Christmas report

Yesterday was Christmas, so MERRY LATE CHRISTMAS! We had a grand old time up here in Salt Lake, we got to hang out with Andersons and Blockburgers, and we got plenty of loot. I really do feel so very blessed to have so many great people in my life. I was reminded on Sunday (in Relief Society, actually) of how important friendships and family relationships are. The whole lesson was just on friendships. It really got me to thinking about all of the people that have ever had an impact on my life, and it made me really realize that there are hundreds, even thousands of people that have impacted me in one way or another. Even if they don't know it. It's just an incredible thought to think how very connected we are to one another. And so, I am grateful for all of you and all the joy I have in my life. I really do have a good life, one that is filled with small pleasures and great happinesses. I hope your holiday season is treating you well.

Weekly Quote 12/25/06

Last week's quote, "Merry Christmas Emporium!" was from "It's a Wonderful Life." Sorry the new quote wasn't up yesterday, we had a bit going on. But now we're up to date.

Cheesecake. . . mmmmmmm. . .

Since I'm on a roll with the food-related posts. . .

Our friends the Millars came to town last night. They actually went to the Las Vegas bowl, and slept on our floor. It was great to see them. And they brought us cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. I have never been to this glorious institution, but I have heard the tales. Now I have tasted the sublime cheesecake created there, and I can never look at cheesecake the same way. It was DELICIOUS. We had a slice of White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle, and a slice of Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple. To die for. Now I want to go to Las Vegas more often to sample of the decadent goodness.

As a side note, we are going up to Salt Lake for Christmas TONIGHT! We are excited. Unfortunately, we are going to the land of dial up, so I might not be as big of a blogger for the next week. But then, you all will be busy anyway, so you'll hardly notice. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Chimichurri

I seem to do well with the food posts, so here is another one. Wednesday is the best day to get the paper because it has the Food section. I was reading this beloved section yesterday, when Clark looked over my shoulder, pointed at a picture on the next page and said, "What is that?" They have a picture of some steak on toast with a bowl of green stuff next to it. It did not look very appetizing. So I read the article. Turns out this stuff is called chimichurri, and it's apparently "the greatest condiment known to man." (Clark said Sabrina would be the true test of that statement) This stuff seems pretty simple, it's made of parsley, olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, cumin, salt, garlic, and crushed red pepper. It doesn't seem so fancy to me. But it seems to be getting rave reviews. This is the quote in the paper: "You could enjoy rank roadkill if there was chimichurri on it." I'd say that is rather strong language. Have any of you heard of this miracle condiment? Or better yet, tasted it?

Voila!

I have become a fan of the Food Network lately. I don't know what it is about watching someone cook but it just makes me happy. I don't know if it relaxes me, or if it inspires me, I'm not sure. Maybe it's just my obsession for food being manifest in another form. In any event, I watch that channel. And I like it.

So the other day, I'm watching someone make a dessert or something, and she says, "WaLa!" Right. I know she meant "Voila!" but it disturbed me that this woman is a professional chef and says it all wrong. And then, a few days later, I heard it again! From a different person! I was dying. So, just so you all know, you do pronounce the V like a V. V-o-ahhh-laaa. No W's. It's a dumb thing to have a beef about, I know. But twice! On the Food Network!

Dinner is Served

Tonight we went to Clark's company Christmas party, which was dinner at a nice restaurant. It was nice to meet some of the people Clark works with, and the food was excellent. That is the real purpose of this post, the food. It's what I live for. Quite literally.

First of all, I had a salad with bleu cheese dressing, which was divine. When did I become an adult? I actually really enjoyed the salad, rather than just suffering through it to be polite. I also tried calamari for the first time, and while it was better than I thought, I don't think I'll be ordering it anytime soon. It's just the fact that I know what it is, ruins the whole experience for me. And finally, for the main course I had some butternut squash ravioli. I really didn't know what to expect, and I thought it was good for me to be adventurous. The food came, I took a bite, and I thought, "I must be cheating, I'm eating pumpkin pie for dinner!" It was great! Just like a pumpkin pie wrapped in pasta. I liked it. I've converted to butternut squash. I can't believe that I really am writing a post about my dinner, but it really was an adventure for me.

Chic Flicks

Over the weekend we watched quite a bit of TV. Really, we watched a movie every night. Friday it was Return of the King. Saturday it was 50 First Dates. And Sunday it was Never Been Kissed. I thought it was interesting that Clark chose all three of those movies. Apparently he wanted a Drew Barrymore weekend. But the best part is he like both of those movies! I was so proud of him, liking things I like. Just thought I'd report.

Weekly Quote 12/18/06

New quote up. It's a Clark favorite.

Last week's quote, "The clarinet, the clarinet goes doodley doodley doodley doodley det!" was from You've Got Mail.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

Yesterday I got out of bed at around 8:00, and thought, wow, it seems so dark still. I figured it must be overcast, so I peeked at the window to find this:


SNOW! Sure, it's not much, but we live in St George. I didn't think it would snow at all down here. Of course I woke Clark up by jumping up and down and shouting, "It's a Christmas miracle! It's a Christmas miracle!" Who knew that a 1/2" of snow could make me so happy?

Fork to the mouth

Advice for the week: Do not walk around with a sharp object in your mouth, even if it is only for a minute. I have heard this advice before, but I did not heed it, much to my sorrow. I had a fork in my mouth yesterday, and I was just going to pour myself a glass of water. Unfortunately, when I was putting the pitcher back in the fridge, the other end of the fork hit the fridge door as it was swinging out, ramming those little tines into the roof of my mouth. Two actually pierced the skin, one got the hard pallet, one got the soft pallet. The worst part about it was that I was preparing lunch because I was hungry. But then I had to wait for the bleeding to stop, and even after that my mouth was pretty tender. When something affects my eating, then I really start to take it seriously. Needless to say, I learned my lesson.

Joy to the World!

WE GOT A PACKAGE YESTERDAY! It took me some time to figure out the whole package box thing (there are 2 boxes, and each box has 2 keyholes, so I was trying the key all over the place) but we got it, and it added to the excitement! It was from the Lowes! And I got to open my present yesterday (it told me to)! I got a CD! Barenaked for the Holidays! I love it! And I got it just in time for Hanukkah, so way to go Lowes! I thought you all needed to share in the Christmas joy that is mine, and that you needed some more exclamation points in your life.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Yo quiero Taco Bell."

Over the summer we went to the redwood forest. Those trees were magnificent! I really enjoyed that experience. The one unpleasant incident on that trip occurred at the Taco Bell in Crescent City, CA.

Crescent City is not a large town, and thus the restaurant selection left much to be desired. In the end we decided that you can't go wrong with Taco Bell. Little did we know. We went inside, I quickly decided what I wanted to order, told Clark, and made a trip to the restroom. There was no line to order, so I figured when I came back out the food would be ready to eat. WRONG. When I came back out, the first person in our party was still ordering. They would say something and it would take a good 3 minutes for her to find it on the register. In her defense, I think it was this girl's first day and she was left alone at the register, but still. Even if it was your first day, it shouldn't take that long. And in the end nobody got what they ordered, there were things missing, things nobody ordered. Oh well, we all got something in our bellies and finally got out of there.

Fast forward to yesterday. We went to the Taco Bell here in St George yesterday with my parents. Nobody was there because it was 4:30, so we're all trying to decide what we want, when the girl at the register pipes in, "Well, since you are all here, let me tell you about the promotion we are having." Then my dad had a question about a certain menu item, she answered it best she could, and then found a more complete answer. Then my mom asked another question. With every order she asked if we'd like a drink cup for water. She was almost too polite. The way she was saying things made Clark and I look at each other and say, "Is she for real?" She just seemed so excited about getting us the food we wanted. She even made sure to give my dad a senior citizen discount (which seems so bizarre to me, my parents are senior citizens?) Then we looked at her name tag: Service Champion. Now, normally I would just think that Taco Bell is trying to spice things up for their employees with some dumb phrase like that, but no, she really was a service champion, it's the best way to describe her. And it was completely the opposite experience of the Crescent City fiasco.

The moral of the story: Go to Taco Bell in St George. Don't go to Taco Bell in Crescent City. Or in the Northeast. (On a slightly different note, Taco Bell wanted to make it clear that they would not be removing lettuce from their menu. I would like to say that if they did, I would be more likely to eat there.)

Shots

I read something in the paper today that got me all riled up. It was about vaccinations. I find it so hard to believe that there are people out there who think vaccinations are bad, and yet there are. I don't even know where to begin. There are just so many arguments that are out there that are just plain dumb. I know that I'm not a leading expert in this field, but come on. "I'd rather not give my baby a cocktail because of the chance that he could have a bad reaction." Why not just say, "Bring on the measles!" And then there is the argument that everyone else is immunized, so I don't need to be. While that is somewhat true, if everyone thought that way then no one would be immunized, and we'd have problems.

