Stay-at-Home Mom.... Minus the "Mom".

Here is me and my life as of the moment...
 take it as you will.

Hey folks. You may or may not have noticed that over a year has passed since my last blog post.... it's whatev.  I am currently blogging because I am  like unto a stay-at-home mom- minus the mom- so I have more than enough time to tell insignificant tales of my life to no one in particular.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the tales of my life at the moment include things like "I just spent thirty minutes of my life watching youtube videos of badly done Hermione and Draco music videos".  Turns out, approximately 72.6% of the youtube world thought that Draco and Hermione should have gotten together. We can all be thankful that J.K. Rowling listened to her heart instead of that 72.6%!  Even though I would never approve of such a romance, those videos made me laugh real hard.  Maybe they were funny, or maybe my current job as stay-at-home person has lowered my IQ and dulled my wit...

Some Truths and Some Lies

You know that awkward type of situation that humans sometimes fall into where you don't know an acquaintance's name, but you have known them far too long for it to be socially acceptable for you to ask them what their name is? Well, I feel that same level of awkwardness as I begin to write this blogpost. Turns out, I haven't blogged in over a year and a half and now I just don't know where to begin. I can either a) write a year and a half's worth of blogposts to cover all of my doings and don'tings b) write one very long blogpost to cover a year and a half's worth of all of my doings and don'tings or c) write a blog post that has an average-sized list of events slash misdeeds that may or may not have happened in the past year and a half and anyone who reads it can just guess which statements are true and what statements are false. I pick number 'c'- handsdown.

a) I lived in Russia for five months of my life and taught baby Russians English.
b) I lived in China for five months of my life and taught baby Asians English.
c) One time, I had dread locks for ten glorious days.
d) I am now the proud owner of two pairs of brass knuckles.
e) I have lived in Rexburg Idaho for over a year now.
f) I have lived in Provo Utah for over a year now.
g) My parents moved from New Mexico to Utah.
h) My parents moved from New Mexico to Arizona.
i) The other day, a seventh grader mistook me to be a fellow junior-higher.
j) I am an academic advisor for the College Education and Human Development at BYU-Idaho.
k) I changed my major to English Education Composite.
l) I overcame my fear of hobos.
m) I am the 2nd counselor in my Relief Society presidency.
n) My foot went through a wall in our apartment hallway.
o) I broke my wrist.
p) I learned to hulahoop.
q) I discovered love in the form of a baby hedgehog.

So, take from this blog post what you will. There is a 72.3% chance that you now know less about me than you did before you read this, but, you know... it's whatev.

PS By the way, if you ever happen to fall into the previously mentioned awkward situation, an easy way to learn the unknown's name without making a fool of yourself is to introduce someone to the unknown and then pause long enough that the unknown willingly offers his or her name to the person to whom they were just introduced. Win-win situation. DONE.

Question Mark????

I have realized that questions are the most common types of sentences to be uttered by mankind. Almost every conversation starts with “How are you today?” or “What’s up?” I have also realized that there are only a few questions that are asked of me on a daily basis. I realize that by answering them on my blog will do little good since those who tend to ask these questions won’t be reading this anytime in the near future… whatev.
Here are the questions most commonly asked of me with the answers included- not listed in any particular order:

Q1: You’re from Roswell? (3-8 second pause) Have you seen any aliens?
A1: No.

Q2: Did you know that your name was invented in the play ‘Peter Pan’
A1: Yes. (Did you really think I would go twenty years of my life without knowing that?)

Q3: If I make ___________(fill in the blank), will you help me eat it?
A3: The answer is always yes.

Q4: Do you want to give me a back massage?
A4: Never do I ever have the desire to give a back massage. If you are my mom or someone who recently did something really great and deserving of a back massage, then I will do it anyways.

Q5: You are going to teach Asians English? How will you do that if you don’t know Chinese?
A5: Oh, ummm.... I will be teaching ENGLISH not Chinese.

Q6: You are so dark! Do you go tanning?
A6: I pinky promise all people in the universe that never have I ever been fakey-baking and nor will I ever.

Another thought concerning questions that has recently been plaguing my brain is the fact that I have so many questions that will never be answered in my earthly life. For instance, one time I purchased a strawberry shake from Wendy’s with a cherry on top. I love maraschino cherries, so I obviously made plans to save the cherry for last. However, upon completing my strawberry shake, the cherry was gone!! Where did it go?! This is one question I will never know the answer to. Another time, I bought a box of Lucky Charms. I ate one bowl of this delicious cereal then put the box on the shelf. About a week later, I had a hanker in for some more Lucky Charms, but to my surprise and dismay, the box was missing! We immediately had roommate family counsel, but no one knew where the almost full box had run off to. This is yet another unsolved mystery. A few more unanswered questions: Why does my roommate, Julianne, only wear yoga pants? (she literally wears them every where-to the gym, class, single’s ward dances, dates, shopping, nights out on the town, etc) Why did Basha’s get rid of their mustache machine? (I cried an infinity of tears over this fact.) Why does my apartment smell like a swamp non -stop? Why does this boy in my ward think that my name is Demi?

Why is this woman doing what she's doing?

I guess the answers will never be known and I will have to be content in my unknowing state…

Merry Mustaches to You!

It has been literally months since I last blogged about anything. As I made the decision that it was time, once again, to grace the world with tales of my misdeeds, I had so many blogging options opened to me. Perhaps I should talk about this past semester... Or maybe I should tell a story of the many fabulous road trips in which I have had the privilege to participate... Or maybe I should tell the story of Judith Lowry and defensive driving school.... The option is also there to write of the recent holiday happenings? As I pondered over all of my many options, the correct choice became clear. I should write about the one thing that has had the most impact on my life this past semester- the item that brings me greater joy than any other item in this universe- the item that can provide for endless hours of entertainment.... THE STACHE!!!!!

