Institute Graduation

Usually I plan out everything in my life - for example, school. I knew exactly which classes I was going to take which semester and I knew exactly when I was going to graduate. For some reason, I didn't do the same thing with LDS Institute. Although I took classes every semester, I didn't have everything mapped out so that I would graduate. That's why it came as a suprise a couple of months ago when I got a letter in the mail saying I had completed the required credit hours to graduate.

Graduation was this last Sunday, and it was really good. I'm so glad I took the opportunity to take Institute classes and participate in the committees (even though their meetings were at 6:30 in the morning). Not only have I furthered my spiritual education, but I have met a lot of awesome people.

My roommate Mary also graduated. Here is a pic of us:

Goal

So I've had a goal for the last 2 years to lose all my mission weight, but....let's just say I haven't done so well. I lost a few pounds right after I came home from the change in diet (tons of rice everyday = weight gain), but I kind of plateaued after that. Since there is a higher probability of reaching a goal if you write it down and tell people about it, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. So here's my goal: lose 5 pounds by the time I go to Guatemala in July. That's not so hard right?

My biggest problem is lack of self-control. I happen to love food, a little too much at times. I also work at an office where the majority of my department eats out just about every day. So even if I bring lunch, I still go along when invited. No more! I'm going to have self-control! Before my mission I never ate breakfast and rarely ate lunch and I think that's how I kept my weight down, even though it wasn't very healthy. I definitely won't be doing that again because I can't stand to be hungry. So I'm going to eat healthier, smaller portions and not eat out so much. That's how I'll reach my goal. I'm already pretty good at exercising; the biggest part is the food.

Ok, so now it's written down and I've told people. Now comes the hard part: not eating all the brownies on my kitchen counter....

Tag - About Me

A. Four places I go over and over:
1. Work (unfortunately)
2. the practice soccer field @ Weber
3. Church
4. Wal-Mart Neigborhood grocery store

B. Four people who email me:
1. Facebook (is that like a person?)
2. Mom
3. Kristi Patterson
4. Evelyn Candland
I don't really get many emails from real people; it's so much easier to keep in touch through the world of Facebook and blogs.

C. Four of my favorite foods: This is a hard one because I really like to eat.
1. Mashed potatoes
2. Tacos @ Mi Puebla (Tyler you got me hooked)
3. Cafe Rio chicken tostada
4. Pizza

D. Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Bed
2. Somewhere warm. Like Puerto Rico.
3. At lunch
4. Shopping. But only if I have money.

E. Four people who I think will repost this:
1. Tiffany
2. Danika?
3. Erin
4. Whoever wants to

F. Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. The Count of Monte Cristo (thanks to Mary!)
2. Anne of Green Gables
3. Little Women
4. Forrest Gump

G. Four places I have lived:
1. Ventura, CA
2. Layton, UT
3. Brooklyn, Queens, & Long Island, NY
4. Ogden, UT

81 words

Speed test

I did get one word wrong though, so it's probably less than that.

JibJab2

Star in Your Own JibJab!My brother really got his groove on in this one.

JibJab

Star in Your Own JibJab!A guy at work showed me this website a while ago where you can put pictures of the faces of your family/friends in these little movies. I thought I'd post a couple of the funnier ones.

New Bookstore

On Wednesday I went to West Valley after work to see my friend Craig in a play. It didn't start until 7:30 so I had some time to kill. So I went to the mall. Not a good idea because a mall is an easy place to spend money. But I discovered the best bookstore called Eborn Books. It sells new and used books, but it seemed like most of them were used. So of course the used books are sold at a huge discount from the regular price. I could have spent hours in there! I ended up getting "The Hungry Caterpillar" in Spanish to take to Guatemala, East of Eden, and the 1st book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, all for $12. It was totally sweet. I think I've found a new place to waste my money.

About Me

I've seen this tag on a lot of blogs, so I decided to do it too.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
10 years ago I was 14, so I would have been finishing up 9th grade and getting nervous to start high school. I think I was into hanging out at the mall with my friends like all the other jr. high kids do. I finally let go of my fear of trying out for things and tried out for a soccer team that played at different tournaments over the summer. I babysat a lot, so that's probably how I spent a lot of my free time. Honestly I don't remember much about what I did back then.

