Guess What?

I need to get better at this blogging thing.

It's Been Too Long

The title of this one makes me want to say "Dahhhling!" which makes me want to watch The Incredibles because I love Edna.

I realized it's been over a month since my last post, which hasn't happened in the history of this blog until just now. But it's going to be short because these fake nails are killing me. Typing with them is so annoying!

So yay! Brandon and I got sealed in the Oakland Temple on November 27, which means I am officially unavailable now. Sorry to disappoint :) We spent that weekend in San Francisco and now are enjoying married life in a one bedroom apartment close to where I work (yay!). So far the most frustrating day was yesterday when I went to social security to officially change my name. I was running around for five hours trying to get it done.

I attempted to make cookie dough last night, which turned out disastrous, but hopefully I'll get better in time. Besides, I can't be worse them Sam, can I? :) The other night I made chicken, too, which also kind of sucked. I think I should just stick to pasta. Boiling water seems to be my forte.

Anywho, my husband just made me a quesadilla because he's amazing and we're about to watch a movie and I keep writing typos because of these stupid nails so I'm done now! I'll post wedding pictures, but they're available at desiredshotsphotography.smugmug.com

=)

Post #70

Last night I fell asleep on the couch and slept for 10-12 hours. I say 10-12 because for the last two I kept waking up and falling asleep again. I haven't gotten up yet except to go to the bathroom, because when I do get up, then it's going to feel like a real day and I don't want it to. I kind of just want to lay here all day.

I'm going to the temple tonight, which is probably why I feel so weird.

Wish me luck!

Hello

Been moved in now for a week, and loving being on my own!!!!!!!
And now I have to wait five more weeks until the wedding! I can't wait until it's over! The only thing keeping me alive these days is having the whole apartment to myself to rearrange and organize as I please :)

Update

We put the deposit down on Friday. Wednesday we're going to sign the lease and then Thursday I'm moving in. Should be exciting. I started packing tonight... oh boy.

Woo Hoo!

We got approved for an apartment!

We're going today to put the deposit down, and I'm hopefully moving in late next week! Yay!

I know it's a little early, but it was a good deal. And I get to move out. Wee!

PS, if anyone has any unneeded practical furniture, you now know someone who's looking for it. :)

:D

I got my ring on Tuesday!
But it was eighty sizes too big so we took it in on Wednesday to be resized.
I want it back!!!

Last night I got my hair done because we're taking engagement pictures on Sunday.
Eek! It's like real now!

Just now I updated my carrier settings on my phone so I can now send MMS! Yay :)

I don't want to go to work today.

Tomorrow we're going to register/shop for clothes for pictures. I'm excited!

But I'll be more excited when the whole thing's over and I can stop planning for it.

Mmm... yup. That's pretty much it for now. I'll post a picture of the ring once I get it back :)

It's True...

...I'm engaged! :)

To Brandon Hansen, the most awesomest boy ever!

Enough with the gagginess.

Yesterday Stacey and I went dress shopping. I wound up picking one of the first dresses I tried on over at Trudy's bridal. :) We also went to In-N-Out, which was awesome because I hadn't been there in forever.

Stacey was also kind enough to draw me in the dress and post it on her blog, so here is the blogger equivalent of a "retweet," if you will:



And then Brandon and I did some cake exploring last night, and I also bought shoes to go with my dress so I can get it altered and hemmed right away.


... yeeeeeeeeeeee! :) :) :)

Oh PS: in case you're curious, the date is November 27 (Friday) with a reception Saturday evening on November 28.

Here it Is!

The inevitable first days of school post!

Classes I'm taking:
Fitness Yoga (I needed an extra unit, okay?)
Trig
Theatre Makeup
Deaf Culture
Symphony
US History (up til 1880's-ish)


Yoga seems fine. I went and bought a yoga mat today at Target. It cost me $10.

Trig...I don't know about trig. Not only is it trig, but the teacher kind of reminds me of a particular girl at Washington Square branch... ask me who because I'm not going to say it publicly. Plus she was shocked to find that no one had text books on the first day of class, and she expects us to have homework done from the book to turn in by tomorrow, even if we don't have the books. Her reasoning is because we could go to the library to use a book or pair with another student. First of all, I don't know anyone in that class, since it was THE FIRST DAY, and secondly, I went to the library today to try to do my homework, but apparently there is only one copy of the book in the library, and someone else was using it at the time. I had no other reason to be on campus, and I was not about to wait an indefinite time for the student to finish, so I went home (and bought the yoga mat). I'm going back early tomorrow morning (EARLY) to try to get my hands on the book.

