Ma List.

I've been thinking about my bucket list. And coincidentally, I saw a post on MyFace today that was a tad bit perplexing to me. How can you "stop by" England for two days and then cross it off your bucket list? If one of those days is the day you arrive, you really are losing a bit of that day, so you really only have like a day and a half. Plus if you leave the next day, you lose time. So you really only have 24 hours. Um, what exactly are you doing out of this? Now, I have travel on my bucket list. But seriously? I haven't lived until I've seen a few streets in England? Um, that's just silly. I went to London for about 2 days, and Paris for about 3, and I got just enough of a taste of them to put going back long enough to do some stuff on my bucket list.

I did the whole see the crown jewels/Tower of London/London Bridge thing while I was in London I went to Herrods. I rode the double decker (tourist) bus. Saw Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard. And I believe I had fish and chips at one point. But I did NOT get to go to Bathe, and see the Jane Austen museum, and run about the streets of Bathe in mocking of the terrible 2008 rendition of Persuasion. Also I didn't get to go wherever it is all my ancestors came from. I want to figure that out and go there. Go see the ol' homestead or whatnot.

I did the whole Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Louvre thing. But I didn't get to sit at a cafe and watch all the parisian-ness go on. And I feel like i should have had more French food instead of just tourist food. So, yeah, France is still totally on my bucket list. Also I could get all down on the homestead there, too.

Basically I will always have travel on the bucket list. I will never finish it. I better hurry up and get independently wealthy.

If I Were Rich

Lately I have made the statement "if I were rich I would..." quite a few times. I think I have brilliant ideas of what to do with money. Somebody should give me a lot, and then I will spend it for them. Because, if I were rich, I would:

1. Buy a house where one room was dedicated entirely to being a library. There would be a fireplace to keep it toasty in the winter. There would be big windows to let in lots of light, and it would look out on a naturey view. By naturey I mean green. Dirt is not nature. It's dirt. And it would be covered from wall to wall with books. Good books. Some of them with really pretty binding, and some of them falling apart because they are so good they get read that much. There would be multiple editions of Austen books. Because I already own multiple editions. As should you.

2. fly to fun destinations for vacation. Often those destinations would be decided by the great book I have just read. Because I can go walk in the footsteps of the characters. Or in the case of nonfiction, I could continue the learning fun. Also, movies that make me want to go places would help me plan vacations. And I could watch that movie ON THE FLIGHT THERE.

3. Have a closet for my purses. Because I want to buy lots of pretty purses. I blame this on Dizzle. She keeps sending me links. She's the devil.

4. Have lots of shoes, preferably ones that don't try to eat my foot like the ones I wore today. Also, I would surgically alter my feet to be the same size. I don't recall this being an issue, but recently my left shoe has been roomier than my right shoe. I think my left foot is shrinking. Also, as a result of trying to keep an even stride and not lose my left shoe, I think my left calf is larger than my right. Sexy.

5. Have my own little pottery studio. Because I like pottery.The end.

You'll notice I didn't put anything of a philanthropic nature on my list. This is because my heart is three sizes too small. Also, because um, duh, I can find some "causes" to support, but if you don't know what they are, most likely we have not met and also you have not read my blog. But mostly because I'm petty and self-centered.

That One Weekend I Went Outside

In this season of TV drought, it's difficult for a TV junkie like me with no job to fill the time. Yeah, there's the job search thing but sometimes I like to do fun things too.

This week is an especially sucky TV week. I'm not pointing any fingers, but I will say, PEOPLE, they would not cover certain events and people so much if you would stop watching it, clicking on it, and buying it. Make the madness stop! This is ridiculous. But I refuse to give it any blog time. Instead, I have been:

1. Hiking up a mountain, nearly fainting, and then stumbling back down. To the left, you see the beginnings of the path that inclined upwards and which I nearly tumbled down (K would have been the airbag in that crash). Turns out you are supposed to eat a breakfast with protein or something before you go on hikes on an 80-ish degree day with humidity. Who knew? At least at the top while I ate my almonds and chugged my water, I could enjoy the wonderful view of Mt. Rainier. For you Washingtonians, did you know there were hiking paths at Green River Community College? Like real ones, with switchbacks and mile posts and dirt and hills that make out-of-shape girls pass out? Totally does. I was very impressed.

Moving on, the next thing I did with my weekend was NOT spend time with Alice, the Mad Hatter, and their Tea Party crew. I sat around and felt sad because they weren't coming. Luckily, I didn't do that all weekend. I went on a wee road trip to visit one of my oldest friends Reeses and company (get it, Reeses, that was a subtle dig about your age).

