If it ain't broke, don't fix it

When I found out they were making a John Carter movie, back whenever that was, I decided to read the book.  I read Tarzan a long time ago at my mom's suggestion and it was surprisingly good, so I thought I'd give another of Edgar Rice Burroughs's books a chance.  It was pretty good, especially if you like old school sci-fi, and I even read the next few books in the series.  I never got around to seeing the movie when it came out, but everyone said it was horrible.  I assumed it was horrible because they had a hard time adapting the book.  Some of the technology and crazy alien races (green people with 4 arms, red people), not to mention everyone being naked all the time, would be pretty hard to re-create.  The movie was on TV last week and I finally saw it.  It was terrible, but not for the reason I had assumed.  They actually did a really good job with the special effects and making the aliens look how they were supposed to.  They solved the nakedness thing by obviously just having everyone wear clothes.  But for some reason they totally messed with the plot.  They changed some things and put other things in the wrong order.  They brought in elements from the second and third books that just made it confusing.  Yet another example of movie people thinking they know better than the author. 

I wonder what they were thinking.  Maybe something like, "I am such an awesome writer.  Even though this author has sold millions of copies of these books over the last 100 years my ideas are definitely better.  Instead of sticking with the plot that has made this story so popular for so many years I am going to substitute my own awesome ideas that will totally make more money."  So if you saw the movie or heard it was terrible, please don't judge the book by that.  Ditto with Tarzan and every movie version ever made of that book.  Also Peter Jackson's version of The Hobbit, but I can't talk about that yet because I'm still too upset. 

Blanket #8

I finished Emily's blanket for her second birthday at the end of September.  I've actually finished blanket #9 (Liam's) too, but it's a Christmas present so I'll wait to post a picture.  Jonathan helped me pick out the colors for this one.  I think they go well with Emily's personality.  Heather recently showed me some old family videos of the Christmas when I gave Laurel and Lindsay their blankets back in 2003, right after I graduated from BYU.  It seems like a long time ago.  It's hard to believe how old the girls are already.

Life Update

I'm still doing medical transcription, but I am working at night now from 7 pm to 3 am.  It is pretty crazy.  I do okay with it.  I only run into trouble when I have to mesh my nocturnal schedule with the real world.  For example, my ward moved to 9:00 a.m. this year so I have only been getting about 3 hours of sleep on Sundays, partly because I feel anxious before church and have a hard time falling asleep and partly because of my work schedule. 

I also have a new calling.  When I got back from California in January they called me to be a primary teacher.  I teach a class of 4-year-old kids.  I like being in primary and it's easier for me to feel comfortable at church when I have something to do.  But man the kids in my class are wild.  They are all sweet kids but I am usually exhausted by the time church ends.  It might have something to do with the lack of sleep.  Luckily I can go home and take a nap for a few hours after church.

I started a medical billing and coding class in February.  I am 43.5% done with it so far.  I think that's pretty good since it is supposed to take 4 months if you do the program 40 hours a week and I already have a full-time job besides this program.  I am hoping to have it done and be certified by the end of the summer.  Then hopefully I can find a better paying job and work during daylight hours.

Since Christmas I have become obsessed with Wii Fit.  I asked for a Wii for Christmas in the hope that I would use it to work out.  I haven't actually lost any weight, but I feel better and I went for a bike ride last week without dying or throwing up so that is some sort of progress.  I think getting scores for everything feeds my perfectionist drive, and I feel inordinately proud when I can do one of the games perfectly.  Whatever it takes to get in shape I guess.

So between working out, medical transcription, cleaning my condo, working on my coding program, and hanging out with Heather's family my days are pretty full.  Heather has been great as usual with making me feel included and letting me participate in her family's life.  Still no social life to speak of.  My nocturnal schedule makes that a little hard.  But I am getting to know people in my ward better including some of the other singles, so hopefully if I can get a daytime job I can start going to some activities.