I am TOTALLY STOKED for my theatre makeup class, and also totally stoked it counts for art credits and I don't have to take some stupid art appreciation thing. Yay! My teacher seems pretty cool, and so do the rest of the people in class, hopefully. Unfortunately it's the class I'm probably going to spend the most on for materials and things; I already ordered the makeup kit and book, but I still need to go to the thrift store and Michael's for art supplies and towels and things.

I don't know anything about Deaf Culture yet. Class was cancelled today because our teacher was caught on 17. Apparently three lanes were closed and no one was moving. Yay, 50 miles out of my gas tank for no reason.

I have yet to go to symphony tomorrow, but hopefully it will be alright.

History is an online class - I've ordered the book and introduced myself in a thread but other than that I have yet to get involved.

...That is a lot of classes.

Prepare Yourself...

...for a long post.

Last Wednesday was my birthday. Brandon and I stayed with my mom's cousin, Cheri, and her family while we went to DisneyLand, CA Adventure, Downtown Disney, and LA for a concert in Disney Hall. It was amazing!

WEDNESDAY: Woke up at 1:00 (well, Brandon did, I never really went to sleep). Drove to DisneyLand, arrived around 8:00 and I got in free for my birthday!! Spent the whole day in DisneyLand, and ran into Nathan Casper, Crystal Araujo, and Natalie Mordwinow while we were there. I wanted to stay until closing, but we were so exhausted we took off around 10:30/11 and headed for Cheri's home. Note that this is the first time we were going to Cheri's. The GPS told us to take a few different freeways (she lives in Mission Viejo), but one of the onramps was completely blocked, so we were forced onto a toll road almost instantly. Not knowing what was going on, I wound up going through a FasTrak lane. I'm waiting for the ticket and am going to try to fight it. The GPS recalculated everything and we eventually made it to Cheri's. The next morning Cheri told us how to get to and from Anaheim just using I-5.

THURSDAY: Woke up a little bit later, and headed over to CA Adventure around 10. Did some rides there, and decided we wanted to go back to DisneyLand so we upgraded our tickets to Hopper passes. Thurs in DisneyLand was chill, even though there were more people, since we had already accomplished a lot that we had wanted to do the day before. I did lots of new stuff in DisneyLand that day that I had never done before, though. We did the walkthrough of the Sleeping Beauty Castle (which was really cool!), walked around in Tarzan's treehouse, found a Mexican restaurant that we ate dinner in, and at CA Adventure I went on quite a few rides I had never done before like the Grizzly and Maliboomer. We stayed on Thursday until closing, and spent the last hour buying souvenirs. I think Brandon wanted to hit me because I couldn't decide on a picture frame I wanted.

Wed & Thurs were fantastic, we got to go on Space Mountain three times, Pirates of the Caribbean three times, Indiana Jones twice, Buzz Lightyear twice, Star Tours twice, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror twice, CA Screamin twice, Maliboomer twice, and we did PLENTY of other rides on top of that.

FRIDAY: We slept in, and spent a lot of the day at Cheri's house watching Instant Netflix movies on my computer. In the afternoon we went to Downtown Disney and shopped around, and then headed to LA to the Walt Disney Concert Hall to see the National Youth Choir of Great Britain perform a set of music almost entirely composed by Eric Whitacre. That's only half the amazing part, though. Well, actually that's a third of it. The other two parts were that A) the concert was conducted by the amazing man HIMSELF! and B) there was a Q&A session before the concert with Eric and his colleague Tony Silvestri, who writes a lot of lyrics for Eric's music. SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD.

SATURDAY: We went to Downtown Disney again in the morning to visit Build-A-Bear (we were going to Friday but ran out of time before the concert). I made a rabbit named Peter (what rabbit isn't named Peter?) and appropriately dressed him in a Disney Peter Pan outfit. Brandon made a monkey and dressed him in pirate attire. The monkey is named Captain Geomu, and is apparently to be Brandon's companion whilst playing the infamous Pirates game. After our last excursion to Downtown Disney we drove home, where I had my first experience with Sonic Burger, which is nothing to write home about. P.S. In case you did not know, Build-A-Bear is having a promotion through the month of August where any animal+outfit+shoes is $29.99, so if you were thinking about going, now is the time to do so!

Sunday was the YSA Conference, which was good, but I have to be honest in that I was so exhausted that I slept through part of it. I really enjoyed Relief Society, though, which is something I don't get to say too often.

On another note, I signed up for a fitness yoga class and a symphony class to take this semester on top of my GE classes; we'll see how those go.

My Dear Fellow Bloggerites:

Never fear!
My birthday was amazing and pictures and a detailed recount of the adventure should hopefully be up sometime this week.