5 things on my to-do list today
1. Try to leave work early (it's the weekend!)
2. Go running and/or do a hip-hop exercise dvd (they're so fun!)
3. Do a couple of scrapbook pages
4. Clean my bathroom
5. Go to bed early so I can get up super early tomorrow

Hopefully that will all happen. I never know what Friday nights are going to be like. :)

6 snacks I enjoy
1. Fiber One bars (they sound healthy, but they're like candy to me)
2. Swedish Fish
3. Doritos
4. Triscuits
5. Fruit snacks
6. Strawberries

5 places I've lived
1. Ventura, CA
2. Layton, UT
4. Long Island (Freeport), Brooklyn (Midwood), and Queens (Flushing, Richmond Hill, & Rego Park), NY (this one's for you Melody!)
3. Ogden, UT
4. SLC, UT
5. Ogden, UT (different apartment)

5 jobs I've had
1. Hogi Yogi team leader/manager
2. Computer lab aide @ Weber State
3. Office assistant @ Weber State
4. SummitOne Credit Union teller
5. MasterControl marketing admin

5 things people may not know about me
These are always the hardest to come up with, but I'll give it a shot.
1. I've never broken a bone/had stitches/gone to the ER
2. I only had 3 wisdom teeth (I think that's pretty common though)
3. I'm beginning to think I might have ADD. Especially at work. I can't seem to focus on one thing at a time.
4. Before my mission I had never been east of Denver.
5. When I was younger I thought I wanted to be the first woman President of the U.S.

Gee, I've had a boring life.

If I were suddenly a billionaire?
That's such a lot of money that I probably wouldn't know what to do with it. First of all, pay my tithing, then I would invest a bunch, buy my parents a new house, buy myself a house, heck I'll buy everyone in my fam a house, give $ to Casa de Sion, give $ to other worthy causes, pay for my brother's mission, pay off my car, give to the church, etc.

I tag whoever wants to do this.

Spelling Bees

Your Spelling is Perfect

You got 10/10 correct. Your spelling is excellent. You also have a great memory and eye for detail.

How's" Your Spelling?

This brings back another memory, so this will be my memory blog for the week. From 3rd-8th grade, my mom always "made" me be in the spelling bees at school (actually by the time I hit 6th grade I kind of wanted to do them. I'm fine with my weirdness). As soon as we got the list of words to study, she would drill me over and over. For every word I would spell right I received a Reese's Piece. It sounds weird to say "Piece" instead of "Pieces" but I only got one at a time. I remember being so nervous when the day of the spelling bee arrived. Every time I got up to spell a word I had bats in my stomach. Not butterflies. Bats. But my mom always said I looked "calm and collected". Thanks to the drilling I actually won the school level spelling bees in 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th grades and got really close to winning district a couple of times. My last year, 8th grade, I was at the district bee and we had done one round of the easy words, one or two rounds of the intermediate words, and a couple of rounds of the advanced words. By then there were only 4 or 5 of us left. Then they started giving us words that were not on the study list. That's normal, because of course by that point all of us had memorized the entire list. I don't remember how many rounds I stayed in, but I remember the word that got me out. Gregarious. I had never heard the word that I could remember, and the way the pronouncer said it made it sound like "grugarious". So that's how I spelled it. I was a little disappointed because 8th grade is the last year for spelling bees, and now I would never make it to Washington D.C. Oh well. I went to New York for a year and a half and that was even better.

So the result of all this is I'm kind of anal when it comes to spelling. It drives me nuts when words are misspelled.

Tagged

So I didn't really get tagged, but I saw this on a friend's blog and I thought it would be fun. So here goes:

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Boats Mazda

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake

3. YOUR "FLY GUY/GIRL" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of last name)
Tjac

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Blue Horse

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Marie San Diego

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Jacta

7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The" + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Green V8 Splash

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Donald Lyston

9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favority perfume/cologne/scent, favority candy)
Acqua Di Gio Twix

10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names)
Stenquist Lyston (my mom doesn't have a middle name so I used her maiden name)

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (your 5th grade teacher's last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Baronowski Boston

12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Summer Tulip

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you're wearing right now + "ie" or "y")
Strawberry Baby Dollie

14. HIPPIE NAME: (what you ate for breakfast, your favorite treat)
Fiber One Brownie

15. ROCKSTAR NAME: ("The" + your fave hobby, fave weather element + "Tour")
The Sleeping Cumulus Tour

Well those are some fun names. I tag Danika, Melody, and Brea.

Musicians Unite!

