Florida!

I was in Florida for Easter with my family and we had so much fun! Here are some pictures:

(My dad and my brother Matt.)

(Me.) (Stormy sea.)
(Brother Matt.)

(Siblings left to right: Andrew, Matt, Michelle, Nate, Brian.)

(Me and mom.)(We saw some gators!)

We had a blast! I'm now visiting my parents' house in Maryland. I'll be sad to go home on Sunday.

Memories

Now that I am in the process of moving, I'm feeling all nostalgic about this place and all the memories we've shared.

#1. When Alisca and I decided to have a "tea and crumpets" party (i.e. donut holes and apple juice) in celebration of the British guy on The Bachelor.

#2. When Alisca tried to convince me that the Queen of England caught the bouquet at Garth Brooks' and Trisha Yearwood's wedding.

#3. When we didn't have a dining room table for a while and we "ice-skated" around the kitchen in our socks.

#4. "Have you ever seen 'Scrubs'?"

#5. "Do you like my plates?"

#6. When our power went out so we went to the movies and saw the absolute worst movie ever: "The Gameplan" which is sports-talk for "Poorly-Written Script."

#7. When Alisca and I cry every single time we watch "Extreme Home Makeover."

#8. Eliptical machine fiasco.

#9. The time I kicked the front door open and made a huge dent in the wall. (Thanks, Becca!)

#10. When Alisca told me that Mark Cuban cries himself to sleep every time the Mavs lose.

Justin Case

I was on msn.com today and I stumbled across a story about people who chose bad baby names. Most were pretty hysterical, but the ones that made me laugh the hardest were:

*Hugh Jass
*Fanny Whiffer
*Naught E. Bishop

So there. That proves it. I have the maturity level of a 12-year-old. I'm still laughing now, 20 minutes later.

The Greatest Thing Ever

My mother is now a card-carrying Facebook member. (Until recently, she believed it was called myFace.) And that's just one more reason why I love my mom.

It's Official. . .

I'm moving. The big day is April 12th.
Location: my house.
Operation: move the hugungous TV.
And the table.
And the bed.
And bookshelf.
Chairs.

A thing that is good.

A thing that is good is Jell-O Fat Free 100 Calorie pudding cups.

It is also a thing that is gone.

Relief

Can I just tell you how happy I am that the Mavs have won their past 3 games? It was getting quite embarrassing to be a fan, especially after losing to the Jazz twice. Good luck tonight, boys.

My house . . .

is for sale.

Quote-a-matic

Do you ever walk into a conversation and the very first thing you hear is utterly incomprehensible? Well, I thought I’d recreate that feeling electronically. These are all actual quotes from conversations I had today but I’m not providing any explanation or context.

“There’s a man out there with a rake.”

“If I’m driving for 30 minutes while I’m sleeping, does it matter if I have a seizure?”

“I sprinkled it on my butt.”

Word Wizard

Today’s Word of the Day was “tinctumutation,” meaning “a change of color.” I was distraught, disbelieving I could use this word plausibly in conversation. Then, a miracle happened. My friend asked me about the new place where I might be moving. I told her it was great, but the bedroom would definitely require a tinctumutation. She looked at me like I was crazy, but I was so pleased that I didn’t even notice.

The Crater of Wonders

Our parking lot is sinking into the depths of the earth. At the beginning of the winter, it was just a small depression. Now it looks like a meteor has landed out there. I'm just waiting to walk out some morning and find my car swallowed up into the pit of dispair. Within the large crack, we can almost see Lily's mother-country. Our stellar landlord, Rich, keeps promising to fix it. If it's fixed before September, I owe Alisca $40.

My friend Damian . . .

. . . has a very funny blog that deals with, among other things, appendix jokes and appendix traffic. I just thought I'd show my support for his endeavors.

That's right, kids.

Anyone who has spoken with me in the past month knows that I am going on a trip at the end of the month and I CANNOT WAIT! I have a countdown calendar on my desk and I tear off a little paper as I leave every day (only 11 to go!).

