Saturday, February 26, 2011

Come what may

I really needed to read this today. Maybe you did too...

"The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude." Joseph B. Wirthlin


Thursday, February 24, 2011

Breakfast- try to be cheerful

Breakfast table civility and deportment

1. Clean up before you come to the breakfast table: wash your face and comb your hair
2. You don't have to get dressed (I guess if it's in the family home, but at a B & B I would guess you should)
3. Clean fingernails, please
4. Reading the newspaper at the table is permissible, but a pleasant word or salutation must be spoken to all present
5. Sit up strait and TRY to be cheerful

6. Talk to one another politely; talk and listen in turn
7. Because everyone is defenseless at breakfast, there should be no contentiousness or crossness
8. Don't ever mention food dislikes or criticize the food
9. Don't lick your fingers or stuff your mouth with food
10. Don't play with your food

11. Don't talk with your mouth full
12. Butter your bread one part at a time; don't put your uneaten pieces back in the bread basket
13. And don't answer questions in a saucy manner
14. Remember, guests always receive the choicest portions.

I will forever be working on #5. I am so not a morning person.

From The Breakfast Book by the esteemed Ms. Marion Cunningham (p. 53)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Wednesday Thought(s)

1. At FHE on Monday one of my roommates informed me that the microwave in our apartment sparked when it was turned on and therefore no longer worked.

Thinking somebody put a piece of foil in it, I investigated when I got home but didn't see anything.

Since I didn't get a chance decided not to try it for myself, I texted one of my friends on Tuesday and asked her to turn it on and see what happened.

She texted back: "I just tried it and sparks start flying! It is super scary! SCARY SCARY FRIGHTENING!"

I was scared (would you blame me?) to turn it on when I got home from work, so when she got home I asked her to try it again so I could see.

Indeed, our microwave gave us a pyrotechnics show last night.
It was amazing!
Booming sound effects were included free of charge.
And yes, it was scary! Poor, poor microwave!

2. I went to a DO for my shoulder/shoulder blade pain last Thursday and she recommended physical therapy, so I start with PT on March 2nd.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well
and helps with the pain most of all.

3. All the snow has melted!
I know Phil predicted an early Spring but I've only had snow cream once this year and besides that it's still only February.
I need a little bit more snow!

4. I'm thinking of getting my hair cut. I've been wanting to grow it out, but I get impatient because it grows so slowly and this haircut seems like a pretty popular style these days. What do you think?

5. Did you watch the episode of Glee two Tuesdays ago? The one that introduced the power of four Biebers?
It almost made me want to see Justin's new movie Never Say Never.

Almost.

But, I think it'll just suffice for me to watch this instead, baby (it's less creepy...that's for sure, thinking of how young Justin is!):



6. In case you haven't noticed I put a little formspring box on my blog. If you have any thing you want to ask, you can do it by clicking here. :)

On that note,
I hope you had a great Wednesday!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Visit!

Let's play a game of guess who. Ready?

This person has a little (and by "little" I mean pretty big) blog where she talks about her "bizarre beautiful and often very weird" life as the wife of a cattle rancher. She blogs about her Bassett hound with turtle breath and her husband's Wrangler clad behind...


Any guesses?



It's The Pioneer Woman!


Yes! She recently published another book, Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, which is the story of how she met her husband, Marlboro Man. This weekend I had the chance to meet her in Columbus for the book signing!

I found out she was coming about a month ago, and since I didn't have any official days off work in February I decided to take a day off and drive up to Columbus to visit with my family and also see Pioneer Woman.

The best of two worlds in one visit!

Ree was scheduled to be at Barnes and Noble at 2pm and we got there around 1:30 or so. She came alone and the place was packed. It probably would have been even more packed if Marlboro Man was there and people knew about him coming too.

(This is just a tiny bit of the crowd)

The kind people at the bookstore handed out tickets which determined where you would be in line. I was "white c" which meant I was at the very end of the line. This also meant I would be there for a good while.