We watched the fireworks Saturday night from the inner coast of the Peninsula of Washington. We could kinda see Tacoma, Seattle, and Edmonds all at one time. How cool is that? Couldn't really tell where all the Islands were, but they were there. It all looked like one land mass to me. Also, I could see a teeeeny tiny space needle. It was right next to Mt. Rainier, and so teeny I didn't notice it when I took my ten millionth Mt. Rainier picture, because apparently I love Mt. Rainier almost as much as Youtube. See it? No? Your inattention to detail is killing me. It's right....

There on the left... Duh. We saw lots of dead crabs when we walked the beach right by the house that day. Also a dead fish head. So of course Reeses had to sing the Fish Heads song. I know, you wish you were there, huh? We watched the veeeeery far away fireworks over Lake Union. They were teeny and cute and we could hear the booms from the distance, and we were the only ones on the beach.

A Road Trip Through Little Man's Lense

Hey! Little Man here! Mom and me and Aunt Holliberry and Little Brother and my fire engine went on a car trip. I took some pictures so you could see.


Here's my knee:

Here's my nose, and my mouth, and my teeth:

Here's my chin:
It was sunny sometimes, but it was also cloudy and rainy:
We saw lots of nature. Like this grass:
Have I mentioned I like giraffes? Here's our giraffe sticker:

Here's Little Brother:

Little Brother expressing his opinion about something crazy Aunt Holliberry just said:

Or maybe he was just reading this sign:

And I Shall Call Him Henry.

I saw some wildlife while I was in Orlando. My favorite sighting was this one:

I wanted to see one sunning itself on the side of the lake, but was never so lucky. One of the southern ladies at the conference scoffed at me for suggesting such a thing could happen. I don't like her anymore.

The Land That Smells Like Sunshine and Dreams.

As I type, I am sitting in the very exciting Houston airport. The first thing I will note is that Houston makes you pay almost EIGHT BUCKS for their wifi for just 24 hours, while Orlando has free wifi, at least in the part of their airport that has NOT been remodeled. Yes, I paid that much just to use my wifi. But I am on a layover, and the impulse to blog and check Myface was TOO tempting.

I spent two very magical days in the magical place where they have magical sunshine to help grow their magical rainbows and unicorns. That's right, Disneyworld. My feet have still not forgiven me for it.

The Castle.

The princesses.

Baby Girl, in her princess dress. She could totally show those princess how to work that gown. This is taken after Christmas, not in Disneyland. I feel like Alice would want me to clarify that the few pieces of clutter on the ground behind her were recently placed there by Baby Girl, and that the room is not as messy as it might look. Just so you know.

The way I know I came back to the hotel from the Magic Kingdom not a moment too soon is that I got into the elevator, waited for the doors to close, and then found myself wondering why the car wasn't moving. After a minute. A minute of standing there. Thinking about my room. And not moving towards it.

Estrogen Overload is an Understatement

Last week I went back to my alma mater, BYU, to attend a Women's Conference with my mom and my aunt. I was very excited to return to what was for four years my home (more to come on that in a later post). But imagine thousands of women all on one campus. There was much crafting. And a LOT of estrogen. I'm sure whatever men were left on campus wanted very badly to flee for their lives. And also they probably wanted their bathrooms back, because most of the campus bathrooms were changed to Women's restrooms for the weekend to accomodate all the women. (Question: WHY do women take so long in the bathroom? I should not have to stand in line that long. It's ridiculous.)

The highlights of the conference for me, other than being back at my school, were a few of my favorite speakers.

On Thursday, the opening speaker was Sheri Dew.

She gives articulate, insightful talks, filled with firm doctrinal principles and practical ways to apply the gospel in your life. I enjoy her. To read her talks you can look at lds.org and search for Sheri Dew in the gospel library.

Her talk this time was no exception. She addressed the belief by some that in order to have influence, a woman has to have money, fame, or a title. This, she said, is a big fat lie. I don't remember if she used those exact words, but that was basically the idea behind them. She possibly was more eloquent than that.

At the close of the conference the president of my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), Thomas S Monson (no relation) spoke.

I got to sit down on the floor of the Marriot Center for both of these talks, which for those of you who aren't familiar with BYU, is a basketball stadium that seats about 29,000. So I was super close. Close enough to take the pictures above. It was cool.

President Monson is a prophet, and when you're in the same room with him the feeling of the spirit of peace is almost tangible. This time he talked about not putting off till tomorrow what you can do now. You know, like telling people you love them, or getting your education, or taking that job, or learning how to yodel. So based on his talk, I hereby resolve to eliminate "some day" and "one day" from my vocabulary. Expect further posts on what I will do now, instead of some day. Once I figure out what those things are. Also, I liked President Monson's advise to never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. Food for thought.

