Things I Will Never Do Again

Wear flip flops in the snow.

Smell.

Kiss my home teacher. After the lesson. Yep, it happened.

Live in Provo. (Sorry I'm just done with the P-town scene, FOR-EV-ER)

Paint my bedroom bright orange. This doesn't mean I won't have an orange room in my house at sometime. Just not an orange bedroom.

Participate in NaBloPoMo. It's fun but it's harder than it looks folks.

Raft the Nile. Too life threatening.

Tell my friends about my dream to have a tattoo on my ankle of the word orange in the color purple or blue. They just make fun of me and judge.

Quit drinking Diet Mountain Dew. It makes me happy.

Buy the frozen grilled chicken strips from Costco. I'm a picky chicken eater. Why did I think I that was a good idea?

Take an ESL (English as a Second Language) methods class. I want my evenings back!

Lend someone a LARGE sum of money. It puts too much pressure on me and them. Awkwardness always follows.

Leave my cell phone on my bathroom sink. It was ringing/vibrating and it literally vibrated itself into the toilet! It was AWESOME!

The Smelling Diaries (Part 1)

I can't smell.

Really. I really can't smell. Not just today. Never. I never have the ability to smell. Although this is a common known fact about me it still puzzles people. Friends I've had for years will all of the sudden ask me a random question about my non-smellability. It's puzzling I know.

Lately there have been a few smelling "incidences" (Isn't that word mysterious? I love it!) that were definitely blog-worthy. However, I don't feel like I can really open up the Smelling Diaries without doing a brief question and answer period to catch you up to speed. So here are the top questions I am asked when someone discovers my lack of a complete functioning set of senses.

Q: You really can't smell anything?
A: Yes, I really can't.

Q: Can you taste?
A: No I just eat because I like what the food does does my body.
OF COURSE I CAN TASTE.
Do I have a normal fully functioning set of taste buds? I have no idea. I can't really compare my tasting abilities to yours. Think about it. Impossible. I personally believe that my taster is slightly broken. Food is more based on texture. I'm not really into meat due to the roughness. I don't do cookies, too crumbly. Cake, fits in with the crumbly category.
Lifesavers/Jolly Ranchers/Starbursts= all one flavor. I don't like brown beverages. In all reality they probably taste exactly that same to me as yellow, blue, red, green, even purple beverages but I'm racist against the brown beverage. Oops. One day remind me to tell you about "The Beverage Test". Actually Jason should tell it. It's his "back in the glory days" story.
In conclusion: I can taste it's just messed up a little bit.

Q: When did you loose your sense of smell?
A: I don't know that I lost it. It's kind of like when you misplace your cell phone. Did you ever really have it? Maybe. Maybe you didn't even bring it with you. You just really aren't sure.
I don't know if I ever had a sense of smell to loose. Maybe I had it and then lost it but maybe I didn't bring it with me. Get the metaphor?
Basically the answer is I can't smell and I don't remember a time I could. So I probably never had it. Confusing, right?

Q: When did you realize you couldn't smell?
A: I was the stinky girl in seventh grade. I was told by the flyer on my locker announcing to the school that I had BO. I didn't know I stunk. I then realized. All very Mean Girls-esque. It just kind of fell upon me after that. I took care of the stinky thing right then and became obsessive.
I stopped caring a few years ago. I think I'm the stinky girl again. It's cool.

Q: So you can't smell ________________ (cookies baking, fresh rain smell, hot guy cologne, a baby's bum)?
A: No, No, No, and why do people think that smells good but no.

Q: Do you realize how lucky you are that you can't smell _____________ (poop, farts, skunks, dirty socks, Slim)?
A: No not really but I think it's pretty funny when others suffer. :)

And now the number one comment I receive when the questions are over (generally given by a male).
Your husband is gonna love you! He can be as stinky as he wants an you aren't gonna care!

Did I miss any questions? Do you still feel unanswered and confused? Let me know. I can continue this sarcastic fest all day.

Let The Smelling Diaries begin!

Our Future Leaders

I am taking a masters class that is held at a middle school in my school district. This afternoon as I was walking into class I overheard a conversation by two boys sitting on a curb waiting for a ride. They were probably 12 or 13 years old. It went like this:

Boy 1: Hey check out my new ipod!
Boy 2: Sick man. When did you get it?
Boy 1: About a week ago.
Boy 2: I thought your mom took your other ipod away.
Boy 1: She did.
Boy 2: How did you get her to buy you a new one?
Boy 1: She didn't buy it for me.
Boy 2: So, where did you get it?
Boy 1: I found it.
Boy 2: Where?
Boy 1: In some kids backpack during math.
Boy 2: Lucky!

Boy 1 is the future Governor of Utah and and Boy 2 is his future lawyer. We have a lot to look forward to. Pretty awesome, right?

AOTW Time!

Artist of the Week: Tristan Prettyman

Tristan Prettyman is another super chill artist. She a girl with a guitar and a unique, almost bluesy voice. She is phenomenal. I promise.

She has two albums out, Twenty Three and Hello, plus a scattering of live sessions and singles. I love both of her albums however I can't stop listening to her first album Twenty Three. You can listen to her albums at amazon. Just click on the name of the album above. My favorite songs by Tristan are Simple as it Should Be, Madly, and You Got Me.