I actually met a girl once who was against vaccines. This was her winning statement: "It just doesn't make sense to inject a virus into your system." Has she taken biology? (She may not have, she was going to school to be a midwife. This made me a bit more worried about the training of midwives.) Has she done her research? Because if she had, then she'd know we've been doing this for centuries, and with the desired result: less disease. It seems to be working. And we can even explain why it works. So, yes, it makes perfect sense, Midwife friend. (I will note that I didn't say any of these things to her because I had just met her and didn't want to offend. I just changed the subject as quickly as possible.)

OK, there is the rant. Good to get it out. But what good would a rant be without a push for improvement? Thus I am telling all 4 of my readers that I do hope you immunize your kids. It's really for the best. And if you don't believe in vaccinations, I hope I didn't offend you. Um. . . lovely weather we're having. . .

Things that go bump in the night.

I was fast asleep the other night, when I was awakened by a noise. Being half asleep, I had no idea what it was, I thought maybe it was a knock on the door (no, this makes no sense because it was like 4am, again, I was half asleep). So I ask Clark if he heard a knock on the door, he mumbles something, and I go back to sleep.

Fast forward to breakfast time. I go downstairs, eat breakfast, read the paper, and as I'm putting my bowl away, I notice that one of our walls looks rather bare. This is the wall that I have been facing for the past half hour, I have no idea why I didn't notice it for so long. Turns out the noise was the picture frame collage falling to the ground (if you don't know what the picture frame collage looks like, you can look here in the dining area picture). I was very nervous to assess the damages, seeing as there are 10 individual picture frames and any or all of them could have been broken. Turns out it was just one frame that broke, the wood came apart at the joints. No broken glass. I felt very lucky of that fact. And the broken frame shouldn't be too hard to fix. I just can't find the Krazy Glue for the life of me! That's what happens when you move, you know just where everything was in your old place, but no idea where it might be in the new place.

Rather underwhelming

First off, I think we all need to appreciate the beauty of the title "Coconut Kisses." I just think it sounds pretty. Rolls off the tongue.

I felt that I should post something, but really I have nothing to say. I'm sitting here trying to think of something funny/exciting/weird that happened to me over the weekend and I'm drawing a blank. We went to the ward Christmas party. It was a ward Christmas party. And we know very few people in the ward. So that's all that needs to be said there. We rented a movie, which turned out to be more of an adventure than we had anticipated, but as we were driving Clark looked at me and said, "Dibs on the blog!" So you'll have to look at his blog for that story. We went to church on Sunday, and I already told you about the coconut kisses. Oh, the Amazing Race ended. If you know me and my love for the race you would think I would be more excited about this, but no. When it was over, I was feeling quite underwhelmed. I had thought it would be a 2 hour finale, because they have been in the past. So when after an hour they were crossing the finish line, I was feeling a bit gypped. (I have never written that word down before, and it looks so funny. Gypped. It's not too PC either, but who cares. I'm pretty sure I don't have any Gypsies reading my blog.) I guess it all boils down to a rather uneventful weekend. And today wasn't much better. I'm going to have to find an adventure tomorrow. Stay tuned. . .

Weekly Quote 12/11/06

"The blockade is perfectly legal" was from Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. New quote up this week.

Coconut kisses

In Relief Society today that teacher passed out some Hershey's Kisses as a treat (the lesson was on unity and she made the point that we are all united in our love for chocolate). There were all different kinds in there, but I noticed that there were some in blue wrappers, they were coconut! I had never seen that before, so I took one, and it was delicious! Just when you think life is dull and boring they come out with something marvelous like a coconut kiss and life is good again.

Visual delights

I thought of something funny that I didn't blog yet. I went to the store the other day to pick up some refried beans (they just sounded so good, I had to get them). When I walked in, I noticed that they had Santa there for picture taking fun. I didn't think too much of it, got my beans, but on my way back up to the checkstands I discovered that Santa was talking to his friend: a giant hippo wearing a pink tutu. Um, what? As I was leaving the store, the hippo stopped me and offered me some candy from her basket. I have no idea what it has to do with Christmas, but it did bring a smile to my face, so it's not such a bad idea.

Visitors

I'm amazed that I went a whole day without posting on this thing. But I was busy yesterday because my family was in town. They are going to San Diego, and stopped here overnight. It's a nice way to break the trip up, and they got to see me, so everyone wins.

My dear sister Kim is back from Paris, so she came down with the fam. She showed me pictures from her. . . you know, I keep wanting to call it a trip, but it wasn't a trip, it was a semester abroad. So I guess I should say pictures from her time in France. That sounds better. Anyway, it looked like an incredible experience, I was so jealous of all the amazing things she saw and did. And she was able to eat some fabulous foods, however with that came the not so fabulous (live oysters, anyone?). I would love to go to the pastry shops, but I would not be all about some of the other stuff. But still, what an experience!

One funny thing about my family is the way we all want everyone to be happy. We went out to eat last night, and just deciding where to go took like 20 minutes. If someone doesn't seem completely happy, we have to change our plans. It's actually a miracle that anything gets decided sometimes. And while it might be more helpful to have one strong-willed person just make the decision, then we would all know that at least one person wasn't happy and everyone would feel bad. It's just a funny thing we do.

I have nothing else to say. I already feel like this is somewhat boring. Maybe something funny will happen today.

It's here!

Well, here it is! The couch! The Glorious Couch! And a coffee table! And end tables! There is suddenly a lot of stuff in that room. I don't really know where the love-seat will go, I'm guessing that we'll have to do some rearranging. But we finally have a place to sit! Lots of exclamation points this post! Now I think I'm going to go have some lunch. . . while sitting on my COUCH!

"Oh, honey, look at that shrewd baby!"

I was just doing a crossword puzzle online (those are great because you can always get a little cheat, even in the form of just one letter). There was one that was just bugging me the whole time. The clue was "Shrewd." It was 4 letters. I couldn't figure it out. Turns out the answer is "cute." Huh? Is there some definition that I am unaware of? Because I thought that shrewd was more like clever than cute. Weird.

Christmas Gifting

Clark and I went Christmas shopping last night, which was all fun and games until we actually checked out. It's expensive to buy gifts for people! I love giving gifts, though, to me it's the best part about Christmas, finding that perfect gift and watching someone open it. It's a great feeling. I just wish it didn't cost so darn much to get gifts for everyone. Then we started talking about the Millar family Christmas tradition of drawing names. What a great idea! Each person only has to get 1 gift, and it can be a really good gift too. It's a lot less stress, and a lot less of a financial burden. I guess the one drawback is you don't get as much stuff, for all you greedy kids out there. But I still think it's a fabulous idea. Any thoughts? Other pros? Other cons?

National Helpful Day

I think I'm going to declare today National Helpful Day.

As you know, we've been having problems with getting our furniture. I called again today, and they said that they are still waiting for our loveseat to come in, and it would probably get here on the 8th. My parents and sisters are actually stopping in town on the 7th on their way to San Diego, and I had hoped that by then we would have a place for them to sit. I mentioned this to the salesman (his name is Aaron, and he is the one who actually sold us the furniture. He is one of the good people who work there.) He said, OK, let me see what I can do. I'm thinking, there is most likely nothing you can do, but oh well. He called back not 10 minutes later to tell me that he feels so bad that it has been so long of a wait for us, and he talked to his manager. They decided to deliver what they have (being our sofa and tables) on Wednesday, and then just deliver the loveseat when it comes in. How helpful is that?!

Then I called the health insurance company. This can often be a traumatic experience. I called because, since we just moved, we don't have any doctors down here, and I needed an appointment in January. First of all, she said that she would send me a Providers List. That was help #1. Then I explained to her what kind of doctor I was looking for and why, and she found a doctor with a specialty in exactly what I needed. That was help #2. Then she put me on hold and actually called the doctor's office to see if they had an appointment in January, like I had wanted. That was help #3. Then she conferenced them in so that I was able to make the appointment. That was help #4. Finally, she gave me the address and phone number of the office, and asked if I wanted to be transferred to the benefits department just so that I would know what was covered. That was help #5. 5 instances of help from the health insurance?! That is unheard of! I was impressed.

And the final helpful place is Walgreen's. You may or may not know this, but I have had no good experiences with the Walgreen's. They have always been slow and unhelpful. But I needed some pictures printed, and since the Target down here doesn't have a Photo Center, Walgreen's was it. I uploaded the pictures, and they said they would be ready for pickup in a hour. I was skeptical, but they even let me check the progress online, and indeed, they were ready in an hour. I love this day, and it's only 10:40am!

Grilled cheese

This weekend I was feeling a bit under the weather. I have a cold, which is no fun, but the worst thing is I was feeling all vomitous due to the antibiotics I am taking. I apparently have a sensitive stomach, which I always forget because it's very rare that I'm taking antibiotics. Anyway, at dinner time I had no desire to cook up what we had planned, it just all sounded so gross. Only one thing sounded good to me: grilled cheese sandwiches. So I had that for dinner. Two nights in a row. It was so wonderful. I love the grilled cheese. Only problem is now we are out of bread, and I just bought a loaf on Thursday. But it was so worth it.

