Reva Award...the Move...and Whatever else I say...

I received an award!!! Pretty dang fantastic looking award to me...this is what she had to say on her blog:

Elizabeth: Lovely inside and out, her blog is full of optimism and sunshine. Also, she hurts herself a LOT. Klutzes are fun!

Happy to entertain, love you my friend...thank you so much for the award, I LOVE it!!!

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Well, I have to apologize to a few people in the Atlanta area who I didn't call to inform them that I wouldn't be coming out there this weekend, and I feel terrible but hopefully I wasn't missed too bad...I had to move out...Friday was dedicated to moving out, Saturday to moving in, and Sunday was my 'day of rest' turned into travel to Hoover, travel to Jasper, travel back to Hoover, and then back home...yeah, it was a busy day. Thankfully we were fed up in Jasper and then I got dinner at the Hutchison's Sunday night, literally as I was driving into town I got a call to just skip home and head over to their house to eat...and the Jasper ward was so wonderful to think of us and to feed us, the food was excellent...Debbie, I think they stole your chicken casserole recipe...
Yes, I am moved in with Rachel and it's been good so far. Had to get curtains and a wireless router, but other than that I am pretty well set in this house. Bed, dresser, my old desk that I left here 1 1/2 years ago and a bookshelf...and a BIGGER walk in closet than in my other house...YAY YAY YAY YAY...oh no, no pictures. Room is a MESS. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to get a handle on the unpacking part of moving.
I have discovered how to have a clean room. Have a walk in closet. Just keep the mess in there! :) I had a clean room for 2 months while I lived in my last pad...

I have moved three times so far this year people...I don't suggest it. Although it's a good way to get rid of junk that's for sure. Each move I go "why in the WORLD am I lugging that around" and off it goes...and yet I still have all of this stuff......ah me.

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I think it is funny that I have bought three wireless routers. Normal people buy a router and keep it. I buy a router, bring it with me from AL to NM and leave it at my parents so that I can jump on the internet there...which left me without a router when I moved to AZ, so I bought one there...and left it...and my sister is now using it (no, not complaining, that just means that when I visit you I can jump on the internet, so no problem at all, GLAD you have it, just think of it as a partial wedding gift, how's that? :) ) which left me without one here which I didn't need until I moved in with Rachel who hadn't acquired one yet...my word, I was going through withdrawals without access to the internet. Crippled people, I really and truly felt crippled...ah me.

YAY for internet though! Woot!

Nashville, anyone???

So the Society of Music Theory (ha, who would've thought that I would actually BLOG about music theory on here? Go figure...) is having their big national conference in Nashville this year, so I have NO excuse for not going...but it would be even NICER if I could crash at someones house instead of paying very high hotel costs...so I was kinda wondering if any of you lovely peoples knew peoples in Nashville who would let me crash at their place for a weekend... :)

Seriously, all I would do is sleep and shower there, I will spend the rest of the day doing conferency, music theory nerdy type stuff...if not, I will of course be spending the next couple of weeks searching for some fantastic deals for a hotel there...

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In other news...I can't wait to be moved out...Friday. I would like to say Thursday I will be done, and I suppose it could be done...but more likely Friday...

Well, I am doing a sleep lab tonight. For free. I work for pulmonary and sleep specialists, and one of the sleep doctors asked if I knew anyone that would be willing to test out their two new beds...and I said I would...I mean, the sleep lab is two floors above my office...talk about not having to worry about being to work on time!!! So I gotta pack up clothes for tonight, tomorrow and all the other goodies. It's basically a motel room, except the room (NOT the bathroom) itself has cameras on...good thing I love wearing jammies!!! :) I hope I can sleep with all those wires and things hooked onto me...wish me luck! Good night, ya'll!

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It's cold outside...

Moving...and just a post...

...nope, not to Arizona, just across town. The blissful time I spent in this lovely house came to an end. I can't really say why...actually, I could, but I am not going to, but it's not because of me, I can say that much. I just have to move out. Luckily I have a good friend that I am moving in with (yay!). Sadly the rent is much higher than my current place, but the only place that I could imagine being cheaper living in would be my parents house...rambling...

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Sorry, I am boring. The arm is healing. I haven't incurred any other injuries or such things to report on. No boys. No car accidents.

I got the oil replaced on my car...and I bought bananas...yeah, really not an interesting life right now...

Falling In Love...

No, not dating anyone...

I just finished the new Nicholas Sparks book called "The Lucky One" and loved it. Read it! Totally a girly book, so girls...