August is here!!

And my birthday is two days away!! :)

I am going to Disneyland, because I can. Brandon and I are leaving early Wednesday morning, partying in Disneyland Wednesday, partying in CA Adventure Thursday, and Friday we're seeing the Eric Whitacre concert (WITH ERIC WHITACRE! :D), and hopefully we'll see Brandon's mission president while we're down there. We're going to be staying with my mom's cousin and her family, who I've never met, but hopefully it will be alright.

Two days ago my family and Brandon (and I) went to Outback to celebrate my mom's and my birthdays. I ordered the Bloomin' Onion for the first time, and it was delicious!! Definitely recommended.

Afterward we went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of yummy munchies to eat while watching Lord of the Rings. (Each summer and winter my mom and I watch the extended trilogy; Brandon is joining us this summer). Today is Return of the King - we're about to start!

Harry Potter

I used to be obsessed with Harry Potter back in my middle school days.

Obsessed.

Inspired by the new movie release (which was amazing, by the way; much better than any of the previous ones), I recently picked up Half Blood Prince again and started reading it, which in turn has goaded me into visiting some long forsaken websites such as The Harry Potter Lexicon and various fan art pages. I am nerd, hear me roar.

Also, I've recently made it a project to clean out my room and get rid of things I haven't touched in over a year. We'll see how that goes, I'm about to work on it a bit right now.

Hola Everyone!

Yikes! It has been almost a month. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It either means I have no life to blog about, or that I have too much of a life that I never have enough time to get to the computer. But then I'm still always on Facebook, so it must be the former.

Brandon surprised me yesterday (our four months) with a game of Harry Potter Clue! Dude. That game is bomb. Fo shizzle. Play it with me. Way better than regular Clue; the secret passages change, sometimes you're unable to go through certain doors, and you can be eliminated from the game by losing all your House Points. Yeah! Super fun!


Another fun game that I've neglected for a few years until just recently is Pirates of the Spanish Main. You buy little packets that come with cards with punch-out pieces to build ships, forts, and sea monsters, and then you sail around a table killing other players and stealing gold. Yesssssssssss. I forgot how much fun it was to play until I taught it to Brandon, and now he makes me play all the time. I've created a monster.

It's nice not being in school. I am taking an online class, which I should start doing a little bit of, but it's pretty easy. I just have to post online to the discussion and then cheat out of my textbook to get all the right answers on my online quizzes. No effort necessary. My favorite!

I've been working at the Apple Store for over a year now, and just went from a Concierge to a Specialist. What does that mean? Now instead of checking people in for the Genius Bar appointments and dealing with the angry people, I get to do sales and talk to nice people! That is a plus. Lately I've just been doing iPhone sales, but as soon as the demand for phones goes down I'll get more training on the computer stuff, which I'm excited for.

And other than that and spending all my free time at the Hansen home, that's about all I've been up to.

Correction:

Brandon put the rest of our leftover tickets in the wash.

I Don't Like Bugs.

Brandon and I have been dating for three months as of last Saturday! We decided to celebrate by heading to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk and getting our rollercoaster on since we had some left over tickets from the last time we were there. We headed up around 5ish, and after an hour or two of rides, we decided to go grab a bite to eat and then come back for more. Unfortunately, we finished eating around 8, which is when it started to shut down. LAME! Make sure you check the hours each day before heading out there - it seems every weekend is different! But we still have some leftover tickets, so it just means we'll have to go back. :)


This morning I was in the backyard planning on reading and swimming. Plans were interrupted when this giant bug thing decided to make an appearance. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It somewhat resembled a carpenter bee, except it looked like it was about two to two-and-a-half inches long; I could see its "stinger" (I'm not entirely sure it actually uses it to sting things, as I have no idea what kind of bug it was) from across the pool. It was fascinating, until it decided that I was as well and decided to get a closer look at me, at which point I screamed, dropped my book, and ran half naked the long way around the house to get back inside (I went the long way because earlier I had seen a spider on the gate going around the short way). When I got to my room I looked out the window to see if it was still there, but all I saw was my copy of Ender's Game slowly falling apart in the water. Sad day.


In other news, check out the video to see how the virtual choir of "Sleep" is coming along. Start the vid at about 2:50.

It makes me EXCITED!!

So Far Today...

I finished Fahrenheit 451, and practiced the first fourth of DeBeriot's Concerto IX to relearn it. It's the only piece I performed at CMEA that I didn't get a Command Performance on (out of 6 pieces), and I need to start picking up the old fiddle again, so I figure that's a good one to start playing around with. Ignore the sentence structure of my last sentence.

