flustered?!

Random thoughts today....

-I really hate writing the number 5. Mine always looks like an 'S' unless I do what they taught in elementary and draw the line on the top last, which I think is lame! 5 is such a high maintenance number...I mean where does it get off being so hard to write? All the other numbers are fine! (Except 8's when I'm in a hurry...but I don't hate 8 - see below)

-Favorite joke from Grade 9: "An 8 is just a O wearing a belt." Har Har Har.

-After I learned about the Water Cycle when I was young I wouldn't comletely drain the water out of the tub after taking a bath. I would leave a good solid inch or two because I wanted to see if it would evaporate. I got frustrated too many times when people would drain it (unaware of my brilliant experiment) and eventually gave up.

-I give Feathers this food that has "natural color enhancers." Well lately he has been getting darker and darker and it was making me mad - I don't want him to look like all the other Beta's, his color is why I chose him! Well I cleaned his bowl out tonight and with him in the nice, clean water I realize....he wasn't really getting darker. His water was just nasty!

-I've watched America's Next Top Model for years now. I usually don't agree with who they choose as the winner, and sometimes I get a little frustred at elimination, but usually I don't care that much...Until this Cycle (Do they really have to call it a Cycle? Sounds a little too close to 'period' to me). Anyway, this season they elimated my VERY favorite girl in the FIRST photo shoot! I have never picked a favorite so early on...and now she's gone. *cry*

-This post is sounding very whiny. I'm sorry! I don't feel whiny. Just...thinky??

misc.

MADI...try not to be disappointed that I don't have one big cool memory of you. That's why this has taken me so long to post, because I kept coming up with memories and I'd say "no, that ones not great enough," or "that one's too short." I give up!! So instead, I'm posting a couple small ones.


*When I was little I remember sleeping in what is now Lola's room. You woke me up all excited and said, "Aariel, guess what's different about me today." I remember being slightly confused and I couldn't guess what it was. It ended up being that you were wearing my new watch!! And for some reason I remember the light coming into this room looked so good in the morning..is that still true?

*We shared a room off and on for most of our lives. I remember sometimes before we went to bed (in the gray house) we would "make" each others side of the bed up. One of us would close our eyes while the other one went to work: we would sometimes fluff the pillows up, and we'd make the blankets look like at a hotel, turned down on the corner, just ready to hop in. It made going to bed fun.

*One time when we lived in Nanaimo and were attendingDover Bay we decided to skip the last class of the day. I can't remember if we walked or took the van? I can't imagine walking all the way home just to skip class, it was a 45 minutes walk. ANYWAY, we thought we were pretty cool until we realized....Lynette was home! Crap! I can't remember if she had been home the whole time or got home shortly after we did, but we hid in our room for a good hour or so. We had to stay silent and keep the light off the whole time. Then, around the time we should have been getting home from school we snuck outside, around the house, and in the front door, like we'd just arrived home! How cool were we? Sooo not worth it!

Tee hee.



I love you Mad Martigan!

a different type of donut post

This is getting hard to think of one specific memory of someone! But here goes for my big sister Rileigh (aka Wiley).

Somewhere in the ballpark of 4 years ago my step-brother Michael got married. The day of the wedding, all the family came up to North Ogden and stopped by my parents house first so we could drive together to the church. I drove with Rileigh, just her and me. I don't know where her hubby Chris was that day... Anyway, on the way to the church where the wedding was we stopped in a different church parking lot and did and few donuts and had a little laugh. Then we went to the wedding. We sat by each other and spent the whole time whispering, "this is so weird!" Sad but true.

After the wedding we went to my parents house for the reception, but before stopping Rileigh drove us to the end of my parents street (which is a dead end) and drove around the round-about really fast a couple times. I kept thinking, 'okay this is probably the last circle' and then she would keep driving! Of course we laughed and eventually pulled out of the round-about and went and parked in my parents driveway. We sat for a while and she told me she wanted to finish her Monster energy drink before we went inside so we took turns drinking it. It tasted like some green apple funkiness.. I wasn't allowed to drink energy drinks and we never had pop at our house, so I took as big of gulps as I could.


