sweet redemption

mostly because i hate to lose, i took another whack at blondies tonight.

they're all gone, and not because they got thrown away. BECAUSE PEOPLE COULDN'T STOP EATING THEM.

this photo is proof of my victory.

judge not.

i always feel a certain sense of shame when i go to the vending machines at school, like people are watching me, judging me.

yes, YES i got pretzels AND peanut m&ms, ok?! YES, it is my lunch. STEP OFF.

sometimes, i decide to grow out my bangs.
sometimes, i can't find a bobby pin to get them the heck out of my face.
sometimes, this is just the only alternative.
sometimes, I LOOK LIKE THIS.

today is my dad's birthday. i love my dad.
my dad is good. my dad is smart. my dad is honorable. my dad is no-nonsense.


one time, for his birthday, instead of us giving him presents, he gave each one of us a present. at the time, i was obsessed with beanie babies, but had yet to acquire one of my own. imagine my joy when i opened this up:
i still have it, not just because it's cute. because it reminds me of the kind of man my dad is--he's the kind of man that thinks about other people, and puts their needs before his own. i have countless memories of him secretly paying for peoples' food at restaurants, picking up hitch-hikers, and offering to help me with my math homework. my dad is the kind of person who just wants to do what is right. i couldn't ask for a better example.

happy birthday, dad. i love you.

i'll never let go.

Taco Bell Reponds to Lawsuit Claiming the Chain Isn't Using Real Beef
saw this article today.

LOOK HOW MUCH I CARE.

if i were a pokemon:

i think this is actually a fairly accurate portrayal of my personality. thanks, nathan.

i hate blondies.

when i lived in missouri, we had these really good family friends. the mom made the best blonde brownies i have ever tasted. i was obsessed with them. once i got old enough for my mom to trust that i wouldn't blow up the house if i were to use the kitchen (approximately age 12), i decided i needed to make some blondies of my own, using the israelsen recipe.
it was a disaster. i don't know what i did. but whatever i ended up creating was bad enough that my mom lost all faith in my cooking abilities (up until maybe about a year ago). i was traumatized. to this day, the israelsen's still laugh at me. i'm not kidding.

but there comes a time in every woman's life where she has to face her fears. today was that day. i was going to a dinner where i had signed up to bring the dessert--i had my recipe picked, my ingredients ready, and my game face on. they went off without a hitch. they looked beautiful. they smelled awesome. i took them out of the oven at 5:27 and left my house at 5:30, all the while so dang pleased with myself for having overcome my fear of making blondies.

this was a bad idea. the cold turned them into little bricks. rather than soft and chewy, they probably could have killed a small child, which was dangerous since there was in fact a small child at this gathering. (sorry for endangering your posterity, megan.)

all those years of coming to terms with blondie failure...wasted. back to square one.

obsession

gchat is probably the number one reason for this semester's lack of productivity.

but it's so so fun.

paparazzi always crampin' my style.

i'm ambitious.

sometimes when recipes have disclaimers about how the frosting is temperamental and probably won't work, i think "oooh psshah it'll be fiiiiine!"

nope. wasn't. looked like runny chocolate pudding.

good thing i have a back-up recipe that never fails. kind of.

happy birthday tomorrow, irene.

this semester is going to be hard. i'm trying to have a good attitude about going to class every day. it's not working out super well so far. mostly i end up drawing "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" over and over in my notes, or stick figures with word bubbles saying, "i'm bored." (or in the case of Spanish 105, "me aburro")

i think if i could gchat with people while looking up recipes online all day, i would be really happy.

the primary lessons on reverence were lost on me.

this is exhibit 2,130 of why if you actually want to pay attention during church, the best decision would be to not sit by me. to be fair (to myself), some of this actually tied into the lesson. the topic was sacrifice, hence the lamb...jumping to its death at the hands of a priest that is specifically not Jesus, because he is far too scary looking to be Him, and also, i'm pretty sure that that would biblically not make sense. and then, there was a part of the lesson where a story was told about a 6 year old who worked in a coal mine (bottom right). and then there was some mention of the 4 corners (top left). and then the rest i really have no excuse other than undiagnosed ADD.

