Weekly Quote 7/30/07

"Be not afraid of greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Hooray for Twelfth Night! New quote up. Now, I don't expect anyone to guess this quote, seeing as it's a "live quote," if you will, and I was there to hear it. It's just funny. Enjoy.

Attacked!

As it turns out I hate cockroaches. A lot. You might be thinking to yourself, oh, I hate them too, but my loathing has reached another level. We've been blessed thus far to only see a few in our house, and I like it that way. This morning I got up, went into the bathroom, and I heard this weird noise in the wall. Kind of a scratching noise. Now, it could have been anything, but I got all worried that it might be bugs. And then I looked in the bathtub. HUGE COCKROACH!!! So I went into our bedroom, told Clark there was a bug in the bathtub, and I needed him to kill it. He was, of course, asleep, and thus he moaned and rolled over. I went back into the bathroom. He was crawling around in there, so I moved the shower curtain to keep my eye on him. That was a bad move, he flipped out and went into SUPER SPEEDY MODE! And what did I do? I flipped out. I yelled, I ran out of the bathroom, stubbing my toe on the way, and I ran into the bedroom, yelling at Clark that he had to get up and kill that thing. And then I started crying. Racking sobs. Yes, this is over a bug. I just couldn't handle the thought of that bug crawling around in my shower. So of course Clark is awake by now, but he's not really sure what to do, so he tells me to go on my walk, and when I come back the bug will be gone. "Gone? I don't just want gone, I want DEAD." He promised me he'd kill it. And he did. I just thought that my response was interesting. And that is how much I hate roaches.

Good times in Southern Utah

Well, we've been busy little beavers the past week! On Thursday we met up with the Millars in Cedar City and saw Twelfth Night (hence the weekly quote). It was excellently done, and, as usual, the tarts and humbugs were divine. We stayed the night in Cedar, and then headed up to Bryce Canyon for some hiking and beautiful scenery. I can't believe we have lived in St George for almost a year and we have not been to Bryce Canyon. It's breathtaking! Zion is great, don't get me wrong, I love it there, but Bryce is just a step above. It's so unusual, all the hoodoos, and it's so much cooler up there. It was overcast for most of our hike, which made the temperature absolutely perfect. We went out on the Navajo Trail and then came back on the Queen's Garden trail. We took a lot of pictures, which is so out of character for us. Here is a sampling:

The concessions stand:

The view from our seats:

Apparently all babies suck on their Snuglies:
Queen Victoria:Into the rock:

Clark and his fishes.

Weekly Quote 7/23/07

"Absolutely I do." This is what you say when Dwight asks you to be involved in anything secret. So, in case that didn't help, it's from "The Office." New quote up!

A few observations

I have 3 observations that I'd like to comment on:

1) We seem to have cicadas here, and I hate them. I assume they are cicadas, they make a terrible noise that sounds like electricity buzzing, but since the noise was there when the power was out, I'm guessing it's bugs. First off, bugs are gross in general, and secondly, I get the feeling I'm living inside an electric fence. Bug experts (really, this is just Suzanne): when does the buzzing stop?

2) I was driving to the store (which is really just a couple blocks away, and I could have walked, but it is just too hot these days for that) and I saw a bunch of utility trucks on our street. I couldn't figure out why they were there, until I saw the fire hydrant down the road gushing water. I seriously had to drive through a river, it was insane. And I laughed. I know we're in a drought and it really shouldn't be a laughing matter, but since there were people there working on it, I felt OK about it.

3) I hate pickles, and as such I never buy them. I actually had never even thought about buying them, but we had some hamburgers last weekend and Clark mentioned how he likes pickles. So I decided to make the purchase, as we are having hamburgers for dinner tonight. I even was careful to ask Clark what kind of pickles he'd want, because I knew there was more than one variety. So I went to the store (had a laugh at the fire hydrant) and strolled down the pickle aisle. Um, there are dozens of kinds of pickles. Sweet, bread and butter, dill, gherkin, cucumber chips, baby pickles, kosher dill, relish, garlic and onion, the list goes on. I was rather overwhelmed. And I almost had to laugh as I realized that there are hundreds of jars right in front of me, and I'm fairly certain that if you opened any single one of them, no matter the variety, I'd gag. I went with dill, by the way.

I have the power!

