Eight is Great

eight things i am looking forward to

1. Going to the beach

2. Getting my talk over with

3. Making more friends

4. Seeing my family again!

5. Seeing Asher

6. Having long hair

7. Going back to Provo

8. Making friends with non-sociopaths

eight things i did yesterday

1. Got a guitar lesson

2. Got dunked in the pool

3. Played volleyball

4. Made new friends

5. Ate my weight in bbq. I'm not even kidding.

6. Laughed until my stomach hurt

7. Had a very very long conversation

8. Got three new nicknames ( I always wanted a nickname, but just figured I wasn't a nickname-able person. Then all the sudden I come down here and everyone has a different name for me: Squeeze me, Dagger, Spike, Shorty, and Jamalama)

eight things i wish i could do

1. Play the guitar

2. Sing like nobody's business

3. Inherit a million dollars

4. Fly

5. Play the saxophone

6. Find the love of my life ;)

7. Fix all the broken marriages

8. Travel

eight magazines i like

1. Ensign

2. I don't really read magazines

3. Ditto

4. Yeah, still got nothin

5. Um, Taste of Home (the pictures in there are mouthwatering)

6. Parenting magazines my mom leaves around the house

7. Oh, and Reader's Digest. Don't know why I didn't think of that one

8. That's all

eight things on my wishlist

1. a thunderstorm

2. good friends like the ones I left in Provo

3. a phone call from home

4. mail

5. a million dollars

6. a visit from Asher!

7. a trip to the beach

8. a barrage of text messages telling me how much I'm missed :) hint, hint

eight bloggers i am tagging

1. diane

2. debbie

3. summer

4. abi

5. melanie

6. paige

7. katrina

8. kari canary

Extreme Ironing

This is actually a pasttime here. I kid you not.

Here's the gist of it: you load up your car with your friends, your ironing board, an iron, an item of clothing, your camera, and your giant flash, and you drive around downtown looking for odd places to pose.

Like under an old bridge

Or on a street corner where you meet drunk, friendly women eager to get their pictures taken, too

Or on the railroad tracks

with America's Next Top Model

Or by the (in)famous Bakersfield sign

The look on my face says it all.
(Oh, and the sweet photos are thanks to Jimmy and his mad photography skills)

Updates (ou, en francais, mise à jour)

Asher's back!! I can't wait to see her
I've started wearing sunscreen
I'm now the head of the scanning department (moving up in the world)
I was tricked into a date on monday, my first date with a Bakersfield boy (ow ow)

I love it here! I think I'll just marry a Bakersfield boy and stay :)
I got my air conditioning fixed,
so I don't have to show up places with my clothes plastered to myself

There's a statewide YSA conference in August and I'm going!
I went night rafting on Saturday. Best. Thing. Ever.

I'm discovering all the good ice cream places
Don't worry dad, I haven't spent any money on ice cream
I just sweet talk others into it :)
I'm making friends!
I can now make it to church and back without getting lost
And I figured out which way is North

I'm the primary pianist! For now anyway. My skills are rusty
And I think that's pretty much it.
The end.
Happy now?

Dear Future Husband,

For our wedding, for our anniversary, for my birthday, for valentine's day, or just for no reason at all, if you feel the need to give me a gift, and you're wondering to yourself "what could I give her that she would really love, that would make her squeal and jump up and down and kiss me?", I have a suggestion for you.

Laser hair removal. So I never have to shave my legs again.

It's the gift that keeps on giving. Thanks in advance :)

Oh and p.s.,

I love you.

Paradise

This is my cute little bedroom for the summer, it used to be the nursery

And this is my amazing new backyard

it's ok to be jealous :)

The following picture is embarrassing and possibly PG-13 but I promised Aubrey I'd post it.
This is the result of my weekend spent by the pool:
I wish the camera captured this better. I was fried.