I first discovered the magical mustache machine when I was at the place of Basha's. I was there to use the ATM machine. As I was staring into nothing trying to remember how much money was in my account slash if I had money in my account slash what the point of money even is, my eyes came into focus and I realized that I was staring directly at a fifty cent mustache vending machine. From that point forward, my life was changed. My actions after this marvelous discovery are blurry. I have no idea if i ever even finished my bank transactions at the ATM machine. All I know is that I have purchased close to fifty mustaches since that monumental day.

Here are just a few of the things you can do with THE STACHE:

Wear it at family gatherings while wearing a mismatching turtleneck

Wear it with some sweet shades and bling-bling

Mock sleeping people while holding a fancy goblet

Go to sporting events- your opponent WILL be intimidated.

Throw cowboy parties at work

This has nothing to do with mustaches, but here is my roommate Kristin and I eating some watermelon.

In conclusion, the Stache is a very worthwhile purchase. However, I must give a warning that once the buying of mustaches begins, it is hard to stop. For example, I have come to the conclusion that I would rather buy multiple staches instead of doing laundry and/or wash my car. SO, if you don't mind doing laundry about once a month and having a dirty car, please help yourself to the Stache machine at Basha's!!!

Mulletlicious

Remember that time when I went to Germany and I thought that Europeans were so crazy with their mullets and such? Well, I am living in Orem Utah for the summer and the other day I went to an airshow with my sisters and it turns out the mother of all mullets is currently in the United States of America. You would think that if there was to be a crazy mullet wearing fool in America, that it would be in a place such as California or Vegas perhaps. Turns out I was horribly mistaken... Utah is the place.

Here is my oldest sister Sharlee... oh no wait! That is my brother-in-law wearing Sharlee's hat.

Kristi and me in a crazy big airplane

And here is the mother mullet of all mullets and it's owner.

German videos for non-German friends

When I was in Germany, my lovely friend Kristen Kitchen helped me make some videos for a few of my friends. However, when I tried to email these videos, I found that they contained too many megabytes to email :(

After looking over the videos again, I found that I didn't really want to put more than these three out for the public eye to see because I can't really stand the sound of my voice/my ridiculous facial expressions. So, here are these...

Dear Tanner Michael Gilliland,

This is a video for you.

The accordion player for you best friend because you play the accordion too!!!

Here is an Asian man protesting something.

German Babies Cry in English!

So I went to Germany the other day. My mom and I went mostly just to visit our family friends, the Kitchens, and to sight see. However, it turns out I ended up learning many things in addition to my beginning goals. Some of these new findings were actually quite shocking. The first thing to hit me occurred as soon as our plane landed in the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. I looked out of the airplane window in hopes of seeing a real live German on German soil. To my great surprise, the first German I laid eyes on looked like a normal human being; maybe even an American! I really don't know what I was expecting. Maybe a lederhosen wearing man with a beer mug in one hand and a large bratwurst in the other would have been closer to my expectations. I just don't even know. And then, as that wasn't a big enough shock, when we walked into the airport and I heard a German baby crying. Guess what!! It sounded just like an American baby. Don't tell me that THAT wasn't unexpected! The next thing I learned is that Europeans are generally not a very friendly bunch. This was a continuous learning process that began at the Frankfurt airport when I ran over a large German man's foot with my little rolling suitcase. As I looked up at him to apologize, all apologies were lost in my throat as I saw his great stature and the angry look upon his face.

Soooo, after finally leaving the Frankfurt airport, many great adventures occurred. The Kitchens accompanied my mom and I to see many a castle and other lovely things. My favorite castle was most definitely Neuschwanstein, otherwise known as the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang castle!! Yay!!!What a weird and creepy, but somehow great, movie.

Let's see... the next great learning experience occurred when I lived the hobo life for a night. The hobo story begins with my mother and Richard and Stephenie Kitchen forcing the group to go to the concentration camp in Dachau. (This was done against my advice.) We soon found that we had missed our train which put us behind to miss our next train. After taking a later train, we arrived at the bus station around 12:30 AM to find that the next train to our ultimate destination would leave at 9:00 AM. So we all settled down on some dirty stairs for the night. I awoke around 2:00 AM to find a towel and a strange sweatshirt wrapped around me as well as to find Jared Kitchen curled up under a sign, just sleeping away, like an old hobo pro. It was also at this time that Kristen Kitchen spotted our neighbor,the Asian hobo, clipping his toenails on a near by bench. Eeeeee. It was quite the experience.

Also during the journey, I found that the first German I saw was definitely an exception to the German population. I learned that Germans LOVE mullets, dreadlocks, and European man pants (please see photos below). They also have a very distinct smell that is suspiciously similar to body odor. Hmmm..

In conclusion, the German trip was an overall success. My favorite part was probably most likely definitely the food. The icecream contained more flavor than all icecream that I have devoured in the past year of my life and the crepes that were filled with nutella were most excellent. I learned that Salami on little bread loaves is just scrumdidliumpcious and, my most favorite thing of all, was called a Doener Kebap and it is a type of bread (kind of like pita, but good) containing lamb meat, mozzerella, tomatoes, and other delicacies. Anyways, that is all I wish to say about that.Until next time...

Here's me and Constantine's foot

(who knew Constantine was a giant?!)

A lion gleeking in my mouth

^Little Krissy Kitchen and me in Bavaria

A bathroom for armless women

European man pants

the dreadlocks

my mom just doing what she do...

To the castle!!!! ^

two lovely german maidens

the mullet

The hobo life

ICE CREAM!!!

PS The picture of the beautiful purple flower on my page was taken in Germany by me! It is NOT a screen saver as some seem to believe... that is all.