DAY 90 - Soy Matey!

It's Tuesday again. I think I've mentioned my dislike for Tuesday's. I need to find something to do to make Tuesday's better. I didn't even go running tonight. I took my laundry up to my parents house last night and only got a little bit done. When I got ready to go running I realized all my running clothes were still at my parents house waiting to be cleaned. It made a convenient excuse. It dosen't take much to talk myself out of working out.

Most of the night I just sat home, I worked on getting the Camelot DVD put together, and watched American Idol. After that I was craving something to eat, and I had nothing in the apartment. So I walked up to Smith's, I was trying so hard to be good, I wanted Wheat Thins or some sort of cracker. But I happened across these Soy crisps. They aren't too bad for you, and they have more protein than most chips or crackers so I decided to get them. I got them home and tore them open. They taste like mean and evil. I got the salt and vinegar variety, so they were like an acidic salty piece of cardboard. But they were my treat for the night, so I was determined to enjoy them. I ate 3 or 4 and pretended they were the most wonderful thing ever... It didn't work, my imagination is not that powerful.

DAY 89 - Saabin'

With the pending demise of the Rodeo on my shoulders, I thought I better start looking for a replacement. I called my buddy Jake who works at a little car dealership in Bountiful to see what they had on their lot. I had actually looked on line at some of their cars and this Saab caught my interest. When I talked to him this was the first car he mentioned. I decided I would stop by and take it for a drive... Big mistake! I'm way too much of an emotional buyer. If I would have known for sure the Rodeo was dead, I probably would have bought it and driven it home. I'm trying to decide what to do. It is a really good price and has low mileage for the year. It's a convertible, which I didn't think I would ever want, but I had so much fun driving it with the roof down, even though it was 40 degrees out side. The only draw back is I've heard conflicting ideas about the Saab. Some people love them, some people love them, but say they are maintenance nightmares. Not sure who to beleive. I think its unanimous that they are expensive to fix when things do go wrong, but just not sure how often things go wrong with them.

I'll have to see what goes on with my car, if they do find out it's not a complete transmission replacement, I may just pay to get it fixed. But I'm not going to pay several thousand dollars to fix up a car I've never really liked. I would love to get something fun, but being part of the lower middle class I am not allowed such luxuries, in fact, I don't even think I qualify as middle class, probably more of an upper lower class. I would have probably been on the first level out of steerage on the Titanic. My only real luxury would have been a few more minutes of listening to Nearer My God to Thee before being swallowed up by the frigid cold waters... Right now it feels like I'm nearing the last verse, I can feel the water lapping at my feet...I'm going down!!!

DAY 88 - Jesus Take The Wheel

Don't let the smiling face in the above picture fool you. Today was filled with trials and tribulations. It was Nate's homecoming, so I got up and went to Ogden. After church, we left and got no less than a block away when my car did a few lunges and sputters and refused to get in gear. I pulled over to the side of the road and put it in park and back into drive. A trick that had worked previously when I was having transmission issues. But I was not that lucky this time. I put it in drive and it just reved, it wasn't going anywhere. You would think that making a sacrifice to drive to Ogden to go to church I would have had some devine intervention. A pilar of light would come down and heal my transmission. But it must not have been meant to be. It must have been the Rodeo's time to go.

Luckily one of Alane's former students was close by, so she came and got us, then Alane brought me to Centerville, where I confiscated my mom's Jeep and came back home. I told Brandy I deserved a treat, I wanted to emotionally eat. But the only place to find a treat at 9:30 on a Sunday night in Salt Lake is a few random coffee shops. We ended up at the Coffee Garden on 9th and 9th. It was fine, I had a piece of this lemon cake. It obviously had come in Friday morning, it was really dry and not at all satisfying. Oh well, 2 more weeks and I get to break lent and bake!!! I better start thinking about what to make, it's gotta be good!

DAY 87 - Workin' for the Weekend

Saturday at the office.. so sad. Work has been really crazy lately with all the convention stuff going on. Near the end of the week I felt like I was getting a pretty good handle on things, I actually found myself with some downtime. I began feeling guilty since everyone else seemed really busy still. So I offered my services and asked if I could help anyone out. Trent gave me a bunch of his signs that he was working on for the Foundation. I've done quite a bit of their convention stuff, so it made sense that I help out with it. It wasn't anything overwhelming, but as soon as I took on the project, at 4:30 Friday afternoon I got a bunch of my own projects and I started to feel a little bit buried. So I reluctantly decided to go in on the weekend. It wasn't bad, it was nice and quiet being there all alone. I only stayed for a couple of hours. But it was enough to get a head start for Monday.