My condo is pretty much decorated except for one wall, but I can't afford the shelves I want to put there at the moment so that is indefinitely on hold.  It's a little sad to be done because it was so much fun.  A great big thank you to Mom and Dad for helping me with so much of it.  Dad was surprisingly patient with helping me hang up a ton of things on the walls during his last visit.  Mom and I had a lot of fun picking everything out over the last year or so.  There is still a little work to do on Mom and Dad's room so we can probably still squeeze in a few more shopping trips.  Hopefully the condo will be a comfortable place for everyone who comes to visit here in the future. 

Last but not least, I started teaching Heather's three oldest kids the piano several weeks ago.  It is pretty fun but reminds me how much I have forgotten since I stopped taking lessons 15+ years ago.  They are really sharp kids and are picking it up pretty quickly. 

I just realized this totally sounds like one of those letters people send out with their Christmas cards.  I should've taken a picture of me in a reindeer sweater for this post.  Unfortunately I'm trying to be more responsible money-wise, so reindeer sweaters aren't in the budget.  Maybe for Christmas.  Cross your fingers.  You know it would be awesome.

Reading Pet Peeve

The other night I was reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, which I do not recommend by the way.  I wasn't too jazzed about the book, but I figured I might as while finish it so I could find out how it all ended.  Sometimes if I don't finish a book or movie I find myself wondering six months later what happened to the characters (this especially happens to me with Lifetime movies which I never seem to finish). 

So I kept plugging away at the book.  It was 585 pages long, but it was a quick read, nothing too brain stretching.  At about page 500 I realized there was no way the author could wrap everything up in the next 85 pages.  She just kept adding more stuff with clearly no intention of resolving a single thing before ending the book.  I was steamed.  The only reason I kept reading the book in the first place was so I could see what happened and then get on with my life.  Now what am I supposed to do?  The sequel apparently comes out in July, but I don't really feel like reading it since I didn't like the first book.  So six months from now I will probably be driving or taking a shower and suddenly wonder what happened to those people.  Arrgh.

I think books that start off a series should have some kind of disclaimer on the cover.

Emily and Socks 2

This kid is hilarious.  If I didn't already have her Christmas present I would get her leg warmers.  The only problem is now she always wants to pull my socks off.

Emily Wearing my Socks

I was playing with Emily the other night and put my socks on her just for fun.  For some reason Emily actually liked wearing my socks and even came back to me to pull them back up when they started slipping off.  I've seen those baby leg warmers for sale before, but always figured babies wouldn't like them.  Who knew?

The Witch on my Door is Actually Scary

So I am sitting here watching TV.  It's been getting dark early and I've been watching scary Halloween movies lately.  Did I mention I'm watching a show about zombies?  So in between the weird zombie noises and gunshots on TV, I keep hearing what sounds like someone twisting my doorknob.  The first time I just ignore it because sometimes the little kid across the hall will ring my doorbell or try to open my door.  I think he gets confused about which side his house is on.  But then it keeps happening.  So I turn the TV off and I'm sitting there waiting to see if the doorknob turns.  I go up to the door to look through the peephole and see if I can see someone out there.  But my porch light doesn't work so it's all black out there.  And then while I'm looking through the peephole it happens again.  But because I was so close to the door this time I can tell it isn't the doorknob being turned.  It's that stupid witch scraping on the door in the wind.  It gets really gusty at my place because we are so close to the lake.  I think I will be taking the witch off the door tonight if I can work up the nerve to open the door and get it down.

Bad witch.  I managed to bring her inside.

Witch on my Door

The witch on my door.

For some reason it took me forever to find some sort of Halloween thing to put on my door.  I kept finding cute ones, but then they were missing pieces or had chipped paint.  I guess a lot of Halloween decorations are made on the cheap.  So I ended up with this witch.  I think she is pretty cute.  I like how her feet are on little springs so they move around.  The only thing I don't like is that the sign just says "Halloween."  It seems like it should say "Happy Halloween," maybe with an exclamation point too.  Because it looks like a label instead of a greeting.  Like Halloween is here inside this door.

Another Reese's Review

I decided to continue my Reese's reviews.  The last candy bar reviewed was the Reese's Whipps bar back in 2009.  You can read it here if you would like to reminisce.  Just for the record, I think the ultimate Reese's creations are the holiday shaped ones.  I don't care if it's an Easter egg, a pumpkin, or a heart, those things are dang good.  The perfect peanut butter to chocolate ratio for me.