Weekly Quote 12/4/06

Well, last week's quote was from Holiday Inn. Yeah, nobody ever watches that movie except for me, and I love it. I thought it was an appropriate kickoff to the holiday season.

New quote up.

Camouflage

First off, the upstairs of our lovely town home is very very warm, while the downstairs is rather cool. Kind of annoying.

On to the bulk of this post (not that it is exciting or anything). I went to the pharmacy today. When I was finished, I turned the corner and almost ran into the camouflage twins. Seriously, two girls who were wearing camo. One of them was wearing an entire camouflage outfit (that's right, outfit, sweatpants, shirt, the whole deal), and the other was wearing just a camo shirt. It just looked ridiculous to me, these 2 girls who are obviously friends and they are dressed alike in camo! Who does that? It killed me. Just thought I'd share.

Guster = Good

Well, the masses have spoken. (OK, just Suzanne). But let it be known that I do take requests. This is an excellent song, and if you haven't heard it, you should listen to it. So, without further ado, the lyrics to a most fabulous Guster song:

We Gotta Be Clean Lyrics

They've got to be clean, they've got to be clean, ahhahh
We wash our hands whenever we eat,
And in the bath we wash our ears, our elbows and feet.
We gotta be clean, we gotta be clean,
It's healthy and keen,
We gotta be clean.
(Yes sir!)

We start each day by brushing our teeth
(Brush! Brush!)
And getting the plaque and stuff off the smile underneath
We gotta be clean,
And floss inbetween.
Like the string must be green,
We gotta be clean

Each day's a fight with the forces of dirt.
(Dirt! Dirt! Dirt!)
Battling the smudge, and the smear, and the squirt.
(Squirt! Squirt! Squirt!)
What do we do when our shirt is all covered with mustard?
(Do they just wear it and wear it and wear it for weeks?)
(NO! Not Guster!)
We wash. Then we wear it.

We may be sad,
We may be beat,
We may be cross and tired and mad, but we'll always be neat.
We gotta be clean,
Like all dishes we've seen,
Or a fresh nectarine,
Or some laundry that's been,
Through the washing machine,
We gotta be clean!

(I really like the last few lines, since we now have a washing machine!)

We Gotta Be Clean

Finally, someone came through. After very little ado, our washer and dryer arrived yesterday evening. They came, they were installed, it all went off without a hitch. I thought everyone would like to know that, while we can't sit our butts anywhere comfortable, at least they don't have to sit at the laundromat anymore. I realize that it's kind if silly to post pictures of appliances, but we don't have kids, cut us some slack!

"You can't handle the truth!"

I'd like to report a lie.

OK, it may be only a half lie.

I am a big library fan. I enjoy reading, and I enjoy watching movies from the library. It's a great place. So when the St George library closed down last month, I was a bit sad. They are moving into a nice new building, which is wonderful, but I miss being able to go to the library. I can still go to the library in Santa Clara, which is a nice library, but it is a bit far away. And so many items are "St George library property," so they are in boxes being moved into the new building, and thus cannot be checked out. They closed November 4, and will reopen "in early January of 2007."

My beef is this quote in the FAQ section on their website:

How can I keep up-to-date on the library move?
This website will be updated regularly with information on the library move.

This would lead one to believe that they would have some more recent information up. Lies! The last time this site was updated was mid-October when they announced the move. It's almost December, people! I don't really know what I was expecting to see on there, but when they tell me more information is forthcoming, I expect to see something. Alas, I'll have to wait to find out how the move is going, and more importantly, when I can pick up my next book. . .

Album

While we were in Salt Lake this weekend, I found this book at my parents' house. I had never seen it before, so I asked where it came from. As it turns out, my parents just received it not too long ago, quite randomly actually. Someone called them up and told them that while cleaning out the attic, they found this book. I guess there was some piece of paper in there that identified Florence Anderson of Salt Lake City. After looking her up in familysearch.org, they found my dad's name as a contributor of genealogy. So they called him up, and he went and picked it up. It's just an old album with tons of really old pictures in it. Most of them aren't labeled, so who knows who they are. It's kind of sad, really, because those pictures would be worth so much to the right person, we just have no idea who that would be. We think this one is Florence (who is my dad's great aunt):

Pretty cool, if you ask me. My parents didn't know what to do with it, though, because they don't know who any of the people are. They even mentioned they were going to give it to the DI. I said, "The DI?! No, don't do that, I'll take it!" So now I have it. I don't really know what I'm going to do with it either, but at least it looks really cool. If anyone has any suggestions, send them my way.

(As a side note, Thanksgiving was grand. Plenty of food, family, friends, and good times. I don't really have much to say about it, other than it was good.)

Weekly quote 11/27/06

Well, last week's quote was:

"Um, we've got a bump coming up."
from The Bourne Identity.

New quote up. I thought it was a bit harder, so good luck.

Furnishings

For those of you who don't know, we have been having some struggles getting our couch. We went in a ordered in October 3, and were told it would be in at the end of October. I called on October 31 and was told that it had been back-ordered and wouldn't be here until the end of November. And they were not helpful at all, I kept asking if there was anything they could do, and the answer was no. Well, yesterday I called them again, just to make sure it hadn't been back-ordered again or something (because they wouldn't call me if that happened, I learned this from experience). I got a different person on the phone, and they were much more helpful. He told me the manager would call me back later that day. Which she did. She gave us a number of options in order to compensate us, such as free delivery or a free rug or free lamps or just a different couch altogether that would get here faster. We went in and went for the different couch. It is actually closer to the color we had originally wanted (we ordered a different color in the first place because it would be here sooner; obviously that didn't pan out), and it is a more expensive couch. But we didn't have to pay a dime. And it should be here in the next week or so. After all the trouble we had before, I am so excited to finally have a comfortable place to sit. The camp chair is great and all, but not that great. And really, they were very nice, I guess we just needed to talk to the right people.

After we took care of that business, we went to Best Buy and purchased a new washer and dryer. They should be here next Wednesday. We're going to be furnished! I'll post pictures!

Folding, and folding, and folding. . .

Laundry day always brings such unexpected events. You just never know who is going to be in the laundromat or what they are going to be doing. Today, I walked in there to find a girl standing there folding laundry, and an older woman putting her stuff in the washing machines. I noticed that each of these women seemed to be doing quite a few loads, as the washers and dryers were almost all being used. But I thought little of it, put my laundry in, and started reading my book.

I was pretty absorbed in my book, so I didn't really notice until I put my laundry in the dryer that the girl folding clothes was still there. And still folding clothes. This puts her folding alone at 1/2 hour. That is a long time to fold clothes. I pushed start, and went back to my book.

When my laundry was done, I went to get it, and saw the folder still folding away. This means that she took over an hour just for folding, because who knows how long she had been there when I got there, and who knows how much longer she will be there. All I can say is I am happy to do my laundry once a week and not have to sit and fold it for an hour. That and I hate folding laundry at the laundromat. I'd rather keep my privacy and fold my underwear at home, thank you very much.

Weekly Quote 11/20/06

New quote up! By the way, the last quote was from The Wedding Singer. If you didn't know it, you need to go watch it; it's a classic.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dyslexia?

We often not the intended recipient of the mail we receive in our mailbox. This wouldn't be so bad if it was just mail for the previous tenants; we do receive plenty of mail for Sarah Carroll, but since she used to live here, and it's mostly junk mail, I don't get too worried about it. But no, we seem to receive mail for other addresses. You look at the address, and it's not even close. Our address has a 1063 in it. These other address have 1036 or 1136 or 1161 or some other such nonsense that is quite obviously NOT our address. And one of the worst things about it is that we have no outgoing mail slot. We keep getting mail that does not belong to us, and we have to go all the way into the post office to give it back. One time Clark just walked down the road and knocked on someone's door. In fact, when we got the checks without Clark's name on them (see Clark's blog), they were hand delivered by our neighbor because they came in his box instead. Do you see how this is a problem? Who knows if the mail is actually being delivered or if it's just randomly going to someone else's house? It makes me somewhat concerned about identity theft. Clark is going to go in a chew them out, excuse me, kindly explain our problem to them today.

As a side note, we did get some interesting mail because of this common oversight. We received something from the Purgatory Jail in Hurricane. It looked like a hand written letter. Hmm, should I be worried that someone in our neighborhood is receiving mail from a convict? Or should I be less worried because he is in "purgatory" where he belongs?

Blessed warmth.

I thought for sure that Clark would have blogged about this by now, but you snooze you lose, buck-o. After waking up to the frigid air yesterday morning, Clark and I decided it was time to turn on the heat. Yes, it was momentous. We still keep it pretty cool in here, but it's nice to have on at night. Otherwise Clark would never get out of bed. So, I just thought it would be nice to update all you northern folk and let you know that when you live in St George, you don't have to turn your heat on until November 16, and then just at night. Jealous? I thought you might be.

