Looks Like I Have Some Work to Do...

Your Vibe Is Secretly Sexy

Sexy isn't exactly a word you'd use to describe yourself But you have a quite allure that certain men feel appealing You don't need to flaunt your stuff to be sexier A little more confidence in yourself, and you'll really light up a room!

What Kind of Sexy Girl Vibe Do You Have?

I don't want to just be secretly sexy....ahhhhgh!

What the First Day of School Brings

To a high schooler the first day of school means:

1. You got to pick out a new outfit, lay it across your bed nights before, imagine your stunning entry in the said outfit, and tease your hair for at least an hour before you real entry into the high school.

2. Fantasies about how the guys must have gotten hotter in 3 short months, and don't guys grow any taller in that short amount of time either?

3. Maybe you will have class with just the right hot guy.

4. Maybe this will be the year you date just the right hot guy.

5. Seeing your friends on a regular basis.


To a teacher, the first day of school means:


1. The first day of sleepless nights for months.

2. The first day that cut offs are again not-okay, neither are messy buns, or flip-flops okay to wear.

3. The first day of 160 sets of hormonal/emotional either over or under inflated egos, needs are going to have to come first for 8 hours a day.

4. Home is no longer a sofa and a bed, but a classroom with 38 germ ridden desks, dirty windows, with flying white board eraser dust and a computer.

Women that Come to Tragic Ends

What kind of book characters are you normally attracted to? I have decided (just having finished The Widow of the South), that I have always been attracted to the strong women characters who have tragic lives. Hmmm. The Awakening for instance, or The House of Mirth, The Return of the Native, The Long and Fatal Love Chase, yes, The Scarlet Letter, or The Portrait of a Lady, or this most recent book I have read, The Widow of the South. There is something that awakes a sympathy in me for these women who have tragic lives, or who have tragic love lives really, sometimes undoubtably due to their own bad decisions. I just ache for these women who, some of them, marry tragically, tragically meaning, not out of love, and then find love outside of marriage and then cannot, or in some cases will not, do anything about it. (p.s. I don't condone adultry), I just feel for them! I don't know whether it is becuase I relate to the feeling, (melodramatic yes) of true love being out of their reach or our of the scope of their circumstances, do I relate to that? Never having been in love, I think the melodramatic in me feels that. Other people will read these same books, i.e. my mother, and think these women are shameful or whatnot, and I just feel for them! I guess because I long for that feeling of love myself and have never felt it. Anyway, I have one up on my mom becuase she liked tragic, revengeful characters when she was my age, Anna Karenia, Wuthering Heights, The Count of Monte Cristo, forbidden love and revenge and hate and selfish self-destruction. She laughs at it now, and can't seem to explain it. But what draws us to certain types of characters? I wish there was some sort of quiz that would tell us what book character we would be if we were in a novel. I think I would be Isabella in The Portrait of Lady. I just hope I don't come to a bad end like that....

Do you believe in Fate?

Beliving in fate has never brought me anything except for a whole lot of fantasy relationships with men! LOL. I always wonder if some things are put in our way over and over again to give us opportunity, or whether we are mysteriously on similar wave lengths with some people. I have decided, (and maybe the romance is just busted out of me by the time I am well, my age), but I can't think about it. I can't think about fate. But it always runs past my mind, and I have to keep it at that, tame. For instance:

Is it fate that I now live next door to a guy that used to not be able to keep his eyes of me, we are both still single?

Is it fate that I ran into a guy I haden't seen for 8 years who has been really good friends with a few of my friends in California at one of my best friend's house...

Is it fate that I accidentally went to the exact same temple session I did two weeks ago and the exact same cute, single man was working, and it was again, a little awkward with eye contact. I know, you don't meet people/hit on people at the temple!

Anyway, none of these things are really significant in my life, I have learned to avoid those thoughts of things being "fate," becuase then it just makes me think my life could be a Jane Austen novel, which it never will be, or I get my imagined hopes up for nothing!

Also, do you think we all have dopeldangers? I swear I saw Jennifer McFadden's today. Same hair and everything, those little weird bleach blonde strips in gelled brown curley hair....So weird. But it was not her, this girl is like 10 years younger!

AND: Elder Holland shops at JCrew. I saw him yesterday!