slightly above average strangeness

so i went to church in salt lake city with my friend irene today. she had a meeting afterwards, so i sat in the lobby to wait for her, minding my own business and reading a book about sex chromosomes. after about a half hour, a guy walks up to me and says:

"ok, i just have to ask you something."
me: "shoot."
guy: "how tall are you?"
me: "...i'm 5'7"."
guy: "oook. i was sitting over there thinking, 'how tall is that girl?' and i just had to come over and find out."
me: "yup. just your average 5'7"...were you thinking taller or shorter?"
guy: "taller. and i would say 5'7" is slightly above average."
me: "yeah..."
guy: "i hope you have a great sunday."
me: "you too."

and then he walked away.

y? because i gotta.

sometimes i go "latin" dancing.
which really just means latino people danced latin-ly, and i danced white-ly.

conversation with grace:

g: "yeah i had to get my immunizations to go to africa, 6 all at once. but you know, that pain paled in comparison to the cardio workout i did. i seriously could not move the next day."
a: "whoa that's crazy...what kind of stuff did you have to do?"
g: "there were like twenty different stations that you had to do for twenty minutes each--it was insane. i hurt in places i've never hurt before."
a: "oh my gosh! i can't believe they made you do all that stuff! i've never heard of anything like that for a physical to go to a foreign country!"
g: "...noooo! that was the workout i did with my mom!"

seriously, grace, a segway would have been nice. here i was thinking the whole time, "man, how the heck do fat people get cleared to go to africa?"

tomorrow.

the love of my life, grace stephenson is coming to town before leaving me forever for europe.

ignore the boot. this is just one of my favorite pictures of us ever.

goals for this weekend

-maybe make my bed
-definitely scrape off my car
-inevitably go grocery shopping
-probably end up drawing more pictures of bill cosby and/or my taco bell obsession.

why does it feel like i've been in school for a month when it's only the end of the first week?

hello hibernation

there are times in my life when the only thing i can think about is taco bell. unfortunately, this particular time just happens to coincide with 19 degree temperatures. also, i haven't scraped my car off since i've been back.
it's times like these where i really wish there were more delivery services around. like taco bell. or groceries (which i also don't have). or my classes. that way, i wouldn't ever have to leave my house to walk across the siberian tundra to get to school, because APPARENTLY people in provo don't believe in shoveling sidewalks. i could probably ice skate to school, actually.

actually. what i'm saying is, i don't want to leave my house. ever.

sometimes, i get asked out on dates. sometimes, i have no idea what to say. sometimes, conversations go like this:

boy: "will you go out with me?"
me: "sure?"
boy: "ok cool."
me: "ok."
...
me: "...do...you...want to know where i live?"

i'm socially retarded.

my mom taught me so much better than this.

so i went home for 3 weeks. when i left, my room was in a fairly responsible state of affairs. now i'm back.

rather than unpacking my car, i chose to bring in only my suitcase and go back for the other things later (i had just driven 12 hours by myself and by the time i stepped out of the car, i was walking like a newborn fawn. not to mention it was ridiculously cold).

now i find myself trekking out to my car 2-3 times a day in teen temperatures, slowly bringing in the items therein two at a time. like a reverse noah. a reverse, lazy noah.

rather than unpacking my suitcase, i chose to leave it on my floor.

now it looks like it has explosively vomited all over my room. not just on the floor. the scope of the carnage also includes my desk, my dresser, and usually my bed (that is until i crawl into it to sleep, in which case the clothes become become casualties in the war of my apathy being waged on my floor).

rather than finding matching socks, i chose the first two i could pick out from the cotton labyrinth that has become my floor. they neither match in color, length, nor pattern.

it's times like these where i want to do a combination of things that include stomping my feet, slapping myself across the face, and shouting, "I AM AN ADULT! THINGS LIKE THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN!"

at least i managed to hang up my bathrobe.

new year's resolution

#1: on january 1st, don't get out of bed until 11:30. then, stay in your pajamas, and lay on the couch watching "the cosby show" until 2:30 in the afternoon.

oh my gosssh i already checked my first resolution off the list! this is gonna be such a great year.