The Disclaimer

It was recently brought to my attention that other people may be taking my blog more seriously than I do. While that is in one way very exciting, it also poses a slight predicament. I would just like everyone to know that they shouldn't take anything as the exact truth (mainly the opinion stuff) if posted on my blog because I tend to purposely exaggerate to make a post more interesting. The reason I started a blog was to mainly practice my writing skills and not to accurately keep an online journal. Sorry to disappoint. However, if I do specifically write about an experience that happened to me---it really did happen. Or, if I post a "Sabbath Blog" I really mean the stuff contained in it. The rest is free game. In conclusion, I am not a liar....I'm a "What can I write that someone will actually be willing to read?" kind of person. Peace.

Kissy Kissy, Smoochie Smoochie

Here's something to chew on: What are the qualities you normally look for in someone of the opposite sex? Personality? Good looks? Money? Lots of money? Good kisser? How about a "clean" kisser? So, right now I'm going into the dental profession so I'm learning tons about teeth and such...very interesting stuff I must say. Well, I was chattin with a past dental assistant who relayed the following tidbit which I found quite intriguing. She was talking about how her dental hygienist friend who has had quite a few patients over the past years who have come in with amazing teeth, great gums, awesome breath....basically the ideal patients. However, they'd come back within the next little while riddled with oral nastiness. The drastic change was so sudden it was odd. Then the dental hygienist would ask the patient if he/she had recently entered a new relationship. The answer was always a resounding "yes." Case closed. Even though the patient had great oral hygiene habits, their new special someone's mouth was icky gross. The bacteria and mouth goobers had transferred between the lovely lovers. This story made me gag. Brush. Floss. Rinse. Repeat. PLEASE. I'm not 100% if cases like this actually happen because I haven't witnessed it first hand, but according to the what we're learning about the microbia of the mouth it sounds highly probable. Anyway, here's a few other fun facts on the related topic for your own enjoyment (or at least mine):

1. More than 500 microbial species are found in a human mouth.
2. Dental caries (cavities) is the #1 most common disease among children in the United States.
3. Plaque is the old school term for the now used term "dental biofilm"
4. If you aren't flossing, 35% of your teeth's surface is being left dirty.
5. The average adult has had 10+ cavities thus far in their life.

Sleeping In

Sleeping in. I loooove it. A LOT. Sometimes I even try to stay up extra late the night before on a weekend just so that I will be too tired to accidentally wake up at a my normal time. It's a beautiful thing. What's even better is when you wake up at 7am still tired and groggy and realize you can go back to sleep. Does life get any better? Hence, I have a theory that beds and pillows are magically ten times more comfy in the early morning than they are the night before. However, it's always awkward when you stumble out of bed at 12pm, fumble to the kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal, and then see all of your roommates perky and bright-eyed eating sandwhiches for lunch in the kitchen. So then you guiltitly try to blend in by grabbing your own PB and J (even though you're dying for your usual bowl of cereal) as if to mask the fact that you have been out cold for the first half of the day. But then you realize how truly messed up things are when you proceed from the kitchen to the bathroom to hop in the shower. WHAM. cold water. That's what you get for being the last one up. Not only have five other people splashed around in a glorious hot and steamy goodness before you, but your perky, sandwhich eating roommies have also decided to demonstrate their early morning productiveness by switching on the dishwasher. At least by this point, the icy water has you so refreshed that it's almost as if you'd actually been awake for hours...until someone flushes the toilet. I guess that's a perk...if you want to be optimistic that is. Realistically, it actually bites and couldn't get much worse. Or so you think. After wrapping up snuggly in your towel ('cause your shivering uncontrollably since the hot water left as quick as it came) you scurry out of the bathroom to your room to change....but not before you glance down the hallway and meet eyes with your roommies cute guy firend who not only is now looking at you in a towel but is also looking at you with confusion since it's 1pm ish and you're just getting ready for the day.

