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New things I want from the Breast Cancer Site:

Vietnamese paper lanterns (found on the Literacy tab)...

Tunisian coffee cups that would be really ugly if they weren't so cool. (They're on the Hunger tab.)

Dear Lappy, How I Have Missed You...

We are at the Orem Public Library right now because I was tired of not being able to see people's blog layouts, and I just needed to share with everyone how I have missed my laptop! I didn't realize it until now. The screen is so pretty, my links are all in the right order at the top of the browser, and I love my keyboard! Yay!

Hahahahahahahahaha

Mike showed me this comic this morning with the preface, "Now don't take this the wrong way... but this is you." Ha ha! Take it the wrong way? I love it!



Megan, I was going to email it to you (I don't need to tell you that it's you too :P) but I like it so much I decided I just have to post it here.

Cross Your Fingers...

Everyone needs to please be sending positive thoughts my way. I've applied for a bunch of nanny jobs and I really want to get one of them, and we need another income so it'd be really great if I could find a great-paying one. Editing jobs are also acceptable, but I haven't seen many good ones to apply for yet. So fingers crossed, everyone, and start sending those thoughts! :)

Update... Two hours after I posted this blog, I checked my email and had a response from one of the jobs I'd applied for. They pretty much offered me the job; it's not set in stone yet, because they're on vacation so we still have to meet and stuff when they get back, but they sounded pretty sure in the email and I am really excited! It is an amazing job and when I know for sure I will let you know (and give you more details). Keep those good thoughts coming! Clearly you are doing a good job! :)

UGH

I just did something really silly.
I was looking on Craigslist for another part-time job, like I have been doing at least a couple times a day for the past few weeks, and I decided I wanted to look in the Dallas area, just to see what things are like over there.
I looked at the editing jobs... there are tons.
I looked at the nanny jobs... there are plenty.
I looked at the apartments... they are gorgeous.
And now I can't wait to get there.
I can't wait to be out of a stupid college town where unbelievable job competition makes it nearly impossible to get paid what you deserve! And where apartments are either expensive or trashy, and management doesn't care about you because they're the ones in demand!
And I can't wait to be close to my family. Don't get me wrong, I love Mike's family, and I've loved living close to them this whole time. I will miss them a lot when we do finally leave, especially the girls and Cillian. But it will just be so great to be able to see my family whenever I want. It's been five years now since I left home, and it'll be at least six by the time we move.
In other news, we need to move to Australia. Apparently there they actually have more jobs than people. Wouldn't that be nice.

I think I have a really short attention span...

I don't seem to stay interested in things very long. For example, Seriously, So Blessed!. I thought it was hysterical when I first found it, and I checked every day or every other day to read the new posts. This lasted about... I don't know, two weeks? Today I checked it after it had been about a week or two since I'd last looked, and I found that I wasn't even interested enough to read an entire post. Guess that ship has sailed.

For maybe a week or two I was really excited about finding links to my cousins' blogs, and I went looking on their blogs for links to our other cousins' blogs and then put them on my bloglist. Today I was catching up on my friends' blogs and thought about checking out the extended family blogs, and then realized.... nope, don't really feel like it. Could be because I have less contact with these cousins than I do with my grandparents in Israel.

I was really into the political situation about six months ago, or whenever that was that I did all my research on the candidates. I am still interested at this point, but not with the same amount of enthusiasm. This could be because I don't really care for the campaigning process... I guess nothing much was happening in the past few months besides people bashing each other, and I'm pretty annoyed by that practice, so maybe that's why I haven't taken much notice. Regardless of why, though, my attention level has definitely decreased.

I started reading The Dark Side of Camelot, a book about the Kennedy family, which I actually really liked and was pretty excited about, but I never finished it. The book was due back at the library so I had to return it, and I hadn't been reading it for a couple weeks anyway because I was in the middle of other things... But I do want to finish it, I just didn't ever feel like picking it up and reading it. Does that make sense?

I found a new word game online that I played excessively for a couple days while I wasn't working, and discovered yesterday that I am no longer very interested in it. It's still a fun game, but my interest for it lasts about ten minutes... fifteen tops.