My plans for the rest of the day include:
-showering (always a plus)
-visiting Grandma in the hospital (foot surgery, don't worry, I don't think she's dying)
-reorganizing my bookshelf (i have more books that i need to make room for)
-running/bike ride
-finish laundry
-watch the season finale of The Office
-start a new book

Sound like somewhat realistic goals? Hopefully I'll get to all of them.

Hecka Sweet!

I just ran into Eric Whitacre's blog via being a fan of him on Facebook (see, being a fan of some things has its place), and if you read his last two blog posts, he has a super cool idea. Which I'm not sure if I want to do or not. But it's super cool. If you are curious, I added his blog to the list of blogs that I read.

Or you could click here to go right to the specific posts I'm talking about:
Part 1
Part 2

One Amazing Week!

SO MUCH has happened since my last blog, but I feel like I never have time to write about it! That's a lie of course, but I've just found lots of other things to do with my time. Losing phones left and right and needing to find them and whatnot.

My week, May 4 - May 10

MONDAY: Watched The Empire Strikes Back with Brandon, and A's Game with MacKenzie & ASL Club. This was lame. We had bleacher tickets, but there weren't a lot of people at the game, so the group of people we were with decided to steal seats in the section right by third base. Sat there for a bit, felt super guilty, then moved back to the bleachers with MacKenzie, then went home early because we were bored.

TUESDAY: Return of the Jedi with Brandon, and brought over his birthday presents from both me and my mom. I'll let him blog about this one.

WEDNESDAY: Brandon's birthday! Spent hours playing with his new toys, had fantastic dinner, had upside pineapple cake for the first time (which is fantastic!), went to institute, then more hours playing with Brandon's presents.

THURSDAY: WICKED WICKED WICKED WICKED WICKED!!! That is all. It's amazing. See it. Do it. Do it. Do it. I was soooo hyper! I'm getting hyper just thinking about it :) :) :) So many good lines. Aaaaaaah, I want to be Galinda when I grow up. PS: Waiting to transfer from BART to CalTrain for 45 minutes at 11:30 at night is cold. And apparently very thirst-inducing.

FRIDAY: Brandon went surfing without me, even though I was the reason he got the invite. I was too busy grading papers. I forgave him though, because he took me to The Orpheum the night before. In the afternoon we played with Legos, and then put on the infamous surprise birthday party for both him and Rachel, which was a smashing success, and exchanged newly acquired movie gift certificates for tickets to Star Trek at 11:25! It was incredible!

SATURDAY: Went to the boardwalk for MacKenzie's birthday. Deep fried Oreos, Giant Dipper, tunnels in the sand, losing bathing suits in the ocean... Good times. Afterwards, went to Amber's for some fondue fun!

Ta-Da! That was my week. And now it's Monday, and I have a final tomorrow, and I am very not prepared. But oh well. It's my last class day of that class, and then next week is la fiesta!! =D

Yes!

My parents just left for Reno for the weekend - I have the house to myself! My brother's here, too, but he always runs off with his friends so I'm sure he'll be somewhere else most of the time. Actually, I probably will be too. But oh well.

I'm getting my hair done tonight - I'm excited!! Gabi is amazing! =)

Mission Peak

Brandon and I hiked Mission Peak this morning. Our plan was to hike to the top, watch the sunrise, and then hike down. I picked him up a little after 3:00, and we parked near the trailhead around 3:30. We made it to the top around 5:30, but it was so windy! We were freezing our butts off. So at 5:50 we said tootle-loo to the top of the mountain and worked our way down. We finished around 7:00 and then enjoyed some hashbrowns at McDonald's.

I have to babysit today around 2:00, and then I have work from 5:30-9:30 tonight; I don't know if my legs will be able to take it!

I'm going to bed now :)
Goodnight.

Homework!

For one homework assignment I had to record myself sharing a brief anecdote, so here you get a scenario that could happen to any typical 5-year-old.


ASL -> English
When I was young, like age 5 or 6, I had this friend from school whose mom had a really thick accent. I'm not sure where she was from but I had a hard time understanding her. I remember one day I was playing over at their house, and at lunch time his mom asked me what I would like. I said, "I don't know, anything is okay." She offered me a sandwich so I said "sure!" She asked what kind, and I thought about it for a bit, and decided on tuna. She then asked if I wanted it grilled, to which I replied "yeah, sure!" and then continued playing. When she brought me my sandwich I looked at it, and then at her, and asked her why it was cooked. She was puzzled and said I told her I wanted a grilled sandwich. I said, "Well, yeah, because I don't want a boy one!" Get it? Because of her accent I thought she had asked if I wanted a girl sandwich.