The girl in the book...her name is Elizabeth ( :) )...but to all but the guy her name is Beth...my favorite quote of the book:

"He'd seen something cross her face when he's called her Elizabeth, some emotion he couldn't identify. The name captured her essence far more than plain and simple "Beth." There was an elegance to it that matched the graceful way she moved, and though he hadn't planned on calling her that, the syllables had rolled of his tongue as if he'd had no choice."

.....sigh....

Yep, relived falling in love through this book. BTW, he is the author of such marvelously wonderful books such as "The Notebook", "A Walk to Remember", "Message in a Bottle", "The Guardian", etc. etc....

hopeless romantic...you betcha!

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Friday night...nothing to do...I miss Arizona...a lot...I need another book...any suggestions?...don't suggest the Twilight series, I am waiting for a holiday weekend when I will have the time that I am guessing I will need to devote to reading all of those blasted books...

Why Not?...and My Latest Battle Wound...and Scrubs

http://www.handbagplanet.com/

They are advertising that you can get a free handbag, and I just so happen am in need of one, since mine is getting raggedy from overuse...and this gives me 25 more entries...so there.

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Once upon a time there was a mole...as in the kind that are dark spots on skin...

About a year ago there mole scabbed over and never healed, but because it didn't grow any bigger the owner of the mole didn't bother the good doctor with it (by the by, if you get easily grossed out, woozy, whathaveyou, scroll down to the bottom of the blog entry...no icky pictures, just icky story telling...)

Then the scabbed over mole turned into what you see above...now, it looks like a big pimple, right? Well, the next day (sorry, no picture of the next day) it grew much bigger, with a red inner circle that was about an inch in diameter and swelling around it to about...oh...say 3-4 inches in diameter...


Well...I work for seven doctors...which is rather convenient...except they don't have the technology in the office for lancing infected ________ (spider bite, scabbed over mole...not sure which one it was, I am voting for #2 though...)...because I work in a pulmonary office...so I get sent to a family practice doctor...he numbs it up (swells my arm to twice its normal size with the amount of anesthesia he shot into me), starts cutting a minute later, asking me if I feel anything, does it hurt (no...)...I am watching the whole thing happen by the way...there was a (details people, if you get woozy turn away) small white pea sized ball (probably what was underneath the mole), bunch of white fluffy gunk, clear liquid in the big abscess that had grown, and of course the obligatory blood...
He stuffed the abscess with stuff...'packed' is what that is called, supposed to help it drain, and as you see padded it with TONS of sterile pads to soak up anymore junk that was in there...I get the lovely opportunity to pull it all out...(yuck, I am making one of the nurses do that for me tomorrow morning) and put a big bandaid on it and see him Friday morning. Antibiotic and Lortab...yeah, not taking anymore of the latter...SO sick to my stomach, threw up, should NOT have driven but it didn't start working until I was halfway there...and the air does not work in the institute building...blah!

So there you have it...

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What'd'ya think???

And it is...

Stake Young Women's Secretary...

...oh yes, I am oh so serious...

...see why I am nervous!??!?!

Now, this calling doesn't mean that I work directly with the Young Women. On the contrary, we are the resource for the presidency. We will help out with the Young Women at times, but our main focus is helping and training the presidency, my primary job being training the secretaries, making sure they are keeping accurate records and other such things...as well as being the secretary for the Stake YW Presidency...gulp...

Yes this means I am going to Girl's Camp...

I will be totally honest with you...I am not a fan (of girl's camp). Everyone else around me seems to be, but I am not. I am putting on a good face and everything, but I had bad camp experiences. Bug bites that swell up my whole arm, heat exhaustion, hiking (yeah, I don't like hard hikes at ALL...walking, big fan, difficult hikes...yeah, not so much, hurts my knees a LOT), sleeping on uncomfortable surfaces (slept in tents with sleeping bags on the ground...yeah, I didn't sleep for the whole week), rained EVERYDAY and yet there was fire danger so we couldn't have a big bonfire...makes sense, right?, freezing cold, bears, not very appetizing stuff that they called food, the shower had one setting which was icy cold, so cold that when the water hit you you couldn't breath, like how it would feel if you fell through the ice on a lake...

BUT I do remember the testimony meetings being absolutely incredible.

I am very weird with out-doorsy things. I like certain parts of it a lot, but others I don't. I DO NOT like being uncomfortable at all. I don't mind heat so much as long as I have water, but cold? No thank you. I remember I went to a camp where we shot arrows and went canoing and swimming and slip-line riding and other such things...and I would love to learn how to shoot a gun to go hunting and fishing and boating and such. And I don't mind getting dirty, muddy, whatever, as long as there is a way to get clean and a clean set of clothes close enough for me to get into...