The rest of the evening was rather blah. I just stayed in. Both Clete and Brandy asked me to go to movies with them. But neither movie I wasn't too interested in seeing and I couldn't justify paying to go see. So I sat home and watched Moulin Rouge on the TV and took a nice big nap. Later on I did go over to Clete and Greg's and did a little laundry. So all in all it was a productive day, just not overly exciting.

DAY 86 - Another openin' another show

Tonight was the opening night of Guys and Dolls up at Bonneville. I was going to count up how many opening nights I've been to up there, but I don't have the energy. This fall it will be 10 years that I have been involved, in some way, with ever single show they have done. It has been a lot of fun watching the department grow and the quality of the shows improve. Guys and Dolls was so much fun to watch and is done so well. It's one I look forward to watching several times.

After the show we all went out on the town... Chili's in Riverdale, wooie! Wild and crazy. We went there cause most of the kids were going to Applebee's down the street. It's funny, when I first started hanging out up at the school we wanted to be in the middle of everything with the kids, now we avoid them. So we got ourselves a grown ups table, even though the majority of the grown ups have only been out of high school for a couple of years, but they qualify.

Post script: NEVER, EVER order the guiltless grilled chicken sandwich at Chili's. I was riddled with guilt from ordering it and realizing I was going to have to pay for eating rubber on a bun. It was horrible and sad.

DAY 85 - I am 32, going on 80

I don't know about this whole running thing. I really don't get it. I don't think my genetic make up included physical activity. I think my strengths lay elsewhere, someday I'll figure out what they might be. But for now, I'm trying to force myself through a 5K. I'm holding up fine endurance wise, its just my knees. When I get home from running it takes all I got to get up the stairs to my apartment. I need one of those chair lift things, like on Gremlins, that the Gremlins use their advanced electronical engineering knowledge to enhance so that it launches Flo from Alice up the stairs.... But I digress. I have resorted to taking copious amounts of "Flex4Life" the joint and muscle supplement they make at work. So far it aint workin.

DAY 84 - Oh SNOW you didn't!

If April showers bring May flowers, March snow brings clinical depression... Doesn't have the same ring, but its the truth. I keep thinking spring, but it doesn't seem to want to arrive. Oh well, before I know it I will be wanting it to snow for Christmas!!! Which happens to be exactly 9 months from today. If I were to get pregnant today my baby would be born on Christmas. It would be another Christmas miracle!! God bless us everyone.

DAY 83 - Quite a dish!

Tuesdy! I did my runnin! Yay! Then I decided it was time to wash dishes. Every single bowl I own was dirty. Kind gross. But its not too bad, I dirty more bowls than everything cause I usually have cereal in the morning, then put the bowl in the sink, where it remains until all the bowls are dirty. Only have 6 bowls, which I guess is a lot to get piled up. But its not like I have service for 20 dirty dishes piled around my kitchen.

DAY 82 - Holy Chernobyl!

Today was very, very, very long! I got to work about 7:30 am thinking I would get to leave at 5...BUT, we are still trying to get signs done. I had to set up a big display that is English and Russian, so I had to cram a bunch of bios for Russian doctors in both English and Russian on to these panels. Plus a I had to do a bunch of other stuff, but the Russian panel was my headache. The "nice" Russian lady couldn't make up her mind what she wanted, and I almost had to redo the whole thing adding all of their pictures to it. But luckily the truly nice branding specialist working on the project with me called the Russian lady and told her we couldn't do it. The Russian said "we are perfectionist, we do things perfectly, are you not team player." We agreed we weren't team players, but we didn't want to make the Russian mad, we spent 50 years being scared of the Russians. So we added her picture on the top of one of the boards and called her "Chairwoman" and she was happy with that. "Vast improvement...what a country!" I added the what a country part, she didn't say that, Yakov Shmirnov said that. Needless to say I didn't get off work at 5, I stayed til almost 8, therefore missing "Dial M For Murder" that I was suppose to go to. Then I got home and put the finishing touches on the Guys and Dolls program and got it sent off to print about 11:00. In all the hustle and bustle of the day I forgot to take a picture, so I have included an artist rendering of me falling asleep at my desk.

DAY 81 - He's such an angel when he's sleeping

I'm all tuckered out. Today was a pretty full day, I suppose. I slept in a little, then got ready and headed up to Ogden for Jared Tesch's homecoming. I can't believe he's back from his mission. Makes me feel so OLD!!! I've known him since he was just a kid. Crazy! But it was good to see the Tesch clan. I miss them, I spent almost every Sunday night playing games at their house for almost two years, back in the day. Good times, good times. Although I got a little tired of playing "Butt" most boring card game ever!