It's April!

Spring break is over. :(

The thing about spring break, is that once it's over, I'm so ready to be done with school, and it becomes really hard for me to get back in the swing of things. I think that's where being on the quarter system would come in handy - after spring break it's new classes time, which would make it way easier for me to be any kind of motivated. But the starting in early January and getting out in late June makes it not worth it. Hooray for semesters! ...But seriously. I'm so ready for summer break.



Good news: I got my car back Tuesday night! Oil leak fixed, brakes in primo condition-o, and new top! No more holes in the ceiling for me!

Bad news: Tuesday during the day I drove my parents' car to school and was fined $35 because I completely forgot to get my parking permit from my car. I was anticipating having had it back by then.

Good Wednesday! :D

(Since I am out a car,) Brandon came and picked me up at 10:00-ish this morning, and we went to Safeway to get some potatoes for lunch as well as some sunscreen (not for lunch, just to clarify), plus some stuff his mom asked him to get. Then we went to his house where we watched Spongebob Squarepants for a good hour and a half-ish, and then I learned how to mash potatoes. We also threw some chicken strips in the oven and had a fantastic lunch! At around 1:30 my friend MacKenzie from school came with her boyfriend Ryan to pick us up and drive us to the beach! We were there for a few hours, went to the Pizza My Heart in Capitola, and then they dropped us back off at Brandon's house.

Then Brandon and I jumped on the trampoline (well mostly he did), and watched two and a half episodes of Lost on my computer, until the battery ran out. After that I got to see some amazing pictures of the Philippines, and hear some stupendous mission stories!

Long story short, a very good day. :)

:(

My car has an oil leak, and my dad wasn't able to get parts today to fix it. Hopefully he'll be able to get them soon and get the car in primo condition again early during this next week. It's spring break, I have places to go and people to see!!

Happy Birthday, Relief Society

I'm in charge of giving the lesson on Tuesday at our Relief Society Birthday Dinner/St. Patrick's Day Party. I'm supposed to talk about the organization and brief history of Relief Society. I have no idea how to make this interesting, so I've been avoiding working on it all day, and I've decided it has become a project for tomorrow. I'm more efficient when I'm pressed for time, anyway.

I'm one of the world's worst procrastinators, so tomorrow if you see me on Facebook, shoot me a message/wall comment/text asking me if I've finished preparing my lesson - maybe I'll be guilted into working on it. :)

Yay!

My camera came today! :)

This is What My Family Does in Their Spare Time

Finally!

Ignore Brandon's text, but see the 39:10 under that phone number? I took a screenshot of when someone finally picked up the phone!



I should get a box in 2 days to ship my camera, and should either get a repaired one or a replacement 10 days after I send my broken one in.

At least the phone call is over, that's the worst part (fingers crossed)!

I'm Frustrated.

Not to be a Negative Nancy, but... AAAAAAGGGGHH!

Today after my shower I went to put on my glasses...and realized they were nowhere to be found. They're not in my room, they're not in the bathroom, they're not in the kitchen or by the desktop computer, they're not on the piano, they're not in my car, the dogs didn't drag them out to the backyard, and no one in my house has seen them. I don't remember if I wore them earlier today before my shower, but I doubt it, and I know I had them last night when I walked into my house the last time before I went to bed. So they have to be around here somewhere. But I'm at a loss.

Anyway, after hunting around the house for a good while, I decided to just forget about it for now and let them find me. I had to go to Circuit City, because my camera is broken and still under warranty, and I want to get it taken care of before the place goes out of business. I'm already super frustrated because I can't find my glasses, and then I go into Circuit City to find out what I need to do about my camera. It was a Christmas present a couple years ago, so I don't have a receipt, but I figure the serial number on the camera will be able to give them the information they need. Instead, they ask me for the phone number provided when purchasing the camera, so I give them my best guess, which would be the house phone. They're all like "no that came up with something random that doesn't have anything to do with your camera." So I gave them my dad's cell phone number, and nothing came up. A couple tries later they decide to do my house phone number again and lo and behold, there is the information they need. They printed the paper out and wrote down a phone number on it and said "here, call this number. It will point you in the right direction at least." So I had to drive to Circuit City and deal with their incompetence to be handed a 1-800 number which will AT LEAST "point me in the right direction." So now I'm home, and I've been on hold just waiting for someone to talk to for 28 minutes and 16 seconds now. I figured I'd blog while I waited.

Okay so maybe the point of this one was to be a bit of a Negative Nancy but better I take it out on here rather than on you personally, no?

This Made My Day!

And it's only 7:00 in the morning!! :)

Hmm.