I was talking to a few ladies who had driven down to Nashville the weekend before to see her and stood in line for 6 hours! I wanted to see her, but was really hoping I wouldn't be there for 6 hours.

As I stood around getting photos and just waiting for my turn, a woman came up to me and asked if I was in line. I said yes and she said "here you go (and handed me some tickets), you can have these because we're leaving." They were yellow tickets which meant I was practically next- they were almost to the end of red, you know, color order wise. I asked her if she was sure, she said yes, I thanked her and she left. Wow, my turn was coming up faster than I thought!

With her purple flower pen and shellac nail polish

When they called yellow, I stood in line and thought of what I wanted her to write in my cookbook.

I saw people go in front of me as I waited.

We all know her love for babies. Her ovaries were probably doing somersaults.

Her "handler" (which is the name they gave the guy who came with her...it sounds like an animal trainer doesn't it?) took my book and handed it to Ree. It was my turn!

I had a list of questions I was going to ask. Such as:

Is Cowboy Josh really single?
If so, what's his last name so I can look him up on facebook?
Do you smell Charlie's Frito paws every day?
When are you planning on doing The Ranchelor?
How do find time for everything you have to do? Photography, blogging, cooking, ranching, homeschooling your kids, finding time to be with your husband...painting your toenails?
When do you practice your Ethel Merman impersonations?
Do you ever sleep?

But I just ended up asking... How's Charlie doing? "He's great! I'll tell him you said hi" was her response. Then she said "Natasha, right?" and wrote what I wanted her to in my book.




In case you can't read it, it says: "Love to Natasha (she put the "love to" part in)- Wishing you your own Marlboro Man! (Heart) Ree D."

It was so fun to see her and have her sign the cookbook. She was really down to earth. I just wish people had more time to spend with her.

What a fun day!

And now, for your pleasure, I found scraps of fabric with cowboys on them and I think they relate pretty well to PW's life, don't you think?

See the resemblance?
Photo from here

You've reached the bottom of this post, heard the behind the scenes version, and now that's the end of my story.

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Did Pioneer Woman come to your town?

Friday, February 18, 2011

Fill in the blank


1. I am
sleepy, glad to be home with my family, excited for tomorrow (when I get to see her!!, a lover of food, and introverted extrovert
.

2. The bravest thing I've ever done was move to Kentucky to live?.

3. I feel prettiest when I wear make-up and get dressed up.

4. Something that keeps me awake at night is stress, loud sounds outside, my roommate pounding on the floor when walking, things I should be doing/didn't get done during the day.

5. My favorite meal in the entire world is hmm? Just one? I have a hard time narrowing it down, but I do really like lasagna with garlic bread.

6. The way to my heart is through caring and making me feel valued.

7. I would like to be better than I am, do something exciting, join the circus and move to Siberia (just kidding on that last part, I could never join the circus because I'm afraid of heights so I could never be on the trapeze, but I guess I could work with the animals...).

Want to join? Link up here.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day

from me...

diy valentine's cakes from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.


to you!

Normally Valentine's day bothers me at least a little bit. But not this year. Nope, I don't really care that I don't have a Valentine (and let's face it, probably never will) and I'm not even bitter about it. I sent Valentine's day cards (and two packages) to people and it made me happy! I think from now on I'll do that every year. No sense wasting every February 14th being grumpy and sad when I could be eating good chocolates.

Yesterday, at break the fast a friend of mine asked if people had anything good going on this week (we were seated at a table with guys). All the guys moaned and groaned and said it would be a horrible week because it was Valentine's day. I piped up and said "But Tuesday is the day after Valentine's day. That day will be good." They all said no, it wouldn't because Valentine's Day pretty much ruins the whole week. But it doesn't have to ruin the whole week...

Do you have a valentine today?
If so, make sure you tell them how special they are to you/how much you love them/how cute they are, etc.
If not, make sure to do something nice for someone else.