After the homecoming I stopped off at the parents house for a quick hello, then headed home to work on the Guys & Dolls program. The show starts on Friday so we're down to the wire getting everything done. Spent the evening finishing up the program while watching some good ole Sunday night TV. Gotta love Brothers and Sisters...even though tonight's episode was kinda boring.

After that rip roarin' weekend I decided to get to bed early. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, I'm going to try to be to work by 7 or 7:30 so I can make it out of there on time. We have tickets for "Dial M for Murder" at Pioneer. Woo Hoo!

It's only been a few weeks but I'm so ready for another vacation. Only 9 weeks til Memorial Day!

DAY 80 - I wanna be forever young!

I have been saying for the past several weeks that I have finally decided what I want to be when I grow up.... A grandma! I think grandma's have the best life ever, you can have kids around, but send them back when you're tired of them. You can have your days free to work on projects, or go to activities at the home, and you can bake all you want! No worries, just live off your husbands life insurance and your set!! Well tonight we watched a movie that inspired me even more to want to become a grandma. Or a funny grandpa, not an old mean one.... We watched a documentary called "Young at Heart." It's about a choir of older people, mostly in their 70's, 80's and 90's, they perform all over the place, but the catch is they sing modern songs. It's so funny! They are all so committed to it, and work so hard to get it down. I LOVED it!! But it was so sad, when your have a group of older people I guess you have to expect it, but members of the choir kept dying, it was so sad. But really inspirational, especially for me who can't really see what there is to do in life past 40.

The picture is of Fred, he was my favorite, the shot was during the music video they made to Stayin Alive, he was on oxygen and not able to perform regularly with the choir. But he honestly did have a really good voice, and was just a funny, laid back type of old man I wanna be.

DAY 79 - B9- "It's Not a Tumor!"

BINGO!!! Well none for me, I did however get to stand up and spin once. Brandy, Cassie Pickle and I went to Third Friday Bingo at the 1st Baptist Church on 13th East. It was a crazy good time. Those baptists know how to party. It is hosted by two drag queens Patty Papshmear and Ruby Ridge. There are all sorts of rules you have to follow, like no elbows on the table, no calling out fake bingo's, etc... If you break one of the rues your whole table has to go "work the room" for donations. They had a giant Amy Winehouse wig the offender would have to wear and everyone else had to put on these turban type things, and they had to wear them until the next perpetrator was caught. Luckily I, nor anyone at my table broke any of the rules...or at least got caught. One of the good rules is that when you only have 1 spot left before you get bingo you have to stand up and spin around. However, since it was St. Patrick day themed you had to keep your hands down to your side like an Irish dancer. Who'd have thunk how hard that would be, I guess the act of twirling makes you want to swing your arms about. I only had the opportunity to stand and spin once, but I began to raise my arms, as if I were Julie Andrew's spinning atop an Alp, then I quickly remembered the repercussions of such an action, and I brought the arms down.

It was a lot of fun to see such a diverse crowd gathered for some good clean fun. There were a few teenage boys sitting at our table, they were members of the church there and were on a 30 hour fast. I'm still not sure what the fast was for, they raised money I suppose, but not sure how much money you can raise by sponsoring starvation. I guess that's how Ghandi made his fortune.

DAY 78 - Mayday, we have a server down!

Tonight I didn't leave work until 9 pm. A full 12 hour day... BLAH!! All the signage requests for convention were due this week. This project has been handled by our senior designer Trent. He had built a bunch of templates with the convention branding, and it was planned that when the requests came in all of us designers would just pick the correct sized template and drop the text in..... Well, it didn't work out quite so nicely. Many people put entire exhibit displays into the sign request. So as we would be working our way down the requests all of the sudden one would come up that would be 7 large 8' x 4' boards with all sorts of pictures and illustrations and heavy design, normally a large project by itself, not something that can be done in a few minutes or even a few hours. So this process has gone a lot slower than planned. The signs are suppose to go to the printer tomorrow, but that aint going to happen, because there is always something. Not only have the sign requests been more involved than previously suspected, but today when I got into work I couldn't connect to the server, where all of our signs we had worked on yesterday were saved. They said they were having some problems with it and would let us know. So most of the morning we all just waited around for the server, then we began to get nervous when we were hearing rumors of "crashes" and "lost data." I began recreating some of the smaller signs just to give me something to do. Then about 4pm we received final word. They had recovered everything from except for everything that had been done late Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. We lost every single one of the signs we had been working on. And Trent had stayed til 2:30 am on Tuesday working on all the large banners and branding signs that would go in the hotel...he lost it all. It was not a good day. I stayed til 9 and got mostly caught up with what I had lost. I was the last to leave and Trent was still working, and planned on being there for a while. I'm not too excited to go back in tomorrow!

