tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66389868518866260512024-03-05T17:02:06.194-08:00A STAR is born.A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-54875225743153070852012-09-13T01:56:00.002-07:002012-09-13T01:56:44.427-07:00Essays for sale!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">Oh hey. Hey there. Did you think I died? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">Not dead, no worries. And BAM! I come to you with an urgent request today. Real Simple magazine, my first and only magazine subscription, is running an essay contest that I've been meaning to enter for months now. Of course, the deadline is 11:50pm today, September 13th. The contest theme is <b>"Think of a decision you regret--anything from a ridiculous choice of prom date to a serious lapse in judgment--and tell us what that mistake taught you about yourself."</b> I have 3 potential essays I've thought about submitting (below) and I need your help choosing one:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">1) "Almost a Philanthropist" -- This will be familiar to anyone who's read my blog. I've made only slight additions for the purposes of this contest.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">2) No title yet for this one. I warn you, this one is neither light nor fun to read, but it's the first topic that immediately sprang to mind for this contest. I wanted to write about it because it's the most meaningful for me, but you will not hurt my feelings if you don't pick it. Warning: deeply personal.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">3) "Queen of the 4th Grade"-- Lest you tire of hearing about my elementary days of glory, here's another tale of my former idiotness. Sort of along the lines of #2 but lighter.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">Now, be a dear and read my dribble and comment back (today!) about which one you think I should submit. Constructive criticism is welcomed too, you extra milers. I love you forever and ever!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7;">--Stef Star</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">1)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans Light', sans-serif; line-height: 32px;">I
graciously accepted the seat that was pulled out for me by my date,
and smoothed a napkin daintily over my lap to cover my prom dress. I
felt beautiful, if only for the fact that I was surrounded by Salt
Lake City's elite and almost counted myself as one of them for the
evening.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans Light', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Seated
around me were some of my favorite co-workers and their guests, all
looking shined-up and ready for something exciting to happen. After
our black-tied servers brought us a delicious meal, the emcee began
the live auction. In this economic downturn, the bids were slightly
disappointing, but some items were sold for inexplicably high
rates--like an enchilada dinner for 20 people that sold for $3,000.
This boosted my confidence and my desire to step off the bench and
join in the game—not for any real amount of money, of course, but I
always want to do my part to get rich people to spend money for a
good cause.</span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">My
ears perked up when a trip to Mexico was mentioned. It seemed like it
would be a popular item, since some of the other, less exotic trips
had sold fairly easily. Before I knew what was happening, my hand
shot in the air as soon as they opened the bidding. I should have
listened, because the auctioneer started the bidding at </span></span><span style="color: black;"><b>$3,500</b></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">“<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;">Gasp.”
(From those seated at my table.)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Crickets.
(From everybody else in the room.)</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">...</span></span><span style="color: black;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Going
once</span></i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It
was a curious feeling, like swimming underwater, but with superhuman
laser-pointing eyes that zero in on one man with a microphone, making
his way to my table...</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">....</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Going
twice</span></i></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Crickets.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Heart.
Palpitations. Sweaty. Palms. Swallowing bugs with less-than-daintily
open mouth.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">In
my desperation, I turned to the nearest bid-spotter and hissed—that's
right, I hissed, because a lady under duress does not raise her voice
or use foul language to make her point—she hisses. So I hissed,
"What are you doing? SELL THIS THING!" To which he
enthusiastically responds "Oh no, you want this. This is cool!"</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The
nerve of that guy! </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Apparently he loves sick kids more than my
financial well being. Oh, my dear beneficiaries of the Ronald
McDonald House, I love you. I really do. But I also love making rent.
And not starving. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why
nobody in the room is making a peep. Too busy eating your shrimp
scampi, Mr. Millionaire? Excuse me, Baroness of the Backless Dress to
my right, but could you spare a couple grand so I can sleep tonight?
Contrary to my appearance and polished demeanor, I do not in fact
have a hospital wing named after me. My perfect posture is merely a
ruse, to mask the fact that I'm only here for the food. And to look
hot in my prom dress.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Meanwhile,
the silence in the room had reached bone-crushing density and the
widened eyes of every person at my table threatened to dislodged
themselves at any moment. I was on the verge of some quite unladylike
outlets for my panic, i.e. tearing out my hair and jumping
frantically on the table, when a voice pierced the fog of my certain
demise. One, clear, six-figure salaried voice of mercy fought through
the din and massaged a rhythm back into my heart with his sweet,
affluent cry of "$3,600!"</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">...</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Sold!
For $3,600!</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I
may have shed tears.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The
collective sigh of relief from those near me was a substantial boon
to our depleting ozone layer. My heart found the will to go on, my
kids thanked me for their college funds, and my prom dress went to
the cleaners...for reasons I find unladylike to describe.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This
experience not only threatened my heart and my pocketbook, it taught
me something: Being impulsive can have disastrous results, but it
almost always makes for a good story. Sometimes doing something crazy
just for the sake of making a memory is what makes life interesting.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u> </u></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans Light', sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Honestly, I have only one real regret. I know that sounds arrogant, as if I've conducted everything in my life flawlessly. This being far from the truth, I've thought over the countless small things that, sure, I would do differently if I had them to do over again. But regrets are things that keep you up at night, that come to visit at odd hours and leave you wondering how things would be different, like that old high-school crush you never had the guts to ask to prom or the team you wanted to try out for but chickened out. I have few, if any, of those kinds of regrets, and none that have so deeply shaped who I am and how I think as did that one night with Adam.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">We met as restaurant servers during my last summer in college. I was 3 months away from leaving for a study abroad in Italy, which I have since learned is the perfect recipe for falling in love. We fell fast and hard and we talked about how ridiculously talented and crazy our kids would be. Is there anything as beautifully blinding as first love? As fast and as hard as it was, it happened when I was only 22 so I was painfully naïve. I bloomed late, you could say. Really late, actually. Maybe as late as 22. Needless to say, my dating experiences were few and the romantic conflict I was most acquainted with up to this point was unrequited love.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">To me, Adam was an exhilarating mix of passion and dark humor. He made a summer working at a greasy buffet fun, which is no small feat for a girl who hates every customer who walks through the door (the service industry is not a great fit for me). He would catch my eye from across 20 tables of increasing obesity and wink or pull a face so I would stop scowling at everyone. Or he would just look at me in my clunky, no-slip restaurant shoes and frumpy, food-spattered apron, smiling like I was the sexiest thing in the world. And when I got myself fired because I decided to “explain” to a customer that no tip was unacceptable, he was the one who rallied the rest of the servers around the idea of having a statue of me erected in the restaurant to pay homage to my defense of the working class.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Adam oozed wit, talent, charm, and...potential. I could talk for hours about his potential. I say potential because, well, at that time he sure had a lot to figure out. He lived at home, had no car, and he was a little lost in school, hopping from major to major and dreaming so big it would take your breath away. He was debilitatingly compassionate, the shirt off his own back kind. He was also reckless and impulsive, prone to depression and anxiety. I saw little of those darker sides at first, though in retrospect I see they were always just beneath the surface of his enthusiasm.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">After about a whirlwind month, he started to drop hints about how he wasn't good enough for me, how he had certain “issues” that he was always trying to figure out. It took awhile for him to eventually tell me that depression runs in the family and he was exploring medications and therapy to help his own early signs of it. This shook me up a bit, since I've lived a somewhat charmed life. I grew up in a comfortable home with a healthy and happy family, and though we've had our struggles like anybody else, at that time the weight of his words seemed completely foreign. I talked as best I could with him about it, but mostly we kept things light and fun. As long as he was up, he was around and making me laugh, so I figured none of it was too much for us to handle.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not long after we started using words like “love” we hit a rough patch, but I don't even remember what started it. I know he started feeling distant, like he was slipping away from me. One night he came over and his shoulders hung so heavily. We went out to the back yard and laid side by side on the trampoline and talked. He started to really talk this time, telling me details about his childhood and family that were not light or fun. I listened to it all and ached for something to do or say to help. Then he came to the heaviest part: He said he was currently struggling with an addiction that was far from being resolved. He had worked with therapists and church leaders and had been unable to make any real headway and was so defeated by that. He said this unapologetically. He said it like a man on the edge of a cliff, resigned to the worst version of himself and offering it up for me to take or leave. With this declaration, he stopped talking and his unasked question hung in the air: Could I still love him now that I knew everything?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I said nothing.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I had no words. I have all the words in the world now, since I've had 8 years to conjure them up, but then? Silence. I made the mistake of thinking I had time to consider what he'd said and that he owed me a few moments to process and evaluate. Could I still love him now that I knew everything? Of course. But his everything changed everything. I was so hurt by his confession, because I hadn't yet learned that the world doesn't revolve around me. All I could think of was how this would affect me, affect us, affect him as <i>he</i> related to <i>me</i>. These thoughts started doing a dizzying dance in my head and then, after what must have seemed like hours to Adam, he got up and left.