So you don't have to deal with anymore inter-apartment awkward sleeping in complications, you jet outside to get on with your day. You always run into someone you know though. It's inevitable. You say "hi" and ask "what's up?" Yet, instead of returning the typical American question that's supposed to be meant as more of a friendly salutation instead of a real, sincere question, they start telling you all about the trivial stuff they did that morning. Then they ask the dreaded question, "So how was your morning?" Uggg...now comes the personal moral delimma. You have three options:
1. Lie through your pearly white teeth: You don't want to sound as pathetic as you really are so you say. Oh, it was good, I ...insert something generic here, like "studied" or "ran errands" or "hung with roommates" or "did stuff around the apartment"...actually you are probably going to go with the doing stuff around the apartment option since it's almost kind of sorta honest since you were doing stuff around your apartment also reffered to as sleeping.
2. Be truthful. Admit you just woke up....but you'll probably also add some lame excuse justifying why you slept in.
3. Be vague. "Oh nothing much" is always a good out. Infact, being vague is a great out for quite an array of situations. Q: "Are you busy this weekend?" A: "Not sure yet. I have some things possibly planned but I need to check with some people sometime soonish." Q: "How'd you do on the last exam?" A: "Oh, not horrible...but not fantastic either. It could have been worse, I think it was okay though." Q: "How serious is your relationship? Do you think you'll be engaged soon?" A: "Oh, he's cool, I'm cool. We like eachhother. How do you judge seriousness anyway? (Notice the answering a question with a question technique) Now you're on your way to being one very successful politician. Congratulations.

Luckily, after your rough and rocky start, the day typically gets better and virtually normal....until night hits. All too quickly you realize it's your bedtime and you're wide awake. So what do you do? You blog about the beatifual idea of sleeping in until you become sleepy yourself....but then realize how stupid of a choice that truly was when you see your roommate's Microbiology book lying right next to you....the same book that knocked you out faster than a double does of Niquil freshman year when you took the same class. Such is life :)

A New Kind of "Happy Meal"?

(This happened a couple summers ago)

Back when I was a tiny tike, McDonalds reigned fast food supreme in my mind. From the seat of my carseat, those golden arches were easily recognized no matter what city my family was breezin through. Plus, Mcky Dees was the only place a kid could get a cute lil meal in a brightly colored, mesmerizing box which was traded out for a specially designed plastic trick-or-treat tub somewhere around mid-October for Halloween. With those playground jungle gymn things and collectible mini-Barbies as the surprise toy....really could life get any better?

Alas, somehow between the release of Super Size Me and just plain growing up McDonalds found a different place in my heart. This note is in no way an attempt to bash McDonalds mind you. I will still eat there, my family will still eat there, and when the mood strikes...heck..you should eat there too every now and then :).

Anyway, it all happened one late night a couple weeks ago while my family was making our way through Nebraska. There wasn't too much around and we were famished. After making a stop through a McDonalds' drive thru and heading to our hotel, we started happily eating our value meals.

Shreek! My younger sister suddenly squeals. A lot of pure disgust flashed across her face as she through her friend fries forcefully on the nightstand. After some quick investigation, the source of her disgust was made blatantly apparent. A big, dead, yucky lookin bug (well, actually it was kind of cute in a wierd sort of way) was smack dab in the middle of all of that golden, crispy french fry goodness. seriously, i don't make this stuff up. I'm not suing McDonalds, my family isn't suing McDonalds, you shouldn't sue McDonalds...heck...come to think of it...we didn't even get a free meal outta all this. hmmm.....

Now, it is very well possible that this is not McDonalds’ fault at all. It is very well possible (though in my opinion---highly unlikely) that a bug from our car, outside, or some other place could have found its way into our take out bags upon leaving McDonalds. Who knows…besides…that bug was probably the most healthy, most organic, most nutritious morsel we got from that McDonald’s order. Anyhow, the moral of the story? Ummm….eat Burger King? 