Sorry about the long boring work post. I can't even think of a funny anecdote for the afternoon.

DAY 77 - Idol is a little bit country..but shouldn't be.

Wednesday Night at Brandy O's! It was country week on American Idol. Randy Travis stopped by to give out contestants a little advice. And that advice was... "sounds real good." I don't think he gave much constructive criticism, but that's OK, he can coast by on his good looks??
Tonight we watched the results show. It was a bit of a surprise, the girl that was sent home sang "Jolene" by the legendary Ms Dolly Parton! This young gal, I will call her cause I can't remember her name, she just didn't have the Dolly power to sing that song. I feel bad, I think she could have done pretty well, she will probably end up on another reality show somewhere or maybe she can bring back the mall concerts made famous by Tiffany in the late '80's. I really think Anoop should have gone home, he did pretty good last week, but we all know he won't make it all the way, there is a Taxi cab or a Slurpee machine waiting for him somewhere out in the world (did I write that out loud?).

DAY 76 - Tuesday Shmoozday

Tuesday huh. Tuesday's are on odd day. Monday's are bad cause you don't want to get back into the whole work week, but Monday nights can feel sort of celebratory since you made it through the first day. Wednesdays are nice cause your half way through. But Tuesday is just kind of there. That's pretty much how today was, just kinda there. It was St. Patricks Day, I almost forgot, I had a blue shirt on and was ready to leave for work and remembered, so I had to go change. But maybe wearing blue and getting pinched would have added some excitement to the day. I went to work, came home, laced up the new running shoes and went for a run in the park. The park was crowded tonight. Today was one of the first days in the 60's so everybody is pretending it's summer. People were having barbecues, there was a taco salesman, and all sorts of activities going on. The running path was crowded too, but it was good for me, I would find a pack of people and just try to keep up with them. Kind of like how I live my life, trying to keep up with everyone else, but always falling behind a little bit. But I did actually do pretty well keeping up.


After running I came home and sat in front of the TV all night. It was really boring, I had so many more important things to do, but I just couldn't get up the motivation to. I watched American Idol and then some HGTV. Tuesday nights just haven't been the same since "Who's the Boss" and "Growing Pains" went of the air.

DAY 75 - Willow? Really?

Tonight had some highs and lows. Had a really, really good dinner at a Thai place called Sawadee on South Temple. Yum! After that I went over to Clete and Greg's. Clete loves Willow and wanted to go see the free showing at Brewvies. Greg and I reluctantly agreed. It didn't start til 10:30 and it was a school night. I had decided I was giving up food and Diet Coke for Lent. I think God is really going to hold me to it. I figured I would have a few DC's on the weekend, but none during the week. Sunday night I got one and sat it on the floor at Clete and Greg's and Beency (the dog) knocked the entire thing over. I was so distraught. So, since my last Diet Coke of the weekend was maliciously disposed of, I decided I would get one for the movie since it was really late, and I was going to have to stay awake for a fantasy movie. But when Greg got to the front of the line to order our drinks they had run out of the Diet Coke!!! Two nights in a row, my attempts to partake of the fizzy aspartame goodness was foiled!!!

The movie was interesting. Mixing an 80's fantasy movie with fantasy movie enthusiast and beer is not a good combination. I'm all about going to some cheesy movie and having people heckle or talk back to the screen, it can be amusing. But if you're going to heckle, please be witty. These people were yelling the dumbest things. Then one would yell out something lame, and someone else would say the same thing just phrase it differently. It was sad, very sad. But the man sitting next to me found it all very amusing. I know this because he had a sturdy laugh, not really loud, but whenever he laughed my chair began to shake violently. It was a very long two hours. I should have known better, I'm just not fan of the fantasy movies. Even Harry Potter is too much for me. But at least it was an exciting night out on the town, and those little people are precious, I always wanted one, but my parents would let me keep it in the house.

DAY 74 - Pleasant Valley Sunday

It was such a nice day today! Ahhh how I love when mother nature is awakened from her winters slumber. Just hope that dirty Jack Frost doesn't come sneaking around again. I don't know about those two, I think they're may be something going on.