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">When someone bears their soul, it is an act of love. It is a raw, pleading, desperate cry for love. And when that person is the first real love of your life, he deserves an immediate reward for his bravery, a quick assertion that what he's given is recognized and appreciated. I didn't recognize the precious few moments I had to extend that love and instead wasted the time in silence. I could feel that something big had changed after Adam left, and cried like I'd never cried before. Then I drove straight to his house and pled with him to just give me time to think. He nodded his head, granting me all the time in the world, but eventually I saw that those selfishly silent moments under the summer stars sealed off his heart to me completely. Things were never the same. Our relationship didn't officially end there, but how we kept going for the next several months is a story for another day. Though we eventually broke up and moved on to different lives, my heart still breaks when I think of what he must have felt when I let him down like that.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I have studied those moments continually over the years. At other times I've been shown my naivety and have hopefully dealt with those situations a little more gracefully, but I'm still learning just how important it is to react with love to people who need love. I imagine some future day when I have a beloved child of my own, someone with wit and charm and all the potential in the world. This child musters up the courage to tell me something he's done that he knows will disappoint me, and it does disappoint and hurt me deeply. But instead of saying nothing, I will waste no time and say, “I love you so much. Thank you for telling me. I'm proud of your honesty and we'll figure this out together.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I don't know if those words would have changed things for Adam. I don't know that we would be together now if we had figured things out, because a lost relationship is not the source of my regret. I know that what I actually lost was an opportunity to extend real charity in a moment when it was needed most. I hope and pray I will not miss those opportunities in the future.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><u> </u></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">3) </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans Light', sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I peaked in fourth grade. Socially, that is. No really—it was all downhill from there. But for one school year I enjoyed a vantage point high above any other I've since attained, from the very top of the 10-year-old caste system. I was popular for some reason, and I knew it. For the most part I chose to use my powers for good, and benevolently bestowed my attention on others with fairness and equity (a rotating schedule for who got to sit by me at lunch saw nicely to that). I can talk about this with candor and only slight exaggeration because, of course, none of that popularity stuck with me and I became just like any other normal, awkward kid later on. And since most of what is important in elementary fades with time, much of what happened that year is laughable. But as Queen of Mrs. Barlow's class, I made some decisions that I regret. And those decisions, unlike the heady power of popularity, have had lasting effects on me. They have shaped me. One such decision:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It was a typical day in school, during reading time. I spotted a boy across the room who had probably been in my class since kindergarten, but I'd never really paid attention to him. His name was Jared and he was a nerd, by any 4</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></span></sup></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> grade standards. I impulsively decided to try a little experiment with him. I gestured a sort of 'watch this' to a few nearby friends and proceeded to catch the boy's eye. I smiled. I winked. I think I even made a kissy face at one point. I basically declared love to him from across several desks. And he ate it up.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Throughout the day I kept it up, but only from a distance. He started passing me notes, embarrassingly full of compliments and adoration. I don't think he loved me as much as he loved the fact the a girl was paying attention to him for the first time. And, well...that girl did happen to be at her social peak. Anyway, I thought it was so funny that he would fall for it so easily. I remember distinctly thinking it was funny that I could make someone think I liked them just by looking at them a certain way.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">When I grew tired of the game later that day, I just stopped cold turkey. I didn't even make eye contact with Jared, and passed his notes back unread. He was understandably confused, but I don't really remember anything else happening after that. Because for me, the experiment was a success and I moved on to other interesting things.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'm ashamed that this was not the only unkind thing I did that year. It was never my nature to be a bully, but in looking back I can see several examples of my hurting other people by being thoughtless. I can honestly say that the game with Jared was not done maliciously. It was not even done all that consciously—I never thought to myself “I want to hurt this boy's feelings because he's not cool.” I thought of a funny idea and I ran with it. I'm fairly certain that I was working with half a brain at best. It was only years later that I saw this little game for what it was, and for me to learn that kindness is a decision. It is a conscious thought. Kindness happens on purpose, because it doesn't always come naturally. So often when I find that I've hurt someone, through words or neglect or humor or even vanity, it happened unintentionally. But it happened all the same, because I failed to think. I thought of myself first and realized too late that my actions have an effect, whether I intend that effect or not.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: DejaVu Sans Light, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">And you know what else? Kindness isn't always easy. Being mean is easy, because meanness makes people laugh and feel tough. Being kind sometimes is an unpopular, uphill battle. I know that because later on in school (after the other half of my brain started forming) I noticed the new class nerd sitting by himself at lunch. I remembered my mistakes and chose to sit by him and share some of my candy with him. It wasn't a big deal, but those small acts earned me a lot of ridicule. Funny though, I have no regrets about that story.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans Light', sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I have no idea if Jared remembers that day in 4</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></span></sup></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> grade—For all I know he's gone on to great fame and fortune and is dating a supermodel—but I can't forget it. It was the start of something I'm still working on: Thinking before acting, and choosing to be kind when given the opportunity.</span></span></span></span></div>
A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-13507239610354129982012-01-30T11:25:00.000-08:002012-09-05T09:36:30.183-07:00To my sons<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Just look at Edward and Bella! Sigh.</i><br />
<i>They're like Adam & Eve in an Abercrombie ad campaign.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Assuming I have some menchildren in the future, I'm directing this post to them. I know a little something about how to treat a lady...because I am one. Here are a few helpful tips about how to be a man. A real man. A man worth being. A man like Edward.<br />
<br />
--Be helpful. If you see a woman who is working hard at something and you're in a position to help, offer to help. Of course you're more prone to do this if the woman is your girlfriend, your wife, or a good friend, but the concept applies to all women (all people, for that matter). This might cut into your football watching or something, but developing the habit of helping instead of pretending that you don't see her traipsing back and forth making several trips with heavy boxes will go far in making you a good person. Is it required? No. But it's what decent human beings do.<br />
<br />
--If you take a girl on a date, <i>you need to talk to her</i>. I don't care how hard it is for you; practice in the car beforehand or with your mom or something. Repeat to yourself: I asked this girl out, which clearly means I thought there might be SOMETHING interesting about her, so I need to talk to her. Ask her questions. You may have to pretend interest in the topic at first, but if you really try and really listen, pretended interest can become real and then you're actually talking. Don't put a girl through the agony of silent dates.<br />
<br />
--If you want to date a girl, it never hurts to score some points with said girl's friends or roommates. I don't mean ask them out first or flirt with them too, but I mean be friendly and fun with them as well. Girls like it when their boyfriends get along with her friends. And if you end up dating this girl and thereby practically live at her house with her roommates, be considerate of the fact that it's not your house: See first bullet point above. Don't hog the TV all the time. Don't eat the food her roommates make and then escape before helping clean up. <br />
<br />
--The best advice I can think of for how to treat a girl on a date is to make her feel awesome. It's a compliment to get asked out, of course, but it's also a compliment if a date is engaged, makes eye contact, introduces her to people they meet, and has put some thought into the date. Making a girl feel awesome is not that hard--it doesn't require flowers or poetry or cheesiness or elaborate plans (at least not at first). Just some attention will do, kiddos. Repeat to yourself: I asked this girl out. <i>I </i>asked <i>her</i>. Make it clear that you want her there with you.<br />
<br />
--If you like her, act like it. If you don't, stop acting like it.<br />
<br />
--Go to school and get a job and all that grown up stuff. It's pretty attractive.<br />
<br />
--If you're afraid of something you need to do, practice doing it in whatever capacity you can. If commitment is your fear, start committing to stuff. Even if it's just an activity, a road trip, a church assignment, even...a sandwich--Commit to it. If taking risks is your fear, start skydiving. Practice makes perfect.<br />
<br />
--Don't use foul language in front of girls. (I would say don't use it at all, but...the transcripts from certain episodes in the privacy of my car would incriminate me). Some girls are cool with it, but I would assume, to be safe, that they're not cool with it and make an effort to curb your bad language and dirty jokes. Maybe you'll find that diamond in the rough who swears like a sailor just like you do, but err on the side of caution until then.<br />
<br />
--Read about the love languages and figure out yours. Then figure out hers.<br />
<br />
--Be honest. Be brave. Be dependable. Be a man, yo.A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-15242070767275626852011-12-01T10:34:00.000-08:002011-12-01T10:34:15.298-08:00The Best Two Years<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvNu1989RYBooPOFI0fNb6THFLrqrZ9NPeQAaz2xviLnqLs998zZnsYXmWZRz_pnLneSxn1WVEYIlPIphs4slZ4vLtN8Dm7juEC24PRTiDAfKIYZEDKdJw1Q3EHpUYXyr3hoaGbZOeRU2/s1600/Wildlife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvNu1989RYBooPOFI0fNb6THFLrqrZ9NPeQAaz2xviLnqLs998zZnsYXmWZRz_pnLneSxn1WVEYIlPIphs4slZ4vLtN8Dm7juEC24PRTiDAfKIYZEDKdJw1Q3EHpUYXyr3hoaGbZOeRU2/s320/Wildlife.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Dearest Huntington Beach,<br />
Surprise! Happy anniversary!!! I hijacked this blog so I could publicly tell you how much I love you. I want everyone to know how happy I am that we've been together for TWO YEARS! I hope you're not embarrassed that all of our friends are going to read this...but I don't care because you deserve the attention. xoxo<br />
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<br />
Many of you may not know this, but HB and I met a long time ago on a road trip with my freshman year roommates. Best trip ever. We were determined to discover all of California, even the weird parts, so we hit every beach we could possibly fit in (including Long Beach, which is not exactly known for its beach...but I digress). My first impression of you wasn't great, or very memorable. Little did I know what lovers we would become later on. <br />
<br />
