30 January 2008

When Nature Calls

When women talk on their cell phone in the bathroom stall I find it disgusting and rude. Not only is it rude to the person on the other end of the call but it is rude to me, since I am trying to do my business in peace. And I shouldn’t even have to explain why it is disgusting. Who is so busy or important that they can’t take two minutes to hang up a call to use the restroom?

As a general practice I do a few things when I hear a woman talking on her phone in the bathroom. I try to slam the stall door as loudly as possible in order to create noise. I flush the toilet as many times as possible also to create noise but more importantly to convey to the caller on the line that this woman is in fact, in the bathroom. And I try to make those toilet seat covers be as annoyingly crinkly as I can.

Today I went into the restroom and heard a woman on her cell phone. So I did all the aforementioned activities. After entering the stall I immediately flushed the toilet. She left her stall and walked into the hall with her phone call. Not only did she neglect to wash her hands but she didn’t FLUSH. What the hell is wrong with people?

After I finished and washed my hands I walked around the halls looking for her. I am in the mood today to give somebody a piece of my mind and she is the most deserving. I swear on my life, if I ever find out who she is, she’s getting a swirly.

25 January 2008

You Da Grad!

Congrats to Ben, who completed his MBA yesterday. Truly a day of celebration, this accomplishment brings to Ben’s life no homework hanging over his head, more time to watch TV, more time to play the Wii, less stress, more time to adore me, more time for recreation, and less annoyance at incompetent group members at school. As recently as this morning, he has requested that when addressing him individuals now use the prefix "Master" before his name.

Way to go, Master! You done did good.

17 January 2008

Get in Shape Girl


Ladies, do you remember this? Get in Shape Girl was a way for little girls the country over to copy their Jane-Fonda–worshipping mothers. It had the pink workout mat, dumbbells, a ribbon for exotic dancing practice, and a jump rope. I think it had other items but these are the ones I remember. It really never did anything for me as the Get in Shape Girl workout audio tape wasn't very motivating. I was more fond of working out a la Jennifer Beals style from Flashdance. Only five years old at the time, I wasn’t aware that she was a stripper but I liked the music and I also had the soundtrack tape, which consequently was more motivating than the aforementioned workout tape.

As previously revealed, I am not a natural born dancer so when running around the living room like a spaz got old, I decided to slide down the stairs on my Get in Shape Girl workout mat. That was a lot more fun.
If my baby is a girl, I just might have to shell out the dough on e-Bay for the Get in Shape Girl set.

16 January 2008

50 Things About Me

As a person who doesn't care to "jump on the bandwagon" all that often, I have to admit that I like to read the lists of things about people. You know, "croutons or bacon bits?, Coke or Pepsi?" I just like to find things out about people. So here are 50 things about me if you care.

