GSL

Today was the perfect day to go to the Great Salt Lake.  A great temperature outside, the water was perfectly warm (It's always supposed to be warm because of the salt) and it was just pre-buggy weather.

Memorial Day.

On Memorial Day my family makes our annual trip to the Provo Cemetery to place flowers at my Grandma Lorna, Grandpa Earl, Aunt Frances, Uncle Roy, Great0Aunt LeJune, and Grandma Vernice's gravesites.  Then we pose for our "Awkward Family Photo", and head over to Chinatown restaurant to eat Chinese food (sweet and sour pork, orange beef, cashew chicken, a shrimp dish, and chicken lo-mein are our standards, then we mix and match a couple more dishes).  I love these traditions and am glad I was able to go this year.

Later that night I had a crafting night with some of the gals at work.  I scrapbooked, Annicka stitched, we watched Breaking Dawn, and then Vivian taught Danyale, Annicka, and I how to make sushi.  It was fun and I posted a pictured-step-by-step tutorial on my otherblog.  That night I also made these little cinnamon rolls I found on pinterest.  They were super easy, super cute, and the instructions can be found here. 

Day Trippin'

Melissa and I decided to spend the evening with a drive up the canyon and a nature walk around Silver Lake.  We stepped out of the car and into another world.  It was lightly snowing, the trees were dusted and the boardwalks covered.  As we walked around the lake we saw Beaver Dams, made a snow-duck, and then a Saytr came by.  Melissa climbed on his back and took a walk with him as reed pipe music played.  I climbed in a sleigh with the White Queen and ate some turkish delight...Oh wait, that is Narnia.  But it really it was like walking into Narnia when just 15 minutes down the canyon it was sunny and green.  It was a fun walk though and a nice break from reality.

Utah Special...

My cousin Susie and I have been taking her kids on Utah fieldtrips throughout the past few years.   Our field trip last week consisted of the Kennicott Bingham Copper Mine.

I hadn't been there since I was a kid, but it was fun too look at the big trucks and learn how they mine the copper.  I also think it is pretty cool that you can see it from outer-space.  It was windy and kind of cold but for the price of FREE it couldn't be beat!

600.

This is my 600th post.  Woot!

It's a rainy Memorial Day Weekend here in Utah (as it is most Memorial Day Weekends).  It smells fabulous outside, I made scones this morning for breakfast and am going out to lunch with one of my favorite friends.

The past couple of weeks have been crazy.  Lots of drama at work, lots of backstabbing and sadness there.  Physically I feel happy and healthy about every other day.  Finally getting into a doctor a few days before I leave for Cambodia to see what is really going on with my stomach.  Cambodia.  I can't wait to be there and I can't wait until it is over.  Only 2 more weeks and then I am off!

Read this quote yesterday:

Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself. Maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.

Unknown

Maybe I am getting whacked right now.  The question is what do I want out of life at this point?  I am honestly not sure. I want nothing and everything to change.  I have a feeling this is going to be a very interesting summer that's for sure.

Speaking of summer I got my first Mail Circut challenge last week for Shelbie.  The challenges are to play with Sidewalk chalk a lot, and go to the temple/serve others a lot.  She also sent me a fun mixed CD and this guy:

Lucky T-Rex, which is perfect because I love T-Rexes a lot.  He is coming to Cambodia with me.

P.S.  Isn't my R2-D2 I-pod awesome?!  I love it.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday.

Makes my heart happy...

Ten things that make my heart happy today...

1. Flowers in these colors.

2.  Opportunities to Travel.

3.  Star Wars crafts.

  

4.  Truths.

5.  These bookends.

6.  This awesome lunchbox that I want so very much.

7.  "I ache for you" Stomach plush from iheartguts.

8.  Season finales (even if I cried through half of them).

9.  This quote:

“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.”   -Wilferd A. Peterson

10.  The smell of Utah this time of year.  Seriously it smells awesome outside 99% of the time,

As always pictures are via pinterest.

Dear,

Dear Delores,  Your latest Educational Decree is stupid, as is your newest Inquisitorial Squad member.

Dear Clouds, You created quite the glare during the Solar Eclipse so it was hard to see.  Any maybe my lack of glasses didn't help either. Blinded by the light!



Amazing picture by my very talented cousin Kristen in Japan.

 Dear 70's Blues Music,  I am addicted to you right now.

Dear Dark Shadows, you are something from the 70's I am not addicted too because you were just a bit too weirdo (even being a Depp & Burton flick).

Dear Avengers, I am so addicted to the things you do. I have seen you 3 times now and could go again.

Dear Clara Barton, Thank you for creating the American Red Cross.  I am now an official ARC nurse and got pinned this past weekend.

Dear Emotions, I hate your stinking guts, you make me want to vomit and are the scum between my toes.