I do know that working with the youth is SOOOO important. I mean, once the Young Women are done with being in the youth, they come into Relief Society and join the ranks of the YSA. Do you know how many baptized YSA actually are active in the Church? It's something dismal like 20%, probably less. Yeah. So working with the Young Women is SOOOOOOOOOO important.

Can I just say, I am SO glad I am not the president. But she is just wonderful, I think she is really really good. I look forward to working with her. And she has a special interest in Young Women...she has five boys...

How to Host a Murder: The Good, The Bad, And The Guilty

So my friend Nichee hosted a How to Host a Murder Party. I have done this once before with her. Last time it was the "Archeologically Speaking, It's The Pits", and in that one I was Terra Sunder...who owned the lingerie line called Terra's Underwear...and this was what I looked like:

So yeah, there you have it. I was the murderer last time.

Being that last time I was, well frankly, the slut, I kinda pushed for that role again ONLY BECAUSE I didn't want to be the murderer this time and I wanted to find out who it was...

This time, my character was Elvira-Lynn Fekshin...the soiled dove, saloon girl what have you.


Christina folding the napkins all cool for the dinner table...

The caramel apples that we made...yeah, we had some issues with sss...most of them...

The map, secret clues, name tags and personal booklets full of clues...

Me getting ready...nails...

Hair...

Half of my makeup...oh, didn't the hair turn out nice? That feather thingy I found at Hobby lobby for $1.99, totally perfect!

...and the costume. Sorry folks, I didn't get a full body shot, so no peak at the bloomers (yes, I got bloomers, they are AWESOME!)...

Close up of makeup and necklace...I already had that so I didn't have to buy any, yay! Not a good picture, sorry, I tried...

I LOVED the back of the outfit, look at that bow! Yeah, I am totally about the frills...

Chief Breaking Wind...the last remaining member of the Cowpai tribe...aka Cody

P'elvis Swagerin...the strange Cowboy in town...aka Chris...

Wyatt Hertz...the Sheriff...aka Jim and Elias Truist-Heath (He lies through his teeth, took us a LONG time to figure out what the 'other' name for him was...)...the handsome cowboy...aka Steven...Helena Handcart...the matriarch of the Handcart Clan...aka Alison...

Dee Adela Muerta, the Mexican beauty...aka Christina...and Butch Chastity...the outlaw of female outlaws...aka Nichee...she had more on, but we were already cleaning up by the time I started taking pictures, sorry...

We had a LOT of fun I think. The dinner was FABULOUS, Nichee made ribs and they were just wonderful, mashed potatoes, northern style creamed corn (with whole corn mixed in, far better than just the creamy stuff for sure!), rolls...oh, yeah, lime twist to drink, just sprite with lime squeezed into it, very good...

But, you could sure tell we were from the South...we put the tv on mute with the Florida, LSU game on...Alabama had the weekend off, which is why we were able to get anyone to come to the party in the first place...although one of the party was an Auburn fan...by the way, they lost...second time this season...and that makes many people in my general area quite happy...for some reason...

Oh...the murderer...yeah, I picked the part to make sure that I wasn't the murderer this time, because SURELY they would pick someone else to be the murderer...ha...I was wrong. It was me again. Nichee said she is going to figure out who the murderer is and be that character next time so that I am not the murderer again. :)

I think I need to find a local costume contest...I would totally win, I think...

And it is....

Stake Young Women's Secretary...

...oh yes, I am oh so serious...

...see why I am nervous!??!?!

Now, this calling doesn't mean that I work directly with the Young Women. On the contrary, we are the resource for the presidency. We will help out with the Young Women at times, but our main focus is helping and training the presidency, my primary job being training the secretaries, making sure they are keeping accurate records and other such things...as well as being the secretary for the Stake YW Presidency...gulp...

Yes this means I am going to Girl's Camp...

I will be totally honest with you...I am not a fan (of girl's camp). Everyone else around me seems to be, but I am not. I am putting on a good face and everything, but I had bad camp experiences. Bug bites that swell up my whole arm, heat exhaustion, hiking (yeah, I don't like hard hikes at ALL...walking, big fan, difficult hikes...yeah, not so much, hurts my knees a LOT), sleeping on uncomfortable surfaces (slept in tents with sleeping bags on the ground...yeah, I didn't sleep for the whole week), rained EVERYDAY and yet there was fire danger so we couldn't have a big bonfire...makes sense, right?, freezing cold, bears, not very appetizing stuff that they called food, the shower had one setting which was icy cold, so cold that when the water hit you you couldn't breath, like how it would feel if you fell through the ice on a lake...