In fact, I invite you to take the Single's Awareness Day Challenge (Thanks, Teachinfourth!) by having a day of increased kindness to others (complete strangers, actually):

Are you up for the challenge? Here it is...
1. Perform a random act of kindness for someone else this week
2. Come back when your act is complete and comment anonymously about what you did (you can either comment on my blog or here on Teachinfourth's blog).

Ready....set...act!

Oh, and have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday, February 11, 2011

...blogging...

I don't really care what your stance on the issue is because it's just a fact that every time you go to a store around Valentine's day you will see all the love-ly red and white colors and hearts all around you.

This holiday coming up is pretty hard to ignore, unlike some other holidays, such as boxing day. I'll guess you'll just have to give in and embrace the love.

Even the air seems to be filled with love, don't you think? You're in a tub of love and you can't escape.

So, on this day in this month of love I will now proceed to tell you something...

I may not be very good at it, but I love to blog. I also love to read blogs.

I love blog background colors. I love different fonts. I love bad play lists and good play lists.

I love blog templates covered in hearts and buttons and little yellow polka dots.

I love lists and pictures of things that make people happy. I love the writers and picture-takers and mothers and the craftiness of women and seamstresses and fathers and siblings and geologists and genealogists and scholars and bakers who all blog about their experiences.

I even (or more especially) love the part of blogging that most non-bloggers are uncomfortable with, the part where people blog about their perfect grilled cheese sandwich or walking their cat on a leash, or watching their favorite movie for the hundredth time, or they link a song they love with a few lines of a quote they like, or how they aspire to be a singer, or they get mad at their husband, or they dedicate their post to someone, or they say thanks for reading their posts, or they pick a side of the immigration debate, or tell of the time when they were there to see a baby being born, or when they saw someone leave this world and how it hurt to write but they wrote anyway, or how they're trying to get sponsors, or they took twenty pictures of their kids swimming during swimming lessons and want everyone to see them, or they just got new pinking shears, or they talk about themselves and share too much information for too many lines in bolded font that's rife with spelling errors...

Yes, it's human, and sometimes very strange, and maybe somewhat detached, and quirky, and you seem a million times cooler when blogging about the "right" things.

People blog about their meals and their new haircuts and their aversion to sharpie pens and their knee-jerk reactions to certain religions or the newest politician. They aren't always well-organized or sensitive but they blog a picture of their hand that they took on accident, or how much they hate Facebook, or what their take on a controversial sermon is, or why the smell of a certain store or the leather couch in their apartment brings them relief...

These...all of these reasons are why I love blogging.

That you can write things in your blog nobody else in the whole universe has ever thought or cared about, besides you. And people read them and comment and somehow through everything we come together and boost each other up.

And if they do, or don't, it doesn't matter.

You're blogging it because YOU want to blog it.

For yourself.
For the record.
For your posterity.

Don't ever give it up.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Month of love

Via

Thank you so much to everybody who commented on my last post. I'm hoping I can figure out what's going on soon.

************
About two months ago I came across a website called Love Bomb. Every Thursday they send out an email about a person who is really struggling or experiencing rough times in their life. Love bomb includes a link to their website/blog and your job is to head over to that person's site and leave them an encouraging comment. By the end of the day they will have received many, many nice comments just when they are needed most.

Does it sound good? If so, please head over to Love Bomb and sign up. It only takes a few minutes of your time, but the results are truly timeless for those you help.
Think of the impact this could have on these people! As you know it starts with us.

Also, if you know of someone who needs a love bomb dropped on them you can email Lauren (the girl in charge) at dropalovebomb@gmail.com and let her know.

Yay for love!


Post edit: These past two weeks Lauren has been struggling and because of that, Lauren is being love bombed this week. Go
here to send her a comment!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

What is this?

The chiropractor was pretty sure it was a muscle. The doctor thought it was a muscle. My friend who is a massage therapist and massages muscles all day said it was bone. I say it hurts.