Today was pretty laid back, as Sunday's should be, right? I spent the morning working out and just lounging at home. Then I headed up to my parents. As usual they look for any excuse to go out to eat. So since my dad had fixed a drawer in the Kitchen that morning, my mom "claimed" she couldn't get in to fix any dinner so we were going to have to go out. Not that it was all that exciting, just Village Inn. I'm trying really hard to eat healthier so going out isn't that fun anyway. Going to places where I don't have a favorite thing makes it easier not to be tempted into getting something all fatty, fatty boombalatty!

After dinner I went back to my parents and finished editing Camelot! YAY!! Now I just have to make the DVD's and copy them. As I was leaving the sun was setting. I miss sunsets at my parents. Since living in the city I just don't notice them as much. Growing up living on the hill I got used to seeing them almost every night. They can be so pretty with the setting sun glimmering ever so brightly off the waters of the Great Salt Lake. Almost makes you forget the lake smells like sewage.

DAY 73 - The Jap is Back!

SATURDAY! It was a pretty good day. I got a lot done, bought new shoes YAY! Now hopefully my knees will last into my late 30's. I took the shoes out for a run and went further than I ever have, and I even ran part of the time on the cement sidewalk. My knees are feeling fine now, we'll see how they feel tomorrow. After my run I went home and tidied up the house. Finally cleaned the kitchen for the first time this week....don't judge!

Then Alane called and told me they had an extra ticket for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" at the Egyptian in Park City. Nate was going to be coming as well. He has just been home from his mission two weeks, but he's just like the Nate who left two years ago. We fell right back into our giggly school boy selves.

The show wasn't great, I think its hard for a show to be funny when it tries to tell you its funny in the title. But we made our own entertainment. I shared my story of the time when I was about 14 and performed at the state fair with the Pages Lane School of Performing Arts. We sang "Comedy Tonight" (which is the most popular song from the show) at one point during the song, I had my big part, I got to step out of the line and say "Last night I had a dream I ate a giant marshmallow and when I woke up my pillow was gone" then stepped back in the line to do the grapevine and finish the song. I was a BIG HIT!

DAY 72 - Friday Night Blah

So I hate Friday nights that turn out this way. And I do it to myself. When I have a few different options I can't make a decision and end up staying home all night. Latoya asked me to come up and play games with them. That sounded fun, then Brandy, Clete, and Greg were going to a movie, and that would be a good time as well. I spent all night trying to figure out what to do, then I ended up not doing either things and laid in my bed catching up on TV shows. It was relaxing I suppose. I look like I had been crying in the pic, but I hadn't, I wasn't watching Lifetime or anything, my eyes were just tired from staring at my computer screen all night. Well the weekend is still young hopefully tomorrow will be better.

DAY 71 - Behind These Droopy Eyes

I felt this picture pretty much sums up how I feel at work most days... I can't find my small iPod ear phones, so I have been using these super big ones that they gave me at work. The other problem with these is they have a really, really, long chord, so I'm always getting tangled up in it. I go to get out of my chair and get yanked back down, it really does take over. I think it's funny that the other guys on my team are listening to all this indy rock stuff, a couple of them invited me to some movie about The Clash the other night. I have no idea who that is. I'm sitting there listening to the Kelly Clarkson station on Pandora. Little do they know.

After work was dinner with the parents! Chuck-A-Rama baby! I'm really trying to eat better so it worked, was able to manage my own portion size and just had a big salad. Then I went running. My knees were really bothering me tonight. I tried to run as fast as I could the entire time, I didn't make it as far, but my heart was going to pound out of my chest. They say to never get to the point where you can't carry on a conversation while working out... Well if I were to have a conversation tonight during my run it would have sounded like an obscene phone call, just a lot of heavy breathing.

DAY 70 - Always working, never stopping, working, working

Working, working, always working, never stopping... Not really, actually I should probably be working more instead of putting things off til the last minute. Today was the weekly TV night at Brandy's. Top Chef is done so we've turned our energies to American Idol and catching up on Whatever Martha's. I've been off the Diet Coke this week, so I've been getting really tired at night. I guess that's the reason, but for whatever reason I was just super tired. Alane needed a T-shirt design, and I had worked on it a little earlier, but I had to make some changes and get it sent off to her. So I laid in bed and got it done. I think I work better from bed, maybe I can get something worked out.

DAY 69 - "Mini" and "Thin" shouldn't make you FAT!?