It seems like only yesterday that I pulled up in my exhausted Corolla, anxious about where Gretch and I would sleep that night, but practically bursting with excitement about our new relationship. I drove your tree-lined streets and gushed over all the cute houses, amazed that this was my new life. Once I found a place to live, it was rough for awhile. Every couple has their issues, but I can honestly say I never once doubted you. My eyes wandered a bit, toward Santa Monica, Newport Beach, even--dare I say it....LA--but I always came back to you. We spent a lot of really intimate time together in those first 6 months, when I had few friends and little energy for anything but curling up on your beach in my spare time. Every day, when I had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn and kiss you goodbye to battle the 405, I vowed that one day I would leave all that behind and stay home to devote myself to you completely. It took some doing, but I finally did it and now we're happier than ever.<br />
<br />
Here are some of the things I love about you:<br />
--Running on the beach<br />
--Surfers, all day long, every day<br />
--Chronic Taco, Cafe Allessa, Tuna Town, Liquor Store sandwiches, Thai Silk<br />
--Your killer sunsets<br />
--Our rooftop<br />
--Volleyball on Saturdays<br />
--Biking everywhere together<br />
--Friday farmer's market<br />
--The Pierside Ward (RIP)<br />
--That one best day ever: Volleyball, lunch, hot tubbing at the Hyatt, etc<br />
--This house<br />
--Salvation Army and yard sale furniture<br />
--Taco Tuesdays<br />
<br />
I could go on and on. Of course it hasn't all been bliss, but it's all been life changing. You've been good to me, and your insane cost of living seems to be worth it every time I step out my front door. I'll stomach the parking tickets, the weed smoking next door, killing of all my rooftop plants, and the occasional possum, because...baby, this is love.<br />
<br />
Cheers to a great two years!<br />
--Stef<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFSM2Fy62pBg-PgmU7M8ek6vffoTnJhTueDOxkab32QtK7up-fnRfvoKJy3JuYwSyW06uBWo6fbaeDuxK_PGn7-xkQWvxBJLqsZBRVErhlqBOZy-UWkvSt9H8PLGHuH8fD3vRQeyXR0zu/s1600/IMG_8856.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFSM2Fy62pBg-PgmU7M8ek6vffoTnJhTueDOxkab32QtK7up-fnRfvoKJy3JuYwSyW06uBWo6fbaeDuxK_PGn7-xkQWvxBJLqsZBRVErhlqBOZy-UWkvSt9H8PLGHuH8fD3vRQeyXR0zu/s320/IMG_8856.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-39651080629438581662011-10-26T10:05:00.000-07:002011-10-26T10:13:23.686-07:00Old me, meet now me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLdHFuMMdkOxVXUQt_OcEvZb6xOu6jm0hmzuYDnHILQTqTRH-kHEGQMF52QOL9k-h7nml843q0YBouWYrox514ap2xdsvD7DqOJr7YL3Ycg-rOWlBNU2Dh5u_BCGx8LewjublVYip067i/s1600/child-dandelion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLdHFuMMdkOxVXUQt_OcEvZb6xOu6jm0hmzuYDnHILQTqTRH-kHEGQMF52QOL9k-h7nml843q0YBouWYrox514ap2xdsvD7DqOJr7YL3Ycg-rOWlBNU2Dh5u_BCGx8LewjublVYip067i/s320/child-dandelion.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Direct quote from my journal, February 17, 2003: "I just spent a whole entry talking about boys. I am so lame! I hope I'm the only person who ever reads these journals. But who can blame me? All my friends are getting hitched, so it's kind of a boy-focused stage of life."</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oh, ho ho...do you think the Me of Ages Past would be embarrassed to know that I just shared that with the entire world? Not much she can do about it.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are several indicators that I have a little too much free time today (besides the glaring fact that I'm blogging at 9am), one of those being that I just read my entire journal from the years when I was 19 and 20. Those were very formative years for me--The pages are filled with stress and worry about what to study in school, where to spend my summers, how to stretch my thin income, and....boys. Boys boys boys. See my previous blog entry for more information about that trend. Reading one's former self is not a comfortable experience, if you're me. It's cringe-worthy, most of it. I have to sift through a lot of mess to get to the heart of who I was and to see if that girl is still in me. I simultaneously conclude that I have both changed completely and haven't changed at all.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And then, right in the midst of laughing and shaking my head at the things I used to say, I come across a list. In October, 9 years ago, I made a spontaneous wish list of sorts, declaring all the things I wanted and wanted to become. I still do that sort of thing today, so not much has changed there. But as I read about the deepest desires of my 20-year-old heart, I was taken back to that time of my life. I remembered what it felt like to want those things and feel like they were so far away. Pipe dreams. A wish list is just that, right? Dreams that you fling out to the universe and longingly pine for, with no expectation that even half of them will come true. I remember that feeling--the taste of frustration at my own weaknesses, combined with a barely-containable excitement about all possibilities that lie before me. I remember that feeling because I still have it, all the time. But what's crazy about today is that I can check so many things off that list I wrote in 2002. Without knowing it, the last 10 years have brought me really close to all of the things I wanted to be. Of course there is much more work to do and infinite wish lists in my mind, but I'm amazed at how far I've come in realizing my dreams. In that entry I said "How much of that will really happen, or is even possible?" I love being able to answer that question now.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Time is a funny thing that way. I tend to wish it away, or want it to speed up to help see me through some current frustration. I found myself doing that just yesterday. I used to do that all the time--wish that I could just fast-forward a few months, a few years, or whatever. Well, it turns out that wishing away time is one wish that always comes true. I feel like I've just fast-forwarded to 2011 and am wondering where the time has gone. I feel sad about that, but also I am overwhelmed by gratitude for my life. I have been blessed with experiences that seemed like crazy dreams ("I want to go to Italy and learn Italian" or "I want to do weddings and floral design") and I've also learned through the hard things ("I don't want to work somewhere that I don't love"). Some of my dreams have changed ("I want to weigh 110 pounds") and some will never change ("I want to be an amazing, memorable writer" and "I want to be a positive influence" and "I want to be really, really good at something, like guitar or piano.") I'm glad to see that much of who I was is still who I am, and that at the very least I know I've been passionate.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am filled with hope today. I hope that I continue to hope. My wish lists are less specific now ("I hope I'm learning what I should" and "I hope everyone feels loved by me") but no less real. And, thanks to my abundant free time today, I've learned that my wish lists are actual possibilities. Just give me another 10 years or so.</div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-69303334692044019202011-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:002011-08-31T14:18:43.300-07:00Fisher of men<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Confession: I have been boy crazy my entire life.</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
This statement, of course, comes as shocking to nobody who knows me. Being a boy crazy girl has its perks, you know: I always have someone(s) to talk about, think about, dress up for, get excited about, analyze, etc. And I always had little boyfriends growing up (before junior high happened). Even now the laws of statistics determine that with so many objects of my affection, I'm bound to get at least a little flirting in every coupla days or so. But I'm thinking today about some of dark sides of crushing (gosh, that word "crushing" should really only have dark sides when you think about it).<br />
<br />
The ratio of nets cast into the waters of love compared to actual fishes caught is alarming. I figure that over the years I've invested some of my heart in roughly...435 boys (15 per year x 29 years) and I've ended up having that affection returned roughly...75 times. And of those who've returned my affections, only maybe 15-20 of those have netted a relationship of some sort. Don't question these numbers, by the way--it's science.<br />
<br />
So, to sum up: <br />
Boys desired: 435<br />
Boys desiring me: 75<br />
Boys following through with desire and actually dating me: 15<br />
435x=15<br />
x=15/435<br />
x=.03<br />
<br />
I'm batting a 3% rate of return on this particular investment. <br />
<br />
Now, maybe if this were a money market account, I could feel good about that. But it's not, and I don't. So, math whizzes, life coaches, summoners of the dark arts (Jenny Morrow), ask yourselves what you would do in my position. I need to boost my rate of return to, say, 100%. No big deal. <br />
<br />
I have questions:<br />
--I'm still young, so the finance guys say "take risks". Done, doing, will do, thank you. Does that mean I cast more nets? More and more and more nets?<br />
--The emotionally scarred would say that a heart can only be fragmented so many times before it ceases to function (actually, I'm pretty sure doctors would say that too), so perhaps the best course of action is to pull in the line and work on patching up the leaky spots until I'm in safer waters. ?<br />
--Economists will tell me to use not more nets, but better ones. Part of my problem is that I run around gleefully throwing around anything that remotely looks like a net and then I might catch a little fishie who remains caught only long enough to find the nearest hole and wriggle away. Or, sometimes when I'm on a roll I'll catch too many fish in one net and, a la the Faithless Disciples, my net breaks and sends them all a-scurrying. How does one improve the net?<br />
--I think most people would probably tell me to never, ever take an analogy this far.<br />
<br />
Sigh. You're right. Maybe I just need to grow up and realize that it's possible to choose who to invest in, and that not having crushes on everything male with a heartbeat is something to consider. But even as I think that I feel sad, like a huge part of me would just be snuffed out by the part of me that finds it prudent to be cold and unfeeling and careful. NEVER! Ahem. Never.<br />
<br />
Hummmuna hummuna hmmmm.....<br />
Meh. I think probably I have less control over this than I think I do. I am me and apparently, that means I am a fisher of men. Analogy back on, yo. </div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-60104002957359755532011-07-18T15:23:00.000-07:002011-07-18T15:23:24.074-07:00<div style="color: #134f5c; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>As of today, I am debt free!</b></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b style="color: #134f5c;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</span></b><b style="color: #134f5c;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">!!!!!!!!!!</span></b></span>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-1565436068596499342011-06-13T00:45:00.000-07:002011-06-13T00:45:58.521-07:00If I were a rich man, yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dumLate-night blog rant that I'll probably regret in the morning....ready....go:<br />
<br />
I had a little 6-year-old student I'll call D for just about 5 weeks. Cutest thing ever, but let me tell you about the rollercoaster ride she put me on. I asked her awhile ago to list some songs she likes so we could learn them on the piano, because students will usually get much more excited to practice and/or perform a song they know, right? Well, she had recently seen Fiddler on the Roof and fell in love with "If I Were a Rich Man". So I went home and listened to it about 65 times, and came up with a little kid arrangement that I knew she could do if she worked hard. When I came to our next lesson and played it for her, she lost her mind with excitement. She threw her arms around me and thanked me and promised to do everything she could to learn the song in time of for our fast-approaching recital. And during that lesson, she sure kept her word! She was focused. She was working. She was very unlike a 6-year-old in her tenacity. I left that lesson rejoicing, considering a musical connection made and a testimony born of hard work and dedication.<br />