So much for the one hour a day on Facebook thing; it lasted about a week. I need to get back on top of that.

Also, I've officially decided no more soda for me!

I am going to be needing words of encouragement, people! :)

Super Stoked!

My morning class was canceled, which is awesome because I was supposed to have a test today.

And I found out my afternoon class was canceled as well (same teacher), which is also awesome because I had a(n easy) presentation due today!

And now I get to sit here and enjoy awesome iTunes and bowl and play Guitar Hero instead! I party hard.

Hahaha!

I woke up earlier than I intended this morning, but I couldn't fall back asleep so I just decided to shower early and get ready to meet MacKenzie in Fremont. A few days ago we made plans to go get pedicures (she lives in Danville; we decided to meet halfway in Fremont).

I got to the place on Washington Blvd about twenty minutes early, and so I just sat in the car listening to music, when she texts me telling me she just woke up and she's sorry but she won't be able to make it. Which is no biggie, I don't mind, except that now I've driven 25 miles out of my way for no reason. So I decide to go ahead and get a pedicure by myself since I was already willing to spend the money. While the lady was painting my nails, I realized I left my cash in the pants pocket I was wearing yesterday, and had no way to pay for a tip. So I paid for the pedicure and explained that I had no cash and needed to make a quick run to the bank. I'm sure they hear that all the time and then have people never come back, but I really did intend to get her that tip.

I knew the closest WaMu was about 2 or 3 miles away, so it took a few minutes to get there, and I planned on going inside to withdraw $5 because when I have extra cash on me it's dangerous - it gets spent pretty quickly. But the line was HUGE, and there was no line by the ATM so I went ahead and withdrew $20, and decided to go to 7-11 to break it. The closest one I knew of was another mile and a half away. So I bought a candy bar and some gum, and then realized I didn't know how to get back to the nail salon from 7-11, but I knew that if I went back to WaMu and then the nail salon that would definitely be going the LONG way around, so I just guessed how to get back. It's not like I've never been to Fremont. So eventually I did get back to the salon, after getting turned around a few times. So this is like half an hour to forty-five minutes later: I went in and went up to the lady with my tip and she looked like she had never seen me before in her life (but then she recognized me).

Wait this is the best part. I drove down Washington to Mission to get back on the freeway to go home, and there was totally a 7-11 down the street from the salon.

Good job, Toni.

I've Been in Bed All Day

I've been listening to this soundtrack since I got the CD on Wednesday, and it gets stuck in my head so I have to keep listening to it. And then it gets stuck in my head more. Good times!

The title of this particular entry is somewhat misleading; I actually was up and around for about an hour and a half to shower, eat, and watch an episode of That 70's Show with my brother, but then I crawled back under my snuggly blankets, because I've got nothing better to do.

But I made a rather depressing discovery today: Not long ago I got up to get my Spanish dictionary from my bookshelf (because I wanted to text someone in Spanish), but I couldn't find it. I could only conclude that I threw it away when I was going through that massive room-cleaning phase, because I did throw away some books. But why would I do such a thing? I'm upset at myself.

Tonight I'm going to Fremont to see The Rosa Lee Show, so I'm excited about that! :)

And tomorrow morning I'm getting my nails done with MacKenzie, so I'm excited about that too! :)

And then tomorrow afternoon I was asked to cover a five hour shift, so.... I'm excited for the paycheck?

Peace.

ASL Vlog

Translated to English for the ASL-Impaired:
Okay. A while ago I decided I want to try vlogging using American Sign Language, but I thought about it and nothing came to mind to vlog about. But yesterday something happened that I decided I can vlog about! Woo-hoo! Before I start, I want to give you some background information. Last semester, many people came up to me one by one - and I mean a lot of people - and told me that I looked a lot like a girl named Lacie [namesign: L on chin]. They would remark on how similar we looked, because of our hair, glasses, face, etc. Okay, so I'll start my story now. Yesterday I went to the lab - the ASL lab - to work on some homework. I signed in and checked out a video. It was really a boring video and I was feeling kinda sleepy while watching it. Anyway, one girl named Rochelle came up to me and got my attention. She told me that Lacie was in the lab now and that I really should meet her. I asked her to introduce us, so she did so. Lacie and I finally met after one semester of hearing all about how much we looked alike! We said our "hello's" and chatted a little bit. I didn't really think we look THAT much alike like everyone says, but we have some similarities, sure. While we were chatting, a lot of people there all started to stare at us. I was kinda like "what? why is everyone looking at us?" And everyone started commenting on how much we looked alike, making the same comments about our glasses, faces, and hair again! Lacie and I just kinda looked at each other confusedly. I was still thinking we didn't really look that much alike. We continued chatting and a little bit later I decided I wanted to take a picture of the two of us so I can show all of you and YOU can decide if we look similar or not. I don't know, I think a little bit maybe, but not like "HOLY SMOKES" similar! No, I don't think that, but you think for yourselves and decide, maybe you think so, I dunno. So here's the picture [PICTURE]. What do you think?