  1. My hair color has been Brown #211 for the last six years and I am totally fine with that.
  2. I crave the chicken green chili salad at Bajio Grill almost on a daily basis.
  3. I love Survivor and the Amazing Race.
  4. I love to sleep in but I also love getting up early and getting stuff done.
  5. I think the fry sauce at Apollo, Crown, or Greek Burger is superior to all the rest.
  6. I love to write creatively and technically but mostly I like to be snarky.
  7. Makeup is fun to play with and I would work at Sephora if there was one in Utah. (Oh and if it wasn’t really retail—I just couldn’t do that.) So basically, I’d work in a Sephora dreamland where there were no customers or working weekends and holidays.
  8. I love my family and I like it when people say we all look alike.
  9. I have to wear orthotic inserts in most of my shoes because my feet pronate and cause major pain in my back, hips, and legs. (I am wicked old before my time.)
  10. June 21st is my birthday and I love that time of year. First day of summer, longest day of the year, and 99.9% chance of perfect weather.
  11. I secretly enjoy it when people at work come and ask me grammar questions. I revel in knowing the answer off the top of my head but it’s also really fun to look things up in the Associated Press Stylebook. I am a word nerd, through and through.
  12. I majored in Communication because it really is what interested me the most at the time.
  13. Now sometimes I wish I could be a personal trainer or a nutritionist.
  14. I did a one-semester stint as a grad student in Professional Communication at Westminster College and decided that it cost too much and I should buy a condo instead. Totally the right choice.
  15. Even though I am terrified of singing alone in public, I think I would rock the Star Spangled Banner at a Jazz game. At least in my mind I would.
  16. When I was about 14 my dance teacher told me that my little sister was a better dancer than I. Subsequently, I quit shortly thereafter. Beej really is a better dancer and honestly, that double-D-cup teacher did me a favor.
  17. I think I am finding that I have more talents as I get older. I am a late bloomer.
  18. I love Hot Dog on a Stick. It epitomizes my childhood trips to the mall with my mom.
  19. One day I was cruising LDSSingles.com and saw a picture of a guy looking through the top of a water bottle. The part of his face I could see looked cute, so I sent him a message and then we got married. Oh, but we dated for over two years in between all of that.
  20. I hate going to, talking about, and being involved in weddings but I loved my own and would definitely do it again and again.
  21. One time, while working in a call center, I tried to roll my chair backward and the wheels locked and I fell over on my back in front of about 20 people. Not to mention I was still lashed to my phone on the desk.
  22. When Nancy Kerrigan was in the Olympics people told me I look like her. I sort of liked it. Now I look back and it’s not that great.
  23. I like things clean. I like lists. I like organization.
  24. I love to ski.
  25. I love living in Utah.
  26. Subsequent to No. 25, I hate it when I go places and hear people talk too loudly about “the ward” and “stake confurnz.”
  27. My Bolivian Spanish accent got so good on my mission that people thought I was from there.
  28. I like being married because there is always somebody to go to parties with.
  29. When I was about 13 I was in Denver and I was in the bathroom stall at a McDonald’s. I must have not done a very good job locking the door because a homeless lady barged in on me and screamed, “Move it! I gotta take a sh**!”
  30. My sister used to sew clothes for herself, my little sister, and me. My favorite item was a pair of cotton tie-dyed shorts with an elastic waist band. The colors were green, purple and yellow.
  31. I thought Alyssa Milano on Who’s the Boss was the rage of the late eighties/early nineties and I tried to have big bangs like hers.
  32. I love DVR and I love to fast forward through the commercials but there is also something satisfying about catching up to live TV. I guess I feel like people around the nation are seeing it before we are and that bothers me.
  33. I can say all 50 states in alphabetical order.
  34. The cops once caught some friends and me stealing letters from the Skyline marquee so we could put something funny on the Olympus marquee. They called our parents.
  35. I like Ricky Martin and I shall not be embarrassed about it.
  36. When I wake up at night I shove Ben just to make sure he is breathing. He never remembers it.
  37. I get entirely cranky when I am hungry.
  38. Zack Morris was cuter than AC Slater.
  39. I like cheese curds.
  40. Sometimes I find church boring.
  41. I like to make homemade pizza and breadsticks. The trick is to put balsamic vinegar in the sauce and to put olive oil on the dough before putting the other stuff on.
  42. In my opinion, less is always more.
  43. When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, while studying different Native American tribes, my teacher always assigned worksheets with a lot of questions for us to find out about them. In the age of no internet, the questions were nigh unto impossible to answer. Luckily, my family had a brand-spankin’ new set of encyclopedias so my mom and I answered all the questions. And then she fielded questions from the parents of neighboring children who could not find the answers.
  44. When I get to work I want to be left alone for the first half hour to 45 minutes.
  45. I’ll be really happy when Ben finishes his MBA next week!
  46. I like to sing along to the radio in the car.
  47. Yesterday I was home sick and I honestly had a hard time deciding if I should watch Saved by the Bell or the Facts of Life.
  48. I never fantasized about my wedding when I was young.
  49. I left my heart in Florence, Italy last fall and I want to go back and pick it up.
  50. People say Ben and I should go on the Amazing Race and if it wasn’t for total humiliation, the possibility of breaking down into tears on TV, and never getting any sleep, I might consider it.

07 January 2008

We've Drafted Our First Player

Much to our jubilation, we are adding our first player to the family team. For the past 14 weeks, we have been diligently caring for a fetus in hopes of a healthy miniature version of one of us. The main desires (aside from a totally healthy child) are that we have managed to engineer a child that receives the Moss bone structure and the Russon (Ben’s mom’s side) thin genes. We aren’t vain. We just want to have kids as cute as my siblings’ kids. Ben does not have any nieces or nephews in his family yet, so really there’s no standard to meet. We could have a litter of puppies in a box under the stairs and his family would be thrilled to have grandpuppies.

Needless to say, I have spent the whole first trimester (and the better part of my 40 hours/week of work) glued to the American Pregnancy Association (APA) website located here. Every time I add another week to my pregnancy I read about what is happening currently with my baby. Memorable milestones include, “This week your baby no longer looks like a lizard,” and “This week your baby’s eyes have fused shut and it is now the size of a grape.” I totally love that blind lizard-grape!

Not-so-amusing milestones are the ones where your body goes totally alien on you. I don’t just mean weight gain. Every time I read about changes, I think, “This is not right.” Examples range from hairloss and constipation, to enlarging glands on your nipples and Linea Nigra, or the darkening of the line that runs from your abdomen to your pubic bone. What? Varicose veins, I knew about. Leg cramps, I will learn to handle. Stretch marks, I will combat with a cream. But extra glands and darkening lines? I thought I signed up for 3am feedings, incessant crying, and diarrhea up the back. (All those being the work of the baby.) Those things I will take in stride but I am still perturbed about these extra glands and darkening lines. Can’t I just don a scarlet letter A and call it good?

Needless to say, we are really excited and I guess I will open it up for gender guesssing and name suggestions. But we probably won't take your suggestions.