Health care?

I absolutely love our Health care system! OK, not really. Here is an overview of my latest run-in:

We need to get a test done. We just switched insurance companies, and just moved, so we don't actually have a doctor down here, it's our doctor from SLC that wrote up the prescription for the test. So I call the lab. We get it all set up. And then I asked for a range of the cost, seeing as our insurance company hasn't actually sent us any information as far as what our benefits are, who our providers are, etc. Unfortunately, the lab tech has no idea how much this test will cost because apparently they send it out. So she gives me the number for the billing of the pathologist they send it to. You would think they would know, right? I mean, they are the billers, they should know how much things cost, or at least a range, right? WRONG. They have no idea how much it will cost because they don't actually know what they will have to do. Um, how can you not know what you are going to do? And they had no range whatsoever for me. She said the only way to know how much it will cost is to have it done. So I thought I would call the insurance company to see if it was covered. I called, I asked, and they had no idea. They can't know if it's covered unless they have the exact code for the test. But apparently they don't know what exact test they are going to run. So, really, no one has any idea. Is this worrisome to anyone else? In the end I just asked Alex (who has had the test done before) how much it cost. She knew. The end. It might not be an exact number, but it is a ballpark, and that is all I needed to know. What I'd like to know is how not one person out of the three separate companies I called had any idea of even a ballpark range of how much things cost. I was a bit frustrated, if you couldn't tell, but I'm over it now. Today I discovered that my previous doctor is not a participating provider for our new insurance, so I had to do another run-around, but we worked it out. All is well. At least for now. I'll let you know how I feel when we finally get the bill.

Something is not quite right. . .

Reading the paper today, I came across an interesting tidbit of information. It appears that OJ Simpson has an exclusive interview with someone about his upcoming book, If I Did It. Evidently this book details how he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife and her friend if he had done it. Um, does anyone else find this, I don't know, weird? Morbid? Inappropriate? I'm not really sure what the best adjective is for this, but something seems wrong to me. Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

In other news, I reached up to scratch my nose, and the nose pad on my glasses broke. Great. I guess I'll have to overcome my phone phobia once again and call around to find someone to fix it.

Happy Belated Veteran's Day!

I was going to blog about Veteran's Day, but then so many other exciting things were going on, what with the parents being in town and the fish dying, so I completely forgot! While reading the paper the other day, I came across an article, and I've actually clipped it out because I thought it was so cool. It was basically a tribute to the few remaining WWI veterans. Near as they can tell, there are about a dozen of them. And they are all over 100, of course. One of them was the son of slaves. SLAVES. Wow. It just struck a chord in me, made me think that there have been many wars over the course of our nation's history, and without courageous men and women fighting for our nation, I wouldn't enjoy the freedoms that I do. I truly am grateful for the sacrifices made.

I feel like Veteran's Day was a bigger deal this year than it has been in years past, partly because of the current war in Iraq, and I think partly because I live in St George, where there are more veterans. But I think it is appropriate that we celebrate this day. My grandfather was in the navy in WWII, but he didn't see any action. I think sometimes he feels like he wasn't really in the war because of it, like he didn't do anything courageous. But just the fact that he was there, he did what his country required of him, is worth a lot. So, to all the veterans out there (and I am almost positive that none of them read this blog, I certainly can't see my grandparents reading it ["What's a 'blaugh'?"] but just in case they do) THANK YOU. We appreciate you.

Obituary

Our beloved friend, Charles "Charlie" Blockburger, has moved on to the next life. He died peacefully of natural causes.

During the span of his life, Charles moved 4 times, and experienced joy in each place. He was well beloved by all who knew him. He never complained, even when we forgot to feed him. His motto was to "Just Keep Swimming." He will be sorely missed.

Services were held on Nov 13, 2006 at 10:00 at night. The family gathered around the toilet for a few words and then a burial at sea. Tears were shed. At this time of grief, we ask that you try to remember the good times had with this fish, and not dwell on his sad passing. If you would like to post your favorite memories of Charles, you may do so on this blog. Thank you.

11/13/06 Weekly Quote

New quote up! (not that it's hard or anything, but still. . .)

Zion

The Andersons came to visit this weekend - hooray! A good time was had by all. We went to Zion's National Park on Saturday, which was fun. I haven't been there in years, and the only time I've ever been was not really an outdoor experience (I spent most of the time in the car). It was a chilly November day, although that doesn't mean quite the same thing here as it does most places. It was probably in the 50's or 60's, definite jacket weather, but not winter coat weather. Anyway, we went on the river walk to the Narrows, and of course did not go in the water. It inspired me to go back there in the spring or summer to fully experience it. And we went up to Weeping Rock. Then it started raining so we headed home, but it really was beautiful. Here are some pictures:

Clark at the entrance to the Narrows



Clark and Devil-Eyes, oh, I mean Shannon (I always have red eyes!)



Fall leaves!

Tom and Sam

I was just looking at a blog by Ken Jennings, and found this website. First off, Ken Jennings is pretty funny, I like his blog. And he writes in it daily, which keeps me entertained. (Notice that a link to his blog is now on my sidebar. Like he is my friend of something.) Anyway, I found this website, and it's a doozy. These guys are from the future and are stuck here in 2006. It's mostly video clips, a warning for those of you looking at this from work or something, there is sound. But I think you'll really enjoy it.
http://www.tomandsamarestuck.com/

Spiders

First off, I have been playing the same game of spider solitaire for like an hour. I would lose, and then hit "Restart This Game," and then I'd lose, and this cycle continued until I finally won! Determination pays off, kids.

The second spider of the day: I was putting away the box of cereal when I looked up and there was a HUGE spider on the ceiling! I'm standing there in my slippers thinking, "What do I do?" I am not a tall woman. It would be awkward for me to reach up there and smoosh it with a shoe. Not to mention the fact that my aim is terrible, and sometimes it takes me 2 tries to kill those spry spiders. I was not about to let that spider come crashing down on my head. And then I thought of all those other bugs out there that spiders eat, and how much more I hate the other bugs, i.e. flies. So I decided my best bet was to set the spider free. I was a little, ok, a lot nervous, but I kept my cool, grabbed a cup and a piece of paper, pulled a chair over, and captured the spider. Getting the door unlocked was tricky, but I managed, and set him free. He immediately started back towards the house (the little ingrate), so I slammed the door shut and locked it. He may re-enter, but I feel good about giving him a second chance to stay outside and do his job.

I've decided that spiders, while creepy, are a whole lot better than the cockroach problem we could be having. Bugs that crunch when you smash them are way worse for me. I pray that the cockroach spray continues to work it's miracle.

Everwood

ABC Family has been playing Everwood lately, and I don't normally watch it, in fact tonight was the first time I had ever sat through an entire episode, but Clark is gone for the night, and it was on, so I watched. Now, while the show is ok, I am glad I watched because they were playing a Dashboard Confessional song (Bend and Not Break) in the background! And a few days ago when I flipped past it, they were playing a Guster song (Come Downstairs and Say Hello) in the background! Whoever does the music for them, they have great taste.

Ice cream every day?

I went to Coldstone today to purchase a gift certificate (ooo, if it's your birthday it could be you!), and as I was leaving, I noticed that on their door they had a sign that said, "Thanks for coming! See you tomorrow!" I thought that was kind of funny. And the thought of ice cream every day made me happy, even if it will never happen, it's still a happy thought.

"Party on, dude!"

Saturday afternoon I happened to look out our window and saw a wading pool all set up in our neighbor's backyard. It was inside one of those portable shade tents, with screens on the sides. It looked rather summery, and I thought it was kind of odd. I figured they'd be having a party later on or something, these neighbors quite often have parties.

Fast forward to Saturday night. Clark and I hear all sorts of raucous outside, so I check out the window, and there is a whole crowd of people around that little wading pool. And it appears that there are 2 girls wrestling in it. Clark tells me that he thought he saw them pouring something akin to shampoo in the pool earlier. Wow, shampoo wrestling. You have to admit, that is kind of funny. But after an hour or so, I'd have to imagine that it would get kind of old. Apparently not. The cheering continued on for at least an hour. I guess we now know what people in St George do for fun. Or at least drunk people.

Recipe

Alright, the moment you've all been waiting for - the recipe for the Yummy Mummy Dogs!

Ingredients:
-Frozen raw dinner rolls, thawed but still cold
-Bun-length hot dogs
-mustard

For each Mummy dog, cut a dinner roll in half. Roll each half into a 22-24 inch rope. Wrap one rope around the hot dog, starting from the bottom and working your way up 4 1/2 inches. Cut a 1 1/2 inch piece off the 2nd rope and set aside. Wrap the 2nd rope around the hot dog, starting at the bottom and working your way up 4 1/2 inches, going the opposite way. Wrap the 1 1/2 inch piece around the top of the hot dog. Place Mummy Dogs on a sprayed baking sheet. Bake at 350°F 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool slightly and add mustard eyes. Serve warm with ketchup and mustard.