Even giant journaling, I haven't done for months. I guess this isn't the same issue, because 1) my obsession with giant journaling lasted for a long time, at least a year and a half or two, and 2) I still am interested in giant journaling, I just don't do it now because I can't think of things to GJ about and I don't have the same GJ-conducive atmosphere that I did before when I was single and living with a bunch of girls who also loved to giant journal. But it feels like it kinda fits, so it goes in the list.

I had a cooking phase that didn't last very long... and by cooking phase I mean a gathering recipes phase. I still like to make dinners (but don't very often now that we're living with Mike's parents...) but I haven't clicked on any of those recipe blogs/links in my bloglist pretty much since I put them up.

I started to do a commemorative 300th post and then decided I probably won't finish it. I've already passed my 300 mark, first of all, and second it's a gigantic undertaking which I have lost enthusiasm for. So yeah. Probably won't be seeing that one. Maybe I'll start working on it now so it'll be ready by the time I hit 400.

Anyway, it just makes me wonder. I can't sit down and read a book for hours on end anymore, or finish 200-400 page books in one day, or sit in a noisy living room and 100% tune out every other sound to concentrate on reading. It makes me feel like I'm getting less dedicated to things as I get older, and I don't like that.

Women's Rights Awards

(First, oops--I just realized I accidentally already posted past my 300 mark. We'll see what I decide to do about that. Not that anyone really cares except maybe Megan and Lindsey, because they, too, are fans of the commemorative post... :P)


Now... An article I found on the Deseret News website.

Let's 'honor' those who have set back women's rights this year

BOSTON — Once more we prepare to honor our foremothers by celebrating the anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage. Each year, in advance of Aug. 26, our one-woman committee gathers to hand out the Equal Rites Awards to those stalwarts who have done the most in the past year to set back the cause of women.
What to say of the last 12 months? This is the year girls finally caught up with boys in math achievement. And the year women finally achieved equality with men in job losses. This year we had the first serious female contender for the White House. And all she'll end up with at the convention is a roll-call vote.
But enough of all that. The envelopes please.
We begin with the highly competitive Blind Justice Award. This usually goes to some worthy American, but a Russian judge swept ahead of the pack when he ruled against a woman's charge of sexual harassment. "If we had no sexual harassment," he said, "we would have no children." We send this judge the blindfold to use as a gag.
Can he lend it to a French colleague? In Lille, a judge actually granted an annulment to a Muslim groom because his bride was not a virgin, "single and chaste." For this, he wins the Taliban Wannabe Prix, with a side order of freedom fries and our hope that he won't permit stoning on the Champs-Elysees.
Back on this side of the Atlantic, the Fashion Victim Award goes to Wrangler Jeans for ads that display women as half-dressed corpses. Ah, yes, homicide is so chic! Dead is the new black! Our prize is a sword thrust through their profit margin.
Sex and violence sell in the virtual world as well. The makers of "Grand Theft Auto IV" win the Raging Hormonal Imbalance Trophy for training men how to have interactive intimacy with prostitutes and then murder them. They call this a game.
Meanwhile, in the online girlworld, the Post-Feminist Booby Prize goes to those wondrous creators of "Miss Bimbo." This game encourages bimbos-in-training to buy their avatars everything from sexy lingerie to face-lifts and breast implants, thereby producing "the hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world." You go, Bimbo!
Do I hear the sound of a backlash? The Backlash Award goes to Washington University, which actually gave an honorary degree to Phyllis Schlafly for leading the charge against women's rights. What's next, honoraries for segregationists?
As for a kinder, gentler backlash, let us dance into the arms of the Patriarchs of the Year, the leaders of the deeply creepy father-daughter Purity Balls who ask: "Are you ready to war for your daughters' purity?"
Their prize is a meet-up with Abdel-Qader Ali, the unrepentant Iraqi father who did indeed fight for his daughter's purity. The winner of the Ayatollah of the Year Prize beat his daughter to death for being infatuated with a British soldier. And was released two hours later by the Basra police because, said Daddy Dearest, "they are men and know what honor is."
Alas, we hoped to retire the Tammy Wynette Stand by Your Man Award. But there was Silda standing by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer while his taste in prostitutes was revealed. And what to say about the admired Elizabeth Edwards? She didn't do the perp's wife's walk, but didn't she enable John to think he could still be president? We send these wives our disappointment.
This leads us to the Dubious Equality Award for the person who wins the most suspect equal right. Our winner is Thomas Beatie, nee Tracy, who gave birth after a sex-change operation, thereby dubbing himself the first man to have a baby. This is not what we mean by shared parenting.
What's next on the baby front? Tarted-up tots? The Our Bodies, Our Daughters Citation goes to those fetishists selling stilettos for baby girls. Hey guys, they're babies, not babes. Get thee to the foot binder.
Or the football field. Our Superstars of Sexism Prize goes to those Jets fans — you know who you are — who spend halftime lined up, whistling and demanding that women display their breasts. For this brain malfunction you get a chauvinist pigskin.
And another throwback. Our Desperate (To Get) Housewives Award goes to those two sensitive guys in New Hampshire who released their inner jerk by yelling at Hillary to "Iron my shirt!" We permanently attach this YouTube moment to their Match.com profiles.
Which reminds us of the Media Ms.-Adventure award. With Hillary-misogyny all around, we picked our winners from opposite ends of the radio dial. The right-wing Rush Limbaugh insisted that Americans wouldn't want to watch a woman aging in the White House. The left-wing Randi Rhodes called the senator an expletive. Their prize is spending the rest of the election locked together in one studio.

