In-Famous

Since the first day I started teaching I thought about when my students would make-it in life. You know, become rich and famous fashion designers, or movie stars, or rock band peeps; and I'd look back and say, I had them as a student. I've been in their presence.

Well my fine readers, it has happened...although not like I had envisioned. Way to go Terrence Harris, you've done your family proud. (Being that he is in the newspaper, I don't feel bad calling him out.)
Read story here if your interested. (Which, with that introduction, how could you not be?)

And a special thanks to another former student who brought this story to my attention. I always counted on them to keep me informed. :) 1 student down; 1054 hopefuls to go

Current Favorite

I am currently working on our wedding photo album. It's been a constant project forever! There are just so many pictures, I can't choose which ones to include and which to toss.

Anyway-my point is, this is my current favorite. The tulips were beautiful; I couldn't have ordered a better flower to be planted. And I think it just encompases what I was feeling perfectly. Such joy.

Lunch

I feel like Lunch is the worst meal of the day. At home I usually want to skip the meal entirely and go straight to snack. Why you ask-No good food. I have never been real good at the packing lunch bit either. Ever. At work, I'm sort of afraid to use the community fridge for weird reasons, and not too keen on using the microwave in the kitchen. Nothing germ-aphobe like; more like don't-talk-to-me-I-want-to-still-be-in-my-cubical like. Don't ask.

Consequently, I pack fairly boring lunches in an effort to be healthy and yet satisfied yet not re-heating or having to be chilled. Then, lunch time hits and what I've packed sounds not so good anymore or isn't enough to fill up a fly.

This usually results in my craving kicking in. This is another weird thing about me. I'll go through craving phases. I remember each of them so distinctly. When I was a teacher I went through the Jack in the Box phase, the Vons Bagel phase, the Taco Bell phase followed shortly by the Sweet n' Salty Almond bars. Recently it has been the Baskin Robin phase and now the BofA cafe Panini phase.

Then the worst thing happens. The crave stops tasting good and I'm back to boring useless lunches; like oatmeal; or a yogurt and a piece of fruit. Sure it fills me up but I wish something better was sitting in my stomach. Sadly I am at that junction now. I need to be excited about my lunch. I need something delicious yet convenient. What I need is a lunch revolution where there is good healthy packing food for lunches only.

The End.

And for the record, have I mentioned I miss teaching yet. Because I really do. I think about it everyday. I loved my job. And I miss it terribly.

The End. For Real.

My Bad!

I went to AAA to get my registration stickers replaced. Surprisingly it was a VERY long line. I was surprised because last time I was the only one in there. Whatever, I was going to get this taken care of today so I waited. When I finally made it to the desk 45 minutes later, I informed the lady of my situation and she gave me the form to fill out and the fee that needed to be paid. To my relief, it was only $18.00. I whipped out the checkbook to pay the fee and can you guess what dropped out?

Yes-eriee folks, my registration sticker. Apparently I stuck it in my checkbook after I paid the fee last time and thought I had put it in the glove box with the registration paperwork. So -just kidding. They weren't actually stolen. Now I'm just waiting for the items taken from Mark's car to drop out of my purse.

Silly me!

Next Blog>>

Have you ever found yourself sitting at your computer reading every blog link you have? Then clicking on the blog links of friends friends' thinking maybe you ran into them once and now you want to follow up with their lives too. AND THEN finding you still have time to kill so you resort to reading friends of your friends blogs that you have no relation or connection to but really don't care. AND THEN...reaching an all time low, you start clicking the Next Blog>> button found at the top of each blog which randomly throws you into cyberspace? Which then makes you wish you had cool things to blog about too; so you end up blogging about what you've just done?

...yeah...me neither. I'm far to busy for that.

Agency

One of the greatest blessings of mortality is the right to choose for ourselves what kind of people we want to be. So I wonder where in the spectrum of life do thieves find their actions justifiable. Last night we had our garage broken into. Both cars were searched and everything inside was taken from them. Thankfully the items taken were all replaceable so no real physical damage is done. Just the inconvenience of replacing the new Registration tags I just got yesterday for my car, the iPod, an empty purse that I really liked, sunglasses that were from Target I'm sure, and the garage door opener. The opener is a cause for great concern as now we have to get everything re-programed so whoever has our opener doesn't have access to the house when we are away.

Anyway-it is such a disturbing thing; having your belongings taken from you. It leaves you feeling so violated and unsafe. I am such a different person because I would feel sick every time I used that iPod, or put those registration stickers on my car. Hey, where did you get those neat sunglasses...I STOLE them right out of someone's car that was parked in their garage in the middle of the night. Really people? So ten points to us for not being thieves and having a conscience.

