Saturn

As a lot of you know, I own a very nice, economical, sporty, high-powered, luxurious, cute vehicle. Okay, only 2 parts of that sentence were truthful. Economical, and in my humble opinion, cute. I drive a Saturn. It's such a nice car that it doesn't even have a name. It has a model number.

I've driven the thing since I got my license way back in high school. It's always gotten good gas mileage, which is a plus when you live in BFE. But apparently Saturn as a company didn't do too well, so they no longer make cars. That's right, guys. I now drive what I consider to be a classic. Something that isn't made anymore and is out of date and pretty much not super popular.

I have a short story to tell you, then I will tell you an awesome idea I had.

I was out shopping the other day at one of my favorite stores. I won't say which store because I'm super embarrassed about it. But I will just say that I can get awesome camis and t-shirts there for really cheap and so that's why I love it. Well they had in this store a giant, magnetic mustache that could be attached to my car. Now, as if my car didn't have ENOUGH personality of its own, I was thinking this moo-stache would be the perfect addition. I even went so far as to fantasize about me driving down the road in my moo-stachio'd car and getting all kinds of reactions outta people. But I've also been trying, TRYING, to save my money and be more financially smart. So I told myself that this moo-stache was a frivolous (Big word, huh) purchase and I was able to walk away from this store holding my head high because I had not given in to temptation. Well my head was actually more turned back toward the store because I was longing to turn T-Mu into a moo-stachio'd sir. Oh yeah, T-Mu is my car's name. It's pronounced T-MOO, like what cows say. So later on in the day, I was doing some shopping at walmart (I know you must be wondering, what store is worse than walmart that she can't admit to shopping at? I shall let it remain a mystery) And this guy was giving out free car magnets for every donation, and the proceeds were going to veterans and breast cancer and such. So of course I donated cuz I'm the world's biggest sap and pushover. So now I'm excited because even though it's not a mustache, my car will now have a "support our troops" bumper
sticker/magnet. I go back to my car and first thing I do is pull this bumper magnet out and try to stick it on. It won't stick. I try every area of the rear end of T-Mu and it doesn't stick anywhere. "Well," I figured to myself, "this magnet just isn't magnety enough." But to be sure, I was going to try it on one of the other family vehicles. I get home and slap it on my mom's car, and, tadaaah! It sticks. So now I know, the Saturn that I drive is not made of enough materials with metal properties for magnets to stick. If I had bought that mustache, it would have had to adorn someone's giant fridge instead of my car. Basically, I'm driving a plastic hotwheels car. In fact, I think hotwheels are made of sturdier materials.Nice to know the little fake driver in a hotwheels car is safe while I'm praying for my life every time I pass a semi on the road now.

There are still lots of benefits to driving my little Saturn. For example, when I get a flat, I can just go snatch a tire off my sister's electric scooter and pop it on my car and T-Mu will be good as new. Or there's there fact that, as a clean freak, my car is so small it takes me seconds to vacuum it out. Plus having a car as AWESOME as mine is always a great conversation starter. ANNNND, I've gotten way more flexible from having to unlock all the doors manually every time I give people rides. Really, the unseen benefits are endless. Also, this brings me to a weekly wisecrack. Last night, after eating at BWW, Kimmy and I were walking back to my car. I asked her if my front tire looked a little flat. She said, "No, I think it's just always that small."

Now for my idea. You know how all jeep wrangler drivers do that wave thing to each other? You know, cuz they are so much cooler than us? (I've wanted a white jeep wrangler ever since the thought of owning a car popped into my head) Well I thought of something for us Saturn drivers. The Saturn Shrug. Hear me out.

Every time people with Saturns pass each other, they will just look at each other and raise their shoulders, hands, and eyebrows in a shrug that says, "Well, at least we have a car."

Take a look at this hot rod. I probably shouldn't have posted a picture of it cuz now you all are taken in fits of
extreme jealousy. As well you should be.

If any of you also own a Saturn, this one's for you.

The official "Saturn Shrug"

This is the kind of stuff I think up when I'm taking one of my many trips into town.

Peace and blessings!

Weekly Wisecrack #10

Goodness, guys. I'm sorry if none of you  think my weekly wisecracks are funny. But most of the time, there are many factors that make them funny that I can't include, such as tone of voice, personality of the person delivering the line, situation, blah blah blah.

But this weeks' wisecrack is brought to you by my dear mum. I know I'm not British, but I just love the sound of mum. Anyway, I'll create the set up for you.

There we were, all sitting around the dinner/breakfast/lunch table. I can't remember how we got on the topic,  but we were talking about Gabe and his dating life. And we started talking about giving hugs. And my mom announced, "You can't hug dates right now."