So here are the two contenders:
A.  Reese's Fast Break:  Peanut butter and nougat covered in regular Reese's chocolate.

B.  Reese's NutRageous:  Peanut butter, caramel, and peanut all covered in some thick nasty chocolate.

I think you can see where this is going.

Nutrition-wise
Both have the same number of calories.  NutRageous has 4 more grams of fat, but it also has 1 more gram of protein if that is important to you.

Taste
A.  Reese's Fast Break:  The same taste as a Reese's holiday product, but a bit chewier due to the nougat.  Altogether a satisfying alternative when there isn't a holiday going on.


B.  Reese's NutRageous:  The delicious Reese's peanut butter is there, but that's about all this thing has going for it.  The peanuts seem like a good idea, but they taste kind of over-roasted, and why add peanuts to peanut butter?  I couldn't really tell the caramel was there at all. 


The Ultimate Champion
And the winner is Reese's Fast Break obviously.   Although NutRageous would totally beat the nasty Whipps bar, it didn't stand a chance against Fast Break. 

I'll be back again with more reviews once I've burned off enough calories.

Why the Utah DMV is CRAZY AWESOME

They are so awesome that really does need all caps.

I had to get my car registered on Wednesday.  I was dreading it because the last time I went to the DMV in California it took me 3 hours.  One hour waiting outside and another 2 inside.

So I wasn't looking forward to another DMV experience.  This is how it went.


I walked right in.  No line outside.  This lady handed me a slip of paper with #529 on it.  I walked into the room.  The loudspeaker said, "Number 528 at window 7.  Number 529 at window 1."  I stood there in shock for a second and then headed over to window #1.  The lady at the window was smiling.  I handed over all my paperwork.  She typed some stuff into her computer.  She held up 2 sets of license plates and asked me which design I wanted.  She told me it was $79 and I swiped my card.  I signed for the registration and title.  She handed me the plates.  I left.

This all took maybe 5 minutes.  I was absolutely giddy walking out to my car carrying my new license plates.  The people I passed probably thought I was crazy because I had a huge Joker-esque smile on my face, but I was so amazed.  The DMV lady was cheerful and nice.  That's definitely a first for me.  And they just handed me my plates.  I expected to have to wait several weeks for them to come by mail.  And it was only $79 for registration, title, and the new plates.  My California registration was $93 by itself.  And who ever heard of no wait at the DMV?  I asked the lady about it and she said the longest wait she'd ever seen there was 25 minutes.

I'm used to the DMV being this harrowing experience you have to psych yourself up for where people are rude to you and you're lucky if you make it out alive.  I was panicking while driving there because I forgot to bring a book with me and I didn't know what I'd do during the inevitably long wait.  I even considered stopping to buy some reading material.  But instead it was a blissfully simple and pain-free process.

I have to get a Utah drivers license sometime, once I find my birth certificate.  I will be looking forward to seeing if they are as good the second time around.

P.S.  I got lost looking for the building due to some confusion over east and west.  I ended up walking through this huge quilting convention at the Utah County Convention Center.  Room after room of quilts and quilting ladies.  Even the hallways were packed with booths and ladies with sewing machines.  They had this exhibition room you had to pay $3 to enter.  I was seriously tempted but figured I needed to find the DMV since they would be closing in 3 hours and I was worried about the long wait.  If only I'd known.  I should have gone back after the DMV, but I was still on my DMV high and didn't think of it.

The View from my Dumpster

Pretty, right?  That's Utah Lake out there.  Someday they're going to build the rest of the complex out there in that field, but for now it's a great view.

People with cats should . . .

A.  Be banned from the library.
B.  Only be allowed to read library books after going through a decontamination chamber.
C.  Have a separate library from the rest of the human race.
D.  All of the above.

I couldn't figure out why I was sneezing all day yesterday.  Then I found a short black hair in the new library book I had just started.  My first thought, "Oh gross."  My second thought was that this had happened before eight years ago with an Agatha Christie book from the BYU library full of cat hair.  You can tell it scarred me because I still remember it so specifically.