Deseret News

Hey so... I wrote an editorial to the Deseret News and they published it in the Readers' Forum. Just thought I'd share. And if you don't get the Deseret News, you can see it online. Click on this link.


And by the way, here is the article I was responding to.


:)

Um... What?

In an article on Yahoo! News:

"two of Obama's biggest weaknesses — his lack of experience, especially on world affairs, and his reluctance to attack his opponent."

Well what a loser. Can't afford to have him president, can we.

Stupid politicians and media. Frankly, even if I didn't like anything else about him, that'd just make me like him more.

Some Things.

1. This is post 297! I'm almost at 300 posts and I didn't even realize it! Now I'm going to have to think of something really fun to do for my 300th commemorative post. Suggestions are welcome!

2. Here you go Dafni. No more Stephen Colbert hugging ice cream. (And for the record, Mike says it doesn't taste very good. I can't tell you what I think, because Mike ate the entire pint while I was at work. :P)

3. We bought a sofa bed because the room we moved into in Mike's parents' house is pretty small and there wasn't room for a real bed, and we don't have money to buy one anyway. And even if we did, we sure weren't going to spend money on a bed small enough to fit in there and then just have to spend more money on a bigger bed once we move out again. So anyway--we bought a sofa bed, which is really cute, and not very comfortable as a bed. We're hoping we'll get used to it, but 1) it's really small, and 2) it's pretty hard. We have a doubled-up sleeping bag on it now as a cushion, but it's still not great. It's been two nights in a row that I've woken up and found Mike on the floor because he was getting squished against the wall.
4. More fun news: So I might not even be going to school in the fall. I've been planning on it, but at this point I don't know if I'm going to have money. I applied for all the financial aid things back at the beginning of June, but everything's taking a really long time and so far I still haven't gotten it. Tuition is due next week, and I have no way of coming up with the money if the financial aid doesn't go through, so if it doesn't... well, I guess I won't be going. I'm not sure what to do about it, or what I can do about it. So we'll see what happens.

That's all for now! Dafni, this was pretty much all for your benefit. None of that really needed to be said. :)

Oh, just kidding! One more thing--Megan's back! I'm so excited and I'm actually probably going to get to see her this week, which is even more exciting! This is very happy news, as I have missed her. Okay now that's all.

Americone Dream

We were getting ice cream last night at Walmart and I saw this, so of course I had to get it. Haven't tried it yet, but it sounds delicious--I believe it has chocolate-covered waffle cone pieces in it. I'll let you know when there's a verdict. (P.S. the one I got wasn't this big.)

