fries and because now I had an excuse to pack up and visit Mike during his ten minute break from class. Seeing Mike is always the most fun of anything. As we ate and visited I became increasingly saddenned by my freedom fries. My taste buds and stomach told me that these definitely were NOT worth it. The clincher was when we found an onion ring in Mike's freedom (which explained the overall onion ring taste). In that moment I remembered the last time I ate Burger King. It was High School. Freshman year. In between the Saturday matinee and evening showings of the play I was in. A tater-tot showed up in my fries. I was surprised. It was the nastiest thing ever.

And so, the moral of yesterday evening, and of this post, is that I will never again indulge in BK fries. I guess you can't expect freedom worth eating from any kind of monarch.


AND.
Last night Mike told me I have the cutest tush ever :-).

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

It's February 6th, 2009

Where did you begin 2008?
I think at home. Which at the time was Joseph and Mary's house. Natalie had just gotten married and I was very into Tyson at the time.

What was your status by Valentine's Day?
Ha. Single? I think it was right after Valentine's that Hayden started.

Did you have to go to the hospital?
Never.

Did you have any encounters with the police?
So I got a ticket for running a red light I didn't even know I ran. I was pretty sure it had turned green. But he said no. I think it was just 'cause I was delirious driving home late from Mike's.

Where did you go on vacation?
Payson. to mountain bike. Greer area. to snowboard. and Mexico!!

What did you purchase that was over $500?
a laptop. summer school.

Did you know anybody who got married?
no one I can think of. who does that anyway?

Did you know anybody who passed away?
yeah. but part of life deaths.

What sporting events did you attend?
ASU football!

What concerts/shows did you go to?
....Love You Long Time. small show. fun show. an unfortunate night.

Where do you live now?
In Mesa. Weird, huh?

Describe your birthday.
Well, I kinda had two birthdays, from two boys. There were many happy feelings and many scary I don't know feelings.
Tyson sent me the cutest little birthday package from Argentina. He told his sister he really felt like he needed to do something great to hold onto me, to remind me.
Mike wasn't supposed to get me anything. It was against the rules. I came home to a basket full of my favorite things in my room, a vase of flowers, and a beautiful framed picture of the temple that he had taken. That night he had told me to dress in a formal, and he picked me up and brought me back to his house where he had a candle-lit, three course dinner set up (made me cry) and Singing in the Rain afterward. The entire night I was certain and terrified that he was going to propose to me (which was also against the rules. I had a lot of rules.)

What's the one thing you thought you would never do but did in 2008?
Marry someone that wasn't Tyson.

Any new additions to your family?
YES. Six new nieces and nephews and Mike.

What was your best month?
definitely not September.

Made new friends?
Mike's friends talk to me now?

Have any life changes in 2008?
Yes. Very much so. Major much so. And it's all Mike's fault. I really hated him for winning. Really. Probably more than he knows. Then again, he knows me pretty well.

Change your hairstyle?
Ha. Not by choice. It burned off.

Get a new job?
Why, yes. At the beginning of the year I was a nanny. Over the summer I was an EFY counselor, and then I started at TLW as an accounting person. sometimes i'm called an Accounts Payable Clerk. sometimes Assistant to the Controller.

How old did you turn this year?
21

Get married or divorced?
MARRIED

Be honest - did you watch American Idol?
Not once. Mike tried out for it though. Fag.

Start a new hobby?
Yes, but that's between Mike and I. Oh and I guess mountain biking could count. If we ever find time to go again. Oh and swimming! I swim now. Natalie got me started. Oh and I guess doing crunches is new too. Is that a hobby?

Been snowboarding?
Not since Jan, but boy do I miss it.

Are you happy to see 2008 go?
Too late. It's already gone.

Friday, January 30, 2009

The Nod

You know how you go to someone's page and see someone else on it of interest and decide to check it out and that leads you to another and another and pretty soon you're miles away from the page you started at and have a million tabs open of all the cool stuff you're looking at?

Well, I have a friend named Eric. And then I was at this one guy's page and he had written this, which I thought was worth reading.
I finally got to use the "Shut up sicko I'm married," line.
I hate catcalls. and "How you doin' girl?"s. and etc.
It's only cute when Mike does it.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

That's why I love college - new experiences.

Alright. This is what I'm used to:
Everyone calls everyone for a couple weeks to make sure everyone knows the specifics of FAMILY PICTURE DAY. Once we're all there, it's keeping the kids clean, out of the dirt, fed, and happy, re-arranging everyone fifty times, making sure the picture of the current missionary can be seen, taking a million pictures in hopes that at least one will have maybe half of the twenty babies looking in any direction the camera can catch (it's a bonus if they're smiling), everyone getting hot and sweaty and short tempered and annoyed, and knowing that by next month this picture will be outdated by three babies and two in-laws. I guess that's just what being a Mackey is (and so cool too).

So, this is our latest officially official family picture (I believe I had just graduated from High School...so about 3.5 years ago) (and this is a picture of a picture that my brother posted on FB so it's not best quality -- maybe a good thing for some of us).

With grand kids and marriages, I counted out nine more additions since this picture (family: correct me if I'm wrong).

So this past Saturday I had family pictures with the outlaws -- a first for me -- and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Pretty much we sat down wherever felt good, smiled, didn't blink when the camera flashed, and were done. Have I found a deal or what? So now I'll post a couple for you.

These are the Stocks (and all in these pictures until the granddaughters get married will be Stocks. Darn them boys stealing their wives' perfectly good last name) --








And this isn't Mike or me, actually his older brother and niece, but it's my favorite of the one's we've seen :-).


Monday, January 26, 2009

Back to where I started

This morning Mike and I were singing "One eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater" in the bathroom. I had no idea what that verse was foretelling. On Saturday we had family pictures with Mike's family, during which Mike was a total stud and bum-hopped over a fence. Unfortunately, my glasses were in his back pocket. We discovered them pretty mangled, and that the left lense was forever lost in the river. After we found a place that could take me in and get me new eyes pronto, we had the dilemma: glasses or contacts? Glasses would definitely be cheaper, since my insurance would cover the exam and some of the frames, but contacts would mean that I could see right now, and not a week later.

I think the deciding factor was that Mike thinks I look better without glasses. So now I wear contacts.

AND am still getting used to them. Today I was working and my left eye popped out. I realized that I was seeing funny, but didn't figure out why till I saw my folded contact dried to the invoice I was working on. "Oh crud." So I tried to peel it off and learned that if a contact is stuck to something and you want to peel it off you have to wet it down or it will tear.

This wouldn't be so bad if my right contact had popped out, 'cause then I could just put on my glasses and have two eyes.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Those who consider Mike their friend are genius. I wonder if they realize how completely selfless he is.