What My Parents Did

Wal-Mart came to my school on Friday to do a quick assembly that was essentially them trying to get us to love Wal-Mart.  It was mostly pointless, but 10 teachers were chosen by random drawing to get a $100 dollar gift card to buy things for their classroom.  I'll be honest, I was hoping to be chosen, but wasn't bitter when I wasn't.  In the teacher's lounge during lunch people were talking about what they'd spend theirs on and they weren't exactly sure what they'd want to buy had they won or anything.  I, however, knew exactly what I wanted.  Art supplies for my kids.  

Thanks to a generous mom we have a whole load of construction paper which is helpful.  Our class also has some off brand markers and colored pencils along with glue because of 1 cent back to school deals at various stores.  A previous teacher left a tray of crayons and I donated what art supplies I had at home (except for anything glass, my nice watercolors, and a hot glue gun) to the classroom.  We were doing ok.  Thing is, art is extremely important to me (to make a well rounded person, to give a chance for kids that don't succeed and thrive academically to be the best, etc) and I wanted to have the opportunity to do amazing things this year.

I told all the previous to my mom when chatting with her Friday evening (yes, I still talk to my mom every day).  The next morning I got a text message at about 7:30, "Up?"  Rather than reply I just called her and asked what she wanted (in a nice way, I promise).  "Congratulations, you win a $150 gift card."  I had only been awake about five minutes at this point and was confused, "Huh?"  "You win $150 dollars courtesy of dad and mom to buy art supplies for your classroom!"  Being an eloquent and intelligent human being I naturally replied, "Shut. Up."  Then I got up and squealed a little and did a happy dance by myself.  So, I haven't spent any of the money yet and I'm not positive what I'm going to buy, but my kids are going to do art this year!  Many many thanks to my lovely mother and father. 

Not A Parody

Step 1: Watch this.

Step 2: Go back and finish watching it because chances are you didn't watch it all the way through the first time.  You really need to watch it all to fully appreciate the amount of winking and and sheer volume of 90s boy band costumes.

Step 3: Wonder how the mighty  have fallen this far.  Yes, Lance Bass is "overseeing" this group.

Step 4: Hope it's a parody and you've misunderstood.

Step 5: Realize it's not a parody.

Step 6: Go make sure your food storage is up to date because the world is about to end.

(Listen, I loved 90s boy bands.  I listened to many of them and that was my go to music.  I fell for the dreamy matching outfits each with a unique twist to fit that band member's personality.  It's true that they were cheesy, who cares.  It's true that some of them couldn't sing and sometimes the talent was minimal, that's ok.  This band is taking everything that was not so great about 90s boy bands, magnifying it times 20 [really? that hair?!] and sending it forth to YouTube.)

Bad Fans

I need to preface this post with a disclaimer saying that I have nothing against this gentleman.

(That's Riley Nelson with the long hair for those of you not on the up-and-up with BYU football players). 

I mean really, did you even read my last post about football?  Clearly I have nothing against him.  Also, in the game last night he ROCKED IT OUT.  We owe a lot of the credit for our last minute victory to Riley and his willingness to take a hit and ability to think on his feet.  He's a great quarterback.  Ok, disclaimer over.

People need to shut the hell up about Jake Heaps.  First of all, he's a tiny infant child (meaning, he's extremely young) and gets flustered.  We wish he wouldn't, but it happens.  I got distracted, I need to get back to the point.

Stop being crap fans.  Don't chant for Riley when Jake is in.  Honestly, do you think that improves his game play?   I'm sure your performance would improve if the people who are supposed to be on your side are cheering against you.  Also, never boo your own team (didn't happen at this game, but it did against UCF).  Every time the lousy fans decided it was a good idea to chant "Riley Riley" I was filled with rage.  If you're a good fan support your team NO MATTER WHAT.  Even though I think Heaps has it in him, do I cheer against Nelson?  No, I cheer for whoever the coaches decide to put in.  I feel so bad for Jake.  When you can get out there and do better then you are welcome to talk bad about him all you want.  

