Saturday, January 31, 2009

Facebook Game

I got roped into playing this game on facebook where you write 25 random things about yourself, then tag 25 of your friends, and they have to do the same thing. It seemed like a good thing to put on the blog too.

1. I'm very busy, and can't believe I'm actually spending time doing this right now. But someone asked me to, and then I started thinking about it, and then there was no going back. Once something gets into my head its better for me to just get it out of my head. Otherwise it will rattle around in there and drive me nuts.

2. I am a Texas Aggie through and through. You may think some of the traditions are dumb, but I think they're fun! Hullabaloo Caneck Caneck, Gig em! and WHOOP!!!,

3. I absolutely love opera and consider it the ultimate culminating art form. My favorite opera I've ever seen was Handel's Tamerlano at Washington National Opera. The music, singing, costumes, everything was absolutely beautiful. I had "standing room only" seats, so I had to stand in the back where the only way I could see the supertitles (translation) was by crouching over. By the end of the 3-hour opera I felt like I'd just been to an Aggie football game- completely worn out and tired from standing and bending for so long, but totally pumped up because IT WAS FREAKIN' AWESOME!

4. There's only one guy who's ever had enough of me to break my heart, and he's done it three times- the last after he had asked me to marry him. Trust me, he will NOT being doing it again.

5. I am completely addicted to Gilmore Girls, and feel that there is no other TV show that even compares to its greatness. One of my favorite things to do on Saturday morning is wake up and watch Gilmore Girls in my PJ's like its Saturday morning cartoons.

6. I've worked at a staffing service called Express Employment Professionals for waaaaaaay too long. Four and a half years if you add together the time before and after my mission. I really loved it for the first couple years, but now I feel like it is slowly crushing my soul. Can we say burn out?

7. I really really want to go work in the administrative offices for an opera company after I graduate in July. I don't really care what I actually do for them, I just love being in that environment and want the experience. However, what I really want my life's work to be is raising my children in my home. After they are all grown and moved away I'll go work in opera again. Unless by some chance I'm rich by then. In that case I would become an arts advocate and join the board of directors of some fabulous opera company and give them obscene amounts of money for the sake of the art.

8. I am the Relief Society President for my congregation at church. That means I am responsible for the spiritual and temporal welfare of all the women in my congregation. It is exhausting and difficult at times, and I often don't feel like I do a good enough job, but I love it. I love knowing everyone and having a perfectly good excuse to care about them and serve them, and I love seeing people's lives get better because of Jesus Christ.

9. Up until about two years ago, my dream in life was always to become a famous country singer, and I absolutely planned on doing it. Then one day at work one of my coworkers was talking about how sick her four-month-old baby was that she had just dropped off at the daycare. At that very moment I realized that it didn't matter what I had to give up- I NEVER wanted to have to put my children in a daycare. I would be the one to raise them and care for them. Thats when I decided I was not going to be a professional singer.

10. When I was 8 I started collecting little porcelain clown figurines. Today I have thirty something, including one Lladro that is absolutely beautiful. I'm really really freaked out by clowns in real life, so I promise all of mine are pretty and not scary.

11. Not a single aspect of my life has actually worked out the way I planned it would when I graduated high school. In fact, not a single significant plan that I've ever made for myself has actually happened the way I planned. Heavenly Father always has other, better things in mind for me. I don't even know why I make plans any more.

12. I don't know how many times I've been accused of being an exact clone of my mother. I think my mom's pretty amazing, so it doesn't bother me at all.

13. My dream car has always been a Dodge Ram truck with nice big tires and a lift. I guess I have little man syndrome or something.

14. My fingers naturally curl outward at the tips. A lot of people find it a little freaky.

15. Quesadillas are the crutch and staple of my diet.

16. I have pretty high standards when it comes to how I like to be asked out on a date. Don't even think about asking me out via text or facebook, and I'd recommend not beginning with, "So what are you doing on...?". You're just setting yourself up for rejection. I'm pretty busy, so I probably already have plans that day, but if I like you I'll change them.

17. I don't like olives, pickles, mustard, or pork. However, I absolutely abhor hot dogs and this Croatian dish called sarma that my grandma used to make.

18. I always thought my favorite color was green until a few years ago when I started realizing that maybe I like pink better. I've been in an identity crisis ever since.

19. I met Ruben Studdard last summer while I was working backstage at the Kennedy Center in DC. He mostly kept to himself, but he brought his old friend Alvin with him. Alvin and I became friends, and he talked Ruben into taking a picture with me. However, I look like a total dork in the picture because Alvin was making me laugh. He gave me his card and I felt special.

20. My most memorable concert experience is when I went to see Brooks & Dunn at Fair Park in Dallas with my mom when I was in fifth or sixth grade. It started raining about the time we pulled into the parking lot in our little Geo Metro. We decided to stay in the car until the rain passed, thinking it would just be a quick storm. Hours later we were still sitting there in the parking lot watching other cars float by. Luckily the storm caused some kind of technical difficulties with the concert, and they rescheduled it for a few weeks later.

21. Jacob is my favorite Book of Mormon prophet. I think I relate to him because we have a very similar manner of teaching the gospel. I especially love his sermon in 2 Nephi 9. You can just feel him getting more and more excited as he teaches about the Atonement, and he explains things so clearly and with so much love for the people he's speaking to.

22. The Celestial Room of the temple is my absolute favorite place in the whole wide world, and I'm not just saying that.

23. I have this thing about looking pretty for church on Sunday. It makes me feel happy. I love getting to wear a pretty dress and do my hair nice and not have to worry about it getting messed up, because I'm just going to be sitting in church! You might think I'm doing it for someone else, but I'm not. I often start thinking about what I'm going to wear to church the next day on Saturday night.

24. When I was little my siblings started calling my Toadie, after the littlest ogre on the cartoon Gummy Bears. You see, I was the littlest ogre in our clan. One of my sisters still calls me Toad on a regular basis.

25. My old mission companion Athena and I have been in a poking war on facebook for over a year. We poke each other back and forth often multiple times a day. Its completely pointless and insane, but we're both too stubborn to stop, so it will probably go on until one of us dies.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Doing just fine...

Songs that in some way describe how I've recently felt (ordered somewhat in priority):

One Step Closer - Wade Bowen

Leave the Pieces - the Wreckers (like... wow.)
Don't Make Me - Blake Shelton
White Horse - Taylor Swift
Better in Time - Leona Lewis
Hot N Cold - Katy Perry (the music video is really funny, pardon the one bad word at the beginning of the song)
Better off Wrong - Randy Rogers Band
Kerosene - Miranda Lambert (lines from this song actually used in recent conversation. Ignore the video though, I don't really like it.)
In The End -Lincoln Park
How Far - Martina McBride
Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
If It Don't Come Easy - Tanya Tucker
I'm Not Loving Anymore - Kevin Fowler

Any others?

...Everyone knows I'm one of those people that can't hear a song without relating to it, right? :)

P.S. The story (see previous post) will be finished in my journal, but not for the public.