So I mentioned before that I play the piano at McKay-Dee Hospital once a month; nothing special, just a little background music. I'm there for two hours and during that time period at least one person will walk by and tell me thank you, or that's beautiful, or something (it's really the piano that's beautiful, not my playing). So today I was there, and it was probably within the first half hour that a little old man came and sat down on a chair right by the piano. I was playing Jon Schmidt's hymn arrangements at the time. I started playing "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" (he has an awesome arrangement of this song), and the old man gets up and walks a little closer to me. So I smiled at him, and then he walked all the way up to me and said, "I love that song. I used to have all 7 verses memorized. But that was a long time ago and I don't remember it all anymore." So we started chatting. His name was Richard Swenson and he used to write hymns and poetry, and sometimes he would write music for his poems. But he never sent them in to be published, he said. He also complimented me on my arpeggios (sp?), and he said it was too bad that he was the only audience, but at least it was someone who appreciated music. Before he left he had to measure the piano, because it's really big. So he walked along, measuring with his feet, and decided it was probably about 15 feet or so. Then he left. So here's a big shout out to my buddy Richard. Thanks for the compliment Mr. S.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to my sister Kaley who won a Wii for placing first in Weber State's March Madness thing! You know, I'm her favorite sister.... :)

Vanilla?

Vanilla is actually my least favorite flavor, but I guess as far as my personality goes, it's probably right.

Memories #4

It's that time again. Here are this week's memories:

1. Ice blocking - There is a park in Ventura called Arroyo Verde that has a lot of nice hills. I remember it also had a lot of different playgrounds in different parts of the park. Anyways, we used to go ice blocking a lot at this park.

2. Lemonade stands - Like normal children, we enjoyed running our lemonade stands (sometimes we sold cookies as well), especially when someone in the neighborhood was having a garage sale. I remember one garage sale (although I can't remember if it was at our house or our neighbor's) and my older sister Brittany and our neighbors Kelly and Jenny decided they were going to make chocolate chip cookies and lemonade to sell. Well that was not ok with me and my younger sister Danika and our friend Meredith (Kelly and Jenny's younger sister) because that's what we wanted to do. So the morning of the garage sale arrives, and because we had complained about it so much, my mom mixed up a batch of muffins for us to sell. Then we decided we should have a drink, so Meredith said she could get some coffee, so she ran over to her house and came back with a pot of coffee. So there we sat at our little table with muffins and coffee. We didn't sell much. Apparently chocolate chip cookies and lemonade are more popular than muffins and coffee. I admit, I would go for the sugar before the healthy stuff too.

Another lemonade stand story - Once our favorite babysitter (Emily Vizzo) was babysitting and we decided we wanted to have a lemonade stand. So we set it up in front of our house and waited for the customers to surround us. I don't think we sold much, but at one point Emily's dad drove by and asked us to fill up his big cup and he gave us a whole dollar. We usually charged 25 cents per cup.

So now I make it a point to buy a cup of lemonade whenever I see a lemonade stand, because I know how exciting it is for kids to make money. Although with inflation and everything, the prices sure have gone up. Last week a guy in my institute class said that he passed a lemonade stand and it was being sold for FOUR DOLLARS a cup! What has this world come to when you have to pay 4 bucks for a cup of lemonade?

3. S.R. - When we were younger (I think this was after we moved to Utah), two of my younger sisters and I developed a system to save our seats in the family room when we were watching tv so nobody would take them if we had to go to the bathroom, grab a snack, etc. Our system was as follows: When we stood up we would say "S.R.!", sometimes repeatedly to make sure everyone heard. For those of you who may be wondering what those letters stand for, they mean "Spot Reserved". I know. We're weird. But I'm ok with it.

Me, Myself, and I

What's Your True Color?

My Result: Brown

You're brown, a credible, stable color that's reminiscent of fine wood, rich leather, and wistful melancholy. Most likely, you're a logical, practical person ruled more by your head than your heart. With your inquisitive mind and insatiable curiosity, you're probably a great problem solver. And you always gather all of the facts before coming to a timely, informed decision. Easily intrigued, you're constantly finding new ways to challenge your mind, whether it's by reading the newspaper, playing a trivia game, or composing a piece of music. Brown is an impartial, neutral color, which means you tend to see the difference between fact and opinion easily and are open to many points of view. Trustworthy and steady, you really are a brown at heart.

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=colorogt&c=50652

Peach City

On Monday I went with my mom and some other family members to a funeral up in Tremonton. It was for Virginia Hansen, former babysitter of my mom and her siblings. I met her a few times and she was always a happy lady. She was 95 when she died and is survived by her husband and four daughters. On our way home we (Uncle Clark, Aunt Diane, Jacy, me, Mom) stopped in Brigham City at Peach City, small-town burger joint famous for their fresh peach shakes in the summer. We settled ourselves down in the cute little barstools and ordered burgers, fries, and shakes. What a great American meal. My mom and I shared a hot fudge shake and it was soooooo good. I didn't take a picture of my food like I usually do, but you can kind of see it in this pic. They also had great fry sauce.