Breaking Dawn: The Final Verdict

Spoiler alert! I greatly appreciated Lindsey's use of the picture as a spacer to give me time to know that I didn't want to read her post, so I'm going to do the same (because I know at least Megan hasn't read it yet). Don't read this post if you haven't finished Breaking Dawn and care about having surprises ruined.


Well here it is. My thoughts on Breaking Dawn. And by the way--does anyone else keep typing Breading instead of Breaking? Almost every time.


Anyway. I'm not entirely sure what my thoughts are, to be honest. I do know that I liked the book. I don't consider it a waste of time. Maybe this is because I skipped out on all the hype this time around; I didn't count down, I didn't buy it when it came out (still haven't bought it, actually), and I didn't start reading it the instant I borrowed it, either. It took me several days to read it, as opposed to the first three which I finished within 48 hours of starting. It probably helped that I didn't have very high expectations. Lindsey mentioned that it was good for closure, and I agree--if nothing else, I'm glad to know what happened to all the characters. I was into the first ones enough that I needed that much.


I think I'll try breaking it down the way Lindsey did, so here's...


Part one, and I think you all know what's coming: Renesmee. Without a doubt the worst, worst name I've ever seen in my life (okay with one exception--Anna's friend Amber is I believe related to a kid whose name is Shithead, spelled exactly that way but pronounced Shith-eed). So we'll say one of the top five worst names ever. Crap, crap, crap. I was praying for the baby to be a boy so it wouldn't have to endure that name. And I think a small part of me will die the first time I hear of a real person naming their child that. If/when it happens, I submit that Stephenie Meyer should be responsible for the therapy charges.


Part two: I hated every minute of Bella's pregnancy. I hated how annoying she was about the thing, how unbelievably dramatic the characters were (Edward as "the burning man"), how Rosalie, Edward, and Jacob called each other names and how long it took them all to stop acting like children. I liked the last third of the book a lot better; Bella's first section was irritating to no end, and Jacob's was all about the pregnancy (but I did love the chapter titles).


Part three: Vampire sex. So, so inappropriate. I had my doubts about the first three, just because I wasn't really sure where to draw the line... but Breaking Dawn is out of control. Seriously--so sick of Bella and the sex. Nothing's explicit, obviously, because Stephenie Meyer is (technically) a good Mormon girl. It wasn't even awkward for me, although I'm sure it would be for some people; mostly I was just irritated to death with it. Shut up already.


Part four: I liked Bella in Twilight and New Moon, because I could understand her. Yeah I thought she was annoying, but you know what, sometimes I think I'm annoying too. It's believable. However. I started to like her less in Eclipse, and worst of all in Breaking Dawn, particularly in the first two sections where she's still human. Once she becomes a vampire I dislike her a lot less, though, so that made the ending of the book a lot better.


Part five: I liked the ending and how everything went with the Volturi. I think it could have been a little shorter, but only in retrospect; while I was reading I didn't feel like it was taking a long time or anything. In fact, once we get back to Bella in the last third of the book, everything went really fast. I was glad they didn't have to have a big blowout final battle, because that would have made it impossible for the book to end happily, and it was nice for something in that series to just finally go right.


Part six: I super hate imprinting. I was complaining to Mike at the beginning of the book when I was reading about Quil and Claire; I don't love it anyway, because (like Jacob says later in the book) I don't think it's great that their choices are taken away in the matter. But I like it even less when they imprint on babies. I don't care that it's not supposed to be a sexual thing; I just think it's wrong for their lives to pretty much be frozen in that place. It leaves them no opportunity for new relationships, because they're attached to a baby's hip while she grows up and can't bear to be away from her. Also, I thought it was a really crappy plot convenience, having Jacob imprint on Renesmee. What a lame way to resolve the Jacob--Bella--Edward love triangle. Ugh.