This time of year is the worst time of the year for me as far as candy goes. I can pass up most Christmas candy, even Halloween candy doesn't tempt me. Sure, I will have a little around Halloween, but that's about it. Easter candy is another story. Mini Cadbury Eggs are of the devil! I love them!!! They were in the stores before Valentines Day and I promised myself I wasn't going to have any until March... Well let me tell ya, March came in like a Lion! I was bitter about my car so I bought a bag to ease the pain. Then I bought another bag for the drive to St. George. When we got back from St. George I threw away what was left from the trip. Tonight I was looking for my ear phones and opened up the drawer on my side table only to behold the secret lair of the self-pity bag. I immediately took it and threw them out my bedroom window into the dumpster below. On top of the Easter candy it's also Girl Scout Cookie time! I got to work today and there upon my desk was the evil Coconut Caramel Samoa along with its equally as evil side kick the Thin Mint! I don't know what I was thinking, why did I order so many? I will be redistributing these...and hopefully not to my thighs. My friends and family are going to be the recipients of some Girl Scout Cookie goodness!

On the bright side of things I got back on track today with my running. I did 2.5 miles of actual running, and almost 3 miles all together, including my warm up and cool down walking. Only 6 more weeks til the big race!

DAY 68 - Snow? Seriously?

Not only was it Monday, but my short lived spring fever was cured by a dose of snow. How I long to return to St. George's sunny 60 degree weather. Today was one of those "just another day" days. Worked, came home, watched the season premier of Dancing With the Stars...don't know if I'll follow this one, nobody that entertaining is on. I need a Chloris Leachman or crazy fainting cougar Marie Osmond to keep me interested. A former Playboy bunny, and The Bachelor reject just don't do it for me.

Only 10 more full work weeks til Memorial Day!

DAY 67 - Myiam Bialik Was All Over the Place

There were Blossom's everywhere, whoa!!! The trees were poppin' with popcorn! This morning we took advantage of the awesome weather and walked downtown. It's about a mile walk from Randy's place. We ate at a little restaurant called the Bear Claw, I think. It was Sunday morning brunch, so there was about a 40 minute wait. We decided to just sit at the bar. So old school.

After brunch we strolled leisurely back to Randy's, where we packed our stuff up and reluctantly headed back home. Why is it that vacations pass by so quickly. I spent weeks looking forward to these few days, and now they are all ready done. Why can't work weeks fly by like that. Life is truly, truly unfair! We made it home around 6:00. Brandy took me to Centerville so I could pick up my car. I drove it back home waiting for the gears to seize up, I breathed a sigh of relief every time it shifted, I almost hyperventilated. But things seem to be working fine. So it looks like I may be planning a trip to New York after all!!! Yeah a new vacation that will come and go faster than I can say "Skinny and Sweet."

DAY 66 - Fabric, Furniture and Frosting!

When many people make the trek to St. George, its to spend time outdoors, riding mountain bikes, taking hikes through the majestic red rocks, grabbing their carabeaners and scaling a giant cliff. Oh not I, point me in the direction of the nearest baked good! Brandy and I found this little cafe on Main Street with a large selection of cupcakes. We got a peanut butter cup and a coconut cream, and split them. They were simply Divine! And it was a cute little shop too.

We continued our theme of a lazy laid back vacation. We slept in a bit, didn't really get out on the town til about 1:00. Then we just ran some errands. Brandy looked at fabric at some quilt shops, we stopped at a little consignment type shop on the Boulevard and looked at some furniture and stuff. Stopped by the outlet malls and looked for some running shoes for me. Just lazy no stress stuff... I loved it. We ended the afternoon swinging in the park and reading entertainment weekly laying on a blanket on the grass. Seriously chronic case of Spring Fever has set in.

We ended the night with some bowling at an old school bowling alley. It was fun. They didn't even have the ball returns enclosed, you could see your ball come all the way back along the alley and right up on the the ball holder thing. The whole little shopping center it was in looked like it was freeze dried in 1978. I loved it. After the bowling we had some yummy Thai food then headed home for the next installment of High School Musical... Which incidentally was filmed right in the lava rock valley's of St. George.

DAY 65 - Red Rock's and Outcropped Stones

After a trying emotional and stressful week, I made a run for it! Tried to leave all of my woes in the dust as Brandy and I headed to beautiful St. George, Utah. I have been debating whether or not to take the trip for weeks, but early in the week with all my car issues I decided to just do it. I needed to get away. Brandy has a friend who teaches at Dixie, so we were able to stay at his place which makes it nice to not have to worry about getting a hotel somewhere. You never know what might happen at the Motel 6.