I Stopped and Smelled the Flowers. And the Cows.

Every year in Skagit Valley they have a month-long festival called the Tulip Festival. There are flower fields galore in the valley that bloom all throughout the month of April. Of course they can't control the weather so you never know when the best weekend to go is until it is there. This weekend was not the best weekend, although there was still plenty to do and see. Only SOME of the fields were in bloom, thanks to the magic of green houses and people with green thumbs, as opposed to my black thumb. But really I only needed one field of tulips to keep my happy. Here's a sample of the beauty of Washington:

Yes, this is the magic that is my photography skills.

Totally intentional and a sample of my usual skill. Because of what I've been told has been an unusually cold spring, the daffodils were still in full bloom. I'm told this is unusual for this late spring.
There were tourist traps---er, quaint shops galore, with witty people managing them.
There was a field of white we passed.

Turns out, it was a whole field of geese. And they flew away, like a scene out of The Birds. I feared for my life.

Also there were cute children. These ones happened to belong to us. Okay, to W. But I am claiming them anyways.

Baby Girl, Jumping Bean, and their aunt supplied me with plenty of cute pictures.


Not only did we go see lots and lots and lots of flowers, but we went to a barn with actual animals to pet them. We saw a cow, some miniature ponies, chickens and their chicks that were underfoot but managed not to get trampled, at least while we were there, bunnies, baby horsies, and goats. Baby Girl was not having any of this petting stuff. She thought we were all just a little crazy for thinking this was a good plan. But she did point them out and even match some animal sounds with the animals. Jumping Bean and his auntie were dubious at first but soon relaxed and got friendly with the bunnies and the goats. I personally got to touch my first cow head. It was quite exhillerating, let me tell you.

This whole grand adventure happened today in perfect 70ish degree weather. It was a beautiful glorious day and we all were ready for a nap on the car ride back. W wouldn't let me take mine, though. Something about the driver being conscious. So I settled for allowing her to mock my cd collection instead.

My Weekend in Pictures

I'm back from camp! While I was on the island, I learned some history:

Here's a view from my window. You know I took it from inside because you can see the reflection of the light fixture.

I saw a boat.

It was rainy most of the weekend, but quite scenic.

It was a beautiful weekend. It was like a vacation, but with stress.

Road Trippin'

So this weekend K and I went on a road trip that ranks up high in my road trip memories. It's right up there with the memorable Utah point-at-the-map-and-drive road trip with the wacky, crazy Alpine kids. We went to the beach, and stayed here:

I have just one question for all the tourists out there. Why????

Seriously. What is the point of this? I'm all thinking we're going to be one with nature. Except that everyone else is zipping by us on the sandy path leading to the beach as they drive down to park down on the beach. And they are driving up and down the beach. And taking pictures from their cars. And parking right at the tide line. And riding stupid little mopeds up and down the beach. Aaaaah, nature. I was so refreshed.

There was a big pretty tree root.

And there were birds and water.

I'm a good picture-taker.

We ate at Las Maracas. I give the gaucamole there four out of five stars. When asked for her rating, K said "word to your mother." She doesn't know what that means, but it went with the signs she was flashing that she also did not know the meaning behind.


We stopped at a little tourist shop and got Saltwater taffy. K really enjoyed hers...



We took lots of pictures. This is K trying to take a picture of me.

We drove and drove and drove, and then suddenly the highway we were on ended, because I had shirked my navigational duties and didn't see the sign to turn, which we discovered on our way back. But we saw this sign, which entertained us.

Um, isn't that a warning sign?

Then the windshields got all smeared, and K's wiper fluid thing doesn't work, so she used her back-up system.

Did you know that if you hold an empty water bottle out the car window at high speeds, it whistles? It does.

We were driving along and all the sudden, K did a double-take,and she turned to me with wide eyes and yelled, "There was a cow head back there!" So we turned around so she could show me. Because I didn't want to see, but I did, you know? Plus I needed a picture for my blog. And here it is:
Yes, folks, that is a hunk of snow. (Point and laugh at K here)

We returned last night. It was a wonderful trip. It was all in honor of K's 30th birthday. She's an old lady. We were just two old ladies on a girl's weekend. We're already planning our next adventure.

Things I Learned at the Country Music Museum

I'm back from my exciting adventures in Nashville. This morning before we left we went to the Country Music Museum and Hall of Fame.