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That lasted until our next lesson, where D could barely play a short three-note section of what we'd learned, and spent the whole lesson exhibiting ADD like I'd never seen, repeating "piano is hard" about every 5 minutes. My little, naive heart broke. It really broke. I left that lesson feeling like such a failure. The scariest part of that feeling was not that I'd failed as a teacher, but that one setback in my student's progression so easily broke my heart like that. It took the wind right out of my sails. Instead of taking it in stride and chalking it up to a bad day, in one fell swoop it cut my motivation right out from under me and I wrote her off. Just like that.<br />
<br />
Frightening, isn't it?<br />
<br />
Then comes the inevitable onslaught of questions: Am I an idiot for thinking she could play that? Did I push her too hard? Is this simply a lack of experience kind of thing, since I've been a teacher for about 5 minutes? Are all children rotten little monsters who hate doing anything that requires work?<br />
<br />
I'm learning that I have very high expectations for people, including myself. I realize the story above is embarrassingly dramatic, but I really did experience those highs and lows based on a little thing like Fiddler on the Roof. It may not be so bad to have such high expectations, except for the part where those expectations are not met (which they rarely are) and the resulting crash into despair. Tell me, mothers, how do you handle this with your children? I'm terrified to have children because I'm terrified they'll disappoint me.<br />
<br />
That last line made me a little terrified to post this...we'll see if I actually do.<br />
<br />
God hasn't blessed me with children yet--which obviously is a very good thing for now--but what I have been given instead is a Relief Society full of women for whom I am now responsible to be a good example to, to care about, to pray for, and to hope for...which I do my best to do. The problem is that I don't think I've really learned about agency yet. Two months into it and I'm already bitterly disappointed when I see girls who don't try very hard or who just...aren't that awesome at churchy things, you know? It's not like I feel they've disappointed me personally--I know they don't owe me a thing--but it's like they've betrayed my hope in them. It's difficult for me to avoid sometimes feeling like my efforts to get people to change (or to get myself to change) are an exercise in futility...that in the end, that little girl doesn't want to practice piano, or this girl just doesn't feel like coming to Relief Society today. Heck, sometimes I don't feel like going to Relief Society, so it's not the end of the world, right? I'm not any better than them and I have plenty of examples of girls who blow me away with how amazing they are. Still, disappointment will come throughout my life. What I need practice in is shaking it off. I need to be able to maintain hope in the face of disappointment. I don't want unmet expectations to mean that I have no more desire to try. If it's having that effect on me, then I am much more impatient than I ever thought. Sigh.<br />
<br />
Not my best day, you could say.A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-3065081352300054532011-06-09T00:45:00.000-07:002011-06-09T00:46:20.076-07:00TodayToday was a good day. I got a glimpse of what it would be like to be a stay at home mom with no kids. A little of this, a little of that, total freedom, yada yada. I liked it. Once upon a time I had a really gross schedule that looked like <a href="http://stefstaresquire.blogspot.com/2009/12/this-post-will-self-destruct-in-5.html">this</a>. Here's the new me:<br />
<br />
9 am - We begin with some roof time. Reading, contemplating, gardening. Take a look at some of my babies:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJMHcOB-j7DP13Wy-bZGXyqoZeTdA83f_WHZVmmawQ4tSZfK0hxrihTttGi7S09ZeWUCyQKhv2msjaWDOYdY7LPBaTRUQ6lwoH3n3pJdx0_234sCxboQoUwkqiDhKsTPK3tVv4cd7wDx8P/s1600/RoofGarden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJMHcOB-j7DP13Wy-bZGXyqoZeTdA83f_WHZVmmawQ4tSZfK0hxrihTttGi7S09ZeWUCyQKhv2msjaWDOYdY7LPBaTRUQ6lwoH3n3pJdx0_234sCxboQoUwkqiDhKsTPK3tVv4cd7wDx8P/s320/RoofGarden.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
10:30am - Some church stuff. It's my busiest job. <br />
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12:0pm - Lunch. I have time to make BLTs!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiESXx2nMi4OS56qH7YjWqhtFd4uJjMPmF5x2GnU3xA-7SHB2lO6Ahl5cvvzDKXqY4KlljJlKnWfTr2XXjnhg2k8-f__7uBxZpojpEwc8GkdwN4r7YsFGSMEqt26EwYbmHJRJsjupKcMC2D/s1600/photo%25285%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiESXx2nMi4OS56qH7YjWqhtFd4uJjMPmF5x2GnU3xA-7SHB2lO6Ahl5cvvzDKXqY4KlljJlKnWfTr2XXjnhg2k8-f__7uBxZpojpEwc8GkdwN4r7YsFGSMEqt26EwYbmHJRJsjupKcMC2D/s320/photo%25285%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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1:30pm - Temple. I love my little pink temple, but I do not love going in the afternoon. I forget the overwhelming power of sleepytime.<br />
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3:30pm - Temple photoshoot. Why not?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4od1TZCg4oLMYdVoenNFyVUO3cMkJs4TKkDiNB5y35uCeCGel6Ojvtc64uKojBdhuxGf9LLXXs8nPhZ0j3mvZ033MotvJlHSTTmIgqhbGA35CiATQKWkA5qsD5kUzsdtzVC138SBsMi5O/s1600/Temple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4od1TZCg4oLMYdVoenNFyVUO3cMkJs4TKkDiNB5y35uCeCGel6Ojvtc64uKojBdhuxGf9LLXXs8nPhZ0j3mvZ033MotvJlHSTTmIgqhbGA35CiATQKWkA5qsD5kUzsdtzVC138SBsMi5O/s320/Temple.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
5:00pm - By the sweat of my brow shall I eat my bread. *Translation: Yes, I do have to work some today.<br />
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7:30pm - More church stuff<br />
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9:00pm - Hang out. Blog. Watch Modern Family. Visit a friend.<br />
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11:30pm - Go to bed smiling.<br />
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Can you believe this fairytale? Me neither. And you shouldn't, because this is by no means a typical day. Though my life is sooooo much better than it was, my semi-retirement has actually been much, much busier than I thought (thank you, Bishop) and that makes today a nice little treat. I really love where I live and I love when I have the time to love it. <br />
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I went to Yosemite last weekend! Remind me to blog about that. I've learned much about California and hiking vs. Utah and hiking. Remind me, ok?A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-62308923338769050912011-05-20T23:34:00.001-07:002011-05-20T23:34:55.814-07:00<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I think the post below is possibly the worst blog post of all time.</span>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-39787007062571301702011-05-20T12:38:00.000-07:002011-05-20T12:38:07.825-07:00A Bedtime Story<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Forgive me for my long absence. </span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I honestly haven't had much motivation to blog lately, mostly because things are great and I'm busy and somehow I like to keep all that goodness to myself. But yesterday I was flirted with by a 9-year-old on a school bus, and I realized: People need to know about these things. I have plenty to write about.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNLl5bPdNcKDwr_0_oqHa5DUFl0zu2mTO2vMQucAZQuYumsL_ypIpPcnyLUdLUR9r60TFLOCHXzcJsJ8yqbtjJ_secSbK_MXHbu-EAbi89f7jMfwZIsqAdp_AgMXNuGnGF4w_5xpWMl08/s1600/obama+call+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNLl5bPdNcKDwr_0_oqHa5DUFl0zu2mTO2vMQucAZQuYumsL_ypIpPcnyLUdLUR9r60TFLOCHXzcJsJ8yqbtjJ_secSbK_MXHbu-EAbi89f7jMfwZIsqAdp_AgMXNuGnGF4w_5xpWMl08/s320/obama+call+me.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>This is what the kid did to me, I swear. The whole back of the bus was eating it up.</i></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">So now, a bedtime story.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not sure how this has happened, but I have purchased 3 beds in the last few years. The first is my favorite: a queen that resides in my brother's basement, begging me to get married and finally reclaim it from storage. The second is the subject of this story. The third is the bed I now sleep in, a full-size that dips slightly in the middle but otherwise perfectly suits my needs.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The second bed has been on a quite a journey. I rescued it from some man's garage at what I thought was a good price, but has proven otherwise. It was advertised as a twin, but some exacting friends have determined that it is in fact a single, which is smaller than a twin. Did you know that there are beds smaller than twin size, that aren't cribs? Yeah, me neither. Anyway, my little kid bed and I have been through a lot together. She and I, hand in hand, fled the snow and cold in Utah and arrived in humid Huntington Beach a little torn up and soggy, but happy. When I placed her in my current room, she and I both realized this move was bigger than we thought. As in...my giant room dwarfed my little kid bed and made me feel like I was sleeping in a warehouse. That was fine with me for awhile, but then I purchase bed #3 off a friend and determined to send the little kid bed to live somewhere else. Like maybe with a deserving little kid. But I had underestimated the popularity of Hotel Stef, and my many guests have enjoyed her firmness instead of the firmness of my bedroom floor for about 9 months now.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwfdQU-UU9-APko8Fs1zU5NXbM9RZ-U2pZvx7T-e0wDYCznfuO9WZcVYLnmyDZ9xmjlJHg6Q8G3vRVQkJYDfl1d_l9jSBvsLVS_WHI5meVEUrBBbOam6iP5j3gosoxM4FDv7nto_mcAhT/s1600/Bed1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIwfdQU-UU9-APko8Fs1zU5NXbM9RZ-U2pZvx7T-e0wDYCznfuO9WZcVYLnmyDZ9xmjlJHg6Q8G3vRVQkJYDfl1d_l9jSBvsLVS_WHI5meVEUrBBbOam6iP5j3gosoxM4FDv7nto_mcAhT/s320/Bed1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Why am I going on and on about this? I don't know.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Anyway, I determined a few weeks ago to finally part ways with this bed. I had a mini yard sale where the bed was one of only 2 items I needed to sell. I sold the other one, but not the bed. So I posted the bed on Craigslist, to no avail. I called a place to see if I could donate it, but they wouldn't come pick it up. So yesterday, at 6:30am I put the bed in our alley by the garage, having been told that people come through there looking for free stuff all the time. I made an airport run and returned about an hour later and made a sign that said "FREE!" to put on the bed. But when I went to the alley to put the sign on the bed, it was gone. Gone! It took just over an hour to rid myself of it. Heck, it could have been claimed 5 minutes after I put it out there for all I know. I wish so badly I could have been there to see who picked it up, because the speed at which they came is blowing my mind. I'm a little suspicious that somebody has been stalking my bed, just waiting for me to offer it up for free. Well played, alley cats, well played.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Thus ends the story of my little kid bed. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqIhg1CHED-P-8cT8MB_MNHmbNFuVZLS76fIw7OB0sk4lfOD5YWJ_PLE_-Gvt4MMWPnTLbP31b0zcnVw-vnqr1dZMT9vYnZlOfTIFzbxyd8BWBVsIeL2UHajXNfKE6HEiFqprNRCwUe-8d/s1600/fullBed.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqIhg1CHED-P-8cT8MB_MNHmbNFuVZLS76fIw7OB0sk4lfOD5YWJ_PLE_-Gvt4MMWPnTLbP31b0zcnVw-vnqr1dZMT9vYnZlOfTIFzbxyd8BWBVsIeL2UHajXNfKE6HEiFqprNRCwUe-8d/s320/fullBed.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>This is the current bed. We'll call it my adolescence. </i></span></span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I know this is not very interesting to you or answers any of the questions I've received about how my life is going these days, but...here it is. This is what I'm doing with myself lately.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> PS I'm extremely happy. Things are going just fine. I'll write about it sometime.</span></span>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-47673905884049511642011-03-11T18:05:00.000-08:002011-03-12T00:25:31.578-08:00Lent and a Leap of Faith<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It’s that time of year again—My most favorite torturous Catholic tradition that I’m totally not required to do but feel compelled to anyway. It’s Lent!</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJfvPUJvp-pPEsnFwOLeIF_ah-upzFReQHyehNDEke1PuZIcjGyOfondyghucXSjByhUEZ8KWPYhNLKcMhhsJKzeY1SK5_Y0ar-OpmbBHpQ1yi07L7nmZpIybkXSU0SHm0dCq4KphyphenhyphenYdat/s1600/funny-pictures-cheezburger-lent-cat1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJfvPUJvp-pPEsnFwOLeIF_ah-upzFReQHyehNDEke1PuZIcjGyOfondyghucXSjByhUEZ8KWPYhNLKcMhhsJKzeY1SK5_Y0ar-OpmbBHpQ1yi07L7nmZpIybkXSU0SHm0dCq4KphyphenhyphenYdat/s320/funny-pictures-cheezburger-lent-cat1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I’m giving up a lot of things in the next 40 days. Here they are, in order of difficulty from least to most:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span">1) Candy.