On Butterflies and Lightning Bugs

If you could be an insect, what kind of insect would you be? Aren't we done with these games yet? Nope. Same scenario, teacher inservice meeting, 99.9% of all the women in the room chose "butterfly," I chose "firefly/lightning bug." We had to draw our bug, hold it up and explain why we chose it for ourselves. Needless to say, I missed the butterfly mark! Why do I persist in being different? Ha ha. Anyway, my creation/choice elicited an interesting remark from our teacher-trainer, something about his hot prom date...anyway...thought I would share with you all some picutres of yes--butterflies that I took on my family vacation this summer. And to make you ask yourself...what kind of insect are you?! :)

I Confess, I Liked It.

Whatever might be said about this book being a romance novel in thin disquise--it's true. And the thing is, I have to like it anyway! It is a little bit over the top at times, but I have to hand it to the author--she has made a successful set of books! And, well, it's totally "escape" fiction, and relationship-placebo. I swear I am falling in love with the vampire at the same time the narrator is! Her mixture works, so that every woman who has ever felt "ordinary" before can imagine what it feels like to have a devistatingly handsome man choose her above all other women, and mean it. Every woman wants to be made to feel that way, by a devistatingly handsome man, or not, that there is someone who absolutely cannot stay away from her, and well, it works, it just does. So, if the plot is a little thin as well, I'm still in it for the way she hits that teenage-girl-fantasy that lives inside of each of us.

p.s. The real reason I picked up the novel in the first place is, that it is taking high school girls by storm (actually older women too) and I promised my students I would read it this summer, as well as we were all told in teacher training this week it wouldn't hurt us to be up and up on what all of our students are reading, this and Harry Potter! :)

So the Problem With...

So the problem with kissing a random guy in another state is...it makes you want to kiss more people. It reminds you that you have no one currently to kiss in your life, and that you really really, need to work on your in-house social life. So I have been listening to romantic music (this has got to stop) and every man I see is really cute. I couldn't stop staring at the institute teacher last night. Hmmm, sooo cute. My problem is, I need to stay on the horse. Ha ha. Because who likes this longing feeling?

Nothing is Wrong with...

Nothing is wrong with a little action right? Ha ha. Okay, lots of things to say about my 2 month long vacationing, however, lets start with the best part. Okay, so I was in Huntington Beach, CA, this past weekend, as the last part of my glorious vacationing. I stayed at a beach house 2 blocks from the beach with my friend Krista. We (5 of us) played on the beach, watched the U.S. Open Surfing competition, X-Games skateboarding, went to an Angel's game with her singles ward, and boogie boarded in the ocean, sunbathed, sunbathed, sunbathed, drank at least of gallon of salt water, and I hooked up with an old friend, a guy from my singles ward like 8 years ago when I lived at King Henry. Okay, "hooking up" is an exaggeration, we held hands and stuff and he kissed me, and we went to the beach Saturday night until 3:15 in the morning. I know, I know, you think I'm lying, you know me better than that right? You do know me better than that. But it happened, and it was fun, and you only live life once right? Don't judge me, I still won't regret it! LOL. And it was a very innocent kiss. I promise.

M.I.A.

I will be MIA these next few weeks, family vacation to the east coast! Itnerary: Family Reunion, Hannibal MO, Nauvoo, Gettysburg, Boston, Salem Mass, Washington DC, Philedelphia, and more! I will keep you posted, and post some pixs later!

Just throw them away E!

Do you have anything absolutely impossible to throw away? Every time I am home I try to go through some things and try to get rid of them. Inside my hope chest is a box of corsages from all of the dances I went to in high school. Quite a few I might add. Beautiful, still un-crushed in their little tissue paper, and still pretty-ribboned. Why do I still have these? I don't know. I keep asking myself! Today, I am going to throw them away! For heaven sakes, I still have the pictures of the dances, do I really need the flowers? Although I think having flowers in my hope chest reminded me of something romantic from a novel or what I imaged a romantic person would have in there...reminants of old lost, forlorn loves....

The Nancy Drew in You

Scully and I went to Nancy Drew last night and I was simply delighted by it. They cast Nancy perfectly and her cute little boyfriend, it touched just the right nostalgic bone in me that remembered the little Nancy Drew that is in all of us. Not her personality per say--but that sweet innocence--where everything before you is possibile, and slitghtly out of touch with reality--you will let nothing stop your dreams. The critics gave it a C-, but I give it an A+.