Sometimes I think I want to live in a big city and sometimes I think I want to live in a small town. Every time we go up to Tremonton I decide I want to live in a small town. I want a big piece of land with horses, maybe some cows and chickens. And pigs. I definitely want pigs. And maybe I want to own a small-town burger joint so I can have as many American meals as I want.

On a different note, another thing I always think about when I go up to Tremonton is Family History. We usually end up at one of the cemetaries where my mom's mom is buried or where my mom's grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. are buried. I always wonder what it would have been like to know them. My grandma died before my mom was married, so I never knew her (except in heaven of course, but I don't remember that). My great-grandparents also died when my mom was young. I wish I could have gotten to know them and their cute Swedish accents. My grandpa died a couple of months before I left on my mission and I wish I would have gotten to know him better. He was a good, quite man who liked to spend time in his garden, or typing letters and his life history on his typewriter. I've always liked hearing family stories about what people did "back in the day". When we were at the funeral I started thinking about "life histories" and how important they are to the people that are left behind. So I got the brilliant idea to set up a blog for my mom so she can write her life story. Maybe my dad should do one too (Mom, tell him). My "Memories" blogs are kind of my life history so far. I should do another one of those.

Sorry, this really had no semblance of order. Just me rambling as usual!

Conference Weekend

I had a fantastic Conference weekend, complete with 2 Girls Nights Out.

Friday:
Me, Stacey, Kristianne, and Jenny went to Nickelcade (my first time!) and tore up the place playing Deal or No Deal, Tetris, and many other arcade games.

Me and Stacey boat racing. We were in deep concentration.

Kristianne and Jenny boat racing. This game didn't give any tickets, but it was really fun.

I played that one game where the light goes around and around and you have to hit the button when the light is on "Jackpot". I blew a lot of nickels on this one, winning 0, 1, or 2 tickets each time. Finally I decided my life was worth more than the time I was spending on this game, so I took out 5 more nickels to finish off with. With my fifth and last nickel, I hit the Jackpot! That's 217 tickets you see in that picture! I was way excited - the tickets just kept coming out!

While at Nickelcade I saw a guy I knew on a date there. I decided it was more fun to be there with a bunch of girls than it would have been with a date.

Saturday:

After the afternoon session of conference a bunch of us girls met to go down to the Cheesecake Factory in SLC. When we got there it looked like all the other women in Utah had the same idea. There was a 4 1/2 hour wait. So basically we would have gotten in when they were closing. So we split up and scouted out a couple of other restaurants to check out their wait times. We decided on Macaroni Grill, whose wait was only an hour and a half. While we waited we went to Borders where some of us looked at wedding hair-do magazines, and others taught the girl at the cafe how to make frozen hot chocolate. Then we waited the last half hour at the restaurant and enjoyed the cheese bread and shot glasses of Butterfinger shakes.

The Sunglasses Chicas waiting to be seated (yes, I know we were inside, but we're cool enough that it didn't matter that we were wearing sunglasses in a dark room).

Julie, Andrea, and Sarah waiting

Also while we were waiting we noticed a commotion in the middle of the dining area. Apparently it is Macaroni Grill's 20th anniversary, and every hour or so they draw checks and give a couple of tables their meals for free. We were pretty stoked and hoped the same would happen to us. While we were eating the chef (who is the one giving away the free meals) came by our table and asked if there was a Tiffany there. Well, there was, and he asked if she was missing a driver's license because he had found one. It wasn't hers, but we talked to him for a little while and told him it would be ok with us if he drew out our check the next time they gave away free meals. He said he would do what he could. About 20 minutes later the time came for the drawing. He drew the first ticket....and it wasn't us. Then he turned to us and yelled, "I'm pulling for you girls!" He drew the second ticket...and it wasn't us. Later he came by our table and apologized for not drawing our ticket, but asked if we would like some desserts on him. We said, thanks, but no thanks. Psych! We totally said yes. So he brought around the most delicious chocolate cake AND cheescake! So as Andrea said, "We got our cheesecake and we ate it too." Here we are with Chef Brandon. What a guy. Too bad he was married:

Sunday:

Spent the day at my parents' house where we watched Conference of course. According to tradition I accidentally fell asleep during the afternoon session (I don't know why I always do that, it's like a curse). Here is some of my family watching:

My brother Colton wowed us with some acrobatical moves:

And Maggie watched with us.

So all in all, it was a great weekend.