BUT I do remember the testimony meetings being absolutely incredible.

I am very weird with out-doorsy things. I like certain parts of it a lot, but others I don't. I DO NOT like being uncomfortable at all. I don't mind heat so much as long as I have water, but cold? No thank you. I remember I went to a camp where we shot arrows and went canoing and swimming and slip-line riding and other such things...and I would love to learn how to shoot a gun to go hunting and fishing and boating and such. And I don't mind getting dirty, muddy, whatever, as long as there is a way to get clean and a clean set of clothes close enough for me to get into...

I do know that working with the youth is SOOOO important. I mean, once the Young Women are done with being in the youth, they come into Relief Society and join the ranks of the YSA. Do you know how many baptized YSA actually are active in the Church? It's something dismal like 20%, probably less. Yeah. So working with the Young Women is SOOOOOOOOOO important.

Can I just say, I am SO glad I am not the president. But she is just wonderful, I think she is really really good. I look forward to working with her. And she has a special interest in Young Women...she has five boys...

A Picture!!!

LINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(scroll down, you can look at a few lovely pictures...one of sister and me, but mostly of Emily and Ison...I am squishing my nose Emily! I hope there is one where I am not!!!)

It's a Biggie...

So I got a really big calling...and it's making me nervous! I already am a family history worker,

...any guesses?? :)

Those of you who I have told are not allowed to guess or even give a hint.

Here is my hint: I got it last night...(that is only a hint for some of you, I know, but there you have it...)...and it's not anything that I have had before:

• (not that I could be any of these three again)Beehive class president
  
• Mia Maid secretary
• Laurel president
• ward choir director
• activities committee co-chair
• ward public affairs stake representative (I know, sounds strange, I was the representative for my ward on the stake public affairs committee)
• emergency preparedness specialist
• secretary for stake institute council
• ward missionary
• primary song leader
• Sunbeams teacher
• family history worker
• relief society chorister
• ward magazine representative
• ...there are probably others, and perhaps I should keep a list of the callings I have had just for my records...hmm....anyways, that knocks out a few callings...

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Anybody else getting a little antsy with anticipation for tomorrow night? :) Yay for the Office!

Stupid Things??? About Me???

So I have been tagged, and the tag is to post seven stupid things about me...

...definition of stupid:

stu·pid /ˈstupɪd, ˈstyu‑/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[stoo-pid, styoo‑] -er, -est, noun –adjective

1.	lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.

2.	characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question.

3.	tediously dull, esp. due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless: a stupid party.

4.	annoying or irritating; troublesome: Turn off that stupid radio.

5.	in a state of stupor; stupefied: stupid from fatigue.

so here we go...

1. My ability to speak...at least this applied to me today. I can think just fine and dandy, but when I open my mouth the words that come out quite often make no sense...people then look at me like I am stupid...I really am a genius, I just can't get the evidence of my great genius outside of my head...

2. I set all three of the alarms on my cell phone...just in case. Now, anyone of you who know me well KNOW that I am quite the light sleeper. I am very good at looking like I am asleep when you guys are really irritating me by continuing your conversation late into the night...I gained the ability of looking like I am asleep through years of fooling my Daddy when he would come into the room. I learned to relax my eyes so that they were looking in one direction, and if I needed to move I would act like people do when they are sleeping, twitch a little, make a little noise...yeah, should've been an actress, right? :) Ha! ANYWAYS, I don't need the other two, but I set them anyways. Pointless. Stupid...

3. I go off on tangents...

4. I have the ability to redream a dream if I want to. Not really any point to it, I just can. So if I liked a dream, I will redream it right after I wake up from it in the middle of the night or the next day or the next week. I loved this ability as a child, because I would have this reoccuring nightmare about three witches and so I had a backup dream to dream after the nightmare and I would relax enough to sleep really well after that dream...

5. I love slinkys. Really, I do...

6. So when I was younger, as in a child younger, I would lay on my bed and daydream my heart away, watching these amazing fantasies play out in my mind...so, (and I can't believe I am admitting to this, and maybe by admitting to this I will stop...maybe :) ) I still do this, except now I dream out certain scenes over and over again, only the characters in the daydream change. For example, I am in the hospital, staying overnight because of some major illness and I still may not pull through. I never want it, because it gets in the way, but there has to be the obligatory IV going in my left arm. The main character or characters always come in on the left side of the bed, and, if there is a bad guy (or girl for that matter) he comes in on my right. Someone is sitting in the uncomfortable pink chair that looks much like the chairs that sit outside the Bishop's office in some older churches, with their head down, resting it on their hands, possibly praying. Anyways, I play out what the characters would do. I play out all sorts of characters, celebrities, movie characters, people I work with, grade school friends and enemies, people I just met, boys...yeah, sometimes even boys...ha. What they would say, if they would bring anything with them, sometimes the nurse comes in and interrupts with my horrible hospital meal or checks my vitals or tells the masses that come into my room to go away. Stupid, right? Maybe I should be a writer, write out all these scenes as they go in my head.