We decided this would be a pretty laid back trip, so we decided not to leave until noon. I got up WALKED to the store, made some Snickerdoodle cookies for the trip and packed up my stuff. Brandy came to pick me up around noon, then I went to her house while she got ready. The entire time I was trying to get in the mood for a fun exciting trip, but the car issues and impending expense hung over me like the dark gray clouds that filled the Salt Lake Valley today. As I was sitting on the couch waiting for Brandy to get ready, reading articles in the New Yorker (I just added that cause it makes me sound intellectual and cultured), my phone rang. It was a Centerville number so I assumed it was news about my car. I nervously pressed the answer button on my phone bracing myself for the absolute worse possible news...my car was never going to run again, the transmission is dead, it needs new axles, new pistons, new bearings, new radiator, new jockey box button..you name it I was expecting it. But that is not what I heard at all, I almost thought the mechanic was speaking a different language when he said to me "your car is running fine." "Come again, what's that you say? Speak any English?" I couldn't believe it. All they did was give the transmission a good flush and added some transmission fluid. He had driven it up and down the freeway and said it was running fine. This changed everything. Instead of a $2000 to $5000 repair I ended up paying $300!!! And $100 of that was to tow it from the inept Ken Garff Honda Downtown, who didn't even bother checking the Transmission fluid! The gray skies are beginning to clear and the sunny Red Rock's of St. George are calling me!

With the burden of my car turmoil lifted, I was able to get excited for the road trip. We left about 1:00. Things were going swimmingly. Brandy had all her music , which is completely foreign to me, not much I can sing along to. But it expands my horizons and I'm finally learning about music from the 90's and 2000's that I've completely missed. Then we hit snow! Yes, snow! It snowed for a large section of the trip, but after Cedar City, the skies cleared and St. George welcomed us with blue skies. Tonight we didn't do a whole lot after we arrived in town. We got settled in, then headed for some dinner. After that we tried to get on the Internet at Barnes & Nobel, but it was expensive. So we just grabbed a few magazines and hung out for a while. Brandy is reading "Modern Dog", Must be hilarious!

After we got back to the apartment we put in High School Musical. Brandy and I have had this goal since September that we were going to see all 3 High School Musicals. Neither of us had ever seen any of them. We watched the first one back in September, but it had been a while, so we deiced to start over from the top. We managed to push Randy, Brandy's friend we were staying with, out of his own living room by playing the utterly ridiculous HSM. But it was worth it...you just gotta love it.

DAY 64 - LIES!

I'm growing increasingly bitter. I have moved my car from Ken Garff to a mechanic in Centerville who thinks he may be able to fix it for cheaper. I'm not really counting on it. I'm bracing for the worst. I'm trying really, really hard not to freak out over the whole situation. On Monday at my work orientation, they explained each of the products, they told us about the Stress Formula, and that it takes up to 2 weeks to start working at the regular dosage, but the guy joked that if you take half the bottle you'll feel really good and not remember a thing... I took his "advice" I took about 8 capsules. I didn't so much relieve my stress, just made me want to put my head down on my desk for most of the day.

Tonight I walked (obviously) to Clete and Greg's to watch Ugly Betty. In the episode Betty's family was getting evicted from their house. The only way they could stay is if they raised $15,000 to put a down payment on the house to buy it. The whole show followed the Suarez family as they tried to raise the funds. It looked grim until the dad entered a cooking contest show, much like the Bobbly Flay's challenge type show. He lost, and it looked like he wasn't going to get the money. However, in the last moments the chef came and told Betty's dad show is rigged and he has to win 4 out of 5 challenges. But he really thought his recipe was the best, and wanted to buy the it for $10,000, just the same amount of money they needed to save the house.... It all worked out for Betty and her family. It is similar to the Brady's raising funds in the talent contest to replace their parents silver platter. Everything always works out for TV families. What about me, maybe it will all work out in the end. On my way home, feeling somewhat hopeful. I looked down at the sidewalk and some wise street side tagger had reminded me television is lies...ALL LIES!!! I need $2000 or more to fix my car...where's my prize winning Molé recipe, or sequined jump suit and step brothers and sisters to help sing my way to financial freedom? HMMMMM? Thank you wise street graffiti for keepin it real!

Day 63 - Santa Maria, send me guidance!