The lyrics to her songs make me stop and think and I really admire artists that can do that. My favorite lyrics come from her song The Story. Choose the song in the play list on the right and listen as you read the lyrics. It just intrigues me.

Are you feeling Tristan? I am.

Oh Happy Day!

About a month ago the itunes program on my computer randomly got messed up and wouldn't open. Worst day ever. It kept giving me this weird error and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I finally took my computer to my brother this weekend. My brother is a computer genius and can fix anything. Well, he was able to fix it and I AM SO HAPPY! Thanks Ryan!

I didn't realize how much I missed itunes. I really missed it! I love checking out new artists I hear about, searching through music, using the sweet new Genius side bar, free download Tuesdays, and so much more! So today is a great day!
I already downloaded this Beyonce single, and this Taylor Swift one too. Yeah itunes! Welcome back!

**Side Note: Not having itunes available to me did help with the money spending situation. I need to discipline myself now that it's back. I can do it!**

Google Reader

I use google reader. In fact, I LOVE google reader. I have organized all the blogs I follow into folders in my reader and I am very obsessive compulsive about how it is organized. I don't really know why. So I thought I would share the names of my folders because it gives a little insight into what a huge blogging dork I am (If you didn't already realize this from the NaBloPoMo participation.)

Here are the folders and how many links I have in each one...

• Family (6)
• Half Friends/Blogstalking (15)
• I know someone they know (9)
• Other randoms (22)
• People I don't know at all (15)
• Real Friends (40)

Pretty ridiculous I know! What can I say, I love to read about other people. It gives me material for my own writing.

There are a two blogs I would like to recommend to you today. Check them out, they make me smile.

• Project Domestication This blog is written by a friend from high school. She finds great deals on cool unique items, she finds awesome recipes, cute decorations, etc. She really loves to make cupcakes and always has fun ideas for that. Also, you can find great links to other cooking/domestic websites. It's great!
• Oh! How Lovely! This one is written by someone I don't know and I'm not even sure how I found it. She however, is completely on top of the blogging world and knows about a ton of fun contents, prize giveaways, NaBloPoMo, etc. She even told me about where I could find some cute free blog templates (which I haven't used yet, but will.) She is highly entertaining to read and a good resource to have.

*It has officially been one week of NaBloPoMo and I haven't missed a day yet! 7 DAYS (that's a week in case you forgot)!!!! I am proud of myself!*

**NaBloPoMo gives away prizes through a random drawing to people that meet the goal and post every day. There are a lot of great prizes. I am hoping to win one! Think happy thoughts for me!**

Details

A new obsession I have is shoes. I've always been a flip flop girl. ALWAYS. Then one day I woke up and realized all the amazing shoes the world has to offer. I have cheap shoe tastes. When I find a really cute shoe for under twenty bucks I'm ecstatic. This week I found these at Target. Yellow flats for 19.99.

Super cute right? I thought so to. I'm a size 9, I bought 6's! Somebody teach me to pay attention to detail! I'm so bugged!

Would You Rather

Would You Rather...

1.

-be able to stop time while you slept

or

-never need to do laundry

2.

-be born with a refrigerator on your back

or

-have an elephant as a close personal friend

3.

-be 4'1"

0r

-7'9"

4.

-have 3 eyes

or

-have webbed feet

5.

-have an obscene nickname you hate

or

-have nobody ever remember your name

6.

-always get first dibs

or

-the last laugh

7.

-be forgotten

or

-hatefully remembered

8.

-skip Christmas for a year

or

-skip your birthday for a year

9.

-become uglier

or

-become stupider

10.

-drink blood

or

-drink urine

So what would you rather do? I have my answers but I want to hear yours first! Stayed tuned for mine insights at a later date. :)

Conferences

This post is as good as it's gonna get. Conferences were tonight and tomorrow night. I'm so tired and don't have any patience anymore. They took it all.
Parent-Teacher Conference

by Darren Sardelli

At the parent-teacher conference,

my father made a scene.

He scared my fifth-grade teacher

with his mask from Halloween.
She showed him all my science gradesand

said she was concerned,

but he just stuck his tongue out

when my teacher’s back was turned.
He drew a monster on the board

and claimed it was her twin.

He even shook her soda,

which exploded on her chin.
My angry teacher crossed her arms

and said, “This meeting’s done!

I now see where he gets it from—

you act just like your son!”

And the winner is...

Over the past few days we have been talking about the presidential election in my second and third grade classroom. We have been learning fun facts about the candidates including their birthday, interests, hobbies, etc. Today we did a mock election. If my students were voting the winner would be...

John McCain

The final count was Mccain 23 votes (57%) Obama 17 votes (43%)

My students then wrote a journal entry on why they would vote for the person they chose. *** Remember the following information came from 7, 8, and 9 year olds. It's 100% correct.***

These are the reasons my students chose John McCain...

• "He reminds me of my grandpa."
• "I chose McCain because he has the same birthday as me, August 29."
• "I like him because he has lots of pets, including parakeets which are my favorite."
• "He seems really nice, and really old."

These are the reasons my students chose Barack Obama...

• "Obama was born in the same country as me, Illinois."
• "I like him because his favorite food is chili, YUM.
• "I want Obama to win because my dad says he will take money from rich guys and give it to us. That would be cool."
• "Obama should win because he would be fun to play basketball with."

I bet you wish you would have know all of these amazing reasons before you voted. I wish I had.

Don't you miss the days when life was that simple?