I know some of my friends and not just acquaintances are guilty of the Jake hate and especially of Riley worship (dear Provo, he's not the second-coming).  Perhaps this post offends you.  I don't care.  Perhaps you feel this is a direct attack on you.  It probably is.  It's not pointed at one particular person, but it is pointed.  

Rant over. 

Trashy People

It seems that the weekend is the only time I can find to blog so I am just on a blogging binge...what can I do, I have things to say.  I know I already ranted and I know it was lengthy, but I have another one.  This one, though, will be much shorter.  I promise think.  

Trashy people get on my nerves.  I know that in your mind you're thinking of scantily clad clubbers in pleather mini-skirts.  Definitely trashy, but definitely not what I'm talking about.  I mean people that leave trash around or don't throw trash away.  We're all guilty on occasion of piling the kitchen or bathroom trash a little too high so I would be a hypocrite for going on about that, but I try to generally be clean.  (I should note right now that this post has nothing to do with my roommates).  

On Friday morning at about 7:15 I got on the elevator in my building to head to work.  What greeted me (other than the arm chair that someone put there a couple of weeks ago)?  Two bags of kitchen garbage.  Seriously?  We have an elevator and you're so lazy you can't even take your garbage to the dumpster?  Nasty.

Our HOA is kind enough to to provide us with two garbage cans in the parking garage.  They're really useful when you have a fast food bag filled with gum wrappers from your car or need to toss out your junk mail.  Some people, though, abuse them, piling them high with Costco boxes and regular trash.  Approximate distance from trash can to actual dumpster?  Less than 20 steps.  I checked.  So, trashy folks, walk your big garbage over and threw it in so we can all utilize the little cans.  

Gee whiz, I'm bugged. 

Commuting

Right now I'm using the term commuting fairly loosely.  For real it takes me about twenty minutes to get to work.  I am fully aware that no one in this area has any idea what it's like for people like my dad to get to work.  He goes maybe thirty miles (I'm gonna bet on that being an overestimate) and it sometimes can take him three hours to get there.  Yeah, Provo traffic isn't the best, but you have NO IDEA.  Seriously, go to Stafford then complain about how long it takes you to get across town.  Thing is, in the greater DC area where people are commuting a lot they seem to understand some basic rules of the road.  Here I present some of my thoughts on driving.

1. Slower traffic keep right.  Um, hello Utah, why is this so hard?  If you're going less than 10 over get in the right lane.  I respect the fact that occasionally someone is going ten under in the right lane (let's be real, it's more than occasionally in these parts) and then you have to pass them in the left lane.  Then, GET OVER AND GET OUT OF MY WAY.

2. At least occasionally use the turn signal.  I think drivers in general are abysmal at fully utilizing their turn signal (which I don't understand at all because it's pretty much the easiest gesture in the history of the earth), but Utah drivers seem to have forgotten they have one.

3. You cannot cross a solid line of any color!  Seriously, in those construction zones where you have to stay in your lane, YOU HAVE TO STAY IN YOUR LANE!  Sometimes there are situations where you might have to cross because someone stops all of a sudden or whatever, but these are not times for casual passing.

4. If one more time I get stuck in the Utah road block (when cars in all lanes are going the same speed despite wide open road space in front of them thus preventing anyone from passing) I'm going to lose it.

5. What the heck is with the fact that all of I-15 is currently under construction at the same time and they do the work at prime hours of the day?  You're supposed to do that crap at night.

People in the area of Virginia where I learned to drive are sometimes scary drivers and I'm not going to deny that, but other drivers understand that and so choose their actions carefully.  For example, my dad was riding in a carpool with a stranger.  The driver in front of the vehicle my dad was in slammed on his brakes suddenly.  This pissed off the driver of my dad's car who had apparently had enough that day and so accelerated into the car in front (simply because he was mad).  Mad enough that he then reversed and slammed into the person behind him before putting the car back in drive and hitting the guy in front again.  All on purpose.

Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily think this is the best practice and can be quite dangerous, but I can't help but wonder if this type of thing happened in Utah more often would people think before driving like total idiots?