Let Me Take This Moment...

...to just be a girl for a sec.

Everyone is getting married and it makes me jealous!!!

Alright, I'm done :)

I'm Not Sure What to Call This One

So I ordered Yes Man online from Barnesandnoble.com last Friday, and it still isn't here yet (I didn't want the movie cover version and that's all the store has). I'm slightly frustrated.

This morning I was playing in Photoshop and made the custom skin for my playlist at the bottom. Yay! Unfortunately there's only two options for the text color in the generator - black or white. I think the white looks better but then you can't read the title of the song playing now so I went with black. Hopefully in the future they'll have more options.

Yesterday I went to Bryson's house because we decided to have a cookie-making extravaganza! Ohmygoodness. I am so cookied out. I thought it would take just a few hours to make two different types of cookies. I showed up at 2:30 in the afternoon, and then left his house at midnight-ish. Granted, we took a break for dinner and to watch The Office, but the rest of the time we WERE making cookies. Our sugar cookie recipe made quite a few more than we were expecting. We used all sorts of cookie cutters, though, which was fun. We had pumpkins and ghosts and hearts and Christmas trees and ornaments and trains and cats and leaves and little star things which look a lot like shurikens, among others. My camera broke last week or else I would have taken pictures. Let your imaginations go crazy! I'm off to go play around on my in-tune piano!!

CTR

Sometimes you have to decide things more than once to recognize when you've made the right decision.
I'm a lot happier with what I decided tonight than I thought I would be! Yay!



My decision is not altogether church-related, but the ring still says it all! :)

7 is the One I'm Most Worried About

1. Finish reading "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by mid-March.
2. Read 5 books I haven't already read by June.
3. Also re-read HP & Deathly Hallows by June.
4. Go to every single Wed night Institute class I have the chance to, at least for this semester.
5. Make curtains & hang them in my room by the end of May.
6. Learn to cook/make/whatever 3 more things by the end of February.
7. Only spend one hour on Facebook a day.
8. Save two days each Mon-Fri to do something with friends, and be the one to instigate said "do-somethings."
9. Try to learn a new sign each day I have direct contact with ASL.
10. Watch & send back each Netflix movie within a week after receiving it.

My House is Muddy

Because of the stupid dogs!!! I got home from school today and the floor was covered in paw prints, which I have yet to clean up. But I did at least towel the dogs dry. I'm going to try to not be home when my parents get here.

I'm pretty sure the piano is getting tuned tomorrow, so yay!
And today is pay-day, so yay!

I'm less overwhelmed by my advanced reception of ASL class than I was last week, minus the amount of watching video tapes we have to do. My friend and I watched one together though, and it was this guy telling a story about a dad telling his daughter a story about how wood burns. His explanation was that as a tree grows it takes in all the heat from the sun, and then when you cut it down and put a match to it it gives said heat to you! And it was hilarious, because it was the corniest thing I've ever seen in my life. We laughed a lot. Hopefully on the videos I still have left to watch there will be things like that to keep me awake.

An update

I uploaded three new doodles to DeviantArt today, which is good because it's been over a year!
Also, I signed up to be a "registered note-taker" at Ohlone, so in one of my classes I'm taking notes for someone who isn't able to. He's blind, and I met him last year because he was dating one of my friends, who is also in the class. Yeah. Like 90210 status. But I get a hundred dollar gift certificate to the bookstore at the end of the semester, and priority registration for next fall! Sweet!

Oops.

Last night I stayed up and finished Yes Man, planning on giving it back to Stacey today at church. I finished the book a little before four, and then couldn't fall asleep so I was awake until about seven this morning. My alarm for church went of at 9:15, and instead of hitting snooze I turned it off, then fell asleep again, and woke up around 12:30. I'm feeling super guilty. I haven't left my room yet because I don't want to look my mom in the face and explain why I'm still in my PJs.

However, Yes Man is an AMAZING book and YOU SHOULD READ IT!

SUCCESS!!

I have been without this music for about a year (mostly because I was too lazy to solve the problem), but thanks to Josh, I have it again!! WIN! I replied to Josh's e-mail telling him I am his number one fan. Hopefully that'll make his day, I know I like when I successfully help out a customer and they show the proper grateful-ness. I am super happyelatedecstatic right now!! =D

iTunes & Shoes (what more could you want?)