Yesterday at about 4:25, our power flickered, and at 4:30, our power was OUT. Normally when I think of power outages, I think of how nice it is to have no TV, and the fact that you have to be a little creative with your time. And they usually occur during a storm or something. But this outage was caused by a wildfire. In the middle of July. In St George. It got pretty warm pretty quick. By 5:15 I was laying on the floor downstairs, trying not to think about the heat. It took Clark quite a while to make it home in the traffic, since all the lights were out. I guess almost all of Washington County was out of power, it was pretty crazy. Neither of us had much gas in our cars, and you couldn't go fill it up anywhere. And we didn't have a battery-powered radio. Dinner consisted of cereal for Clark and dry ramen noodles for me. There were just so many little things that I didn't ever really think about before, but now I'm going to try to be more prepared. One of the first things I'm going to do is buy a radio. Anyway, we waited for a little while, and then went over to the Porters to hang out, have FHE, and try our best to stay cool. Eventually it started raining, which was a welcome relief. And we even had a killer lightning storm! The power came back on at around 8:30ish, so it wasn't terribly long without it, but I for one was glad that it didn't go off earlier in the day, it was hot enough. It really made me grateful for electricity and all the luxuries it affords us.

Who's the Boss night

As Clark was flipping through the channels, we saw the Angels in the Outfield was on TV, and we happened to catch a scene with Tony Danza in it. Good old Tony! And after that we flipped past Law and Order: SVU, in which Judith Light was playing a judge. That's right, it was Angela Bower! 2 Who's the Boss stars in 1 night! I used to love that show, but I've seen it on TV recently, and it's definitely not as good as I remember it to be. Ah, the difference 15 years can make.

Weekly Quote 7/16/07

"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories... And we've already missed the spring!" I love that this quote is from An Affair to Remember (which is an excellent flick), but it is so very memorable in Sleepless in Seattle (also an excellent flick). New quote up!

My food is out to get me

This morning I needed to do the dishes, so I took care of most of them, and then brought over the cookie sheet that had some food stuck on it from last night. We had cooked up some potato wedges, and 1 or 2 of the wedges got stuck to the pan, left their mark if you will. So I decided to run some water over it, maybe let it soak for a while. But soaking a cookie sheet isn't an easy task, they are quite a bit larger than the sink, so I ran some water over it for a minute and then decided to see how broken up the food was. I ran my hand down over the trouble spots. OUCH! The stupid glorified french fry cut my finger! And it's a pretty good slice, too. Think enormous paper cut, only deeper. I think the most annoying part of it all is that now my right hand has this band-aid on it, which makes it tricky to do things. Thwarted by a french fry.

Blinky Magee

I seem to have developed an eye twitch. It started on Saturday afternoon, and while it hasn't been constant, it is still annoying. I was starting to get concerned this morning when I couldn't sleep because of it, so I did a little online research. A very little. Ok, I looked at 1 webpage. Anyway, I looked through the list of possible causes of eye twitching and a few popped out at me: stress, lack of sleep, fatigue, and prolonged staring or eye strain. Check, check, check, and check. So i guess I just need to worry less, sleep more, and stop looking at a computer screen for hours on end. But until then, I'm all kinds of self-conscious about talking to people face to face, I probably look like some sort of Tourette's kid.

More of the Gym

I went to the gym again today, and this time they had a movie playing. Woo hoo! So I did the elliptical for about 35 minutes while watching Red Eye. And let me say, that is an excellent movie to watch while working out, I couldn't believe how fast I was going while she was running away from the bad guy. Anyway, I have great hope for this whole exercising thing, I think it's going to become a habit!

I'm a member

It's begun. I have started to go to the gym.

I know, I know, we all thought this day would never come. I hate exercising, just hate it. But I've come to realize that the problem isn't that I hate exercising, it's that I need to be distracted while I'm exercising. That is why dance was always so great for me, it engaged my brain in something other than the fact that my legs are giving out and I'm gasping for air. So I've decided that going to a gym is an excellent because they have a) aerobics classes, which are kind of like dance classes, and b) a cardiocinema room where you can do the elliptical/treadmill while watching a movie. It's a good thing. I also have some motivation to go, because as you all know (at least I think you all know) I've got a heart condition that could be benefited by an increase in cardiovascular activity. So I'm going to do it, and I think I'm going to like it.

I joined about a week ago, and then we went out of town, so today was the first official work out day. I went in after going on my morning walk (I figured that was a good warm up, right?), and I was all set to just do the elliptical machine. And then I read the sign saying that the cardiocinema was out of order. DOH! I still did the elliptical for 20 minutes (10 forward and 10 back), but I just got bored after that. I also figure that it's good to start somewhere, and I did get myself to the point that I felt my heart beating in my throat, so that's good I guess. Hopefully next time I'll get to watch a movie while doing it.