Rabid Squirrels

I was reading the paper this morning (by some stroke of luck we've been getting the paper before I leave these days, meaning before 8:00[St George seems to suck at newspaper delivery]), and found an interesting story amid the usual talk of the death toll in Iraq and the upcoming elections. A postal worker in Pennsylvania was making the rounds, delivering the mail, when he came to a house that had a squirrel on the porch. He didn't think much of it, put the mail in the box, but when he turned around to walk off the porch, the squirrel attacked! It ran up his leg and onto his back, and it bit him! He grabbed it by the tail and pulled it off of him, and he was screaming, which brought the attention of the neighbor (nobody was home at the squirrel house). I guess the squirrel was shot with a BB gun and sent to a lab to test for rabies. How random is that? And this was on the 2nd or 3rd page of the newspaper, and it wasn't one of those small briefs from around the nation. It was an article. I thought it was funny that this was newsworthy enough to make it to me in St George, UT.

And then I got to thinking about the rabies vaccine, and I remembered that when I was younger (maybe in the 2nd grade?) someone (I believe it was a fellow 2nd grader) told me that the rabies vaccine was so terrible because they gave it to you in your stomach. I don't think that is true, but it's odd that I remember that. Perhaps this is where my fear of animals comes into play? Could it be that I was so afraid of being bitten because I thought I'd have to get a shot in the stomach? Hmmm. . .

Wretched woman!

This happened a while ago, but I was reminded of it today, and thought it was blog-worthy. We were flipping past the radio stations and when I heard the smooth sound of Delilah's voice, I had to stop. For those of you who don't know about Delilah (where have you been?), she is a radio DJ who takes requests and is just about as cheesy as they go. She is always busting out this corny "wisdom," and you never know when a real gem is going to come out, so of course I had to stop and listen to her.

This man called in, and he basically confessed that he has not paid much attention to his son lately. He was all choked up about it, you could tell he was crying, and he felt so bad that he has been too busy buying a new house and worrying about finances to go play ball with his kid. But he has had a change of heart, and wants to do better, and is asking Delilah to play a song for his son so that he'll know that he loves him. At this point, Delilah busts in there, and I'm pretty excited for her sympathetic ear, trying to make this man feel better. But no. She tells him that his priorities have been way off, and maybe he is feeling guilty for not spending time with his son, and he should reassess his life because kids don't care about mortgages, they care about quality time with their dads. I couldn't believe it! After this guy had confessed, and was quite penitent, she was telling him that he did a bad thing, and he should feel bad. He already does, woman! And then she plays a song for him - "Cat's in the Cradle." A song all about a dad who has no time for his son until he's all grown up, and then the son has no time for his dad, and the dad realizes the mistake, but it's all too late, and it's very sad. Wretched woman! Make the guy feel even worse, why don't ya? Unbelievable. Outrageous! So non-Delilah-esque.

Mummy Dogs

Here are my Mummy Dogs. I was pretty proud of them. They might not be SO gourmet, but I thought they were rather cute. I really like the mustard eyes.

Hail the conquering hero!

Moments ago I was engaged in a battle of the fiercest sort. There was even a point where I believed I could not prevail. But in the end, I conquered my enemy! Yes, the giant stapler jam is no more.

I've had trouble with this large stapler before, it never seems to actually be working properly. But usually I can take care of the jam in just a few minutes. This time, there was real trouble. The biggest problem with the stapler is that when it does get jammed, the bottom does swivel away, as with normal staplers. No, you are forced to come in at an angle, try to use the stapler jaws of life to get at those daggers of metal, and pray that you aren't stabbed in the process. It was quite the spectacle, I'm sure, staples were flying, but I finally got that last one out with the letter opener. It was empty then, so I reloaded. You can bet your life that I'm not going to be the first one to use that thing - let some other sap see if I actually fixed the problem, I'm staying far far away from it.

Halloween? Let's move right along to Thanksgiving!

Halloween has come and gone. Really, what an uneventful holiday. Last night we sat around, answered the door for trick-or-treaters, and watched an old Hitchcock film, Sabotage, which really wasn't all that good. I made a huge orange mess (it was supposed to be a drink called "Orange Ooze," and I did make the drink, and it tasted good, but making it turned out to be a very large mess, mostly because we don't have a real blender, and the small one we had sprung a leak all over the counter, so I switched to the hand blender, which worked ok, but I set it down and it "oozed" all over the counter and floor; it was a hard night). And I made mummy dogs, I was so proud of them, I made Clark take pictures. I'll have to post them up. But other than that, it was rather boring. The best part of the whole deal is that now it is November, and that means we can start gearing up for the Holiday Season! I love Christmas, but I'm not proposing we all go out and deck the halls just yet. I also love Thanksgiving, and the fall harvest decor that goes with it. It's just such a great time of year, when you get to see family and friends, and enjoy good food and good company. Particularly the food.

Again!

Here I was doing so well. I hadn't spilled water on myself in days! And today, at 4:45, 15 minutes from the end of the day, I took a small sip of water (really, it was nothing), and it overflowed. DANG IT! One of these days I'll go a whole week without spilling on myself. That or I'll get a sippy cup.

Shanny and Lauren

Here is a picture of Aunt Shannon and sweet baby girl Lauren. I just thought the world needed to see how cute my niece is! (Check out those cute new shoes!)

The Question Song

I got this in my daily laughs. Usually the video clips are not so funny, but I actually liked this one. It's the actor who plays Biff in Back to the Future singing a song. And now the song is stuck in my head.

http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=5500

Weekly Quote

New weekly quote up!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Yesterday our ward had its annual Primary Program, which is always a treat. Kids are funny, they just start saying things, or they get shy, or they are waving at their parents, it's entertaining. And it is always good to remember the innocent spirit of children, it was great. But the absolute best part of Sacrament Meeting yesterday was looking at the clock. They started singing a song that was listed in the program as the closing song, and the congregation was supposed to sing a verse of it, so Clark nudges me to get the program so we can have the words. I am thinking, wow, it's the end of the meeting already? Time just flew by! I glanced at the clock, and it indicated that we were near the end of the meeting. Then I did a double take. The second hand of the clock was moving quite rapidly, just going around and around. Time really was flying! Turns out they were just singing the song in the middle of the program, as well as at the end. Turns out we still had another half hour. And it turns out that song, while it felt like it was only about 3-4 minutes long, was 45 minutes long according to that clock. Now that is a long song. Even better than discovering this fact for ourselves was watching the row in front of us look at the clock and realize what was going on. And then the row behind us. I was dying, it was so funny.

My Scary Movie Research

Speaking of dark movies, I decided last night that I was uneducated about some of the most well-known scary movies of all time. So I did a bit of online research. Now, notice that I didn't say the best scary movies of all time, because after reading up a bit, I don't know that anyone could really say they are the best. But then again, I haven't seen them, so what do I know?

I started out by looking up the Halloween movies. They have some official website with pictures and plots of all the movies, of which there appear to be 8, with another one in the making. After that, I looked up Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Kreuger on wikipedia, which is actually kind of funny because they all have full-on biographies, even though they are fictional characters. I was reading all this, and I couldn't help but think, "Really? This sounds so dumb!" Especially when you get to things like Freddy vs. Jason, who on earth thought that was a good idea? Let these people die! Find new villians! Think up new storylines! I mean, honestly. I can see how the first movie or two would have been scary. In fact, I was a little scared sitting there by myself reading about psychopathic serial killers. But once you get to these people trying to kill their grandnephew, and being raised from the dead by lightening, it gets to be a little ridiculous. It just turns into an excuse for gore. So, while I now feel that I at least know what all these movies are about, I still have no desire to watch them.

Dark Movies

So, I mentioned once before that I played that M&M Dark Chocolate game, and it was rather fun. I just thought I'd include the link, because it really is a good concept, having all those movies hidden in a mural. Of course, it's all scary movies, so I was not really very good, but it's still clever. Oh, excuse me, they are "Dark" movies, so really that can mean a lot of things. But most of them are scary. Enjoy!

http://www.mms.com/us/dark/?zjxj=01200004W5932471W24W0

Tidbits

I just heard a couple of interesting things in the news, and I thought I would share:

1) Apparently they have a new merit badge out - an anti-piracy badge. Here is a quote from the online article:

"Troops will choose from a number of activities that qualify them to earn a "Respect Copyrights" patch. Activities include creating a public service announcement demonstrating the importance of copyright protection or visiting a movie studio to learn about people, time and costs required to make a movie, as well as the economic impact the movie industry has on the state of California. "

It also says that they can learn to identify counterfeit CDs and DVDs. I thought that was interesting.


2) In the paper they mentioned that firefighters responded to a fire at the Salt Lake Mausoleum. The cremation of a 700 pound man apparently got a little out of hand. This is funny to me, although I feel guilty about it, because situations involving obesity and death should not be funny. But I still laughed.