If you google images for "cats" and "books" you will find hundreds of pictures like this.  Obviously cat people think it is cute when their cats infest books.

What is with this shirt?

Why did I buy this shirt?  What would possess me to buy a shirt with a bicycle and butterflies on it?  Why have I been wearing it in public?  I have seen two other women wearing this shirt and they were both 30-40 years older than me.  My only excuse is that I had a coupon that was going to expire and I was really tired when I bought it.  My excuse for wearing it?  That's a little harder to come up with.  I am too poor to just throw it out so I hereby swear that I will never leave the house wearing this shirt again.  Maybe if I wear it inside out I can use it as a pajama shirt.  I need to go on What Not to Wear, but I think I am just slightly not crazy enough for them to pick me.  If you disagree, feel free to nominate me.  I won't hold it against you.

Baby Book Observations

I've been trying to get the paperwork together to register my car in Utah and get a driver's license here.  I ended up digging through a box of stuff my mom collected over the years and then gave me a few years ago in order to try and find my birth certificate.  I made the following observations/discoveries.

A.  My baby book is no longer in this box.  I assume my mom has it somewhere, which I totally understand.  Unfortunately I know that my birth certificate is with my baby book so I guess I won't be keeping my driver's license appointment on Thursday.

B.  Teachers are crazy.  I found a report card of mine from my freshman year where I had all A's and a B+.  Not too shabby.  But 5 of my 6 teachers gave me a #4 in the comment box which equals "ATT/Tardies Affect Work."  Why is that all capitalized?  I don't know.  Was I absent a whole bunch during my freshman year?  I don't remember being sick a lot.  And seriously, how much could these supposed missed classes have been affecting my school work if I just had the one B+ in geometry?  It just seems crazy that 5 of my teachers checked that box.  Maybe it was a computer glitch.

C.  My arch nemesis Mr. Jones really was evil.  In 6th and 7th grade I played percussion for Mr. Jones in the school band.  I hated band primarily because of him.  I even had a nightmare once where he was a Nazi and I was hiding from him.  He would lose his temper randomly and just start screaming at people.

His instrument was also percussion and he was always trying to get me to take it more "seriously."  He had all these dreams of me getting a college scholarship and going on to become a great percussionist.  My own band dreams went no further than junior high.  He was always trying to get me to come to the band room during lunch to get some extra practice or play around on his drum kit.  He also always wanted me to take home this portable xylophone over the weekend to practice more.  I don't think he realized that I had to lug that thing about a mile to get it home and back.  I only took it home one time when I knew it was raining and my mom would pick me up.  Plus when I played it at home it was super loud which I'm sure my family enjoyed.

So anyways, while I was looking through my box of baby stuff I found a certificate from Mr. Jones where he had named me "Challenger Band Outstanding Musician" for my 7th grade year.  I started feeling kind of bad about harboring this negative view of Mr. Jones all these years.  Maybe he wasn't a totally crazy individual who shouldn't have been allowed to interact with children.  Maybe he really was just this frustrated musician who was trying to pass his passion for music on to his students.  Or maybe not.

Later when I was looking at some old report cards I found one from 7th grade where he gave me comments #3 and #6.  Those equal "Achieving Below Ability" and "Assignments Not Completed Regularly/On Time."  Again with the capitalization.  And he only gave me a B.

Now what made him suddenly make me "Outstanding Musician"out of the whole band that very same year if I was such a lazy slacker?  I will tell you.  It was a bribe.  After 7th grade I had so had enough of that crazy teacher.  Unfortunately he made us fill out these forms a couple weeks before school got out where we committed to being in band the next year or not, and I was brave/foolish enough to write that I would be leaving for greener pastures.  He made me stay after class to talk about it and tried to talk me into staying.  Fortunately 7th grade me realized that it would be easier to face his immediate wrath rather than spend another year with him and I stuck to my guns.  And lo and behold, Mr. Jones suddenly got super nice and gave me the award at the end-of-year awards assembly and even an A on my final report card.