Anniversary

Two years ago today I came home from my mission. It was also two years ago today that the most embarrassing moment of my life happened. I won't go into details right now, but it has to do with airplanes and throwing up. Ask me about it sometime.

Anyways, so I was thinking about the last 2 years and at first I thought that I didn't really have anything to show for it. Mostly because I'm not married I think. But then I thought some more and I guess I have accomplished things since I've been home, namely:

1. Went on my first humanitarian trip March 2007 to New Orleans
2. Went to Phi Beta Lambda (college business organization) state competition March 2006 and placed 1st in Word Processing, 5th in Management, and 4th in Community Service Project
3. Graduated from Weber State University with a B.S. in Business Systems Technologies May 2007
4. Got accepted to play the piano every month at McKay Dee Hospital beginning May 2007
5. Got my first "real" job at a software company as Marketing Admin June 2007
6. Went to Phi Beta Lambda national competition in Chicago July 2007 and placed 2nd in Word Processing and 10th in Business Ethics
7. Bought my first new car in August 2007 :)
8. Signed up for a humanitarian trip to Guatemala (happening in July 2008)

All of the above are goals that I have had or things that I have wanted to do, so I'm pretty proud of myself for doing this much.

Funny stuff

Laffy Taffy joke of the day:

Q: What did one math book say to the other math book?
A: I don't know about you, but I've got a lot of problems.

Conversation overheard in the post office today:

Old man: Oh, I forgot my cane
Old lady: I know you did dear.

Then they walked out with his hand on her shoulder (she had remembered her cane).

I'm still in Utah right?

I keep seeing this car in my work parking lot and it startles me every time I drive by it. I wonder what kind of mileage this cute little Euro car gets...

Weird Dreams

So I rarely ever remember my dreams, but when I do they're usually pretty weird. A couple of nights ago I had a dream that I was going to go on another mission. To Philadelphia. I don't know why Philadelphia. It seemed so real, and I remember wondering what I was going to do with my car. I didn't want to sell it because I wanted to have it when I got back. I didn't really even think about my job, but I remember wondering how I was going to pay for everything because I hadn't been saving my money with a mission in mind.

I had another weird dream when I was like 7 or 8 that I have remembered ever since. I guess it was pretty traumatizing. Probably because Danika died in it. I was looking inside this big oven thing (it was almost like I was inside it myself, because that was all I could see; that's how big it was) and Danika was standing there and all was good until I saw this button on the outside of the oven and I pushed it, thinking it was for like a timer or something. Boy was I wrong. All of a sudden there was a toilet-like seat thing under Danika and she was being flushed down it and she was crying and her face was red and there was smoke coming out of her ears. Then she was gone and Donald Duck was standing to the side shaking his head at me. Boy I'm glad that one didn't come true.

Blind Date Update

A few people have asked me how the blind date went last weekend, so here's how it went:

Actually, let me give you a little background first on how it all worked out. The person who set us up is in my parent's ward and she asked my mom if she could set me up with her little brother. So my mom asked me if it was all right, and for some reason I was ok with it (like I said in my earlier post, it has been a while since I agreed to a blind date). Julie (the sister that set us up) had given Jake (my date) a 7-course Italian meal cooked by her and her husband for him and a date for his Christmas present. So that's what we did.

So I got to Julie's house and Jake was already there. Julie opened the door and she was holding one of her twins (just born about 3 months ago) and Jake was on the couch feeding the other twin. Then Julie asked me if I wanted to feed the twin that she was holding. Of course I said yes. So for the first little while Jake and I sat on the couch feeding the twins. It was great! I couldn't have asked for something better to do.

Then came dinner, which was oh so good. The 7 courses were:

Prosciutto (ham) and mozzarella
Bread w/ oil and vinegar
Salad
Pasta
Chicken
Ice cream (spumoni)
Fruit

All in all it was a fun date. And yes, if he called I would go out with him again. So we'll see.

"Normal guys" update

So just an update on my post "Are there any normal guys out there?" The next day (jeez, fast mover), I got a text from a number I don't know that says "Hey whats up". I immediately thought to myself, "Don't answer" so I didn't and about half an hour later I got a phone call from the same number. Again, didn't answer. He left a message and lo and behold, it was Psycho! Saved the number in my phone as "Don't Answer". Next day another text came, again saying "Hey whats up". This guy is so original I just couldn't take it. Then a little while later I got another text from him basically asking why I gave him my number if I didn't want him to call, with an expletive or two added in there. Gee, what a nice guy. I do take some of the blame though; I should have given him the wrong number.