Things to NOT think about:
the 157 things I have to do before I leave
the 488 things that will be in my inbox when I return
the fact that I might be moving right after I get back and I am in no way prepared for that and haven't even completely decided that I am moving

Things TO think about:
seeing my family (haven't in 7 months)
seeing my parents (haven't in 5 months)
seeing my dog (haven't in 7 months)
going to Florida (haven't in 5 years)
going to my parents' house (haven't in 1 1/2 years)
GETTING OUT OF UTAH! (haven't in 6 months)

I am more excited than is necessary. Yes, yes I am.

The Party of the Pizza.

Pictures from last night's pizza party. We had a blast!
(Jeka, Rachel, Keith)

(Keith was worn out by the end of the night.)

(Dave, Chris, Jeka, Rachel)

(Tyla, Gretchen)

And one happy Kim.

What does one 24-oz Diet Pepsi equal?

Three cups of happiness.

Not that there's anything wrong with that . . .

At my school, we send home a parent newsletter with each child every month. I create the entire newsletter each month. That's one of my favorite things about my job. In March's newsletter, I added a "Busy Kids Corner" that listed activities around Salt Lake for preschool-aged children. I added web addresses for most of the activities where parents could find more information. On the listing for children's soccer classes, the web address was supposed to read:
http://www.sportscomplex.slco.org/
I typed:
http://www.sportscomplex.org/

I sent out the newsletter on Monday to be printed and distributed. Today, I get an email from a concerned parent:

Regarding the March newsletter:
The sportscomplex.org link is wrong… Sent me to Sydney for the Gay Games 2002. Very informative website!

So I seriously sent that out to about 80 people. When I told my boss's boss about it, she laughed so hard tears were streaming down her face. I don't think I'll ever live this one down.

My Home Boyz.

I just want to give a shout out to my friends Matt and Dalton for being so amazing. I’ve been having a bit of a rough month and these guys came over to my house last night at about 10:30 to give me a blessing. As soon as they were done, I experienced a beautiful feeling of peace and comfort that I was aching for. I also felt such gratitude and love for these two good men.
Props, guys. Also, thanks to Ashley for all you do for me. You are truly amazing. Love you!

Quilting is Dangerous!

A while ago, I started making a quilt. It has been sitting in storage for the past 3 years, sad and unfinished. I've felt the desire to finish it up recently. I've worked on it regularly for the past couple weekends and it's almost done.
Last night my roommates were all gone. I was looking forward to a quiet evening alone; just me, Sex & the City re-runs, and this infernal quilt. I'm tying it with yarn so I need to use a rather fat needle. This makes the needle hard to push through the fabric, so I've been using a thimble.

Stop reading here if you're squeamish.

So around 10:30, I was almost done. Really almost done. I put the needle against the fabric, placed the thimble on top, and pressed down hard with my right index finger. The needle then shot up right through the thimble and into my finger, eye-side first.

Sorry, did I say into my finger? I meant through my finger.

Oh, it was horrible. The pain. And the blood. I hate blood. (Well, I hate blood that’s not inside someone. The kind inside is okay. It’s just when it comes outside of a person.) If I wasn’t in such pain, I wish I would’ve taken a picture. It was crazy. This big fat needle sticking in my finger pad and coming out right under my nail bed. Yuck. I was feeling pretty dizzy and nauseated, but I was worried about getting blood on my quilt (I know, the things I worry about . . .) so I stood over the kitchen sink letting the blood drip into the sink. I wadded up paper towels and tried to stem the flow, all the while worrying that I would pass out right there in the kitchen and no one would find me until Sunday night when my roommates were due home. (Well, Lily was still in town but, honestly, she wouldn’t have noticed if I had died in her bedroom.) It stopped bleeding after about 15 minutes and I put a neon green Band-Aid on it and then had a drink. Of Pepsi, Mom. Just Pepsi. Honestly.

And now it doesn’t look bad at all. Just a little red mark on either side of my finger. So I’m pretty much done with the quilt for a while. Or at least until I get a new (read: stronger) thimble.

This is where it went in . . .

and where it came out.

On a scale of one to awkward . . .

Awkward: Interrupting when a co-worker is talking to you because you have to run to the bathroom.

Extremely Awkward: Walking in on a male co-worker using the bathroom.

Both happened to someone this week. (hint: it's me)