And finally, while not in the actual news, a funny thing happened to me on the way to work this morning. I was driving along 700 South, where the speed limit is, oh, 30-35ish. Of course, I am behind a van going 20mph. I was slightly annoyed, but I just chalked it up to the van being a little slower. Whatever. However when we hit the flashing "School Zone" lights, where the speed limit drops to 20, he sped right on up to 30. What is that all about? Was the van out to annoy all drivers and hit small children? Luckily, I turned. But I thought in my head, oh, I'll be blogging about this, stupid van. The public will know of your crimes. Wait, what public, all the 3 people that read this thing? Dang it, foiled again!

Tune in

St George is not what you would call a large town. It's bigger than most of the towns in Southern Utah, don't get me wrong, but there are some areas where it is definitely lacking. One area in particular is radio stations. Back in Salt Lake, I had all of my radio presets full of stations for good music, all 18 of them. Now that we are down here, I've got 6. After much fiddling around, I found 5 or so stations that seemed to play good, modern music. The stuff I like. Then I realized that there were 2 channels for many stations. So that left me with 3 music stations. I then found an oldies station, so I've got that on there.

I set #5 when I discovered NPR. I used to listen to NPR on a fairly regular basis, I would listen on my commute. So I was sad when, on the drive down here, it faded out. But I found another channel that had NPR, so I was excited. Turns out, we get Nevada Pubilc Radio, as well as Utah State University NPR. This is good, the only problem being when I go home for lunch the Nevada station has some local program on, and no offense, but I really don't care that much about Nevada. And the USU station has a classical music hour. So those are pretty well ruled out during the drive home at lunch. This led me to further fiddle.

I discovered the final station on my preset during the aforementioned lunch hour, when nothing else was on the radio. I turned to a station that was playing good music, music that is not normally played on the radio, songthat I didn't actually know, but I liked them. And when the song ended, no commercial. No tagline either. It was great. I set it immediately, but #6. I was excited. I found out that it is the Dixie State College radio station, and unlike the one at the U, it has great reception. Needless to say, I was very pleased. Until I listened to the station that night. It was not the alternative/emo/rock music that I so adore. It was latin! Very latin! In Spanish and everything! Turns out this station plays the latin music in the evenings and in the mornings. I guess it's just the middle of the day when they play good stuff. But hey, when I need it the most, Dixie State is there for me. Go Rebels! (that is their mascot, right?)

This is just to say. . .

This is just to say that I did it again. I took a sip of water, and we had a tsunami of sorts, and now I am all wet. I rock.

"Keeping tabs on the mayor! MmmHmm!"

So, I realized that one of the highlights of our trip to Colorado has not been posted yet. How foolish of me! We went to Bishop's Castle, which is a castle being built by one guy. He's been working on it for something ridiculous like 40 years. All by his onesy. It's actually pretty cool, he has done an amazing thing. This place is huge, and it even has a dragon on the roof! But this man is also insane. He has all these signs posted up about how it is his constitutional right to be here building this castle, and the government has tried to take it away from him, and he goes on and on. There are a lot of signs. And of course, he is there working away. So, someone was talking to him and got him all upset, he was yelling all sorts of things, adding to the "crazy" title we all gave him. Very nice man, just don't ask him about building codes.

This reminds me of an interesting man we met once at Denny's. He was "keeping tabs" on everyone - the mayor, the governor, the emperor. And he's got his eye on all of them, believe you me! And he did not like any of us, except for poor Spencer, and he wouldn't stop talking to him. Oh man, that was funny! Good times.

I seem to have a drinking problem.

I seem to have a hole out the side of my mouth. I was just taking a drink from my nalgene bottle, and low and behold, it didn't all make it in the mouth. Lovely. So now I've got water all over me. Good thing it was just water.

It looks like I'll be working here at Watts Construction until Nov 6. It's good to get some extra cash, and this is a nice place to work. But it's also good to know that I am not locked in. For some reason it makes it better to know that I'm not going to be here for an indefinite period of time. I'll end up working here for about a month - which is 3 weeks longer than I had thought. But taking it week by week really helps me. Makes me feel like I have some freedom. And I've actually had things to do the past couple of days, so it's going by much faster.

For some reason, I've got "Here Comes Santa Claus" running through my head. It's not like I've heard that song in almost a year, I have no idea why it's there. And yet, it brings a smile to my face. Christmas is just around the corner. Has anyone seen Christmas displays at the store yet? I've only seen it at craft stores, but I think those have a special exception because you've got to start early if you're going to make Christmas crafts. I think I'll end on that happy Christmas note!

Weekly Quote

Well, look at that, it only tooke me 1 minute to decide to post something else! I just wanted to direct your attention to the new Weekly Quote section. I was just going to post it every week, with the source, but then it was suggested that it be a guessing game, so I suppose it is. If you would like to guess where it came from, feel free. But, I don't expect that I'll come up with anything that is very hard. I just want something else to post about (since my life remains pretty much the same).

The Colorado Adventure!

Well, Colorado was certainly an adventure! My companions have already blogged about the trip, which I find funny seeing as we got back last night. Ah, the joys of having a laptop and hotels with Wi-Fi. So, you can look at their blogs for more details. I'll just give my highlights.

The drive out there was not too bad, since we broke it up into 2 days. Really, that is the way to go. It made me think about how fun it could be to just go on a road trip, and not really have any destination. Driving is fun, but it could be more fun to just go and see what is out there. Just go, and if you see something that looks interesting, pull off and check it out. I don't know that I will ever do this, mostly because there is definitely a part of me that needs to know where I'm sleeping at night, but I think it would be fun. It was also fun to experience so much weather! We left from St George, land of warmth and sun, where it is just early fall, no leaf changing yet, and then it just got a big colder, and a bit colder, we saw some snow on the ground, etc. Once we got into Colorado, we saw the yellow leaves, fall in full force. And then we went up Monarch's pass, where it was snowing. Winter, full force. But once we got off the peak, we were back in fall. It was kind of funny.

The biggest highlight: Sweet baby Lauren! She is adorable, and such a good baby. At least while we were there, she never really full out cried. If she was fussy, or started crying, you just give her a bottle and she's fine. Very easy to please. Such a sweet baby. I only wish we lived closer so we could see her more often! And it was fun to see Carrie and Clint. Again, I wish we lived closer. I love it when you can visit someone you haven't seen in a while and it's just comfortable. I am a nervous soul, Clark can attest to that, I worry so much about what to say to people and what to do, but this weekend was just so comfortable. I loved it. It was relaxing.

Relaxing until Saturday evening, that is. That is when we were in the car accident. Suzanne's blog has more details on that, I don't need to type it all up again. Everyone was fine, except for the poor car. But it was startling, and it got me a bit worked up. It was cold, waiting there for the cops and the tow truck to come, and I was shivering, but I don't know if that was from the cold or from just being unnerved. Needless to say, that was not relaxing. And there is so much to figure out after an accident, where to take the car, call insurance companies, how you will drive (particularly when you are in another state), etc. And this wasn't even my car! But it all worked out.

On Sunday we went to church to see Lauren's blessing. It was a good experience, just to see what another faith believes, and what their Sunday meeting is like. I guess I've never really realized how different we Mormons are. We really are. Most Christian faiths have some common threads, and they do similar things. We are the crazy, whacked out Mormons, who do weird things. And I do love that old building, it was very beautiful. The people in the congregation were very nice, as well, I was impressed with all of them.

So there, you go. You thought when I said highlights that this would be short, didn't you? Well, you were wrong! I might think of some other funny tidbits later on, we shall see. But then, I might just be so busy at work that I won't have time to do anything. HA, I really am quite funny, aren't I?

Oh, the boredom.

I am dying a slow, hard death. All of my energy is being sucked out of me slowly, flowing into the computer screen, leaving me an amoeba. I am bored. Yesterday, I had some periods of boredom, but I had my book to read. I finished it yesterday at about 4:45. Which was fine for yesterday, 15 minutes and then I was homefree. But today, no, I have no book. I am forced to look at things on the internet. Which is fine, but the computer screen is not optimally situated, and so my neck hurts, and my eyes hurt. I feel like I just woke up and my eyes are still puffy. This makes me feel tired. And then I have no desire to do anything. You might think this works out, as there is nothing for me to do, but you would be wrong. Because I think they would look down on me if I curled up on the floor and took a nap. Ah, the joys of a desk job. Particularly a desk job as the receptionist, with nothing to do. This might be my last day here, no one is quite sure. I'm going to be gone tomorrow, and they are looking for someone, but I don't know that they've found them yet. We'll just have to wait and see.

If anyone has some entertaining websites, send them my way. I spent a considerable chunk of time yesterday playing the M&M's dark chocolate game, it was entertaining. 50 "dark" movies were hidden in this mural they had going, it was a fun concept. I got them all, but with some help from others on the interweb. And seeing as I have only seen maybe half of those movies, I'd say that is pretty good. Maybe I'll go find some games to play.