Day 3 of no car! I can't handle it! I am a car person, as much as I hate dealing with them, I really need one. I rode the train to work this morning, taking and hour and a half from the time I left my apartment. I have found out my car is going to be $3000 - $5000 to fix. It needs a completely new transmission. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! Why do bad things happen to good people. On my walk home as I passed the Cathedral I fell to my knees and prayed "Santa Maria." But nothing! I thought maybe when I got home there would be some check in the mail from some long lost relative that died and left me millions...Nope, nothin, just a Pottery Barn catalog and a bunch of ads. Yeah right, like now is the time I'm going to go out and do some careless buying, I need to save everything I....oh look a sale at Penny's!

DAY 62 - Carless Children Sang as they Walked, and Walked and Walked and....

Today I walked, and walked and walked. My car is dead! My dad came down this morning to follow me to Ken Garff Honda. I tried to coax the poor injured Rodeo to the corral. I was pretty sure once I pulled it in the garage they were just going to shoot it to put it out of its misery. It took forever to drive it through the streets of downtown. It wouldn't shift into gear, I was driving in probably 1st or 2nd the entire way over. I didn't want to stop at any red lights or stop signs cause I didn't know if I could get it going again, so I just ran threw them. People were angry and I received some honks and unfriendly hand gestures, but I just smiled and waved as if in a parade. I should have put some streamers on the car and threw candy, that way people may have been a little more forgiving.

Once I dropped off the car, my dad took me into work. But I had the challenge of finding a way home from Sandy. I ended up catching a ride with some guys I work with to the 21st South Trax station, then catching the train and riding it to the City Center stop, then walking home. We left the office about 5:30, I got home about 6:40. My usual 20 minute commute has expanded to over an hour. I guess that's what life is like for the carless. But I'm trying to remain positive and singing a happy tune!

DAY 61 - Stay Golden Pony Boy!

Tonight I had the privilege of going to Granger High School's production of "The Outsiders." I loved this show as a kid, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Machio, Patrick Swayzee, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Rob Low, Tom Cruise. A who's who of 80's Hollywood hot young actors. It was the pages of Tiger Beat come to life... It was pretty much the same watching it at Granger....kinda. It was fun to go to, they did a pretty good job. I am used to Alane's large scale productions, they don't really have the program like Bonneville's but they do a good job with what they've got.

The worst part of today is that my car DIED!!! The transmission finally gave up. It has been going for the past few weeks, and this morning I tried to make it to work, I only got a few blocks from my house and it wouldn't go into gear. At every stop light I had to turn off the car an turn it back on, it would go into first and I slowly made my way back home. I had no idea what I was going to do, I had to figure out a way to get to work. My friend Hunter had offered me his car the night before as a facebook comment, but I didn't know if he was serious. I finally swallowed my pride and asked if he was joking, or if I could really borrow his car. I was so, so, so grateful that he was not joking, he happily lent me his Jetta. It was really fun driving a stick shift again, I miss it. I didn't want to give it back. I held on to the bumper and kicked and screamed as he drove it away.

But the one good part of the day was at my work we had an employee orientation meeting. we went to lunch at Cafe Rio and I ended up sitting with another employee and the VP over training and development. He had set up a "biggest loser" challenge. I asked about it and he told me a little bit about what was going on. I told him I would have liked to have joined... A few minutes later after the conversation had shifted he looked at me again and said "Why would you need to join? You don't have to lose weight?"...One of the happiest moments of my life. I really could stand to lose about 15 lbs. But I still see myself much much bigger. So out of dreary depressing day, that was my golden moment.

DAY 60 - Doing Laundry and Money Laundering

Ahhh Sunday. It was a very laid back lazy day. I spent most of the day at the parents house doing my huge stock pile of laundry. I think 98% of my clothes were dirty, so I finally gave in and loaded them all up, broke out the Tide and spent the afternoon, washing, drying and folding... Well I didn't do it, mostly the machines did it. However, according to the girl at work I do remind her of a washing machine, or some sort of house hold appliance. She gave me her wedding invitation, and it was addressed to Ken Moore... I'm pretty sure Kenmore is a leading name brand in the home appliance industry. Maybe I'm agitated a lot or something. It's OK I forgive her, I'm relatively new, and she's 19.

After getting the bulk of my laundry done (I always have to leave a little for my mom to finish). I came back down to Salt Lake and went to Clete and Greg's for some Amazing Race and the "2 hour Brothers & Sisters movie event." They have been advertising there was going to be a death in the family. We had also heard the guy that plays Tommy was leaving. So we all assumed he was going to die... We were wrong. Rob Lowe died...but only for a second. So lame. But Tommy was convicted of stealing money from the company, and it looks like he's going away for a long, long time.

Oh so sad that I'm talking about these people like they are real. I need to get out more..or do I mean Ken Moore?!