Things I learned:
1. Elvis had a car painted with 40 coats of paint that had ground up diamonds in it. There was a tv mounted in the back seat, which I can only imagine required bunny ears to work properly. Also Elvis should not have been allowed control of the check book.
2. Priscilla had Elvis's piano painted with gold leaf for their first anniversary. Priscilla ALSO should not have been allowed to control the check book.
3. I don't know a lot about the early country music artists. And my brain does not want to retain any information I might have read or heard today.
4. I do not have the attention span for really long audio tour explanations. Unless it's interesting stuff like the Alcatraz one, with people digging through concrete with spoons and swimming across bays.
5. Hearing a bunch of country hits makes you want to dance like a fool in public. And who am I to resist that urge?
6. Gift stores are fun.

One Week Til Nashville

Wahoo. I get to go to Nashville in one week for a work conference. It's gonna be a good time. I'm not really sure what Nashville has to offer besides the Grand Old Opry, so I decided to google it. Let's learn together.

1. indoor gardens. Yippee skippy. Why would you put that first on a list of things to do? Maybe they're working up to the grand finale?
2. Full-scale replica of the Parthenon. I vote we take a trip to the real Parthenon instead.
3. Laser Quest. This does not bode well. We have one of those in beautiful, exotic, downtown Federal Way.
4. Country Music Hall of Fame. Of course.
5. Wave Country. It's a water park. I'm thinking no.
6. Nash Trash. A quality tour lead by the Jugg Sisters.
7. Christmas Village. Unfortunately in November. Which is too bad because I would totally go.
8. Athena Statue. Because who doesn't need to experience a 42 foot tall statue of a woman in a gold dress.
9. General Jackson Showboat. Oooh. A paddle wheeler. I want to go on that. It sounds very Mark Twain er something.

The list goes on to 40. But there's really not anything exciting. Surpringly Grand Old Opry is number 15. Would have thought they would have listed it at least before Nash Trash.

More importantly, I've googled food and Nashville, to see what the fine dining choices are, in case I happen to scale the wall and temporarily escape the conference. I've found several that sound fun. Elliston Place Soda Shop sounds like good times. Anything that is being described using Happy Days as a reference has got potential. I wonder if they'd let me do The Fonz in there? I'm also sold on Bobby's Dairy Dip. They're known for their fries. Also there is icecream. Hopefully that includes shake. I miss a good shake. Provo had lots of shake places. Seattle does not seem to be overflowing with places that do Real Shakes.

Now I want a shake. I think we own a blender. Shoot. We don't have icecream. Except the really old peppermint stuff that I should not have bought because it is off brand and totally unsatisfying.

My sister recommended San Antonio Taco Company. Fortunately according to the web search she did, it's right across the street from where I'll be. So I might actually get to try it out. Stay tuned for reviews here.

I've added a bookstore to the must-see which I probably won't see list. It's called Elders, and they have a sign posted that says , “Noisy children will be pressed between the pages of large, heavy books.” Books and snarky signs. Can't beat that combo. Unless you were to add chocolate. Or shakes. Or chocolate shakes, even.

Go On, Tell Me Where To Go

I love that people are too polite (or perhaps bewildered) to say, um, who is that random man you posted on your blog? Since none of you asked, I won't tell you. Because I'm assuming you all know.

On this other blog I read she posted every place she had stayed overnight in the year 2007 and where she thought she would stay in 2008. So I started thinking about where I stayed in 2007 and it's a very sad, short list:

San Antonio, TX
Portland, OR

And 2008 is not looking much better:
Nashville, TN

I'm so broke I don't know if I can do any more traveling this year. I really should get on that. Where should I go?

Nashville or Bust!

So today I got a call from work, saying sorry to call on your vacation, but do you want to go to Nashville? Every year we have a national professionals conference. Last year we went to San Antonia (I remembered the Alamo for about 5 minutes). The year before last we went to Wisconsin (Moo). This year it is Nashville. Yee haw!

I go in February.

Surprise! You're Old!

I turned the big three-oh. And a few of my closest friends took me out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory. The truest testament of their dedication was that not only did they manage to show up, but they waited for 80 minutes to be seated! That's love!

Look how cute they are:

You know what's great about a blog? I have the power so if I don't like the pictures of me at a particular event, I can just not post them. And since it was on my camera, neither can any of the above people (neener, neener!).

And guess what I got for a present. I got this:

Which is a huge version of this picture I took in Paris, further confirming my superior photography skills:

K got it framed for me, by Little S, master framer. Little S tilted it a little because as you can see, I take crooked pictures. Totally planned. You know, for perspective er something. Several of my friends pitched in on it (you know who you are).