Gabarelis (my awesome nickname for him) is getting ready to go on a mission asap after he graduates, which caused my mom to establish this new rule, which I'm pretty sure the little huggable guy broke the next day.

Okay, and I just remembered another great one. So as most of you know, I teach piano as my "living". I really like quotation marks. And I teach a lot of little kids, who I absolutely love. One of them is a tiny, 6-year-old spitfire named Lily. As I was teaching her, I asked her if she had had a chance to practice some song or other. She told me that she hadn't because school was just so busy and stressful and "It's busy in your life when you're in first grade." I responded with a very serious, "I understand." while I almost exploded trying not to laugh at this little button. Teaching is way more fun than you guys might ever imagine it to be.

The (hidden) benefits to cold weather

I've been thinking about it for a while (like 2 days). There are lot of obvious reasons cold weather is fun. Hot cocoa, Christmas, food-based holidays, sledding, scarves, hot baths, food-based holidays....I could go on.

But what I've been thinking about are the less-than-obvious benefits to cold weather. And here they are.

1. This is mostly for girls. Less need to shave legs, so less leg shaving. I mean, with tights, jeans, sweats, knee high socks, long skirts, I could probably go at least 2 weeks without a blade, maybe even a month.

2. Pasty white skin is totally acceptable. For guys AND girls. So chances of skin cancer are slightly lessened by the lack of sun exposure.

3. Pound gainage is muuuuuch easier to hide with jeans and layers of shirts, jackets, scarves....

4. For those who are vertically challenged, meaning afraid of heights, not short, the invitation to go rock climbing doesn't occur with near the frequency it does in warmer seasons. This means I look like a chicken less often because I don't have to admit to my fears as much.

5. Watching a lot of movies doesn't seem as lazy as it does in summer months because it's just too cold to go out!

6. This is a personal one. But when it gets cold, my family, specifically my 12 year old sister, stops giving me guff about using five blankets every night, one of which is a down comforter.

As I'm reading back on all my grand "benefits" to cold weather, I'm realizing that most of them have to do with me letting myself go a little while still maintaining some self esteem. Oh well, that will be benefit number 10 :)

Happy Halloween-skis, everyone!!

Weekly Wisecrack #9

Hahaha, okay, I'm really sorry to do this to you guys. Okay, I'm not that sorry. But a lot of the quotes that I heard this week that really made me laugh are, um, not appropriate for this blog. So this is the dealio. I'm going to tell one of the stories in vague terms and leave the rest to your imagination....(warning, you might have to use A LOT of imagination, but don't get all dirty, it wasn't THAT kind of inappropriate.)

So I said to someone, "Someone told me such and such and it made me fell this one way."

And they said, "That's because they are so's and so's and you should probably do this one thing."

And I laughed. So imaginations of my blog readers, have at it!!

That was mean of me to do, huh. Just trust that it was really funny, maybe slightly harsh, but well meant and actually cheered me up quite a bit :)

My Nails are Drying

There are not many activities I can participate in the hour after I paint my nails. But typing is one of the few I can! I'm so multi-talented. Yay. So I'm blogging in honor of my nails drying. As such, this blog will be the unimportant ramblings of my brain thoughts. Also I might include some funny memes and photos that I enjoy. Just for the smell of it. They shall be randomly inserted with no method to the madness.

Exhibit A

AWWWWWWHAHAHAAWWW

One day when I get married, there is something my future hubby will have to be SUUUUUUUUper patient about. Assuming he's a sports fan, because let's face it, male-non-sports-fans are rare. This being some sort of sports play-off season, I'm pretty sure it's baseball, I've only asked like 12 times.....makes me realize I have what some might consider a major flaw. I don't like to watch any sport except basketball. Before anyone gets mad at me for saying this, hold up. I do enjoy watching some sports live, especially when someone I know is playing. I attended both my brothers' football games quite faithfully as well as Sidney's soccer games and at one particular game Dwight was playing, my cousins and I got the crowd to cheer louder than they ever had. We were that awesome. This is my flaw though. And it may even be a deal breaker for some. But there have been times watching certain games on TV that I would have rather shaved my eyebrows with a cheese grater. Now, I do like olympics, they are sweet. But saying you like sports because you like the olympics is like saying you like music because of Justin Bieber. No offense, J Beebs. I was a music major. I still close my eyes and flinch if a ball comes flying in my general direction.

CHYA! I remember, I still flinch when my dad asks for
his thongs. Okay, but I flinch for a different reason now.
(and my dad didn't spank us with sandals, that was my
uncle, more as a joke than anything)

On another note, there are some facebook stati that I never want to put up. I've compiled a list, I will share. The list is entitled.......