Roadshow 2010

What a BUSY weekend. Every 4 years our stake gets the youth together for the the infamous Roadshow experience. I remember doing this when I was a kid and Sister Miller put together this genius of a production with music and dance and all. Strangely enough I still remember many of those songs. I digress; this year Mark and I were selected to be the specialists for tour ward's Roadshow. What? Moi? They do things quite different from when I was a kid. Rather then weeks on end with practices and rehearsals, it is now a 24 Hour production from start to finish. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Mark and I developed, wrote, choreographed, and preformed a 6 minute skit with 10 youth. Pretty sure I am not cut out for the all-nighter fan fare. We wrote half our script Friday night until about 2am. Then gathered again at 8am for breakfast and ... everything else that followed. I was quite proud of our finished product. We did a spoof of Disney Pixar UP! and the temptations taking us away from Paradise falls. An overall great success. A few highlights included:

-- The band of temptation entered the stage singing "We're going to Lake Taho-ho-ho." (Like in Finding Nemo) and then responded "Tahoe-mu-ha-ha" every time Tahoe was said.

-- The invitation to a "mildly inappropriate party in Lake Tahoe". Very funny.

-- The song we re-wrote to "In the Jungle" and the a-weema-way's were changed to "Let's go this way, Let's go this way." (the other side chants) "No Come our Way, No Come our way..."

-- Dance Battle! Russell was getting his interpretive dance merit badge and stormed the Alpha.

-- Jason says playing Kevin made his wrists hurt. We thought about claiming workers comp.

And I hate to boast but we were the best performance of the night. With 9 other wards competing, we heard from many sources that we were the most put together and entertaining. I hope this means we're not up for another assignment! :) We were absolutely exhausted by the end of the night. So much so that we both took 3 hour naps Sunday afternoon. Nice.

School Days

Today is the first day of school at La Sierra High School...and I'm not there. Weird. This is actually the first time IN MY LIFE that I have not had a 1st day of school. And I miss it. Not in a can-I-go-back kind of way but a that-was-a-good-time kind of way. And I did look in the school website to see the name of the individual who replaced me but they haven't updated their site so...my name has not yet been replaced; which is nice.

I guess this is a cheers to me for finally getting beyond the "first day of school" phase. I feel kinda bad for the future kiddos, I'll be "schooling" them from birth. :)

As a completely unrelated side note: today is also my Dad's birthday. I wonder if birthday's are celebrated in Heaven. You know, like hey-you got your mortal body day? I don't know. But mom's made his favorite cheesecake dessert and Mark and I are headed to the temple. So I feel its a good celebration here. 'sigh' - I miss that man!

America's Past Time

Take me out to a Ballgame! Especially if it is in the city! Giants vs the Cubs. Mike and Spencer invited us to join them in the action down at the AT&T Park in San Francisco. We always seem to have a riotous time with these guys and are thrilled Mike lives so close (for now).Parking was a bit of a challenge. Mark already doesn't like driving in the city; too many cars and people - and the bikers! Seriously they feel they own the road which can be annoying when there is no room for them! We ended up passing up the THIRTY DOLLAR lot (what?) and opted for a more affordable free 2 hour parking just across the street. 2 hours seems like plenty of time being the weather was cold and it was baseball-lets be honest. After meeting up with the boys, we headed up to our glamorous seats; just barely missing the last row by a hair.

The game went really well. The boys enjoyed their garlic fries and hot dogs like any good fan would. I was enamored with the game the young girl in front of us was playing - something really weird with cooking. When they weren't eating, the boys checked their facebook status and other features on their phones. And every once in a while we'd look up from our electronic/ediable distractions to this view:

We left on a great note with 2 runs back to back by the Giants in the 4th inning. A splendid evening in the ballpark. Splendid company to boot. And I must add, my sister forgot her giant hoop earrings at my house and I keep *forgetting* to send them back...as seen in this photo. :) Nice.

Big Trees

I know my previous post on the family reunion was a little sparse. Such is the result of a very busy life. I apologize. To try to make up for it I've added a few more pictures of Mark and I and our little walk through the North Grove.I have been to the Giant redwoods a few times so was excited when mom said we were going to go again. I have vivid memories of the Banana Slug band and making necklaces in the little campers activity days. Not to mention the giant tree stump that has been made into a dance floor and the tree that was carved years ago to drive through. I have always loved camping here and this weekend was no different!


It must be mentioned that the above picture is a copy of what Trent and Jennifer did. I thought it was so clever and cute that I made Mark pose with me near the small shrub as I pointed to the Giant sequoia.