Then we went inside for the reception.




The End.

remember? that one time?

Next up is my little brother Joseph.

One summer when I lived in Canada when we had early church I got into the habit of taking naps in the afternoon outside on the trampoline. This way I could get some sleep AND get a tan at the same time! Genius, I know. Well one Sunday afternoon during my nap, Joe decided he wanted to jump on the tramp. So he came out, with me sleeping/tanning and started jumping! I was so mad! I told him I was there first and to knock it off, I wasn't done with my nap yet! He just said "Tramps are for jumping, not sleeping," and continued to jump. I got up and we started pushing each other or something. Eventually I pushed him off the trampoline mid-jump. I still remember his face - full of fear at the wrath of an angry teenage sister. Or maybe just fear of getting hurt once he landed. Who knows. I know he didn't get hurt from the fall. Maybe he just landed awkwardly? Anyway, I have no idea what happened after that - whether I resumed my nap, or couldn't get back to sleep, or if Joe told on me and I got in trouble. My last memory of that day was little Joe's frightened face.

I still feel guilty about that to this day. It's not like I could blame it on being young like he could when he peed on me (that's a story for another day).

I think the only reason he remembers this incident is because I still bring it up occasionally. "Remember that time I pushed you off the tramp?" I think I am secretly waiting for him to tell me it's okay just one more time. Which he does and we laugh and I still feel guilty.

up again

WARNING: Since part of the purpose of this blog is to be a type of a journal for me, I’m going to have a few posts coming up that are less blog-y and more journal-y.

I had this idea the other day of posting a memory of each of my siblings. Not a general “we used to always” memory, but a specific memory. I figure when I’m old and wrinkled I’ll have a harder time remembering specific details, so might as well put some down now.



In random order, I’m starting with Ben, my older, coke-and-skittle-loving brother.

Once in ‘the gray house,’ when I was somewhere around 7 or 8, or maybe even 6 (I am really bad at keeping track of my age. I usually judge how old I must have been at a certain time by the house I lived in). ANYWAY. When I was around 7 one night I guess my parents weren’t home because Ben and his friend (don't know who) put “Chumbawumba” in a stereo in the family room upstairs and blared the song “Tubthumping.” It was super loud and they started jumping around. I just sat and watched them. Whenever the song said “I get knocked down” they would fall to the floor or the couch. When the song said “but I get up again” they would hop right back up and keep jumping around. I remember the vivid picture the lyrics ‘pissing the night away’ painted in my head. I thought I loved that song and I thought Ben was so cool, jumping around, music blasting…

I heard that song on the radio the other day and normally would have changed the station but…it caught me. I turned the volume wayyy up and felt silly and sang the lyrics and thought of my big brother, jumping around the house, and how cool I thought he was.



p.s. I still think he is really really cool.

did you know i'm a pisces?

We have a fish tank at my work, it's big and pretty and I can see right into from where I sit at my desk. One time something in the tank overheated and cooked all our fish to death. It was sad. I had secretly named them. Shh. I'm lame like that.

Anyway, we have new fish now, and they are. SO. BORING! Our old ones used to mate and make all sorts of tiny little babies that got eaten within a couple days, and they knew when someone came close by, it was time to eat. They loved people.

Not our new fish. Our new fish are terrified of people. They sense you coming and they hide. It's soooo lame! =(

Anyway, sometimes when clients come in they bring their children, naturally. And lots of times when trying to keep their kids entertained while waiting for their appointment they will take their child(ren) over to the tank and say, "Look! See the fish? What does the fishy say? Huh? Tell Daddy/Mommy what the fishies say."


And I think to myself.....what in the world do you want your kid to tell you?? Can YOU tell me what fish say? Pretty sure fish are not vocal creatures.

What do you think?

she's a maniac, maniac

I have so much to do. Well actually, I really don't have that much to do, it just feels like it. It's sad how so little can overwhelm me.

I didn't used to be so whimpy. I think this is a recent thing. Something in the water here at my parents house, maybe?

In other news, I got a calling in my ward. I'll tell you next time, after I'm sustained. That is, if no one has any objections . . . We'll just have to see.