So for the last 24 hours or so, I've been e-mailing iTunes support back and forth because I can't authorize several albums on my computer to play. What had happened was I purchased them using an AOL screenname instead of an Apple ID, and then my computer crashed (but I had them backed up on a hard drive). I moved all the files to the new computer, and now I can't authorize the music I bought with the AOL screenname because the screenname doesn't exist anymore. Hopefully we're reaching the end of our problems, though; Josh from iTunes says that he's going to continue to help me until my music will play. Thank you, Josh. Don't screw up.

The moral of the story is: don't be lazy and use an already existing AOL screenname to purchase your music on iTunes. Put in the extra two minutes and create an Apple ID.

And because it is payday today, I decided to treat myself:



It was $12.00 (which of course turned into 18 with tax and shipping) at Walmart.com. But it's worth it - anything that gets things off the floor in my room is well worth the money. Right now my shoes are in a laundry basket, so...yeah.

Also:

HowManyOfMe.com

There is 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Though there is another Toni Balmer in London - we've messaged each other on Facebook a few times.

Short

Room clean! Laundry finished! Ice cream eaten! One Netflix down, one to go!
Also, it seems that in the nearish future I will be getting the piano tuned. Huzzah! Needless to say, I am stoked.

School is Starting Again

Which means I have to get my butt in gear and finish cleaning my room.
So what am I doing? that's right. Sitting here unshowered and still in PJs on the computer. I got most of the icky stuff done, I just have to find places for everything on my table, hang up some clothes and do another load of laundry, and then vacuum. I also have some projects I have to do, like get a new light cover and fix the ethernet so my TiVo will work again (now that all the shows are starting), plus I want to make curtains so I can put up the curtain rod that's just sitting on the floor. Shouldn't take too long, it's just putting forth the effort to go get fabric, and then going to my grandma's to use her sewing machine. Oh, also I need to wash the windows and replace the screen, thanks to my lovely dogs (I can also thank the lovely dogs for my ethernet problems).

So anyway, finishing the cleaning part of doing my room is the goal for today, and then tomorrow I'm planning on going back to Santa Cruz to visit Stephen and friends one more time before my life is consumed by piles of homework once again.

Can you tell I'm just babbling for the sake of an update? I'll quit now.

Santa Cruz

Yesterday I drove up to Santa Cruz to visit Stephen. We got to see the sunset at the beach, and then afterward we went with one of his housemates to the pool at UCSC and swam for a bit. They were trying to teach me how to do the breast stroke; I'm sure everyone who was there had a good laugh. We of course also watched the new episode of The Office, which was hilarious if I do say so myself.

Accomplishments

Things I accomplished today:

1. Re-organized bookshelf.
2. Wrote a pen-pal who I haven't heard from since September.
3. Did some much-needed underthings shopping.
4. Did some much-un-needed clothes shopping.
5. Went through all my clothes and now have three trashbag-fulls to give to Goodwill.
6. Watched my Netflix movie (P.S. I Love You) and sobbed like a two-year-old.

Rennovated

I started reading Yes Man not too long ago. So far it's fantastic - I love the style it's written in.

As you can see, I fixed up the blog a little bit; the Across the Universe layout was just not doing it for me. Also, I know it was impossible before to leave comments, but I think I've fixed it, so go ahead and try! :) Also also, there was a request that I should put my furry friend back up, but I can't find the website where I got him. So for now no furry friend, but I promise I'll keep looking!

Yesterday my mom cooked for real. Like, with a recipe book and everything. It was okay. I'm gonna try my own hand at it probably next Sunday.

Saturday my family went over to our grandparents' house near Saratoga and helped out with yard work. It wasn't so bad, I just mowed all the lawns. I think it's going to become a once-a-month thing.

My mom's been acting rather Mormon-y lately what with her sudden desire to help out my grandparents and her cooking schemes. Plus yesterday she mopped the living room and kitchen. It's rather disquieting.

New Hair

A picture! It sort of looks two-toned, but it's not. Next week I'm going back and Gabi's going to put low-lights in. I'm excited! :)

Today

I'm going to go get my hair done! In about 40 minutes actually. We'll see how it goes; I'll post pictures when it's done.

I still have forever and a day until school starts again; and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself, but I guess that's what video games and Facebook are for.

"I Don't Love These."

This weekend in Clovis was -amazing-.

Basically, we played hours of Rock Band and made skankerrific band members, and never stopped watching Dr. Horrible. I pretty much have the majority of it memorized now. He's pretty.



WHAT'S DR. HORRIBLE, YOU ASK???