7. Bugs in the south are way bigger than bugs anywhere else I have been. That may not sound stupid to you, but I think it is really stupid that they are bigger here...yes, I just killed a very very very very large bug that was in my room, and now I have to watch a happy movie so that I don't have a nightmare about the bug. Oh yeah, that's another stupid thing about me. I don't particulary like scary movies, not because they freak me out, I just don't gain much enjoyment from them anymore...anyways, if I do watch something scary I have to watch something happy after the movie, otherwise I have really bad nightmares that night and I wake up all through the night and get a very bad nights sleep...same thing goes with bugs.

I am a reptile...and Missing Home...

Peeling...and it's not the normal peeling either, this was a bad sunburn, so it's like the skin that comes off of a reptile, hard and BLECH...SO glad this is conference weekend, I don't have to go to church and worry about people seeing my horrible peeling skin...blech!

And NO I am not gracing everyone with a picture of this horribleness...truly yucky...I thought about doing a session at the temple tonight, but since the peeling has begun already I decided that I would rather the temple stay clean...

I am also dealing with allergies this week...I decided that that's what it is, not a virus or bacterial infection...the weather changed, which is appropriate because it is officially fall (yay! favorite season for sure!) and the pollen is being kicked up a notch so ta dah!! Warning to all other allergy sufferers, I usually am the first one to be attacked, so start up on your preventative medications now if you have any...

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I was in AZ for a day, and it was amazing how wonderful it felt to be there...and I was there for a FUNERAL! You would think that it wouldn't feel quite so wonderful, but the moment I walked out of the car to unload and stay the night at BF Julie's house this overwhelming and lovely feeling came over me...

...maybe it was the fact that the AC in the car was blasting me and it felt nice to walk out into the AZ warmth, but I don't think it was...because it lasted...

...as we drove back to NM the next day, I admit I cried. Yes, I was in mourning...but I was also leaving the place that really is home to me...

...my homepage for my internet browsers is www.lds.org, and one of the headlines this last week was the casting calls for the pageants the Church produces every year...and the first one is for the Mesa Easter Pageant...

...I am missing home this week...

I'll be back one day...that's where I need to be I think...at least I would love to settle there, I really do love AZ...

(btw, I am the amazing artist that took that lovely picture of the Mesa AZ temple...pretty sweet picture, huh???

...I miss that camera, why did it have to die?!?!?)

My Conscious...and the Gas Shortage...

So Michael Buble decided to do a second tour this year...which started today (I think)...and guess where he is going? Yeah, Birmingham, a mere 40 minute drive from my house.

The cheapest tickets are $50. And then the stupid ticketmaster fees are added upon it.

Why does the economy have to be so horribly bad right now? WHY? My desire/want/what-have-you is to go to this concert because I am mesmerized by him and his lovely singing style. I think he is delicious and I love his music almost as much as I love Frank Sinatra's.

I went so far to ask a friend if she would be interested in going, but she already has a few prior commitments this month...and of course that got me thinking realistically and thinking, you know, you may just need that $50 plus fees plus gas plus food money with the way things are going right now...

:( So I am not going...I may regret this for a while, but I think by about January I will be really grateful I did not make the purchase of the ticket.

(sniff, sniff)

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Speaking of gas, have you heard about the craziness that is occurring here in the South? No really, we have run out of gas out here. I have been lucky I think. Gas stations here are only selling the cheap unleaded gas, and they run out completely every once in a while....

I am keeping my tank full. I go to refill it once it is down to 3/4 of a tank...

I REALLY want to go out to Atlanta this weekend, but being that Atlanta basically has run completely dry on gasoline from what I have heard, that just isn't really an option for me...unless of course I take an extra tank of gas with me, which just isn't happening.

WHY Atlanta this weekend? Well, Geneneral Conference, so I won't miss anything local, AND Scott and Penny had their second BABY!!! I am a cousin-once-removed again! (I go by Aunt Elizabeth though...) It might be a while before I can go out because I have to be here in T-Town the weekend after next...dag-na-bit.