</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> I don’t enjoy candy as much as I used to, so it makes me mad that I eat so much of it just because it’s always around. So this is a nice way to make me stop doing that. Not too hard.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span">2) Picking at my face.</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Like a stupid, self-mutilating monkey, I pick at my face constantly. I’m sure you all can attest to this. I am determined to break this habit, and I can already tell after only 2 days that this may be my most difficult Lent attempt ever. I am amazed at how much I do it, now that I’m paying attention. It’s such a terrible habit and if I really succeed in breaking it, I just may convert to Catholicism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span">3) A trip to Thailand.</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Sad cry sad. No, I’m not giving this up on purpose for Lent, but I am giving it up nonetheless. I was planning on going in April but something came up that required me to adjust my travel plans, which is…heartbreaking. I’m starting to think that the Powers That Be do not want me to visit Thailand ever. Maybe if I go there I’ll quickly become seduced into a life of prostitution and woe. Anyway, this is sad news but I made the decision for a good reason…which leads me to my next topic, the GOOD NEWS segment! Ba bada baaaaa…..</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I GOT A NEW JOB!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">HOORAY!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">WAHOO!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">YES PLEASE PLEASE THANK YOU AMEN.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not just a new job, kids: A complete career change. I’m going to be teaching piano for the </span><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.winderacademyofmusic.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span">Winder Academy of Music</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> . Woot! I know you’re thinking I’m the most random person in the world, and you’re probably right. But I’m a big fan of their program and the whole interview process was so fun and exciting and I’ll be involved in music every day and I feel really good about it and I can afford to only work part time if I want. Did you catch that? </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span">I will be living in southern California, 2 blocks from the beach, and working part time.</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dream job—Check.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So anyway, I’m still reeling from this development and how quickly it happened. I am a lucky, lucky girl when it comes to jobs, but great employment opportunities always seem follow this pattern for me: 1) Interview for something awesome “on a whim”; 2) Have a great interview where we really click, but still assume I’m totally unqualified and don’t take it seriously; 3) Have another interview/conversation that changes it from a “whim” to an actual possibility; 4) Struggle to start taking it seriously; 5) Get job offer, but under conditions that require major life changes and quickly at that; 6) Spend one long, sleepless night spent making a huge decision; 7) Accept job offer the next day; 7) Run to keep up for the next several months. I’m so happy this is happening but it’s a lot to take in at once. Kinda like when I moved here. And kinda like my quitting school to work in advertising before that. Apparently this is my MO.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well, huzzah. I am happy and so grateful. I hope it all works out I hope and I can learn how to be a good teacher. In the meantime, this post shall be followed with another one that I’m starting to compile now, entitled “Things I Will Not Miss About My Job.” I already have a list 6 miles long but I’ll give you the condensed version.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-57267139357178959992011-02-23T23:13:00.000-08:002011-02-23T23:15:13.058-08:00Doubting or Devoted?<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">If you’re interested, help me settle an internal debate: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are two opposing statements about human nature that I’ve thought a lot about, and I want to contrast them here. I’m curious what the masses (read: you 7 who follow my blog) think and why. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First is the great CS Lewis. I admit to having Brother Lewis on a pedestal, because I agree with most of what I’ve read and I am so persuaded by his easy logic and ring of truth statements. Therefore, some of what he teaches about human nature has significantly affected how I think about myself and others. From <i>Mere Christianity</i>, I quote:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>“When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts; they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberated and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; in only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.”</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This makes sense to me. I spend a lot of energy trying to curb the “natural man” in me, striving to be pleasant and friendly and kind and slow to anger and all that. My frequent failure to do so, however, has resulted in a tendency to really beat myself up. I’ll lose my temper at someone on the freeway and suddenly I feel like I’ve lost any ground I’ve gained in the positive direction. Back to square one, basically. I assume that, like Lewis says, the “real me” is the me that comes out when I’m caught off guard, when I don’t have time to shape an “appropriate” reaction. And I’m here to tell you, this girl is sometimes very slow to process and that instant reaction is not always great. So if that’s the real me, then…..not great.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Enter S. Michael Wilcox, an LDS speaker and institute teacher. Bro. Wilcox also has a simple, reasonable tone but he also speaks so much of love and mercy. His words take my breath away sometimes, in the sense that they are exactly what I need to hear. In a talk called “Using Scriptures to Solve Serious Problems” he coins something he calls the “Doubting Thomas Trap.” Though he’s talking in the context of marriage, I heard it as concerning myself. Here you go:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> <span style="color: blue;">Far too often couples fall into the Doubting Thomas trap.</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>If I were to ask this group to fill in the blank: ‘blank’ Thomas….You’re all going to say ‘Doubting’ Thomas. Poor old Thomas; he’s remembered at his worst. Isn’t that sad? Sometimes we say in a marriage that’s struggling a little bit, “Ah, now I know the real you.” And the ‘real’ you is usually you at your worst, right? So who is the ‘real’ Thomas? Doubting Thomas? And then I like to ask people a question: Can anybody here think of another story in the New Testament about Thomas? I rarely get a single hand go up. Nobody knows the other story about Thomas in the New Testament, and yet we see a different Thomas. It’s in the 11<sup>th</sup> chapter of John, when Jesus is going to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead. And the disciples are concerned, they say unto him, “Master the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again?” Your life is in danger if you go back towards Jerusalem. But Jesus is determined to go. And in the 16<sup>th</sup> verse we read, “then said Thomas, which is called Didymus unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.” </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: blue;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Now how else could we fill in the ‘blank’ Thomas? Devoted Thomas? Loyal Thomas, Sacrificing Thomas? ‘Willing to die for Jesus’ Thomas? So who is the real Thomas? Doubting Thomas, or Devoted Thomas? I like to think that Devoted Thomas was Thomas at his best. If we could just realize this in our marriages…as I think of my own wife. My wife at her best is the most magnificent woman God ever created on this earth. I, at my best, am…not too bad. And an eternity with somebody at their best is probably worth a few times when the stresses and frustrations of life bring out maybe not their best selves. Let us always realize that the person we married is them at their best; the devoted Thomas part of them, not the Doubting part of them.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>(Listen to this amazing talk <a href="http://media.byub.org/mp3/fuf/2005/10/fuf2005104-1192.mp3">here</a>)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Can I tell you, when I heard this my entire paradigm shifted. That sounds dramatic; But I really struggle with guilt and self-doubt, so to hear someone say that the worst parts about me don’t define me has been more helpful than any council I’ve sought out in a long time. I can go easier on myself when I think that way. I still try to do better and improve, but when I have a moment of weakness it doesn’t have the snowball effect of making me feel like a terrible person. That’s the idea, anyway—the practice of it will take time, but I like the idea. And it really has helped.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, time to compare. Is one right and one wrong? Does one ring more true to you than the other? I believe both of them but have found one of them to be sort of damaging to my self-image. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If I believe Lewis, then I haven’t really changed at all because I still get ridiculously angry sometimes; I still am unkind at times; I still have bad thoughts and temptations. Those things are the real me because they are they quickest, most raw sides of my personality.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But if I believe Wilcox, then I’m pretty great. I still have all those negative things in me, but at my very best I’m doing good things and am confident I’m ok.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s obvious which one is the more attractive school of thought. Of course I want to believe that I’m great, but it’s much easier to believe I’m not. This may not be true of everyone, but it’s true of me. Perhaps this is just the age-old debate about whether man is basically good or basically evil. Anyway, I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this. A note, however: I’m not looking for validations or comments about me. I use me as an example because, well, I’m most acquainted with my own experiences. I’d really like to hear about other people’s thoughts. </div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-27988531814168259252011-02-21T22:45:00.000-08:002011-02-21T22:45:17.636-08:00Baby making!An opportunity passed me by this weekend, and I don't want the same thing to happen to you.<br />
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<div>If a baby is to be born on 11/11/11, it needed to be conceived this weekend. I figure that with modern technology there's still a bit of time to make a baby and still deliver it on that day. And since my baby making powers are on restriction, I'm calling upon friends and family to make it happen. Melinda, McCall, Maria, CANDICE, Shannon, Elisha, heck, even Katrina, I'm looking at you. Just think of the historic place your child will hold in society!</div><div> </div><div>I'm shooting for 12/12/12. Not nearly as cool...but I'll take what I can get. </div></div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-29137006496872983002011-02-14T00:11:00.006-08:002011-02-14T00:41:01.669-08:00These daysI realize my blogging of late has not been fantastic....in fact, my mom told me that if I don't start blogging again I would have to join Facebook. And since none of us wants <i>that</i> to happen, I must obey by posting something.<br />