I've been to the chiropractor. I've been to the doctor. The chiropractor helped (somewhat) but when I left, the pain returned. X-rays were taken and nothing was found. I'm still in pain.

I've used a heating pad. I've used an ice pack. I've taken muscle relaxers. I've taken prescription strength naproxen.

My shoulder hurts (actually underneath my shoulder blade) and pain medicine barely touches it. I have shooting pain up my neck now when I turn my head or move my arm.

And the sad part is I don't know what else to do about it. :(

Monday, February 7, 2011

Rude

(This picture has nothing to do with this post, I just wanted you to see the snowfall outside my apartment. It looks very Narnia-esque doesn't it?)

Today at work a customer was transferred down to me who wanted to pay a bill by credit card.

I answered the phone like I normally do:

"Hi. This is Natasha."

His response?

"Natasha? Where did you get a name like that? Are your parents communists?"

"No, as a matter of fact, they are not (and while you're at it, why don't you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it). How can I help you?"

I was talking to my mom and she suggested that I should have told him I was a Christmas baby. That would have caught him off guard.

Anyway, with tact like that I'm sure he gets lots of repeat customers to his car dealership. I'm just sure of it.*

*(That was sarcasm, in case you didn't get it...)

*********
In other news, I had a great weekend. I saw Elder Bednar twice- once at a YSA fireside on Saturday night and then on Sunday we had a special Stake Conference where he spoke. It was wonderful.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Cheeky

This was the back of an envelope that my mom recently sent to me. Oh, how I love baby cheeks!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

A letter

Dear Life,

My wish for 2011 is a big fat bank account and a slim body.

Please don't mix these two up like you did last year.

Love,

Me

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Random city

I'm back from my little blogging absence. The reason I took the absence was because I wasn't feeling well and had been to the chiropractor and doctor several times in a short period of time and I just didn't feel like composing a blog in my head let alone typing it.

See, I'm still not back to normal. Just look at that run-on sentence. I know it was a short absence and actually the space between my posts before was longer than this one. But whatever.

Does anybody still read this blog? I hardly get comments, so I'm not sure...

I saw the "The King's Speech" yesterday. I now know it's rated R. I just thought it was PG-13 (and in my opinion it really should have been rated that).

I highly recommend it. It's based on the true story of King George VI (queen Elizabeth's father), who became king after his brother, Edward, abdicated the throne in order to marry his mistress, Wallis Simpson. King George stuttered and the movie is about his (working) relationship/friendship with his speech therapist before and shortly after he was crowned as king. Collin Firth was wonderful as King George. It was sooo good. GO see it.

I peeled a banana from the bottom end today because I couldn't open it from the top. My finger turned all brown from the grossness. And it kind of made me sick looking at the bottom of the banana. But I ate it anyway because I was hungry.

I love ickle and Lardee. Have you met them? Go here to meet them. They're pretty much the cutest yittle milk teef you have ever seen.

Blogger has more fonts. I haven't really checked them out. Thusly, I am still using this plain old font. But just you wait ('enry 'iggins) I'll be using them shortly, I'm sure.

Have you ever thought about what your life would be like if you had to live in a bubble? I was at the library recently and I found a movie on the real life bubble boy! I'm excited to watch it.

Whenever I hear or talk about bubble boys I always think of the Seinfeld episode with the bubble boy.

Also speaking of bubbles. Here is a view of the world from bubbles. Cool, huh?

I'm reading a book about human cadavers and I'm learning lots of useful information.

For example, did you know that a human stomach can hold about a gallon? After that, it either explodes (in the case of cadavers) or you throw-up (in the case of someone living). Like I said very useful, right?

The above is the reason why it's probably not a good idea to do the gallon challenge. Just sayin'. If you don't know what the gallon challenge is, google or wikipedia would be a good resource.

Okay, my lunch break is over. Have a happy Wednesday.
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