Ok, rant over.

Let Me Introduce You

Let me introduce you to someone.  This is Riley Nelson. 

Oh yes, hello.  Could you please go back to this haircut?  Thanks.  

Riley is backup quarterback for BYU.  Tonight he rocked out a trick play that was BEAUTIFUL.  Not the point of this post.  Moving on. 

Looky, even though baby Jakey took his job they are nicey nice to each other (I have nothing against baby Jakey, by the way).  

Right now he's grown his hair out long.  I prefer it short, but it's growing at me.  He seems to keep it clean.  Still, not the point of the post.  

Want to hear a little known fact about good old Riley Nelson?  Let's talk about what Riley wears under his football pants.  Is it A) Underarmor shorts B) briefs C) athletic shorts D) nothing.

Did you choose an answer?  

If you chose D you are right!  Our seats being on the third row and all we see the team up close and personal and let me tell you, you can see RIGHT through those white pants and you can tell that Riley is all skin color under there. 

Also, you can see the whatever the leg strap parts are called on his jock strap.  That part's not my favorite. 

Is it bad that I don't mind my view much?  In fact, I really like it.  At the Utah game the most interesting thing on the field was Riley Nelson's backside.  

Men look good in football pants.  Riley looks especially good in football pants.  Riley apparently has something against underclothing.  

I'll stop there.  I promised Sarah I would try to keep this post relatively tame because her mom reads my blog.  

P.S. New football love?  Daniel Sorensen.  Yum.  

Another Freaky Dream: Voldemort Edition

I've told you before that I have strange dreams and they come in cycles and are super bizarre.  This is another one.  It's kind of disgusting so if you're feeling exceedingly sensitive or nauseous, don't read.

Ok, so it was decided that I had to fight Voldemort.  My own pals in real life were there supporting me as were Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  I was getting all prepped, but was not magical.  At my disposal I had a few magical items.  It was almost a ring fight type of situation with everyone watching and keeping their hands off.  I started by just attacking him physically.  It wasn't really working so I moved on to something else.  Then my dream kind of fast forwarded like I wasn't paying attention to a movie and all of a sudden I was winning (how the heck I was beating Voldemort without being magical is beyond me).

I had him down and injured (injured bad), but he was regenerating quickly.  His wounds would just heal themselves if given any amount of time.  I was getting tired and I knew I couldn't go much longer.  Then I found something awesome in my bag: some aerosol hairspray with some sort of essence of phoenix in it.  I started spraying old Voldy and he started rotting away like that guy in The Last Crusade.  He was basically a skeleton with sticky brown and yellow and black goo attached to his bones at this time (and he was still talking to me and taunting).  The magic phoenix hairspray prevented him from regenerating as quickly as he was, but given time without being killed he would still continue to rebuild and take over again.  I wasn't sure what to do.

Suddenly I realized the solution: I had to destroy his heart (it was somehow still stuck in his rib cage chest, though it was a little shrunken).  The problem was, I ran out of phoenix hairspray.  With no better options in sight I grabbed a knife and started to cut the heart apart.  The pieces just rejoined or continued beating separately.  Voldemort was still taunting me.  How the heck to destroy the heart and Voldemort?  I was out out of ideas and time was running out as the rest of his body continued its slow regrowth.

If you're thinking of the solution already, then you're gross and I want to know how you got there.  In my dream it just came to me.  The only way to destroy the heart once and for all was... to eat it.  So, I quickly cut the heart into the smallest pieces possible and mashed it together into a form similar to a hot dog.  Then, I ate it.  One: it was disgusting.  Two: even if it wasn't, knowing you have Voldemort's heart in your stomach will make you nauseous.  I finished off the Voldy-heart hot dog and that was the end.  At the end of my dream just before I woke up I remember being uneasy and wondering if when it passed through my digestive track if it would begin to join together again or if it would happen while still inside.  My friends (and my character friends) assured me it was ok and before the outcome could be ascertained positively, I woke up.  Did I want to eat breakfast when I woke up?

Not at all.

The end.