So have I been misjudging him all these years?  That certificate almost tricked 31-year-old me, but luckily I was a bit more perceptive at age 11 and managed to escape Mr. Jones.

D.  I don't have anyone to share my baby box with.  This one is a "woe is me/pity party" one so feel free to skip.  Whenever I looked at this stuff before (old report cards and awards, funny stories I wrote, pictures of me growing up, etc.), I thought about how fun it would be to show this stuff to my kids someday, and then tonight it hit me that I don't have anyone to show my box to and I probably never will. And I know it's totally my fault, but it still sucks.

Blanket #7

I finished Ella's blanket just in time for her birthday.  I think it was my fastest one yet.  I drove down with Heather and her family that week so we all got to go to Ella's birthday party.  It was nice to be able to see Ella get her blanket in person.  Now I just need to finish Emily's unless someone has another kid soon.

Blanket #6

I finally finished Jane's blanket. It's my sixth one for the kids. Only two more to go for my existing nieces and nephews. Good thing we have been having kids so slow because it seems to take me forever to get these things done. This one is pink, green, and purple. The purple looks kind of brown in the picture but it is just a dark purple. I can't take picture of Jane with it because I shipped it to her instead of giving it to her in person since I am not sure when I will get to see them again.

I had an epiphany with this blanket. I normal cut the tassels out one at a time and I was totally dreading it. Then I thought, "Why in the world am I cutting these things out one at a time? There has to be a better way." So I grabbed my napkin holder, took out the napkins and then wrapped the yarn around and around the napkin holder. Then I just had to make 2 cuts and I had all the tassels I needed. I have no idea why I have been doing it the hard way for so long. It only took me about an hour to do all of the tassels. Makes me wonder what else I have been doing the hard way.

Paint By Number

No that isn't a clever title, this post is actually about painting by number. I got a paint by number kit (the dolphin one) in my stocking for Christmas and it was super fun. Mixing the colors and filling in the blanks is really relaxing for some reason. There have been a couple failures -- one of a lighthouse where I painted a huge chunk of the sky the wrong color and another of a dog that was just super ugly. But these three turned out pretty well. It makes me feel arty in spite of my lack of talent.

Random Stuff & Clogging

Here's a picture I took on my way home at about 9:00 p.m. at night. It stays light here crazy late. Which is good for me since I don't get off work until so late.

Funny Emily trying on a hat at Blickenstaff's, a cool toy store in Provo.

I got to go see the kids clog about a month ago. It was fun to see them actually perform. They have shown me their clogging at their house, but it's more exciting to see the whole thing with the costumes and all.

Here is Laurel doing her thing. Heather would probably want me to tell you that her skirt wasn't always so short. It's the end of the clogging year and Laurel has grown a few inches since the original costume fitting last year.

You can see both Laurel and Lindsay in this one. Don't worry, they aren't supposed to be synchronized for this one. It's more just a demo part where they get to show their stuff.

I have a video of Evan and his group but I can't get it to upload for some reason. Unfortunately my camera died in the middle so I didn't get anything else. I'll probably get to see them again sometime so hopefully I get some better pictures then.

Freedom to Inject Yourself With Coffee

Today I typed a report for a woman who had injected her arm with coffee because she thought it was cocaine. She had been to several free clinics and tried antibiotics and was now in the ER with a major infection. My first thought, "What in the world!" My second thought, "This could never happen to me because I don't use crack." My third thought, "Even if I used crack, this could never happen to me because I don't drink coffee." Just another example of how keeping the commandments actually gives you more freedom--freedom not to inject yourself with coffee. Feel free to use it in your next Sunday School class.

p.s. I often consider whether or not the patient's situation is something that could happen to me or not. Probably not the best practice, but I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Netflix

According to Neflix my favorite types of movies are:

1. Romantic period pieces based on a book.

2. Conspiracy movies.

3. Visually-striking movies.

4. British movies with a strong female lead.

5. Violent suspenseful Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

Three observations:

1. I think #1 and #4 are the same.

2. These are pretty much also my book preferences too.

3. It's kind of creepy that Netflix has figured this out about me so fast (I've had Netflix for about 3 weeks).