"I wanna wash my hair in SNOW!"

Finally, we will get to see some snow! Well, probably. We are beginning the trek to Colorado this evening, and it is much colder there than it is here. And they are expecting some precipitation this weekend. So, I'm hoping we get to see snow. I am a winter person, which makes it kind of funny that we moved to St George. Of course, I do like fall as well, with the crisp temperatures, and the fall down here is much longer than it was in Salt Lake. We get these nice, cool temperatures without being cold for like months, rather than a week. Well, months might be an exaggeration, but considering that it doesn't get so cold here in the winter, it will feel more like fall. The only thing that I miss about fall is the changing of the leaves. There are a lot of palm trees here. Maybe we'll get some red leaves when it gets even colder, but I'm kind of getting the feeling that it will go from green to brown in a hurry. And we don't have mountains with trees to see all the leaves on. We've got red rock, which is beautiful, just not the best environment for trees to grow. But this all leads us back to the fact that I am excited to go on vacation. I'm even excited for the road trip part of it, we've got some books on CD, and good music, we'll be good. You have to be in the right mood to spend 11 hours in the car each way, and luckily I'm feeling that mood this week. It will be quite nice. And of course, we get to see sweet baby Lauren!

As a side note, washing your hair in snow does not work, and just the thought of it makes me very, very cold.

"Where are the suds?!"

Last night we did our laundry. This entails going to the laundromat, which is always an experience. Now that I'm working we have to go at night, and I make Clark go with me because, hey, then we can spend time together. During the day there are a few patrons there, but the place is generally empty. But at night, that is a different story. Last week when we went, it was pretty empty when we got there, but by the time we put our stuff in the dryer, people started pouring in, all of the washers were full. And I don't really know how to put it without seeming to have racial bias, but they were all of hispanic descent. It kind of turned into a latino party: there were all sorts of people, all speaking Spanish to one another, and kids were running around. At one point there was a pile of baby carriers in the middle, with about 5 babies, all just quietly sucking on their pacifiers. It got to be a little crazy. We went a bit earlier in the evening this week, I wanted to avoid the mad rush, which we accomplished. However, there was still an experience to be had. Some people came in while we were waiting for our washer to finish. Their mere appearance was indicative of the type of people they were. Clark made the comparison to the clientele on the UTA bus system. So, they get their clothes in a washer, and I am just reading, not really paying attention to them, when I realize that she seems to be getting worked up over something, and staring at the washer. She keeps saying, "Do I need to put more in? Look at it, there are no suds, it's not even washing them." At which point she puts more soap in. And then the process repeats. When I looked over, I could see suds, and yet she was convinced she needed more soap. I began to wonder if this woman knew how a washing machine worked, particularly when she complained of no suds a bit later in the cycle. We were also wondering if she was expecting something like the cartoons - lots of suds, soap everywhere, like a bubble bath. Shortly thereafter, we moved over to the dryers, and then some friends from our ward came in, and we talked to them for a bit. I really like them, they are nice people. And we got to see their new baby, so in the end it was a good experience.

They did the mash!

First off, we have some random comedic items:

Monster Mash came on the radio just now. I just think it's hilarious that they play that song on the radio, it's the only Halloween song that gets any credit.

I was looking on a friend's blog and found one of the funniest websites I have seen in a long time: www.improveverywhere.com. Their "missions" are just hilarious. For the first time in my life, I want to live in New York so that I can see these guys in action. "Rob!" is my favorite thus far, although I did rather enjoy the "Aspen" mission as well. If you are bored, head on over and have a few laughs.

Now, on to the weekend report. The Millars came down for the weekend, and we had us some good old fashioned fun. We stayed up late playing Mexican Train and Fantan, saw Silver Reef (it's a ghost town), hiked in the red rocks, ate Coldstone ice cream, and just chilled at the apartment. It was all very relaxing, and highly enjoyable. I miss doing this more often, the Millars are fun people. The pictures are on our home computer currently, so I'll try to post some this evening. I'm hoping that we can get up to Provo sometime soon and do this again. Of course, we've got Thanksgiving coming up, and then Christmas, and then they'll have their baby, so we'll probably see them sometime inbetween all that hullabaloo. But I'm really thinking we might need to take a weekend other than a holiday weekend to get ourselves up there - you just keep that in mind, Brabrina.

In related news, we are going to Colorado this upcoming weekend to meet our niece, Lauren. We are very excited about that, even if the drive is long. I'll keep you posted.

Lovely Names

I just wanted everyone to know that Clark David Wilson Blockburger is a funny man. He has created 2 names that are simply ridiculous, and I love them. Combine them and we could name our first child Bethletard Darpooth Blockburger. Where these came from I can never be sure, but they provide me much joy and entertainment. I hope they provide you with the same. Yes, we're weird.

"Truly, a sight to behold." - name that quote!

I love an easy meal. Anything that you can just pop out of a can or a box, I am all about it. One of my favorites is just a box of macaroni and cheese, a can of chili, and a can of corn. It's easy, it's got the nutrition of the corn, it's filling, and it makes great leftovers. We had this meal for dinner last night. I decided that I wanted plenty of it, so I doubled it. 2 of each. Things were going fine until I added the 2nd cans of chili and corn. It was then that I realized that my biggest pot was definitely not going to work, but I was not about to dirty another pot when we were done preparing. All I had to do was stir. Now, it takes real talent to stir a very full pot and mix things around. Particularly when the pot is so full, it is over the top. Enter Clark. And what do I do the second I hear the door opening? I start laughing. Heartily. So he comes in and finds me laughing and trying to stir this ginormous pot of chili-macaroni and cheese, and that just makes me laugh harder, because how funny is that, he comes home to a crazy-woman wife. I just wanted to share that thought with you. I managed to mix it all up, and it was delicious, and we do indeed have a ton of leftovers. But the process to get there was indeed a sight to behold.

SOS

Today is a rainy day. I love rainy days! This past week I have decided that I would love to live in Seattle. I've thought that before, but really, I could wake up every morning to the sound of rain, or at least the overcast sky. And the cool weather, I can't get enough of it! And now I live in St George, with the heat of the devil in the summer. Oh well, maybe someday. And I'm sure it's cheaper to live in St George than it would be in Seattle, or San Francisco. That city is very expensive, but it is so cool. Fog is almost as cool as rain. I would love to live there.

I went in to SOS staffing today for my interview. It was good, went well. Not that I didn't think it would go well. I took my office skills test as well, proving that I can add, subtract, multiply, divide, spell, use commas, and type like a maniac. So, that went well. Now I just wait. I think it will be good. I'm sure I can get a job. The biggest thing is I want to do temp stuff so that I can take time off when I need to, you know, for vacations and Christmas and stuff. I'm not sure how much temp work there is here, but we shall see. I'm optimistic.

One funny thing happened at SOS. I brought my passport in for my proof of citizenship, instead of my social security card. I was mostly excited because I had a passport to bring in, I figure I might as well use it for something, even if it's not international travel. So, I showed it to them, and the guy had to go ask his boss about something, and asked if it was new. Turns out on most passports under Authority it lists a city, like San Francisco or Boston or something. But on the new ones, and thus on mine, it says United States Department of State. Interesting, eh? So now you can all go check it out on your passports, see what it says. That will be your fact of the week.

Responsibility. Boo.

Well, I feel like an adult now. Not that I didn't before, but now I really do. Clark got paid, and now it's time to pay the bills. When we lived in Provo, we had rent and the electric bill. Wymount paid for gas, water, sewer, garbage, phone, everything but electric. Now we've got the phone bill, the utilities bill, gas bill, rent, all sorts of things. And we just purchased a couch. We haven't received the couch yet, it'll be here in a few weeks, and we don't actually have to pay anything on the couch right now, it's 6 months same as cash. But I think we want to get it paid off quickly. It's a cute set. Couch and love seat, microfiber suede, beige, comfortable. And it came with a coffee table and 2 end tables. Once we get it, I'll post pictures.

It just rained for about 30 seconds. Interesting.

Anyway, what else is going on here. . . Oh, I'm going in to SOS Staffing for an interview and skills test on Monday morning. So, that will be good, increase the cash flow. I don't really know what kind of temp work they have down here, but even if it's a permanent job, hopefully it will be something that I somewhat enjoy. We'll just have to see what is available.

Today is "clean the bathroom" day. Good old Fridays. It really sucks the fun right out of the excitement for the weekend. But it needs to get done, and then we can enjoy cleanliness. So, with that, I'm going to go be a toilet-scrubbing fiend. Look out soap scum, here I come!

I Love to Laugh!

Well, I've been told I need to post more often, so here we are. I wish I had something exciting to say, but alas, I do not.