Dear Stomach Ulcer, see above letter to emotions.

Dear MR, thank you for your words of encouragement.

Dear Niki, I miss your face and was glad I got to see it while you are in country.

Sincerely, Jill

P.S.  I really like this quote right now:

and this is so beyond rediculous!



images via pinterest.

Words to live by...

all via pinterest.

Summer Challenge

The beautiful gals at Diaries of a Fly on the Wall organized an underground mail circuit with the theme of Summer.  More importantly issuing a Summer Challenge.  This is the challenge I mailed out to my assigned people and that I hope to complete myself.  Wanna join in?

My goal for the summer is to LIVE NOT JUST SURVIVE. I spent a lot of my summer last year working the night shift and just trying to survive. It was horrible, so this year I want to make sure it is better, that I become a better person, and have a lot more fun. Remember when summers were the best thing ever as a kid? How there was a certain magic to this time of year? I want to have that kind of summer.

Some things I hope to do:
-go outside every day
-watch Goonies
-take a vacation, even if it is somewhere close
-complete some random acts of service
-go to as many concerts as possible
-go to as many movies as possible
-play in a park
-have a barbecue
-make a new friend
-read a new book
-read an old book I love
-go to a parade
-do something creative
-learn to cook something awesome
-attend festivals, fairs, and carnivals
-eat some funnel cake
-believe in magic
-run through the sprinklers
-go to a play
-eat a Popsicle
-lay on the grass
-sleep under the stars
-roast marshmallows
-live, not just survive.


Your challenge (I hope you choose to accept it) is to LIVE this summer, make it the best you possibly can and hopefully the magic of summer will be here.

pic via.

that time I shot a bow and arrow.

People keep telling me to relax.  To take care of myself, to put myself first.  I tried this weekend to do that, to focus on me, keep my blood pressure and mood under control. 
On Friday I headed to the Utah Rennisance Faire with Camilla and Kellie to hang out for the afternoon.  Turkey legs and homemade birch root beer, jousting (where a knight got thrown from his horse), creepy Friars, big swords, funnel cake, gypsy magic, and henna.  On the way out I decided I just needed to try shooting the bow and arrow.  I hadn't done that since I was 12 at Oakcrest Girls Camp.  I'm not very good, but it was pretty fun to try and channel my inner Katniss or Hawkeye. 

Saturday was mass chaos as I dipped 65 chocolate-covered-strawberries to deliver as a Cambodia fundraiser.  I am so grateful that people at work were so generous and I was able to fundraise almost all of my money in 15 minutes.  I am also grateful that my mom was able to help me dip and drive all over the valley to deliver them.  Right after that I went to my Cambodia team meeting.  I can't believe we leave so soon.  Just under a month.  Then Saturday night Melissa and I ate too much pizza and icecream and watched too much TV.

Am I relaxed? I don't know. Honestly I have cried a lot today, but it's all going to be okay in the end, because I am not going to let my body and chaos beat me.  I am going to shoot this stress (when I figure out exactly what it is) through the middle with that arrow.

May.

Oh hello May, are we 10 days into you already.  How about that. 

I leave for Cambodia in 1 month.

Apparently I'm stressed out.  At least according to my wicked high blood pressure and ulcer. 

There was a "super moon" ( I'm not talking about the many times in high school when the boys soccer team mooned the bel canto choir) over the weekend.  It was huge and beautiful, and reminded me that sometimes I like working on the 12th floor of a hospital at night.

this pic my friend Dallin took is way better than the one I took.

Went to a charge nurse workshop all about Disaster prepardness and Mass casualty incidents.  A nurse from Joplin, Missouri  came to talk about the tornado they had last May and how the hospital handled it. Such crazy stories. 

Saw Avengers again.  Still super awesome.



Pretty much have my whole wedding planned out on pinterest...now I just need that darn groom.

Remember how I leave for Cambodia in a month and I am absolutely not ready?

Maybe I need a hug from a cute boy.  Just sayin.

Weekend, I hope you are awesome and relaxing (apparently I need relaxing, cause I  am apparently stressed out).

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.”  -Natalie Goldberg

How is your May?

Avengers Assemble!

Went with Laura to the midnight premier of Avengers last night. It was one of the best action flicks I have seen in years.  Funny, entertaining, and full of awesome actors/actresses and character moments.  They did a good job of making each character important and have moments to shine.  Even the Hulk was awesome.

Hard to pick a favorite character and moment but I really liked the assassin's Black Widow and Hawkeye for just having some mad skills.  And when Iron Man said, "Hold on Legolas" to Hawkeye.

The Hulk was pretty entertaining though as he Hulk Smashed Loki.


via.

Of course Utah nerds didn't dissapoint and came out in character for some pre-show entertainment: