Pretty Pictures

Random pictures that I think are pretty. They're the sample pictures that are on this computer.

gripe-fest.

I am in a rotten mood.
It took me much longer to fall asleep last night than I wanted it to. I woke up this morning, for the second day in a row, an hour before I was supposed to, for no reason at all. Yesterday I woke up at 6 and thought I'd stay in bed until 7, when my alarm would go off. I still had my cold, so while I was lying in bed I started feeling really crappy, and after I did get up I ended up falling asleep on Jennie's spare bed while borrowing her computer. I woke up two hours later and felt completely awful, so I decided I wasn't going in to work. I spent the next three hours on the couch watching Gilmore girls.
This morning I woke up at 6 for no reason and, remembering yesterday's incident, knew I had to get out of bed then if I was going to be on time to work. Of course this put me in a crabby mood though, because I do NOT like being awake before I have to be when it's before 9 am. Not wanting to wake Megan up, I went to the living room, where, for who knows what reason, Lili was asleep. So I went to her room and sat on the floor texting Mike. Who is now sick, and apparently worse than I was, because he has a fever.
This is completely insensitive of me, but I am upset by the fact that he's sick; first, of course, because I don't like him being sick; second, because naturally he got sick the very day I was feeling better; third, because he's sicker than I was and somehow it always seems like he has more valid reasons for staying home from work than I do, and I feel like a slacker. But I really was sick. And fourth, I think I'm bitter that he can just run home to his mom as soon as he gets sick, and I can't.
You know, I hope none of my Utahn roommates are offended by this, but I really do get bitter when they all go home, and it's weird because it never bothered me before. I like living away from home, I've never minded it. But I guess I've also never had THIS many locals in my life before. My roommates were always much more diversified, and now I have four roommates and a boyfriend who all live within an hour of here. Crap.
So now I'm at work and I'm FREEZING, and I'm wearing a sweater and I have a blanket on and my supervisor today is pretty much useless. I had to wait at her desk for like a full two or three minutes while she discussed her soccer game schedule with one of the guys here so I could ask her a question, and then she explained everything that I'd learned on the first day of training in really good detail like I didn't know what I was doing. I wanted to kick her, it was so irritating. And I don't want to deal with people today.
Also, I'm texting Mike and I know he's sick and I know we're texting so it's not a very expressive method of conversation, but he is NOT catching on to how crabby I am right now and I even flat out told him. He just says things like "oh that's no bueno" and then starts talking about something else. Grr. I want SYMPATHY!
So I'm sitting here trying to remember how long it usually takes to warm up a little bit in here, and it seems like it should be starting to do that already. It's almost 10, I've almost been here two hours. I guess maybe around 11? Stupid air conditioning. I'll probably have to step outside soon.
I think I'm just going to keep this open throughout the day so I can add my latest gripes to it, or open it occasionally and edit it as I have things to add.
So our phone system has a little box that stays up on the screen while you're logged into it, and when you get a call it shows the conversation that you're in, and it also shows your status, so when you finish a call it says "Entering Notes" until you change it to Available or something else. Well the supervisors have started going around and looking at everyone whose status is Entering Notes and telling them to change it to something else, even if what they're doing IS entering notes, just because they don't want us to be on Entering Notes for more than three minutes after a phone call. Which I think is silly. And annoying when someone keeps coming around and telling people to change it.
I'm in a much better mood now. But I'm still going to post this because otherwise my venting will have been in vain.
I talked to a cute old lady from California who told me I was sweet and that I had a pretty accent, and then Mike sent me a random text telling me I'm gorgeous, so I'm a little cheered up now. :)

Quote Wall Worthy Moments From Texas, If Only They Were Translatable Into Quote Form.

Yeah, I have no idea. And I think I started this post almost a week ago

So I thought I should keep track of some of the more memorable moments from Mike's and my trip to Texas; one, because they are hilarious and I want to be able to remember them; and two, because probably no one else is interested in what we did, but maybe.

One of my favorites, of course, is the time when Mike almost killed my dad on a dirtbike. On Friday of our trip, my brothers, Mike, and my dad went dirtbiking while Dafni and I went wedding dress shopping with Talia. My dad likes to take lots of pictures and videos, and this time he only had his phone instead of a camera. So he was taking a video of the boys coming up a dirt path, when Mike appears to have forgotten how to stop, and just barrels straight toward him, finally stopping with his bike like two inches from my dad's. The best part of the video is my dad's reaction-- he is laughing like a crazy person, telling Mike "You almost got me! And I got it all on tape!"