Part seven: I definitely want to own it. This is partially because 1) I own the first three, and I have to have the complete set; 2) I love the cover and especially the spine with the beautiful white chess piece; 3) in spite of several annoying speed bumps along the way, I like the book overall.


Anyway, that's all my thoughts for now. Don't be surprised if I add to them as I remember. :)

New Snack!

My new favorite snack! I discovered these pretzel thins tonight on my break at work, and I got a Snickers too, and man are they delicious together! You should try it.

Breaking Dawn Update

I'm reading right now, about halfway through (so please don't comment with any spoilers yet! Lindsey I'm avoiding your blog until I'm done because I know what's there!), and I just thought I'd share my current thoughts.
Well, I like reading it. I'm not as sucked in as I was with the first three, but it's still hard to put down. However. I say this tentatively, because I don't want to pass judgment until I've finished, but so far I am... not too impressed. The best way to describe what I've read so far is that I think Stephenie Meyer finally just took it too far. I'm not going to say anymore until I've finished, but for those of you who have already, I think you know what I mean.


Oh, and P.S. I hope I do not offend anyone who may like it, but I think Renesmee is the stupidest name ever. That is all.

Blogging Time!

Yay blogging! I'm excited to blog right now, it seems I just haven't done it much lately. And tonight Mike and I did something really fun, so I'm glad I have something good to do it about.
Tonight Mike, Liz and I went over to Natasha and Mike's house to have dinner and play games. When we got there they were making pizza dough, so we chatted and then put all the toppings together on our own individual pizzas, which were delicious. After we ate we played Ticket to Ride (the Europe version), which Mike won on his first time ever playing the game. Then Liz had to leave to go to a sleepover with the girls, so the rest of us played Settlers of Catan, which is basically my favorite board game ever (and which Mike also won). (Actually, Ticket to Ride is second or third right now, so it was a really good night for games in general.) Also, bonus of the night--I was going to ask if I could borrow one of the games from them, which I mentioned, and they said that they're going out of town for the next two weeks so I could borrow them both! So we did! And right now Mike is waiting for me to finish this post so that I can make him play Settlers with me again, so I'm going to go do that! :)

Hurrays!

1. We're free from the apartment mess! My dad went with us to meet with them tonight and we think that definitely made them take us seriously, which they weren't doing before, and we are completely out of the contract. (Little side note--these guys are from Argentina, so this is kinda part of the Latin American culture, but it's something that drove me crazy--they pretty much ignored me and spoke to Mike even when they were answering something I'd said, and then when my dad was there they talked to him even when Mike and I were the ones talking. Very annoying.) But anyway, we got our checks back and tore them up, and my dad didn't even have to do all that much! Yay for not being totally useless! :) Also the two guys were speaking Spanish a lot and my dad waited until the end of the conversation to start speaking in Spanish too and let them know he'd understood them the whole time. Yee haw :P
2. Daniel went to the MTC today! He's officially gone on a mission, and he might as well be in Greece for how much we can contact him! K well not quite because Greece is 9320 years away, and at least here we can send him same-day-delivery packages. Anyway though, of course we have a thousand pictures, and I will share them later. I'm done posting for tonight.

Thoughts

So I'm not in a great mood right now... I haven't griped on here in a little while, probably since before the wedding, so I guess I'm gonna go for it now.

It's just been kind of a crazy weekend for me. First of all, Mike and I ran into some big problems with the apartment we got--they didn't tell us until after we signed the contract that they actually wanted twice as much money up front as what we'd thought, and we don't have it. Mike hasn't had a job for about a month now, so we've been living off my income and it's worked out fine until now; but we also have to pay rent on our current apartment, $160 for a speeding ticket, and both our credit card bills in the next two days. So--basically to come up with the money for the apartment we would have to completely max out both our credit cards, manage to borrow $500 from our parents (neither set can give us all of it at the moment, so we'd have to scrounge), and be left with zero dollars for anything else. This is not a fantastic option, and in fact is not feasible for us. The result of it is that we are going to be moving in with his parents for a little while, until Mike starts his new job and we can get things together enough that we can find a new apartment. Naturally I have mixed feelings about this, but we are super grateful that they were so willing to let us move in, and since we have no choice, I am going to be happy about it and focus on all the money we'll save by paying them $50 a month for "rent." Good times all around. So that was fiasco number one, which occurred Friday night.