I'm a Big Girl Now!

I've reached a milestone in my life. My dad finally trusts me! I only ran into the garage one time during driver's ed and he never let me drive anything but my own car! I have been banned for years against any of the tractors and the riding lawn mower! Come on! But yesterday my dad let me drive the riding lawn mower for the first time in my life! Whooo hooo! It was so much fun. I did an awful job on the little parcel of the back lawn my dad left for me to mow (we have a gigantic amount of grass, and he let me mow a tad in the back where I could mess up and no one would see). It is harder than it looks! I left little patches of tuff everywhere and you can see the funny circles I made in the lawn for trying to turn around, but my dad didn't even scold me once! Ha ha. My dad letting me drive the riding lawn mower is a metaphor for the fact that my dad respects me as a grown individual who is responsible. My dad is truly wonderful, I hope that didn't make him sound like a tyrant, it's just one of those family things!

Small Town Provincial

Elder Eyring told Moses Lake we could be a Zion people. Maybe not in this generation, but that we have the potential to be, he sensed that about us. Which I thought was cool. I've been running that around in my head since I have been home these last two weeks. Not that the following is the receipe for a city of Enoch, but there are plenty of wonderful things about my hometown.

1. Scully's mom's funeral. The stake center was full to the brim. The salt of the earth people I have known my whole life, and from various wards in our stake, all there to honor her mother, and attest to the wonderful woman she was. I know funerals aren't happy events, but it made me cry to see a gathering of such wonderful people, all of whom had been apart of not only Scully's family's life, but all our lives, so interwoven. It's gathering to comfort, and mourn, to weed gardens, make dinners, and just be there.

2. My old YW leader Brenda let my aunt who is sick in bed a lot borrow her BBC movie, North and South, my mom borrows it from her, watches it with my sister, waits unitl I come home, and I watch it until 2:00 a.m., we give it back to my cousin who watches it twice in a row with her mom and sister in law, and then somehow the DVD gets back into the right hands. Well, on our street, us women of various ages all think North and South has the hottest man in it, and that it rivals even Pride and Prejudice.

3. My dad borrowed a loader from a neighbor to hoist us up in front of the house to paint it, another neighbor borrowed our BBQ-er for the YM BBQ, my dad volunteered to haul cattle to a slaughter house for my first date's dad, and the list goes on. In two weeks, so many neighbors helping neighbors. We were out riding horses at our family reunion and one of their non-LDS neighbors came out with her horse because she noticed that we had too-many-kids, not-enough-horses.

And I'm enjoying laying on the couch and the lawn and reading good books. So far: Of Mice and Men, The Secret Life of Bees, The Chosen, and I'm part way through Eldest.

Guinness Anyone?

I've waited 28 years for this to happen. Not that I anticipated it with joy. In fact, I thought I was in the clear! I have never been offered alcohol before---until this past week! I made it through high school and college with no such invitations; it took a gutzy 16 year old to do it! I was invited by one of my students to sneak into senior fling with him---he promised he would be bringing a keg of beer. I was so shocked by his overture! I knew just about anything I said would be incriminating, so I simply replied: "I don't drink, and I'm not a senior," and then walked away. Sadly his friends laughed at him, and I have been on silent treatment for a while. Gutzy kid. Odd, experience! But, hey, all those years of Beehives, Miamaids, and Laurels paid off huh? Peer pressure *psha*. I would make my young women's leaders proud. ;)

Since You've Been Gone

Or, since I've been gone....I just thought you might like to see a little bit of what I have been doing in my lack of blogging time. Looks fun doesn't it?! I LOVE it.







I especially like to do things that take my students out of their comfort zone: performing mini-plays, reading papers and poems outloud, peer-editing. However, we also have a dang-awesome amount of fun in my class too!

Waxing Philosophical

One of the things I like about teaching is how hopeful and optimistic the young dreamers are. I have a particular student named Jeff who wants to know anything and everything about my life. He sits right behind my desk and if I am ever over there entering grades or what not he asks me questions. A few days ago he wanted to know if teaching had always been my dream. I said no, it wasn't. He asked what I had always wanted to be. I went through the laundry list. I first wanted to be an author, then an artist, then a dental hygenist, then a broacaster, and now a teacher. He proceeded to ask me a million questions about why I didn't pursue this, why I didn't do that. He wanted to know why if I had played sports in high school I didn't try to play in college. I said, well, I knew I wasn't "that good," and he was so funny, he said you should have just tried. He asked why I didn't pursue broadcasting and I said I anchored ect., at BYU but decided it wasn't what I wanted to go pursue, and he was just so cute about it. He told me he wanted to be a sports anchor and play soccer in college, maybe at BYU like his older brother.

