Friday!

Check this out for a preview of coming attractions. Pictures of us for sale!
http://www.sharpshooterimaging.com/Templates/is-search2c.php?imageset=/0&vn=&destLocation=&resetselected=true

You can buy a copy if you want. That would be a little weird, but...whatever.

In other news, I'm posting the story below because it makes me happy. This was an add-on story between me, Shelley and Laura--I think it was a long time ago. If any of you want to finish it, I'm dying to know how it ends.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Shellinskaya who liked to sit and read by her pool. She read all sorts of books; Books about love, books about vengeance, and books about how to win friends and influence people. One day, as Shellinskaya was sitting in her favorite spot by the pool, the sun beating down on her intent figure…

A handsome young brute happened by and said "My...what a nice figure."He said this to himself because, well, thinking aloud is generally frowned upon. The strange thing about the brute is that he was lost. He had been busy fighting dragons and slaying filthy rich rastards from the Netherlands when suddenly, *POOF!* he happened upon the fair Shellinskaya at the pool. It seems he'd entered some kind of time continuuuum vacuuuum wormhole and nobody has ever understood those so just go with it. He greeted Shellinskaya with a "Holla back now!"
Shellinskaya battered her eyes. Actually, she battered her fries and batted her eyes. Yes, that's it. Her eyes. "What up, G?"
The Brute, thus addressed, firmly replied, "Wiggidy wack. Love."
His name was Peter. Oddly, the main character in our heroine's book was named....Petro.
"Do I know you?" Shellinskaya asked, wondering where the brute came from and why he was talking to her. Peter explained that he was a secret agent for the Russian government and was fighting dragons from the Netherlands. The last word Shellinskaya heard Peter say was Russian. You see, Shellinskaya loved Russian novels and dreamt of visiting the motherland one day.
The odd thing about Shellinskaya is that although she had a Russian name and loved Russian literature, she was actually a very small and shrewd African-American who has been denied all the luxuries of life--thus we enter into a B-movie with little to no plot line but some very good dancing...
Peter and Shellinskaya continued their strange conversation, which only continued to get stranger as Shellinskaya confused Peter with Petro, the character in her book (Petro, as we all know, means Peter in Icelandic). Peter explained, as people often do in these sorts of stories, that his greeting to Shellinskaya was actually a secret code...that she failed with flying colors.
The even odder thing about this odd pair is that they had managed to enter the time vacuum device together and now found themselves on a beach in Madagascar. You know, spider monkies and such. Well, thankfully S-Dawg was a small shrew--er, shrewd--Africanish woman, so she knew all about spider monkies. But did she know about mad, rabid, evil-terrorist-plot spider monkies? A good question. That's where our story gets interesting. Spider monkies are known for their anti-Russian-African-Scandinavian-American tendencies, and this one was no different. As soon as he spotted the twitterpated couple he began plotting against them. The goal? To kill their love, their puppy, and their very souls. In that order. Or maybe love and souls are synomous. Semantics. (Narrator interjection: If you'll recall, semantic is different than semitic. So if you hear a band called Anti-Semantic, don't alert the ACLU. Can't we all just get along?)
So anyway, the evil arachna-monkey anxiously awaited his opportunity to destroy our main characters. And he waited with a swichblade...

On happiness

I am happy.

Completely incomplete, convincingly content, and incredibly, wonderfully happy.

When thinking of what to update on this little bloggity-blog, no great big awesome changes come to mind. Indeed, dear readers, I swear this happened without the help of a) a boy, b) money, or c) dramatic weight loss/promotions/accomplishments, etc.

Here's what happened: I realized I have nothing to be unhappy about.

I would consider myself a typically upbeat person, even though I'm pretty cynical sometimes. But typical Stef became Happy Stef early on in 2008. One day I woke up and felt a mysterious anticipation. That feeling lasted all day, though nothing big happened. All I could think to say to everyone is that big things were about to happen. I felt so excited, for whatever reason. I had the best day in the world and nothing really happened.

I haven't been able to shake that feeling. Yeah, there have been a few things here and there that bum me out for a minute, but for over a month I've been annoyingly happy. And oddly enough, good things have happened. Big, good things are still happening, which leads me to wonder: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I think good things happen to happy, positive people. And I think we can decide to be those people. I know there will come things to be unhappy about, but we always have a choice in how we react and how we view the world.

Thus, my 2008 theme: Positive thinking.

And the best example of it that I can think of is President Hinckley. If a prophet in this day and age--in any age, really--can maintain a positive outlook, then I definitely should. My perspective doesn't even stretch very far beyond my four walls, which are in pretty good shape, so I have no reason not to be optimistic.

So, I've learned I can just decide to be happy. I'm not delusional, I'm not refusing to face reality, and I'm not being fake if I do. I'm realizing all the things there are to be happy about, and choosing to create opportunities for more by being open to them. Cheesy? Yeah. But I'm having the best time. Weird that I wanted to flee the country not too long ago, eh?