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I've been meaning to post about my New Year's Eve this year. I didn't hate it, which is newsworthy! In fact, I loved it. Some of the single ladies got the idea to stay in a hotel and hot tub 2010 away, and it was perfect. We ate Indian food, which was amazing, and then battled the freezing cold but beautiful January snow to our hotel and stayed there the rest of the night. I got really hyper and we ate peppermint ice cream in a hot tub, which is totally illegal but definitely worth the risk. Some pics:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujGeWhLSqykd6vDVtOT8mz3otBl77dKcMch_EjfoBd-8tLnAjnai-SiXxVf3CvSEdzV4PTQvoEdgHgCNY71AqezXH8Zd1wLZUdYqHRtXtFow5sVU8azaXl1tFZ5DCnDQBlEmVS3lm45x-/s1600/IMG_9434.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujGeWhLSqykd6vDVtOT8mz3otBl77dKcMch_EjfoBd-8tLnAjnai-SiXxVf3CvSEdzV4PTQvoEdgHgCNY71AqezXH8Zd1wLZUdYqHRtXtFow5sVU8azaXl1tFZ5DCnDQBlEmVS3lm45x-/s320/IMG_9434.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Pre hot tub, sans pants.</i><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2PpKNst4co9Asckgn49a9ApVgrjl07ZWDnsEKvEQYZe9u3pQWip2TeVg45iQTyHAl3Z8jCigHPBGPkAK5AFrKSYSbJnxyL8jU7oetCqajHftATdpI-YtiYDrFJGr6uaY7xI9UppuZMbqa/s1600/IMG_9437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2PpKNst4co9Asckgn49a9ApVgrjl07ZWDnsEKvEQYZe9u3pQWip2TeVg45iQTyHAl3Z8jCigHPBGPkAK5AFrKSYSbJnxyL8jU7oetCqajHftATdpI-YtiYDrFJGr6uaY7xI9UppuZMbqa/s320/IMG_9437.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4hn6PjEJyBJO8TRE5IU7w5iix5kvVR0RrYqY-BN8jbsB3PfoSjKbW_on2vrIpO60HdZ7hbp29Go72p8ADFIEkN_-emtg4HKBsUu5-HOtKqsfB8V4wMtSMRBqnjusVk4uKWs0sEY6Zcj5/s1600/IMG_9439.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4hn6PjEJyBJO8TRE5IU7w5iix5kvVR0RrYqY-BN8jbsB3PfoSjKbW_on2vrIpO60HdZ7hbp29Go72p8ADFIEkN_-emtg4HKBsUu5-HOtKqsfB8V4wMtSMRBqnjusVk4uKWs0sEY6Zcj5/s320/IMG_9439.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Have I mentioned I look 12 when wet?</i><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94tQ36Zl94rhPMdqTrXBNHV0vR8Xace813tFITczV-mHciBFwdTqwLuFnmUlAXRSpEpe3AiFb-AZyTOVKssIvTb4jkclQt2u_eCUklysUtFHlbp-MByF8TopvvHyJ4wMrOCtB_8tvPNoi/s1600/IMG_9448.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94tQ36Zl94rhPMdqTrXBNHV0vR8Xace813tFITczV-mHciBFwdTqwLuFnmUlAXRSpEpe3AiFb-AZyTOVKssIvTb4jkclQt2u_eCUklysUtFHlbp-MByF8TopvvHyJ4wMrOCtB_8tvPNoi/s320/IMG_9448.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Gretchen kept drowning me. <br />
No really, she was drowning me. We all thought it was hilarious, I guess.</i><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd92JPDjaAyDbyfpqsIYprzR6_64ERHb1KIlkqCfpyICS3qYRXwFFtxBlbHpznFarswJjI3X14QlTFwCrZ-41CSwKA0L9KM7en1r4HfRUGIPBduUaVp1qJZtlkGISLHouG3OehLDUIUPb-/s1600/IMG_9453.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd92JPDjaAyDbyfpqsIYprzR6_64ERHb1KIlkqCfpyICS3qYRXwFFtxBlbHpznFarswJjI3X14QlTFwCrZ-41CSwKA0L9KM7en1r4HfRUGIPBduUaVp1qJZtlkGISLHouG3OehLDUIUPb-/s320/IMG_9453.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Midnight! I mysteriously disappeared at this point.</i><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">A coupla weeks ago I went with some friends to Mexico for lunch, "just because we can." <br />
Some highlights:<i> </i></div></div>--Not getting beheaded<br />
--Best horchata I've ever had<br />
--Donkeys painted like zebras are all the rage over there<br />
--Crossing the border into Mexico feels like entering Disneyland or something because you literally walk through a turnstile and you're there. We didn't even have to show our passports. In fact, the sign that points the way says "West Parking lot and Mexico." No big deal.<br />
--Spence bought us giant sombreros and made us wear them the whole way home. People cheered us on as we walked by, thinking to themselves (and sometimes aloud) "you can always tell the ones who've had too much to drink." Little did they know we're just a bunch of Mormon kids who are all hopped up on horchata.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsYx5xvfqQbrj2oinqxNjbyCbulOgSjafLGqvDu9zFxs8P952x2dFbzKd71rXjqWzCupKFE9OpI3TIgEfjn-oGwh16Q3suE7qIWOZ3qYs1laGdo-HSCFNM-_TTexZRSaPb668_P2mRKukh/s1600/stef.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsYx5xvfqQbrj2oinqxNjbyCbulOgSjafLGqvDu9zFxs8P952x2dFbzKd71rXjqWzCupKFE9OpI3TIgEfjn-oGwh16Q3suE7qIWOZ3qYs1laGdo-HSCFNM-_TTexZRSaPb668_P2mRKukh/s320/stef.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>We're using this as our engagement pic. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Other things of note: I did a small floral job recently. I'm trying to slowly work my way back into doing floral design, so spread the word if you know of anyone who needs flowers. Here are some shots of the latest, which were used in a photo shoot for an interior design firm:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFTkygDogVXzUuckEzEImF2o-6IbnfOzf_B4v7D-u9nO_iOD4x7p7QaFSZxVz8Ij_4jkngMlymqCwp-c1ahButJfCEF3kR4t_vmTRspVxH8V0BkisGwiKz0s_Q61Eai9dcLYGujTGC53RX/s1600/IMG_9487.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFTkygDogVXzUuckEzEImF2o-6IbnfOzf_B4v7D-u9nO_iOD4x7p7QaFSZxVz8Ij_4jkngMlymqCwp-c1ahButJfCEF3kR4t_vmTRspVxH8V0BkisGwiKz0s_Q61Eai9dcLYGujTGC53RX/s320/IMG_9487.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP9xNz39zPZEn8I2leTys4eBSngcsWq4k8g8l5KzWCxdfKfv5NaImeM7dl6bPiTdvtohTUceA2k-6RLSRwvPMio3T1He_1f7_M1ruiOP0qtCg4KvkrJiaD9vijhvmoVtzhqeGsl2KZ6tGq/s1600/IMG_9496.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP9xNz39zPZEn8I2leTys4eBSngcsWq4k8g8l5KzWCxdfKfv5NaImeM7dl6bPiTdvtohTUceA2k-6RLSRwvPMio3T1He_1f7_M1ruiOP0qtCg4KvkrJiaD9vijhvmoVtzhqeGsl2KZ6tGq/s320/IMG_9496.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Hmmmm....what else?</div><div style="text-align: left;">I just got back from San Diego with my parents this weekend. I really loved San Diego! I was worried about us having enough to do, but we had plenty. Go there. Go there now. Highlights:</div><div style="text-align: left;">--Coronado </div><div style="text-align: left;">--Old-fashioned candy on Coronado. Necco wafers, black licorice, and even these Italian seltzer candies I've been looking for allover the place! Yes, I meant to write allover as one word.</div><div style="text-align: left;">--My dad's reaction to the big aircraft carrier we happened upon. Picture 10-year-old excitement trapped in a mature adult's brain and vocabulary, and you get this: "That is...really cool..." repeated about 10 times. Very cute. </div><div style="text-align: left;">--She crab soup </div><div style="text-align: left;">--Vacation Mom</div><div style="text-align: left;">--The ward choir at the sacrament meeting we visited was AMAZING. They only had about 10 people singing, but they had this rocking organ player and they seriously gave me goosebumps. I couldn't believe it. It would have been even cooler if my mom had walked up there to sing with them like I dared her to, but oh well.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
I've been kind of all over the place lately--I went to Vegas to see Maria last weekend (which was super fun and I can't wait for her to bring back the shoes we bought to share--we're the Sisterhood of the Traveling Shoes); to St. George before that with my ladies from Utah (which was also super fun, in that way that only exists with people you've known forever and love forever and ever amen), and now I'm tired so I'm going to bed. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">PS The weather in the last month has been exactly what I changed my entire life to move here for. </div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-51692369672199446212011-01-30T22:31:00.001-08:002011-01-30T22:32:53.281-08:00Year in a day<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">If January 1<sup>st</sup>, 2011 was any indication of how the rest of the year will play out, it will look a little something like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Act 1: Cold, Dark, and Alone</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">My breath struggled to even leave my body, frozen inside me, as I rushed out to my borrowed car. Cold that deep leaves me in shock, stripped down to the basics of survival and aching to escape. So drive toward my escape I did, albeit slowly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Act 2: The Great Escape</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Still early in the day, I took my last few strained breaths and gleefully blew out the visible toxins, knowing they were my last like that for a while, maybe forever. I almost laughed in anticipation of my freedom, of flying, of soaring high above the cold and the dark. But still alone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Act 3: The Sun</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">The early rays start to chip away at the ice I’ve grown accustomed to. I’m still cold, but starting to thaw. The sun is hope, refreshment, banishment of darkness, and I smile way too much just at the hint of it. These next few hours are mine to bask in its glow, to both wake up and rest and to keep concerns on hold for a while. I need sleep, and I need affection, and I need my ocean waves to carry me to safety. And I need to walk. To move. To become and to realize. I need to need more than cold, dark, and alone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Act 4: Friends</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">The absence has been long, so reuniting is also long. I tell my secrets and you tell yours, and we make new ones to keep us laughing for months to come. That comfort sometimes seems so far away, but I realize it’s my own hand staying its warmth. I do my best to stay my hand. With the sun and with friends, I start to remember the opposite of numb.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Act 5: Warm and Safe and Sound, For Now</b> </div><div class="MsoNormal">It ends the way any day should, with calm and compatibility. Reflection makes me grateful and sleep gradually but firmly takes over.</div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-91368532810254961142010-11-11T23:49:00.004-08:002010-11-11T23:51:26.548-08:0011/11<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgUVgZVhUTBxNDeJtfEr6o3VpLTQSxD_mOhUO4kZwcABHAhIGVs0A-r7hMCBarxdBGG58X_IP3FMp9UO6x1vN4tI933F-vaX3OUQYM4m8eKNkkkcnQqkOcU7LQmEy9rWfFr02Rf0qfLeu/s1600/11-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgUVgZVhUTBxNDeJtfEr6o3VpLTQSxD_mOhUO4kZwcABHAhIGVs0A-r7hMCBarxdBGG58X_IP3FMp9UO6x1vN4tI933F-vaX3OUQYM4m8eKNkkkcnQqkOcU7LQmEy9rWfFr02Rf0qfLeu/s400/11-11.jpg" width="311" /></a></td></tr>
<tr style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's a special day! I hope you made lots of wishes. I did.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-15671595122858233352010-11-10T20:57:00.003-08:002010-11-12T17:28:23.556-08:00Daylight Savings<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpFJGiiH1xRRTXcAsQeAifjUOJHgdtfgcR2ydV9Lfjm20lPLDRXLggImX_Ge6jNjwA2j3DvIuha6KjUt7dHtK64mEWOREpZ9StM_nBqBbu6PU9-FYVP7Y26d0oXlrIoNqRaa5ySOI2f7c/s1600/persephone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpFJGiiH1xRRTXcAsQeAifjUOJHgdtfgcR2ydV9Lfjm20lPLDRXLggImX_Ge6jNjwA2j3DvIuha6KjUt7dHtK64mEWOREpZ9StM_nBqBbu6PU9-FYVP7Y26d0oXlrIoNqRaa5ySOI2f7c/s320/persephone.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">No, this isn’t a post about some funny thing that happened to me because of a surprise time change. This is about theft. Specifically, the theft of one hour of my day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I inherited several things from my father, i.e. crooked teeth, a love for writing, the gradual disappearing of my bum (mom contributed to that too, so my poor buttskies don’t stand a chance), an increasing use of mustard, and….the loathing of decreased daylight. You know that myth, the one about Persephone and springtime and flowers and stuff? I don’t really either, but her name sounds like mine and I feel a kinship with her. The gist is that she was captured by Hades and held prisoner in the underworld, only to be let out once a year to frolic above ground. She was so happy to see the light of day—and mother earth was equally enamored of her—that wherever she went sprang flowers and new life. Thus, the coming of Spring every year. Do you see where I’m going with this? No, I don’t consider myself the breath of life that invigorates mankind and gives new hope to the world each year. My conclusion is simply this: Not having daylight is akin to being banished to hell.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ever since moving to California I’ve wondered when my obsession with the beach, sunshine, and warmth would run itself out of my system. Naturally, I figured that being starved of all three of these at least 9 months out of every year would result in a short-lived, wild-eyed sun frenzy, kind of like when I got addicted to not sleeping as soon as I moved away from my parents’ house and into the co-ed dorms at USU. Since that only took about a semester to wear off (the <i>addiction</i> to not sleeping, not the actual not sleeping), I think I figured this beach thing would too. But…alas, I remain besotted with sun.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Besotted with sun. That’s a lovely phrase.