Okay, this sounds like a fairly uneventful conversation and it was, but he is such a beautiful dreamer, and it just struck me when he said, "but you should try anyway." I am stuck by these teenagers who try out for dance teams and sports teams and student government and try for that unattainable guy or girl and they try, try, try, even if they fail, they try. It reminds me of my graudation ceremony last week when the speak, (a CEO of Dell, formerly of Orem, UT), quoted the typically, oft quoted lines about how if you never try anything, you will neither fail nor succeed, and thus will live a safe, but boring life. This same day my dad was reminiscing about his mission and said his mission pres. (a millionare, invented the tater tot), used to say, "Bite off more than you can chew, and then chew it!"

I just love the viatlity of the human spirit. What dreams do I need to be dreaming today? And how can I go about pursuing them? There is a lot to be said about being an adult, but there is likewise a lot to be said about remaining a dreamer.

The Microsoft Babies

More later when I have the time and engergy, but I did interview last weekend in Bellevue, WA, where they teach all of the Microsoft babies! Its a far cry from Payson, Ut. 93% plus of their kids go to college up there and according to the curriculum director, "kids know if they go to school in Bellevue; not succeeding is NOT an option." Wow. They wrote their seinor English course a few years ago equivalent to an AP Language course, (but they also have an even harder AP langauge course), and then wrote all of the curriculum from 9 grade up to get the kids to the level they want them all to be by 12th grade. Again, a far cry from Payson. Here in Utah there is a "scope and sequence," but basically you can teach what you want as long as it meets the state core. Anyway--it was a little bit intimidating to interview up there--I'm not going to lie about that!

Four Square

Scully tagged me, so here it is:

Four Jobs I Have Had

Journalism/English Teacher
Bartender/Waitress at The PepperCorn Grill
Voice-Overs for McAfee Inc., and Customer Retention dept.
Fox 13 News, SLC (Bottom of the Totem Pole)

Four Movies I could Watch Over and Over

Bridget Jones' Diary (edited version)
Pride and Prejudice (The New Version)
The Hunt For Red October
A Cinderella Story


Four Places I Have Lived

Moses Lake, Washington
London, England, UK
Provo, Utah


Four TV Shows I Watch

October Road
Anderson Cooper 360


Four Places I Have Gone On Vacation

England
Ireland
Scotland
Austria
Germany
Canada
44 out of the 50 States
(I love vacations!)

Four Websites I Visit Daily

www.google.com
www.gmail.com
www.nebo.edu
www.blogspot.com

Four of My Favorite Foods

Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy's (with no cheese)
Cafe Rio - Shredded Chicken Salad
Yoplait Yogurt - I'm a confirmed addict
Ripe Red Tomatoes with salt

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now

1- Window shopping at Anthropologie, Pottery Barn, Borders, and Banana Republic.
2- Doing a Scrap-Night at the scrapbook store.
3- Sitting in front of the fireplace, wraped in a blanket, playing games, and eating popcorn with my family.
4- Driving in the mountains, windows unrolled, radio blasting!

*just breathe*just breathe*just breathe*

In and out, in and out, the universe seems to be constorting on wether or not it should be for or against me. In the next month I need to find a job, a house, fix my phone, make peace with the jerks at the gym, teach 160 16 year olds full time, and get all the paper work I need in to graduate! All in the next three weeks. I have been spending until 8:00 pm or later at school every night trying to grade research papers, get the school newspaper out, apply for jobs, and do the senior projects and endless lists of paperwork needed to get cleared for my teaching license, all the pointless projects to document my whole existence and evlaute myself as a teacher. I roll into bed exhausted. I still try to teach sunday school and run 3 miles a day. Just ask Panini how brain dead I sounded on the phone last night when she talked to me at like 9:00 pm. Everyone says don't let stress get to you. HA! That is what I would like to say! Did I mention that I lost my debit card too? Argh.

The Cutest Thing I've Ever Seen. My Nephew Joshua.