Fiasco number two occurred Saturday morning, when my dad and brothers went dirtbiking together for a last male-bonding experience before Daniel leaves on his mission. Around 10 or 11 am I got a text from Daniel saying that Joseph had had an accident on the bike and they thought his leg was broken. It turned out to be worse than they thought--he had to be careflighted to a hospital in Dallas with a broken femur, a fractured wrist, a punctured lung, and some suspicious fluid in his pelvic area. So most of yesterday was spent on the phone with/texting various members of my family, sometimes to find out or pass on the latest news from the doctors, sometimes to comfort someone who was freaking out. Dafni and I had a really hard time with it because we both have been ridiculously homesick lately, and some of you may not have experienced this, but it's really hard to be away from home when something traumatic is happening. We decided that we needed to get together, and our aunt and uncle are in Salt Lake because they flew out for Daniel's mission-sending-off next week, so Dafni and Brandon drove down and Mike and I drove up and spent the night there. It was really good to be with family, and we spent a lot of time calling and texting the rest of the family in Texas. Joseph's doing much better now and is actually conscious, so we were able to talk to him today. They still don't know when he'll be able to go home from the hospital, but at least things seem to be going smoothly for the moment.

This is connected to the third fiasco--obviously Joseph's condition messes up the plans for next week. My parents were supposed to come out with Daniel to drop him off at the MTC and then stay until Friday with Dafni and me, but they can't leave Joseph for that long, especially if he's in the hospital. One or both of them is still going to come, of course, because we have to send Daniel off, but until they find out when Joseph is going home, they can't know whether or not both of them can come, or how long they can stay. Of course I feel a little selfish thinking about this, but I'm pretty upset that the plans are ruined. Like I said, I've been so homesick lately, and I was soooo excited to spend time with my family this week. There's nothing to do about it, though, so I'm just hoping for the best, and that they'll be able to spend at least a couple days here.

You know, it's been a pretty ridiculous year for my family. We've had lots of huge things happen. Some of them have been good (like the weddings) but not all of them were. Here's how the past year has gone:

August 2007--Talia and Kristofer got married.
September--We had to put down our dog, Cookie. Very, very traumatic for my family.
--Mike's three year old niece, Brooklyn died.
--Brooklyn's funeral.
--Mike broke a rib.
April 2008--Dafni and Brandon got married.
May--Mike and I got married.
August--Joseph is hospitalized with the most serious injuries anyone in my immediate family has ever had.
--Daniel leaves on his mission.

So yeah... it's been eventful. Anyway it was just a rough weekend emotionally for me, and then tonight we were playing games with his family and I was getting a little irritated with some people who were being sore losers/winners, and I've had a headache all afternoon so that didn't help. But writing this blog has helped, which is why I heart blogging.

One final thought--I haven't read Breaking Dawn yet, but I picked up someone's copy and inadvertently spoiled something for myself. Sad day. In other news, I am sure not as excited for this book as I was for the last ones. I fully intend to read it and soon, but I'm not expecting to be sucked in as much as I was with the first three. They just seem to have lost some of their appeal, mostly because the writing's a little too dramatic for me.

Ok well that's all. Yay for the first super long just-my-thoughts post in a while. Bye bye!

And now, a message from the Catholic church...

For reals. Cutest. Commercial. Ever. And they have a WEBSITE to go with it!!!!! Me and my cute cute husband (love you babe) were watchin tv and we saw this commercial that we TOTALLY thought was going to be for the LDS church, cause it was all about what people can do to make their marriage better, and everyone knows that only Mormons care about marriage and we're definitely the best at it (just look at Mike and me for example!)... but guess what!! It wasn't!! It was totally a message from the Catholic church, and I just thought that was so sweet and I wanted to share it with all of you, because maybe you could pick up some tips to help make your marriage as great as Mike's and mine!!!!! Love ya!