Weekly Quote 7/9/07

"Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean."

Hooray for memorizing poetry in the 9th grade! Every time I quote that passage of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner I see Shirley Smith, striking a pose at the front of the classroom. That was a long time ago.

New quote up, this one is in honor of the fact that I'm considering St George to be having "winter" right now - the time of year where you just don't go outside.

Yellowstone Excursion, Part 2

I started out my last post by saying that I hadn't even mentioned our Yellowstone trip yet. And as it turns out, I still haven't. Lame.

In a nutshell, Yellowstone was a lot of driving. But it was also a lot of fun. We drove up to West Yellowstone on Saturday, saw the park on Sunday, and drove back to SLC on Monday. There were 4 vehicles, none of which were ours, so we were able to bounce around a lot, which was actually pretty fun. We got to spend time with everybody, and it was especially great to hang out with our nieces and nephews. It got me to thinking about the fact that I haven't been around little kids in a very very long time. My youngest sister is now 20, we don't live close to any of the nieces or nephews, and we moved away from the Wasatch Front right about the time that all our friends started having kids. Add in the fact that I went to a student ward while I was at BYU, then we went to a married student ward, and now we live in St George, there just aren't a lot of little kids. Granted, we do actually have a primary in this ward, so there are kids around, but I'm not around them all that often. Just a funny thought.

That is what you call a tangent. The fact is, we did all the usual things that Blockburgers do in Yellowstone. We ate at the Three Bears Restaurant. We at ice cream at the Inn at Old Faithful. We saw Old Faithful go off. We walked on the boardwalk to see a few other geological features. We stopped at Artist's Point to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We saw lots of buffalo. And generally, we had a good time. Considering the number of people we had there (15), it's pretty incredible that we did anything, really.

So, we went on this vacation, and I really don't have that much to say about it. About half of the people who read this blog were there. And it was a great vacation, but I can't think of any really great stories to share. After we got back we had tin foil dinners in Provo in honor of Brett's birthday. I hadn't had tin foil dinners in years. In fact, the last time I did that might have been when I was in Young Women (yikes!). So that was good. Ok, I think I've made it abundantly clear that it was good, but I have nothing to say, so I am going to be done posting.

Yellowstone Excursion, Part 1

I haven't even mentioned our Yellowstone trip yet! Unfortunately, we have maybe 2 pictures, and then the batteries died. And we had more batteries, we just continually forgot to put them in the camera. Or we just forgot about the camera altogether. Anyway, here is a quick travel-log of the vacation:

On Friday, we headed up to SLC right after Clark got off work for Doug and Gina's wedding. Luckily we made it with enough time to go pick up a prescription of the drugs I forgot to pack (good one, Shan). But it all worked out. And the wedding was fabulous. Everything was so beautiful, and it was so nice to be up the canyon, where it is cool. The food was good, the bride was beautiful, and the company was enjoyable. All in all, a great experience. Congrats to the Days!

We stayed the night on Friday at my parents' new apartment right downtown. It's a really cool place, and it's nice for my dad to be so close to work. It was a tight squeeze having us stay there, as well as my brother who is in town from New York, not to mention the fact that they just moved there so they are still trying to figure out where to put all their stuff, but it was fun. I think they're going to like living there.

Saturday morning we headed out to Sandy to start the drive up to West Yellowstone. Um, Clark is bored, and I'm tired of typing, so I'll type more later.

one more thing to worry about. . .

This morning I received a phone call from Jensen Property Management. They wanted me to come in so we could discuss my rent check. Those are never words you want to hear. I asked if there was a problem, and she said no, she just wanted to go over something with me. So I spent the next hour at home thinking, "What on earth could she be needing?" But everything I could think of was a problem of some sort. Had I written it for the wrong amount? Did I spell something wrong? What could it be?!

Turns out we are a month ahead on our rent. I guess when we moved in and paid a humongous chunk of money we must have assumed that we were paying last month's rent or something, when in reality we were paying for September and October. So we've been a month ahead the entire time we've lived here. It was a pleasant surprise, really. Though I could have done without the hour of "stewing time." I have got to be less of a worrywart.

Weekly Quote 7/2/07

"It was 100° as we sat beneath a willow tree, whose tears didn't care, they just hung in the air and refused to fall." That is from the song "Crooked Teeth" by Death Cab For Cutie. Sabrina, don't tell me that you can't remember the words to songs, because that would be a flat out lie. We've just branched out from movies. :)

New quote up!