I finally applied for a job with a temp agency. Well, I really just turned in my online application at SOS. They should be calling me, and they'll probably want to do a personal interview first. We shall see how that turns out. Clark didn't have the best experience with them, but I had a really good one right after graduation, so who knows. I don't know how much temp work there is in St. George, but that would really be perfect for me. I can work, but then I don't have to, I can take time off when I need it, it just sounds good.

We watched Roxanne last night, the Steve Martin remake of Cyrano de Bergerac. I love Cyrano, he is such a marvelous character, so poetic and yet comedic, he is just great. And while I love the old movie (I guess it's based off a play?), it's just such a sad ending. It's nice to see a happy ending on that story.

After the movie I had a laugh attack. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why, I mean, Clark was saying funny things, but not THAT funny. I was dying, tears streaming down my face, I could hardly breath, talking was a joke. I just got started, and then it just built on itself. It felt good, though. A great workout. Hey, I've got a degree in Exercise Science, right? I should market the "Hearty Laugh" workout. I'd make millions, toning people's abs through the power of laughter! Whaddya think? Am I the next overnight sensation?

Spastic Brownie

I've decided that those of you who read this blog need a reward for coming here, something that will make you laugh. So, I'm posting a picture that I think it just fantastic. Shannon: Brownie Scout. Enjoy!

The Conference Report

Well, in in-laws were in town this weekend. It is kind of funny that while droves of people flocked to Salt Lake City for conference weekend, the Blockburgers left to come to St. George. Anyway, it was good to see them. It's nice having people visit us down here, so if anyone else feels any inclination at all don't hesitate, just act! Ok, so we don't have a couch yet, so it might be better for all involved if you wait until that comes, but that isn't so far away.

So, as said before, General Conference was this weekend, and boy was it good. I really do love it, I feel so uplifted and invigorated with the desire to live a better life, to do more for other people, and to keep the Savior the focus of it all. My favorite talk (though there were a lot of good ones, and many many runner-ups) was Elder Wirthlin's. He is one of my favorite speakers, I loved his talk from last conference about making our lives a masterpiece. And the man is funny. He has such a stiff demeanor on camera (not that I know how he is off-camera), but then he says these hilarious things that are made even better by his lack of expression. Anyway, he also says some amazing things, things that really stick with me. He talked about the crucifixion and the resurrection, and how the one was so terrible, the worst day in this history of the world (a Friday), and the other was so wonderful, the best day in the history of the world (a Sunday). So, my new favorite quote, and perhaps my new life motto, is, "We all have our Fridays. But Sunday will come!" What a great message of hope! There have been some less than perfect days in the last year (some people may have heard me say that 2006 is just not my year), but Sunday will come, things will get better, things will be great, it just takes time. So there is my insight from the conference, and the thing I will remember the most.

In not so related news, we finally got a newspaper! We ordered the Deseret News on Sep 21, it was supposed to start on the 23rd, after much calling and waiting on hold, we finally got our first copy on Friday (Sep 29), and it was the Salt Lake Tribune! I called to get it changed, but that hasn't happened yet. At this point I'm just glad to be getting news delivered to my house, and the Trib is actually a pretty good paper. I'll start the calling and waiting on hold tomorrow (it really does take about 15 minutes per call, and 13 of that is on hold), but for now, look at us, we're liberal!

Famous?

Clark and I play this game sometimes, it's like 20 questions, but we don't limit the questions to 20. So, you could call it "Unlimited Questions." One person things of something, a noun, and the other person has to guess what it is by asking yes or no questions. It really is quite fun, and we can think up some funny things. It's also funny to hear the questions they ask and apply them to the answer. For instance, last night we were playing and I had thought of "toast." Clark was asking questions.
"Is it alive?"
"No."
"Is it man-made?"
"Yes."
"Is it famous?"
Is toast famous? All people know about it, so in that respect it is. But I don't know many people who would think about toast and think, "One of the most famous foods in the world." Or better yet, "One of the most famous man-made objects in the world." Makes you think about the definition of famous, doesn't it? Lots of people know about rocks, are they famous? Or just the big ones we call mountains? And while we're at it, what about infamous? "He must be so famous, that he is INfamous." Name the quote, and I'll think you are famous.

Randomness.

Well, we finally went to the temple and did a session. Let me just say that the St George temple is beautiful, it's really gorgeous. I would highly recommend it to everyone. But, a funny thing happened while we were there. We got through the session, and we're in the celestial room, just sitting, enjoying the quiet moment of reflection, and this girl comes up to me and asks me if I used to live in Provo, which of course I did. So then she asks me if I know someone named Michael Richards. Flashback: I went on one blind date with a guy named Michael Richards. When I went home for a summer, I met a very nice girl in my parents ward, and she had a brother who was also going to BYU. So in the fall, she set us up on a date. I went, and had a good time, but I never really saw him again. In part that was because it was right in the middle of the whole Tyler mess, I wasn't dating him, and then I was, and then I wasn't. I think his sister asked me if I had fun a few weeks later, and I told her I did, but I was kind of seeing someone. Anyway, I'm thinking, yeah, I knew this Richards kid, but not that well, I'd met him a grand total of once, how would anyone connect me with him? As it turns out, this girl was with us on that date, with her now husband, who is Michael Richards's cousin. She remembers that date so well because they have a picture of them from it, and it hangs on their wall, and it was just such a fun date for them, and now they are married. HOW RANDOM IS THAT? Someone I met once, 4 years ago, and she remembered me, and had enough courage to come up to me after the session and talk to me (for which, I commend her. We need more people like that in this world). And not to mention the fact that we are both now in St George, not Provo. Weird. Life is full of odd coincidences, isn't it?

in the middle of our street

Well, here are more pictures of our home. This is our laundry chute. How cool is that? Now we just need a washer and dryer to go with it. That will come with more paychecks. It's in our bathroom, which is just a bathroom, nothing exciting, so I didn't post a picture of it. We have a 2nd half-bath downstairs.








Our "study." Our computer is in here too.














Our bedroom.

Our dining area.

Our kitchen.

Our living room.

The other view of our living room (notice, no couch yet).

The spacing on this thing is weird, I apologize for being technologically challenged. So, that is the apartment in a nutshell. The bedrooms are upstairs, along with the full bath. It's pretty nice, I enjoy living here. And it is a HUGE step up from our cinderblock palace at Wymount. So, for all you getting ready to come visit, get excited to see the real thing. I don't know if these pictures will make people more or less inclined to come see us. . . hopefully more!

Our house

Well, I've decided that I need to have some pictures of the new place up here. So, here we go. This will be a real feat if I get any pictures on here, as I am not what you would call a computer pro. Oh, lookie here, I got one! This is the outside of our townhome. I guess we might need to have a different entry for the different pictures? Well, anyway, this is where we live!

Church = Good

Well, I must say, I love the church. We went to church on Sunday. It was good. It was great, actually. No, I didn't talk to anyone new, didn't meet anybody, but it was just good. I might not know a soul in our ward, but I know that they are all members of the church, and they all have testimonies, and they all are nice. I really needed to go to church this week. Things were said in the sacrament meeting talks that just really hit home. And the Relief Society lesson was exactly what I needed to hear. I don't know if other wards are on the same lesson, but it was all about family history and saving the dead. So, hello, I have very little to do, we have a temple in this city. . . put it all together and what do you get? HAPPINESS! I haven't been to the temple yet this week, I'm waiting to go with the enrichment group we have on Friday morning, but I am going to go. And that thought is enough to make me happy. I also would like to do some more family history work. That gets to be a little bit more frustrating because I don't know where to start, or really what needs to be done. I even took a class on this, I have started many times, and I always just get to a point and I really have no idea what to do. Gotta work on that. And the stake extraction program needs helpers. I've moved to St George and become an old woman, I love it! I could even try to do some temple work, maybe. I'm kind of thinking that I'll try to find a part-time job, that way I can still be housewife extraordinare, and have some income, and have something to do, and have time to do other things that i love to do. I'm feeling much more motivated this week, and excited about the prospect of doing things I like to do.

Clark is working overnight tonight. He did this last night as well. I don't sleep well when he isn't with me, and especially not when I am home alone. I had a bad dream on Sunday night, woke up at 5 am terrified that someone was going to kill me, and even with Clark there I couldn't sleep. And then, of course, the next night all I could think of was that dream. Silly, I know, but for some reason it doesn't seem as silly when it's late. I kept turning off the light, freaking myself out, turning on the light, reading until I was tired, and then the cycle repeated itself. About 4 times. I am sure that if anyone could see our bedroom window they would think I was crazy. On and off, on and off. But I finally got some sleep. Not much, but some. I'm tired tonight, I'm hoping that I just zonk out quick. And tomorrow it is back to normal, hooray! I'm even thinking I might take a bath tonight. I haven't done that in years. Oh, I know the last time I took a bath, it was after I climbed Mt Timp, the next day, I thought I was going to die, and a hot bath sounded so good. So I did it. Yeah, that was about a year ago. HA, time for my annual bath. Admit it, I'm hilarious.