Sabbath Blog: "The Little Things"

Since it was fast Sunday for my ward today, I think I'll start out with a scrumpdiddlyumcious childhood story about food just to make your fast a wee bit harder to test how righteous you truly are. Just kidding, that would be mean. But seriously....don't read if you are starving.

I'm a dork. I gave up trying to be cool a long time ago. To demonstrate the validity of this point take note of the following: I used to watch Martha Stewart in the morning during summer instead of the normal kid stuff like...well...I don't even know....I wasn't normal. sigh. Anyway, one day the domestic goddess made these cookies that rocked my cookie world as I once knew it. "Lime Meltaways" (Believe me: I do not make this stuff up: http://www.marthastewart.com/ recipe/lime-meltaways-from-the-martha-stewart-show?autonomy_kw=lime%20meltaways&rsc=header_1) was what she called this confectionery goodness, and I was dying to bake some myself.

My mom wrote down the recipe for me, and a few weeks later I got to work. I carefully followed each direction excited to (in all honesty) get the darn things baked and out of the oven so that I could eat them all. Sadly, upon my first little nibble of the much anticipated Lime Meltaway I was sorely disappointed. But, I had my pride to protect. Smiling innocently, I dashed over to my dad an gave him several of my prized cookies. Being the good man that he is, he downed every single one without a single word of cooking criticism or complaint.

An hour or so later, he was violently ill. What a trooper. That's a dad that loves his daughter. Turns out on the recipe my mom had written for me salt was listed as "1/4 salt." Having little cooking experience at the time, I had guessed that "1/4" salt must mean "1/4 cup of salt." Now I know that the only time you put that much salt into anything it's because you're making homemade play dough or an ex foliating hand scrub---both of which are never internally ingested..hopefully...sometimes play dough crosses that line...grubby, little kids are disgusting like that). It wasn't until later that I realized that Lime Meltaways are supposed to be made with only 1/4 of a TEASEPOON of salt. Minor difference. Poor Dad :(

What's the point? Here goes....

I think it's the little things in the gospel that are often the most important. You barely add any salt to a recipe in baking (yeah, sorry to make the uber cheezily obvious connection) but if left out or exaggerated the consequences are extremely different. The commandments to read our scriptures, say our prayers, go to church, love our families, attend the temple regularly, serve our fellow men, pay our tithing, etc. often seem mundane and not the crucial aspects in our lives that they truly are.

As we know, it works quite the contrary. Matthew 5:48 reads: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Even though this is impossible for us to do by ourselves, luckily we have our loving savior Jesus Christ who takes care of our shortcomings when even our best just isn't enough. We just have to take the time and faith to rely on Him. However, this leaves little wiggle room, if any, to slack off on our part. And just think of the blessings we forfeit when we choose to live up to less than our potential: "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated."

More food for thought:
*I had a seminary teacher that often stressed our greatest sins are often not the ones of commission but those of omission.
*Going back to the salt theme: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. " (Matthew 5:14-16)
*Hmm...I had much more but this blog is sort of going downhill so I think I'll end here. haha

Anyway, the church is true! Enjoy your day :)

The Many Stages of Boredom

Five minutes ago I was reminded of a gray area some of us cross into more often than others. I like to term it "the many stages of boredom. " This fact of life was brought to mind when one of my roommates took the time to formally reprimand me for not recently bloggging---seeing as my blog is apparently a sad form of her daily entertainment that she sets her heart on to take up a measly five minutes of the 24 hour day. In all honesty, I was actually quite flattered. So, three cheers. Here's to you roommie. You know who you are :)

The Key Stages in the Infinite Stages of Boredom(*Please keep in mind that these are only the highlights):

1. You got some spare time so you decided to do something productive...not necessarily necessary...but productive none-the-less
examples: read, clean, study, go to the bathroom