Slap me before I ever post any of the following as my status on facebook. (it should probably be entitled "I have too much free time")

1. Love song Lyrics.

2. Any statement ending in FML

3. Anything political that others might want to argue with

4. A vague cry for help/comfort such as “I can’t believe this happened” or “I wish I knew what to do”…

5. The phrase “what up,…” followed by the name of the awesome city I am in that I want everyone to know about.

6. The words “Tee Hee”

7. A mysterious statement about a person, especially something sounding remotely romantic, such as,... “I wish he knew how I felt...”

Disclaimer; any of the above phrases can be used in the event of a comical or ironic opportunity presenting itself.

This one I love because it reminds me that no matter
how bad things get, they can always get funnier.

Welp, nails are dry!!

Peace and blessings!!!

Weekly Wisecrack #8

This week was a weird week. It had it's really good points, but it also had those moments....you know, THOSE moments. But I want this blog to always be positive. So, I will give you some wisecracks ;)

1) K, first one comes from none other than Kimmy. Now, Kimmy likes to test my friendship to her by asking if she had a certain strange quirk or physical deformity, would I still be her friend. My honest answer is usually, I would hope so, but I don't know. This weeks' test was a real winner and again, I had to tell her, I honestly don't know.

She asked, as she cupped her hands around her eyes, "If I had to wear blinders in order to pay attention to you, would you still be my friend?" I really hope I would Kimmy, I hope I'm not that judgmental, I would hope I could look beyond a drooping left eye or strange dance moves or a severe speech impediment, and see the awesome person within, but I honestly don't know, haha.

2) Second came from Dwight. This morning our family was all gathered 'round to watch conference. President Monson announced that the new age limit for boys to serve full-time LDS missions would be moved to 18, considering they have their bishops' approval. My little bro just turned 18 not that long ago, and Dwight pipes up with, "Wow, Gabe really WILL get married before me!!"

Ummmmm,....Random?

Now, things I liked about this week. Exploring all Wal Mart's many wonders with Kimmy for about 2 hours and NOT buying ONE THING. Yeah, I had that much self control, I'm bragging about it.

Tuesday night, President Perry's lesson on keeping everything in proper balance. Social Life, Spirituality, Physical Fitness, and Knowledge are the four areas we always need to keep in proper balance to have optimal happiness. I really needed to hear this. My life flops from one area to the next, I feel I'm always out of balance, and I needed it put in these terms to wrap my brain around it all.

Many other great things happened as well, but to keep this short, Friday night I actually had a one on one guitar lesson for the first time with Ryan Stucki and I finally feel like with his help, I will get this whole guitar thing! Also, Justin Stucki and I baked a cake that.....is special :) that's all I will say about cake.

Oh yeah! And last week was Gabe's b-day, and his buddy Brennan came over early before Gabe was up and ran and jumped on him. And Gabe and I had a grape eating contest to see how many grapes we could shove in our mouth. It was a spontaneous and isolated event, we just had mouths and a bowl of grapes and therefore....

Gabe's b-day, his first bunny kill, him with 30 grapes in his mouth, him and Brennan, Justin with our special cake, Annie:)

Today was the first day of GC. (general conference, call it GC if you wanna feel SUPER cool.) you know, I loved many of the talks, but my recollection of who said what is so fuzzy, I will have to do some major review. But what did I like about most?? My whole family was in the same room. That rarely happens these days. We even all ate a meal together. Thank you conference for bringing us together on a Saturday. You know, I am tearing up a little as I write this. Sometimes Heavenly Father lets you go through things that bring you down a notch or two. Make you feel you really aren't as awesome as you thought, make you really stop to think about life. These things help me remember most what I need, what I'm blessed with, and how much love I really have in my life.

Peace and Blessings :D

Weekly Wisecrack(s) #7

Gabriel always cracks me up, I'd have to record all his comments and our conversations for you all to fully understand how funny this kid is. But here is just one quote from him that stands alone.

I picked him up from school one day and he randomly pipes up with, "If you think about it, Rudolph is the ginger of reindeer."

Gabe IS a ginger, so it's okay for him to use that term. As we discussed it in more detail, we realized that at first Rudolph had no friends, he has a red nose, he just doesn't fit in. All the characteristics of your stereotypical ginger. Now I don't really go for all that ginger stuff, just so you all know. I have NO IDEA how that all started, but I love my little red head brother :)

The next quote from this week comes from my little 8 year-old student, Zoe. She comes into her lesson this week all worked up and says, "My dad is really sick, he has ROCKS in his gal bladder!!! I don't think he ate rocks though..." It was all I could do to not rudely laugh and I politely asked her if they were gal stones and she said yes. It's the little things like this that make me glad I work with little kids :)