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, my relationship with daylight is very high maintenance. Since my work day is really long, sometimes I don’t see the sun all day. By the time Wednesday or Thursday rolls around, I feel weird, and by Friday I’m all messed up. Sure, this could be attributed to many other factors, but when I think to myself “I feel weird, what’s going on?” The first thing my self responds with is “Why is it dark right now? I want to go outside.” And then I’m terribly distracted with images of me, basking in the sun, not necessarily doing anything but recharging. That’s exactly what sunlight feels like to me—I’m a giant dry battery, and the sun is my charger. The weekends are barely enough to recharge me for the week, and I find myself plotting dangerous things to get more hits during my work day (like extra long lunch breaks, complete with a blanket and a book and a questionable park and pants that can be rolled up to become shorts and light layers so I don’t get too hot and sunglasses, etc. etc. etc.). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You would think moving here, the "Golden Coast," would satiate me. That’s what I thought. But as it turns out, I still have to go to work and stuff. It nearly kills me if I have to run an errand on a Saturday that involves getting in my car and going somewhere indoors. Some of you have visited and have perhaps seen how my anxiety level increases the longer I’m out of the sun on the weekends. I’m a junkie. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. Every addict reaches a point where they have to either give up and let the beast take over, or give up and get help. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In short, I’m really sad that it’s November 10 and when I leave work at 5 I only catch about 20 minutes of sunlight. No more running at Manhattan Beach. No more happiness.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Ok, that was overdramatic. How about this instead: I will try to keep my chin up while I tap into the backup charger, which is food (more on that in subsequent posts!). In the meantime, join me and my dad in gritting your teeth and hunkering down until the dawn of the best day of the year: December 21. It only gets better from there! </span></div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-68418702967768663782010-11-01T12:35:00.000-07:002010-11-01T12:35:48.454-07:00Halloween 2010I hate being away from Utah on Halloween, turns out.<br />
I did my best with the crushing homesickness and produced this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzW4uSNRx9EX7MV28FYqPFjfco70wEw2ErOiZZJzrIntKcN25EMyjSAmL7VFTb3I0F0Ch8VHI3Qp58Z1jFWCCLzyXJDldINYgsmJFvs0sN6hzViT1Mwh2qS-knTuoq7N9eUeEo3eKD2c3D/s1600/IMG_9323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzW4uSNRx9EX7MV28FYqPFjfco70wEw2ErOiZZJzrIntKcN25EMyjSAmL7VFTb3I0F0Ch8VHI3Qp58Z1jFWCCLzyXJDldINYgsmJFvs0sN6hzViT1Mwh2qS-knTuoq7N9eUeEo3eKD2c3D/s320/IMG_9323.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <i>I'm a tornado, duh.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">And here I am spinning.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN-XASaKgv2-VyMeeIKI-q6_cspS2eyPEFWS9WzS-Uq5AtXKapASgqZZyO-qNbPJbQaNFrJuztpE_DpMS6E9WPBIjh0BMJLUv6LQMTcqgn8A2IFfiFm5SV0we0tvd8ZLtS72p9ssin3ETL/s1600/IMG_9324.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN-XASaKgv2-VyMeeIKI-q6_cspS2eyPEFWS9WzS-Uq5AtXKapASgqZZyO-qNbPJbQaNFrJuztpE_DpMS6E9WPBIjh0BMJLUv6LQMTcqgn8A2IFfiFm5SV0we0tvd8ZLtS72p9ssin3ETL/s200/IMG_9324.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">...and dancing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXFSsWWSZgktG5P2cg1ebf-k6I9z91i9YZ5sR5C2GjWYmRj6qprxZYPDn6b-E2e4TDa9BN9zus7-LUasLcKJ2v14n5i1l8WvYEg84AiIv9KsFTNdSW8tHZcIuWQa5PAeeuvJY04tLJSoa/s1600/IMG_9327.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXFSsWWSZgktG5P2cg1ebf-k6I9z91i9YZ5sR5C2GjWYmRj6qprxZYPDn6b-E2e4TDa9BN9zus7-LUasLcKJ2v14n5i1l8WvYEg84AiIv9KsFTNdSW8tHZcIuWQa5PAeeuvJY04tLJSoa/s320/IMG_9327.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">...and sprouting arms in grumpiness. Probably because someone mistook me for a tampon. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1TYnaB-VTjMt1sPA2_NQiFXF9aH_sBw_goklmTwtUzZ6_4F6Ol6CeVGHG72DRw6QYsbHfiSudP4yTTcUgtRYee7480Ev3ViLTj1000a1X9ZPHWsPb0dpQoBXVC24pW38NvoEoaOP1kYx/s1600/IMG_9326.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1TYnaB-VTjMt1sPA2_NQiFXF9aH_sBw_goklmTwtUzZ6_4F6Ol6CeVGHG72DRw6QYsbHfiSudP4yTTcUgtRYee7480Ev3ViLTj1000a1X9ZPHWsPb0dpQoBXVC24pW38NvoEoaOP1kYx/s320/IMG_9326.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;">And, finally, calling it a night. Riding in the car with a troll doll.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipc8zurdAFS1WCMhCZ5JT3y0NvlHKuiE3G0vksHOb-iY4TLR98TuVZoveqSc0DM1cC_KoCmSBJt29HQHKOj3fNOX4W9C4_bh-BqHLz2tt_dr7Q2qKmtMb-oBrzpZff67acY9kv9bysA_Pi/s1600/IMG_9335.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipc8zurdAFS1WCMhCZ5JT3y0NvlHKuiE3G0vksHOb-iY4TLR98TuVZoveqSc0DM1cC_KoCmSBJt29HQHKOj3fNOX4W9C4_bh-BqHLz2tt_dr7Q2qKmtMb-oBrzpZff67acY9kv9bysA_Pi/s320/IMG_9335.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Happy Halloween, from far far away!</div><br />
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</div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-86989463311556009472010-10-14T18:41:00.002-07:002010-10-14T18:46:25.419-07:00CUPCAKES!!!! Oh my gosh I love cupcakes.<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I made cupcakes last night for a birthday. White cake mix, cream cheese frosting, done. They are SO good.<br />
I’ve known for awhile that cupcakes are good. Like, since I was 6. That’s what I always requested for my birthday cake—vanilla cupcakes with vanilla or cream cheese frosting. Yes, I was ahead of the cupcake curve. I knew then and I know now that cupcakes are good, and why are they good? Because they are golden brown on all sides. Because they’re less formidable than an entire cake. Because in about three bites it’s over and you’re happy. NOT because they have frosting piled 6 feet high. NOT because they cost $4. And NOT because they’re exotic and overwrought with ingredients like rose hip jelly and saffron buttercream cookie crumble.<br />
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Why am I so annoyed by modern cupcakes?<br />
No really, why? Why does this bother me so much?<br />
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I guess because I feel they’ve been prostituted. Something I liked for its very simplicity is now a convoluted, trendy mess of a confection that will make me gouge my eyes out if I see one more super hip shop dedicated solely to fulfilling your wildest cupcake dreams. Sure, they’re inherently cute and tasty and I can’t blame people for wanting to capitalize on that. But that ship sailed 10 years ago or something! We need to get over cupcakes! Well, at least over the cupcake frenzy. And we especially need to stop doing giant cupcake cakes. I’m completely mystified by a miniature cake imitating a full-sized cake by becoming full-sized. There’s a term for that, but I can’t remember....life imitating art? Meta? No, wait, I remember: super nerdy.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivWpN-2qnZeeoGXDV7J5rkNnQt7dp1dkD_HLPikGlfZjhkaO-G4OU6aEPN8VW7x1-hQqTGnueugDH896kDjSLHx93cQLMoUIM3w_eL-K7MWUy6ih7KF_X-C7NzYZxEYqcEgxi51clpm3if/s1600/547901v1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivWpN-2qnZeeoGXDV7J5rkNnQt7dp1dkD_HLPikGlfZjhkaO-G4OU6aEPN8VW7x1-hQqTGnueugDH896kDjSLHx93cQLMoUIM3w_eL-K7MWUy6ih7KF_X-C7NzYZxEYqcEgxi51clpm3if/s200/547901v1.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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No offense if you’re starting a cupcake shop, had or are having cupcakes at your wedding, or if you just baked your child a giant cupcake birthday cake. I admit that these new cupcakes are sometimes really, really yummy. But like a good song that comes out and then 1 month later makes you want to surgically remove your ears because it’s been so overplayed, cupcakes need to keep their distance from me for awhile. </span>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-37123773632287251232010-09-23T22:42:00.004-07:002010-09-23T22:45:23.936-07:00Words, words, words<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So I’ve been reading again. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As I’ve gotten older, I’ve outgrown a lot of things. Boundless energy, for one. A passion for miniature replicas of everyday items, for another. There was the turtle/frog phase, the playing orphanage phase, the pictures of shirtless Tom Cruise phase (Side note: This was when I first discovered the internet. And hot on the heals of this new delight was the revelation that one must be careful what one searches for on the internet. A shirtless Tom Cruise can very easily become a pantsless Tom Cruise, and at that point it’s only the sluggishness of a circa 1997 dial-up that preserves one’s innocence). But my childhood left me with one enduring passion: Reading. I thought maybe I’d sort of outgrown this too, but recent events have proven otherwise.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUASVUcLMbSX7KkzH31UNhOQjUbheAQvS4nGocUnM6k50VQ2-Wtz4qkD4Nv5NZjjBaMz8kmRVp4WAfYgZnfyNTaVxEcyilEhnBvKclPnQK2nEpZ860CMbnzfMjPH_mK9h4bwqDY1z4F665/s1600/tom-cruise-at-yahoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUASVUcLMbSX7KkzH31UNhOQjUbheAQvS4nGocUnM6k50VQ2-Wtz4qkD4Nv5NZjjBaMz8kmRVp4WAfYgZnfyNTaVxEcyilEhnBvKclPnQK2nEpZ860CMbnzfMjPH_mK9h4bwqDY1z4F665/s320/tom-cruise-at-yahoo.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"> <o:p></o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Tom Cruise has changed. I haven't. </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I spent last week in a self-imposed prison. I say prison because it’s the only word strong enough to convey the hold on me certain books can get. To say I become enthralled is not enough. Distracted, addicted, consumed…those get a little closer. But I think it’s safe to say that I am held captive by books. They don’t even have to be particularly fantastic books either—obviously, because The Babysitter’s Club has stolen many an hour of my life. But if there’s a story and I want to know how it ends, I have to say goodbye to every other thing I have going on in my life until it’s over. My family used to tease me for trying to read books at the dinner table, while walking, while I was supposed to be doing homework or practicing the piano or playing outside in the summer.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHPGbxLsDB-YjP3Mh7_jL25X3B1r69wKavsgiZBcmOXLZyPtpYOZ8K1ViBrq77n-0uhgvPAVFIR7miamng2fsWZz5j9tIQvr01nWJxId-Zhyphenhyphend9Ao0jCPhAmjdMopunVasLJundPycOt82/s1600/Homework.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHPGbxLsDB-YjP3Mh7_jL25X3B1r69wKavsgiZBcmOXLZyPtpYOZ8K1ViBrq77n-0uhgvPAVFIR7miamng2fsWZz5j9tIQvr01nWJxId-Zhyphenhyphend9Ao0jCPhAmjdMopunVasLJundPycOt82/s320/Homework.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What? I'm doing my homework.</i></span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZyvKLletwew8nwNdRWX5u5kg-QtfO3CN6gaNy3qL7nez15GFdewT-i68DUNJl2khsJr-0qWYgSX3t-9DzrTRhMV8V8RSwBOFTPYFR9RGHMXaWSsbgO8WOxwL-caxuXcwTTn5TzcrLvro/s1600/Piano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiZyvKLletwew8nwNdRWX5u5kg-QtfO3CN6gaNy3qL7nez15GFdewT-i68DUNJl2khsJr-0qWYgSX3t-9DzrTRhMV8V8RSwBOFTPYFR9RGHMXaWSsbgO8WOxwL-caxuXcwTTn5TzcrLvro/s320/Piano.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What? I'm practicing piano.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinY2xI-NIZGjpf_bBqom01hp3D9F9ix8Z6rGHXVa9OitC4QnaH2BTjN61rIznSwidYltp6V3FCsuqmsxyeOkb9xcZXBocmgrbzFxzQqj2zltD4c75l2NGTm8_qpcHaORFiIMXiyO3qTPMT/s1600/Reading.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinY2xI-NIZGjpf_bBqom01hp3D9F9ix8Z6rGHXVa9OitC4QnaH2BTjN61rIznSwidYltp6V3FCsuqmsxyeOkb9xcZXBocmgrbzFxzQqj2zltD4c75l2NGTm8_qpcHaORFiIMXiyO3qTPMT/s320/Reading.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What? My hair is permed. Especially my bangs.</i></span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>In the last few years I’ve gone on and off with reading because I’ve become ridiculously busy. But every once in awhile, one of these books grabs hold of me and it’s not until a few days later, when I dazedly come up for air and see the shambles that is my neglected life, that I realize I have a problem. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I’m starting to think it’s not healthy. Like any other hobby, I guess it can be too all-consuming and start to steal from the other facets of life…like personal hygiene and social pursuits. Because when I read, I don’t care if I see another soul for days. I can’t seem to find the motivation to go running or eat a real meal or stick to a normal-length lunch break because the alternate world I’ve entered is much more inviting. Scary, isn’t it? I’ve always thought it was ok because, well, it’s reading. It’s not video games and it’s not porn and it’s not drugs or Renaissance reenactments or, I dunno, compulsive gambling or other things I consider deplorable. It’s <i>reading</i>. Reading is good for you! Reading makes you smarter! Reading is something precious, an ability and a privilege held sacred since the invention of writing. Right? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Is it possible that reading, for me, is a vice?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nay.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I just felt like saying nay. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But really, I hope not. It’s true, I probably need to chill out a bit and not give up the few hours of sleep I’m lucky to get by finishing a few more chapters of my latest book. But I can’t do it! It’s a dang good thing that this relatively innocent thing happens to be my compulsion because the lack of self-control I’m exhibiting is frightening. I’m starting to get an idea of what life would be like if I had a <a href="http://teesbox.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/lindsay-lohan-drunk.jpg">fondness for alcohol</a>. Thank goodness for acceptable pursuits!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So I’ve been reading again. And how.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the last 2 weeks I’ve read <i>The Hiding Place</i> and all three <i>Hunger Games</i> books, and now I’m on to <i>Don’t Get Too Comfortable</i> by David Rakoff. Any new recommendations for me? I’m on a roll.</div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-55528653564191084302010-09-18T18:14:00.000-07:002010-09-18T18:14:57.002-07:00Dancing QueenWell, I've found my calling in life. I suppose I've always known it, but today it's been made quite clear that I was put on this earth to dance. At people's weddings.<br />