AND THEN IT GETS WORSE

2. After about 2 whole whopping minutes of being productive you remember that since you remember how lazy you truly are and that the reason you are bored is because all the daily activities you are actually required to do are accomplished. You now slip into bored active mode to bored passive mode.
examples: TV, you tube videos, movies

THE DOWNHILL SLIDE CONTINUES

3. You've been sitting in the same comfy position for so long that you know are experiencing pain. Sadly this is not the good sort pain that kills but instills a sense of accomplishment that results from any other endurance type of sport (yes, sitting in one position for a very long time is a form of endurance and should be considered a sport...though I have a feeling it would consist mainly of chubby people...well, maybe not even chubby....but they'd all have one thing in common: rolls....possibly broken up be the occasional stretch mark) ANYWAY, due to the uncomfortableness that has been building, though you haven't noticed it until your favorite episode of The Office ended on nbc.com, you decide you need to proceed to stage 4 of boredom. This will allow you to have some movement without removing your heiny from its imprinted spot on the couch.
examples: facebooking (well, actually you've done this intermittently for short periods of time all throughout this boredom process....but now your on to more serious stuff....like looking at pictures of friends of friends and stalking that person that sits next to you in chem class), msn instant messaging, texting chacha for no important reason

OH WAIT, THERE'S MORE

4. This is when you take a nap ranging anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours (depending on how much more time you have to kill).
examples: N/A

THE END IS NEAR

5. Now that you've done something your body has been craving since the time you woke up this morning, you realize that you have been neglecting other needs. Well, technically you probably haven't even been neglecting the part of life I'm about to mention but you will find yourself migrating to the kitchen anyway. You start munching. Lots of time passes.
examples: donuts, chips and salsa, chocolate, cereal, Pop-Tarts, the list goes on...

AND YOU THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T BE MORE PATHETIC 'TIL NOW

6. Several hours have passed by this time. Suddenly it hits you....and hits you hard. While those normal contributing members of society (friends, family, roommates, the mailman) have been working, or studying, or volunteering....all you have to show is a few good one-liners from old TV episodes, a big gut, and the infinite relationship status info of all your cyber pals. You stink. In fact, it is so depressing that you start pointing the blame on other for your current state of being.
Examples: wondering why no one has called to invite you to that mega awesome party all your pals are at (you say they're snotty but they know you're boring), you blame others for not creating new blogs for you to read in your spare time, need i say more?

Well, I hope you enjoyed this roommie. Love ya!

Butt Dust

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, 'If you don't remember you must look on the back of your panties. Mine say five to six."

STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his mom goodnight. "I love you so much that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window."

BRITTANY (age 4) had an ear ache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a child-proof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: 'How does it know it's me?"

SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. "Please don't give me this juice again," she said, "It makes my teeth cough."

DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: "How much do I cost?"

MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: "Why is he whispering in her mouth?"

CLINTON (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, "I don't know what will happen with this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in it?"

JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt." Concerned, James asked: "What happened to the flea?"

TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then asked, "Why doesn't your skin fit your face?"

The sermon I think this Mom will never forget...this particular Sunday sermon..."Dear Lord." the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. "Without you, we ar but dust..." He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter who was listening leaned over to me asked quite audibly in her shrill little four year old girl voice, "Mom, what is butt dust?"

Group Dates are BAD

The top 8 reasons why you shouldn't go on a group date if your LDS and older than 18:

1. A lot of times you have dated another person in the group
2. A lot of times everyone in the group know eachother except for you
3. Sometimes another couple is engaged and that makes it awkward for you and everyone else
4. When you have a large group of people it’s hard to do something amazing because you have to factor in everyone’s interest or they are just super stereotypical
5. You focus much less attention on the person you are on the date with
6. Not only do you have to impress the person you are on the date with, but EVERY single other person in the group especially if they are good friends with eachother
7. Driving with multiple couples in the car is often awkward
8. You are more often exposed to nauseating needless PDA from other couples