But, a few days and a half a container of aloe vera later, I'm just tan.
Tee hee

California

Okay, here it goes.
I'm in Bakersfield, California this summer to work and save money for school in the fall (I'll be a senior! Is anyone else wierded out by that?). My wonderful friend Brittany found me a job and I'm staying with her parents.
So I left early in the morning two saturdays ago, and it was pouring rain, which seemed to me like exactly the right mood. I had done most of my frantic packing the day before and after putting everything in the car I said goodbye to the fam. It didn't seem real to me that I was saying goodbye for 4 months, I've never been away from my family for more than a week so I just don't think it really registered. There's lots of other people I didn't say goodbye to, so if you're one of them, sorry and hello/goodbye :) I hugged everyone extra tight and not gonna lie, I cried, and then I set out with a stomach full of butterflies. I've never driven further than Salt Lake and back, so this was gonna be interesting. I took Jaime's car, having wrecked mine the week before...so it was extra good of her to let me have it, considering my track record. Don't worry Jaime, I've been taking good care of it :)
The drive was loooooooooooooooooooooooooong. I discovered that I really love driving on my own, I don't mind driving for hours and hours, but about after crossing the California border I was pretty much done. And the California stretch was just ugly and boring. And my butt hurt like no other. But I listened to John Bytheway for pretty much the whole 10 hours, so I was feeling very spiritualized. I FINALLY made it to Thad and Brittany's, and it was SO good to see them! It's been so long and I missed them so much! And Andi is so very big and very talkative now.
I moved in to Brittany's parents house, just 4 doors down, and have started going to the local single's branch, where Thad's dad is the bishop. I've got the hookups :)
Brittany's parents are amazing and they've been so nice, and they have a pool in their backyard (BOOYAH!!). The spirit here reminds me of home, so that feels good. Oh and they have like 8 cartons of ice cream in their fridge, which I am supposed to take care of. I plan on coming back to Utah Polynesian style--fat, brown, and happy.
The single's branch is....interesting. I'm sure it will grow on me :)
My first week I thought: the bad news is, there aren't any cute guys here. The good news is, if there were, I wouldn't have any competition (I know, I'm a horrible person). But in the last week lots of cute guys have shown up and I've gotten to know some people. And one of them is in love with me.
Let's see...work is great, I actually really like my job, the people are very friendly and mostly crazy, which is very entertaining. Seriously, I have so many stories, and I've only been there a week. I work in the operator's room and in the medical records department, and mostly scan and pull charts. It's the kind of thing you can do without using a whole lot of brain power, which leaves me free to talk to my coworkers/listen in on their conversations, and have deep conversations with myself :) I love love that I get to wear scrubs everyday, I hate having to pick out clothes. They're so shapeless and wonderful, it's like wearing pj's all day. I'm going to be so sad when I go back to school and have to wear actual clothing. I think that's about it...
Oh and I bought a camera, so there will be pictures coming and all my posts won't be so wordy.

Sigh....

This man is so so fine. And not just fine, but fiiiiiiiine. Look at those smoldering eyes....
Yowza. I want one.

I scream, you scream

Bakersfield has an ice cream truck!!

An ICE CREAM TRUCK!

I haven't seen one of those since I was this big.

I was sitting here, checking my mail, when I heard music. I'm all alone in the house so I started thinking it was some sort of possessed toy, playing music on its own just to haunt me. It kept going and going, so finally I set out in search of the source. With the help of my razor sharp hearing, I decided the sound was coming from outside.
The thought of a possessed toy, playing its music to lure me outside into some sort of trap, briefly crossed my mind.
I ventured outside and what should I see but an ice cream truck winding its way down the street!

I didn't even know they had those things anymore. It made me happy.
I would've bought some ice cream, out of pure nostalgia, but I'm on a tight budget that does not allow for nostalgia. Also the man driving looked slightly like a terrorist.
You can't have everything.

Hello, world.

This weekend I will write about California. Promise.
I know I'm weird, writing a blog post about writing a blog post
But I just felt like I'd abandoned the poor thing
And I haven't got the energy to do the experience justice.
So that's all for now.
Peace.