Then there was the little kid in the airport on our way back to Salt Lake City. We were waiting to board our plane and the seats outside our gate were mostly full, so we just sat down on the floor, quite a ways from any of the seats. Mike leaned over and kissed me-- not obnoxiously, and we were far enough away that we didn't think anyone would even notice-- and we heard this little kid start laughing hysterically halfway across the room. Without looking, Mike said "that kid is laughing at us." And then we looked over at him and saw that he WAS laughing at us, and pointing his finger. He laughed the whole time until they got on the plane, his grandparents kinda laughing/blushing and trying to steer him away from us. Then we got on the plane, and guess who was sitting right next to us?

Let's see...

Well, there was the first night when we got there and my family was playing DDR, and then my dad and my aunt Miki were playing together and it was HILARIOUS because neither of them could figure out how to find the beat and all they could do was hop up and down and hope they landed on the arrows at the right time. Especially my dad-- he couldn't separate his feet, so if the right arrow was going he was just hopping with both his feet out, and if it was the up arrow he'd have his feet on both the up and down arrows and was just jumping... I don't know if I explained it very well but it was hilarious. So. Funny.

Then there was the time-- Sunday dinner, to be specific-- when we were talking about Mormon movies and how much I hate them, and someone brought up God's Army and tried to say it was one of the better ones, and I disagreed and said no I hate that movie, and then somehow we started talking about God's Army 2, and how I refused to see it even though (and kind of because) people kept telling me I HAD to see it, it's all about the Atonement, it's such a spiritual experience and all of the crappy things that they stuck in that movie are really completely necessary and they just illustrate the amazingness of the Atonement and blah blah blah. I mean, my World Lit professor gave us like six opportunities to watch that movie for extra credit-- not because it was related to anything we were studying, but just because he thought we should see it. Irritating. I. Don't. Want. To. See. It. Maybe it's narrow-minded of me, but I researched it, found out what was in it, and decided that I didn't need to see it. The end. So then that led into a discussion about Schindler's List and the Passion of the Christ, and obviously that was kind of intense, and at some point Mike ran away from the table cause it got too intense for him. :P

So this post has pretty much taken me a week to write, but I've spent so much time on it already that I might as well post it.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

I wish I could say the stars at night are big and bright, too, but I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a star since we came here. It was raining when we got here, and it's stopped off and on since then, but it's still really cloudy and you definitely can't see stars.
But I love it! I'm really excited to be here. Mike keeps talking about how he loves all the trees and how green everything is and it reminds him of Michigan, and of course the humidity, which is awesome for my hair. I seriously can't do anything with it here. And I decided that I am definitely NOT getting married in Texas because I pretty much look ugly all the time when I'm here, and who wants to look ugly in their wedding pictures? Pictures are already risky enough for me, I have to at least look good if I want any chance of them turning out.
So today Mike is dirtbiking with my dad and brothers. I wanted to go too, but since Talia's wedding is back on (for now) Dafni and I are going to go wedding dress shopping with her. I figured this is the only wedding preparation I'll get a chance to be involved with, so I'd better take advantage of it. Mike's having a great time with my dad and brothers, though, so I'm not worried about him.
I think he was a little overwhelmed the first night, meeting my mom and Benjamin at the airport, then Safta and Chanoch (my Israeli grandparents) when we picked them up from the mall on the way home, then Talia and Kristofer and Alex (THAT was interesting all in itself), then Joseph (who talked his ear off the whole night), then my dad and my aunt Miki and Daniel when he got home from work. He had a day to get used to them, though, before he had to meet the extended family-- yesterday we went to the mall and met up with my cousins, Eilat, Roni, and Jonathan, and Eilat's husband Adam, Jonathan's wife Sasha, and their babies. It's been kind of a madhouse, I'm not gonna lie. But I'm really proud of how Mike's been handling it, and also I'm proud of my family (most of them) for realizing how overwhelming this is for him and going easy on him. (I guess they're saving the FBI-style interrogation for later, but don't worry, I'm sure it will happen.)
Of course there's some drama with Talia, because of the wedding plans and also because she's just been in a difficult mood the last couple days and freaking out about everything. And this weekend will be crazy, with Daniel's graduation and my birthday. But I figured he might as well see us like this now, because hey-- that's just how things are with my family. It's really different from his family, so he might as well have as much time to get used to it as possible. :)
All in all I'm really excited to be here and having all the people I love the most under one roof. One week might not have been long enough for me. Although I bet it'll be more than enough for Mike. :P