Check out this root system! CRAZY! Many of the trees had been hollowed out from fires and such so there were tunnels and pockets of hiding places everywhere. We climbed and ran through and enjoyed these majestic beauties for hours!


We had such a great time relaxing with the family and each other. Now I just need to find some time to scrapbook all these memories!

A touch of Wright

Oh how I love my family. They are just the roots of me and all that is good. I love how when we get together we laugh at just about everything and mom is in bliss. It is fabulous. We went to the Calavaras Redwood trees to camp for a few days and had a lovely time. I had forgotten how huge these trees are. The kids especially had a great time running through the hollowed out trunks and the around the huge trees.

Please don't forget:

-The Amazing Race-Season 2: Mom and I did it for the second time. Some things were a little different with larger teams and more stops. We had them swimming for puzzle pieces, eating ice cream, searching the stadium seats, and collecting cans to name a few. The boys won but only by a hair. Another great memory maker.

-The camping trip detour to Walgreens/Target: we realized fairly quickly that we needed to purchase water and a few forgotten items before we headed into the forrest; therefore a quick stop to Walmart was planned while passing through Stockton. If we had only known this little detour would have taken an hour! We were all a little uptight (except for mom who was in vacation mode) when we finally settled down to Chiptole for dinner - 1.5 hours later we were back on the right road toward the campground. The VERY NEXT TURN, we passed a Kmart. Nice!

-Chipotle eventually turned into Chipootle - for the rest of the trip.

-Charades: what a riot. we couldn't get what everyone was doing. My favorites was when Dave drew washing a fliter and Lesley and I could not get it. The Dennis Rodman choice probably created the most laughs-I was chewing gum and slapping my arms and chest to show the tattoos intermitted with spikey hair motions-back to the bouncing ball gum chewing motions. Lesley got it really quick-because naturally it was Dennis Rodman. Dave still thinks I was trying to dance.

-The kids in the dirt - DIRTY! There was no hope.

-The river-we swam upstreem to the giant boulders that we use to jump off as kids. Dad showed us how so we knew we could do it. Tessa and I started and a few of the onlookers soon joined in. I can't lie, it made me smile that we had started it. A very fun trip floating down was probably the best part.

-Rice Krispie Treats-amazingly delicious. Probably ate too many.

-Thrifty Ice cream cones-3 stories high. A definate tradition. And why stop at 2 scoops when you can have 3!

-Mercer Caves-we were a little timid to take those little kids down so many steep steps. And they were steep! But the stalagites and stalagmites were amazing. Mark said Mt. Timps were better but I was quite impressed. Plus this one comes with Gold Mining history...bonus!

I so love my family. And we're quite a good looking bunch if I do say so myself.

Running...again

I've been inspired.

I get the Runner's magazine every month and love reading it and pretending I'm all hard-core like the runners they talk about. I know I'm not, but I like to be.

So I am back into my good running patterns. Thanks to a visit from my sister, we're up and jogging before work. It's a good day.

I am even seriously considering the marathon in Sacramento...perhaps.

Pool Man

This is the kind of stuff Mark is into these days.
We've had several big jobs with plumbing, mastic, and electrical panneling. Mark is learning a lot! We appreciate Dave and his efforts in coming out to teach us so much! What a giant learning curve this business has been. But things are going great. Being your own boss is such a different life then what Disney was providing.

Cook Book Craze

I made a goal at the beginning of the year to cook every recipe out of a cookbook. I've struggled finding the perfect book to do this out of mostly because all the books I had weren't exactly what I was looking for.

Then came this. With the suggestion of my Brother-In-Law; we purchased the Flat Belly Diet Cookbook to try some of their ideas. And what do you know - it is amazing. We've made about a dozen different random recipes (even some that didn't have pictures) and we LOVE them. I couldn't choose a favorite but I just love the Mango Smoothie Surprise and the Pork-Pineapple Tacos.

D'lish. Pretty sure we will be fixin' out of this book for a while.

Favorites

I love the laugh of my little nephews. I love these summer evenings with my husband at home. I love my little car Edna. I love living close to my mom. I love living close to Winco. I love that my friends want to visit me. I love that my new friends have the last name of Wright. I love my new calling. I love my husbands new calling. I love planning vacations we might be taking this fall. I love road trips. I love talking on the phone to distant friends. I love babies. I love family reunions. I love playing the Amazing Race at family reunions. I love fine tip pens. I love ice cream. I still love grocery shopping. I love trying new recipes. I love my husband. I love being his wife. I love reading "self help" books with great ideas to organize your life. I love the Food Network and HGTV. I love unpacking my boxes that have been in storage for months to find goodies I've lost inside. I love fancy cameras with effortlessly splendid photography. I love the word Splendid.