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I've earned far too much face time on cameras doing this (most of you readers are probably nodding your heads because you've seen me plastered all over your wedding videos) and it's slightly embarrassing, because I'm usually not an integral part of anyone's wedding party. But my only defense is this: When I ask what I can do to help with someone's wedding, the inevitable response is "Dance!" Apparently there is a great need for young single girls to dance like it's going out of style so that the marriage will be successful. Those who know me know that this is a job I can do.<br />
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And, brides of the world, I am happy to do so. If I accomplish nothing more than occupying a 12x12 dance floor for 2 hours of your special day, then I've succeeded in this life.A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-43360093785119448992010-09-01T22:17:00.001-07:002010-09-01T22:17:52.590-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHp7bnP88D6aYaXCcMeKMt9TXmD5GEcHs4ZcHsIP9nIy4wrPkbrVqL4mZwnAWR4kB7qmk89YGHleEXHrW5-WdqSqETk7HXYRzhgJDqcVZZmjxUZl37365k1_S7i46-KYfVPcPL2ZXwp_kn/s1600/Picture+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHp7bnP88D6aYaXCcMeKMt9TXmD5GEcHs4ZcHsIP9nIy4wrPkbrVqL4mZwnAWR4kB7qmk89YGHleEXHrW5-WdqSqETk7HXYRzhgJDqcVZZmjxUZl37365k1_S7i46-KYfVPcPL2ZXwp_kn/s640/Picture+1.png" width="640" /></a></div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-24283541528005830362010-08-23T19:32:00.001-07:002010-08-24T23:18:32.979-07:00Welcome to SummerI know most of the country is enjoying what they consider the winding down days of summer. But here in Southern California, Summer's just beginning. This last weekend, for the first time, each day arrived with little or no fog, and finished without any chilly wind and with temperatures above 75º. Finally. I will tell you that every single Californian I've talked to says "this is the coldest summer we've had in 30 years." Seriously, we've averaged 65º probably, with it being downright cold at night. For those of you who've been suffering through very hot summers, I'm sure this sounds like bliss. It probably is bliss. But I'm a spoiled little sun worshipper who just hasn't gotten her fill this year, so I'm determined not to be satisfied with bliss--I want bliss + 10º, apparently. Anyway, I'm very excited about the sudden warmth and have spent every spare minute at the beach this weekend. I'm a lucky girl. I hope it lasts.<br />
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And now, I present some pictures because the public demands it.<br />
Ok, nobody has actually asked for pictures. But, uh, here you go.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDWJxqgu6RLUdOm9wT4IS8ttppcqjev5YimTtzZMxbMW7YkH_sFbyNoYgmNzcsdv1pGkiOOmH5vSFzHn2OKkyqHU7GU3ztcSW0e0eDR0n2Cs5fQYYQf8dKyQBjsU-Yj7yfSEcECpMxuilM/s1600/IMG_1769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDWJxqgu6RLUdOm9wT4IS8ttppcqjev5YimTtzZMxbMW7YkH_sFbyNoYgmNzcsdv1pGkiOOmH5vSFzHn2OKkyqHU7GU3ztcSW0e0eDR0n2Cs5fQYYQf8dKyQBjsU-Yj7yfSEcECpMxuilM/s320/IMG_1769.JPG" /></a></div><br />
This is me with my friend Olliviah on the 4th of July. A crazy lady saw us take this picture and complimented us profusely on our patriotic outfits. She then asked "Are you besties?" This is a word I'm not yet comfortable with, and lots of people use it around here. It means best friends, in case you're wondering. Anyway, I just said yes to get the lady to go away, and poor Olliviah is perpetually honest and proceeded to awkwardly look at me and try to put a name on our friendship. "We're still getting to be friends, I guess. We have fun together. We don't really know each other that well yet..."<br />
Anyway, we're friends. She's not convinced, but I am.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKzO_HJhgmx3ExKnxHCOZWdRtCyyRZmJSlYO6GK1qVIrS0VQHOFt3XM9wFQ23PD67A9lsmWFyaDk3ak5NwpDrZpB8U4m_IDrJLRkWATMTm0igIbzwYECRdREot7CtMRytoz1cLwzuMevv/s1600/IMG_1726.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKzO_HJhgmx3ExKnxHCOZWdRtCyyRZmJSlYO6GK1qVIrS0VQHOFt3XM9wFQ23PD67A9lsmWFyaDk3ak5NwpDrZpB8U4m_IDrJLRkWATMTm0igIbzwYECRdREot7CtMRytoz1cLwzuMevv/s320/IMG_1726.JPG" /></a></div>This is at a party celebrating my friend Aaron's status as a full-fledged fire fighter. If you can't tell, I'm putting out a fire with a very large imaginary hose in this picture. Spencer (on the right) looks drunk but isn't. I promise.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSosn54zgxsHdcDERt2N8fYurQZLcli53dHgPhf6NdfEQoXkd5Qq4jTiSTLX5jSqHs33FVJBkZyB5JRbNH_7dCgOqaQU9kbYlquGloX6mH6GlTxOJCWPuRQZjFH3Aqss7MnM7WLDv1-sI/s1600/IMG_9015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSosn54zgxsHdcDERt2N8fYurQZLcli53dHgPhf6NdfEQoXkd5Qq4jTiSTLX5jSqHs33FVJBkZyB5JRbNH_7dCgOqaQU9kbYlquGloX6mH6GlTxOJCWPuRQZjFH3Aqss7MnM7WLDv1-sI/s320/IMG_9015.JPG" /></a></div>Me with godchild Claire. Claire and Melinda came to visit last month and I'm not over it yet. This baby is magical and we're in love. She makes the best faces in the world, and I haven't even been around to teach her, so that says a lot about her natural talent.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4R3quLDLNHcmRpkLY_bKdxUTNRVjaSJWRcljsExe4yUnMED-2w5iw7qOKhqTwVYbtscLjXMx8dp3UjTLuapv7L-b3FI1CQc9bhwdJwlPdUO7mz9riS6mthCf09X07ZMDPSgiTGEUAIqo/s1600/IMG_9009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4R3quLDLNHcmRpkLY_bKdxUTNRVjaSJWRcljsExe4yUnMED-2w5iw7qOKhqTwVYbtscLjXMx8dp3UjTLuapv7L-b3FI1CQc9bhwdJwlPdUO7mz9riS6mthCf09X07ZMDPSgiTGEUAIqo/s200/IMG_9009.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfIBDJns-lIJRTVxlQnvTKsvkuI8w3B_CKSUBDMllCT-z5Njvfxe1Bnu5dRPO1vQTCj_gNKDjY17y7xjmLggdAJIvRcpnwYIJE5NJKQLmiWJ_dGurggVBFUSxWfglm5XgkjrxHfZIMaNtt/s1600/IMG_9037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfIBDJns-lIJRTVxlQnvTKsvkuI8w3B_CKSUBDMllCT-z5Njvfxe1Bnu5dRPO1vQTCj_gNKDjY17y7xjmLggdAJIvRcpnwYIJE5NJKQLmiWJ_dGurggVBFUSxWfglm5XgkjrxHfZIMaNtt/s200/IMG_9037.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br />
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In other news, Shannon came to visit a long time ago. This is us near Main street. Those trees line the ocean I run alongside every other day. Love.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I hate blogger. It's so hard to format. Anyway, last but not least I shall show you some pics from Maria's wedding flowers I did last month also. Her wedding was fun, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of things besides flowers, so....boring. But I liked how they turned out.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s320/IMG_8931.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHlQv6OGDRAKHpM5frmGhEQ3SCjmjuSUNp2cwPitndHlXNxsGTfPl3RI4_R7idyQCw9BNGv_esCYKi2YmM24IAhdjMxOhn-aEszVHadL2RaMbTID_7jePsyFkC7hy4zW7Yt2OhxlFih26m/s1600/IMG_8920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHlQv6OGDRAKHpM5frmGhEQ3SCjmjuSUNp2cwPitndHlXNxsGTfPl3RI4_R7idyQCw9BNGv_esCYKi2YmM24IAhdjMxOhn-aEszVHadL2RaMbTID_7jePsyFkC7hy4zW7Yt2OhxlFih26m/s320/IMG_8920.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUgoA9p5Yw33DXVI-UJONw-BjSRi_QYjyvno0F7O7LTk0lRunLh6hg5XwbY6lexj2BFiWARZZ3TTsHSna-Zd-GGotQEep7TEFY-u5BAP1PZwrKGqgJG8jfXdY5ZUsT3vi-_h9fm56I2h0/s1600/IMG_8912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUgoA9p5Yw33DXVI-UJONw-BjSRi_QYjyvno0F7O7LTk0lRunLh6hg5XwbY6lexj2BFiWARZZ3TTsHSna-Zd-GGotQEep7TEFY-u5BAP1PZwrKGqgJG8jfXdY5ZUsT3vi-_h9fm56I2h0/s320/IMG_8912.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffO2cNwat5OxmhFnomgNu6KMIpLCbAVqu-gGCn8pOyAAQElaHSzk0O4zWt1m1zVBXiFbwWAFgBzghL5coqDcCk2dAeIRv2xVbmPudivB6iJDsVu8bmUKdjp3birmmZEHLewhe4rUnWqmw/s1600/IMG_8916.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffO2cNwat5OxmhFnomgNu6KMIpLCbAVqu-gGCn8pOyAAQElaHSzk0O4zWt1m1zVBXiFbwWAFgBzghL5coqDcCk2dAeIRv2xVbmPudivB6iJDsVu8bmUKdjp3birmmZEHLewhe4rUnWqmw/s320/IMG_8916.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I might be wanting to start doing some flowers around here. I like doing it and I think I'm better at it than I am at graphic design. Don't tell my boss--I've worked hard to pull the wool over his eyes. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Well, I guess that's it. Just a bit of an update this time. I should have some more exciting stories to tell next time I muster up the blog energy.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">See ya, besties!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">xoxo</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFyfT0JjD4moBpo1eKC3rD7M7_CEDfGiJyzmWNwbgyilPG3SvW1FJWMUfOJP90hDKpANuUvhGZ7yUShlSLxw15Zz0LkuTW61Je-mNaOePFWX1M4XzFO8uV8_KPLCoHKlp5RFWzmJHQSJ1T/s1600/IMG_8931.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-89126298130102311522010-08-08T18:24:00.000-07:002010-08-08T18:24:43.547-07:00LatelyLately...<br />
I don't feel much like blogging. I try to be outside as much as possible when I'm away from work, and my compy sort of hates going outside. I should probably do a real update on my life, but even now I'm getting all tense and anxious, as if my body is saying "Why are you at a desk? Why are you typing? It's the <i>weekend</i>. WEEKEND!"<br />
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So I'm posting some pictures soon. Not sure of what, but here are some likely candidates:<br />
--Visits from friends and godchildren<br />
--4th of July<br />
--Pioneer trek<br />
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And about that last one, I returned yesterday from my long-overdue pioneer trek, and it was great. We've gone soft on these kids, compared to the stories I heard from previous victims. Seriously, Candice came back from hers talking like it was Vietnam. My trek was more like...hanging out near suburbia in long skirts and sleeping on the ground. Oh, and I died and came back as an angel. More to come after I sleep!<br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i> </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYpTc9iojmzVUMHq2av5IJFYF_FtwJYo_-q3YVSQTTSqMO9Ewz92mh2kbuwTyFhRlEGHPNyCPkxaKl8vQwLzT4YN2O0_Ndw4BDn8hvpE7kiZ8idrKulxxgydWtfQPQQIh-VDNOVugsY_9/s320/menbut5023.bmp" /><i> </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Simplicity </i></div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6638986851886626051.post-23208503992042738542010-06-23T18:46:00.000-07:002010-06-23T18:46:14.909-07:00Small Victories<span style="font-family: Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Isn’t it messed up that I felt happy when I saw this?</span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5txycx6qVkervfWl7prPwQ2AF_jeVJouWriQiu178bsFkAZsvuS1ihF0TL0XYPVFzwzp73mJMg07XxWrCb5jCarT9m6TTpogp6_DIMzA0NbLFXfY4gXpcqc3OHq6QEkNOvLmjqQJ-eMy8/s1600/LAtraffic.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5txycx6qVkervfWl7prPwQ2AF_jeVJouWriQiu178bsFkAZsvuS1ihF0TL0XYPVFzwzp73mJMg07XxWrCb5jCarT9m6TTpogp6_DIMzA0NbLFXfY4gXpcqc3OHq6QEkNOvLmjqQJ-eMy8/s400/LAtraffic.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">As if I’d won something?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> As if my 2 hours on the freeway yesterday afternoon weren’t going completely unrecognized and unrewarded?<br />
The saddest part is that 4 out of the top 10 winners are in California. There’s really no escaping it.</span></span> </div>A STAR is bornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00175450473520856809noreply@blogger.com2