Ancient Greek Literature is Awesome

For all those who haven't heard, I am in a play! The School of the Arts is collaborating on the Greek tragedy, Antigone. As dance is a part of the performing arts they asked for a few female dancers to be in the chorus. So there are about 11 of us and we make up the Greek chorus. We are the chorus (not the chorus leader who speaks during the play) and do the songs that introduce new parts of the play. There are five of them in total and they are kind of long. We will also just be hanging around in the audience the rest of the time we aren't on stage. What is ever more awesome is that the play is being put on in the quad. It's a courtyard like area in the middle of the school. They have waterfalls, ponds and this large stage like area that has 6 different levels that the water kind of runs in between. It's going to be really fun, or at least I am hoping it will be because I am giving up a lot of time for it.




So if you are in Utah anytime between October 7-13 come and see me!

I think that this is funny

Hehehe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUG3Z8Hxa5I


I don't know why, but this really hit my funny bone.

We Have the Hippest Neighbors

As I speak, the house next door to ours is hosting a folk/alternative concert. Yes, hamburgers are cooking, the couch has been moved outside and they have covered up their lamps for ambience. The bands are really good actually. They invited us over, but we have the best seats right here, we don't have to walk the balance of too loud and being crowed out. We get to sit on our couch and enjoy the music. There was this band, Muddied Bison that was pretty sweet. Weird name though. Muddied Bison, where does one even come up with something like that? Maybe they were driving in Yellowstone and were struck by inspiration while drinking Red Bull and blasting tunes out their jeep. They reminded me al little of Deer Hunter, just not as explosive. The last band that played was good too, but their name isn't as memorable as Muddied Bison; another plus found for the name, you will always remember it.
Sitting in our house we have the perfect mixture of good company and sound levels. The only downside is that we don't have hamburgers. Mmmm, hamburgers. Summer does something to human appetites making them crave BBQ, chips, hot dogs (and delicious corn dogs) and hamburgers. To make it even better you can eat it outside! Oh and you can't forget S'mores. I eat those even in the winter time though. I just use the burner. :) I love summer nights. Nothing beats having your window open and it still being light out at 9:00 pm. Maybe being around a camp fire singing some sweet blues, but on the average night, windows open is pretty dang fabulous. What do you love about summer?

Dream Calling

The smell of play dough, chunks of crayon and flannel boards. It all comes together in the dream calling, primary teacher. Surprise! I love teaching Primary. I taught the sunbeams during college when I was home and I loved it. It gets even better this time because Jamison and I get to teach together. I have never had a calling with someone else and so to have one with my husband will be so awesome. Honestly, I have wanted to teach in primary since I have been in this ward. There is something about breaking it down to the basics that really appeals to me (that and snacks). We have three little boys in our class and sometimes a little girl. We substituted for their class two weeks ago and it was fun. We made felt flowers for Mother's Day and talked about the Priesthood.
So does anyone have any good suggestions about teaching four year old boys (and occasionally a little girl)? I would love to hear things that have worked for you and things that you have stayed away from (yes I know, I am opening myself up to the world of family advice... bring it on!!). Yeah for primary!

The Wonderful Month of May

May brings us many things. We have May flowers, courtesy of April showers, maypoles for May Day festivities, strawberries, and Cinco de Mayo for all those with Mexican ancestry. More recently however, May brings us one of the greatest days, our anniversary.

Jamison and I got married on May 2nd in Bountiful, Utah. It was raining that day, though it didn't put a damper on the moment, and most of our family was in attendance (Jamison's father couldn't come, but he was there in spirit). We were sealed in the Bountiful Temple and had our reception at the Wight House.  It was a wonderful day.

Today is our anniversary. I've never celebrated an anniversary (I didn't really think it was all that great when we were dating [I am offended. -editor and husband]) and so this was a whole new thing. Jamison must have gotten advice from someone (or as I tend to believe, he is amazing and already knows these things) and got me flowers. More specifically, my favorite and wedding flower, the delphinium (this was on May 1st because May 2nd was on a Sunday thereby prohibiting us from celebrating in a monetary way). What a great prelude to our actual wedding anniversary.

May 2nd started out wonderfully and ended wonderfully. To understand what we did I have to tell you how Jamison proposed to me. We were in a park in downtown Riga, Latvia. It was so cold my toes were starting to go numb. We just kept walking around while Jamison, unbeknownst to me, mustered up the courage to ask me to marry him. We finally stopped at a bridge in one of the city's parks. The bridge had locks with couples' names engraved on them. He had told me earlier that it was a true love kind of thing. Couples would place a lock with their names engraved on it on the bridge to symbolize their commitment to each other. It would always be there (the park people actually cut them off every year, but it is still a nice sentiment).

For Christmas Jamison bought us a lock of our very own. We decided to save it until our anniversary. So Sunday, we went to a park in Provo canyon, had a picnic (it was a little chilly) and painted our lock (we couldn't find anyone to engrave it). It was very fun.

This is our lovely lock. Jamison painted my name and I painted his. He ran out of room on the front for my name, so he just continued it on the side. It's pretty awesome.

He painted a lightning bolt on the back of the lock with the number of years we have been married! It's a pretty sweet lightning bolt!

So this was where we wanted to be the final resting place for our lock. Unfortunately, the lock wasn't large enough to go around the whole metal thing. We wanted to take a picture of it anyways because it looked so pretty on that bridge.

Jamison was pretty bummed about it not fitting on the bridge he had picked out.

This is us!

This is the final resting place of the lock. It isn't a very pretty bridge. It's basically a chain link fence with metal bars placed sporadically on the sides. But the lock fit so that's were it stays.

See if you can spot where the lock is!

YEAH FOR MAY!

Vampires

Don't let the title fool you. I am not going to write about glittering vampires that are beyond all physical description. That would be kind of weird. I am going to write about blood taking though. If you have a weak stomach, look away.

I am in a phlebotomy class right now and last week we did blood draws on each other (this week is friends and family... anyone want to come to let me draw from them?). Although there are needles and blood involved, it is super fun. Fun might not be the right word to describe it, exhilarating? We do straight needles, butterfly needles and finger pokes. We draw from the antecubital space, hand and fingers (well we stick your finger with a little lance rather than sticking it with a full blown needle. Then we squeeze out your blood in little drips. Cool). The antecubital space is your inside elbow space... the place where most everyone gets their blood drawn from. The hand is mainly for IVs, infants, elderly, and when you can't find a good vein in the antecubital.

It's awesome. I am actually really good at it. If only I could say the same for the rest of my class. There are about 30 of us in there and some of them have kind of crazy histories. There is a reformed druggie in my class (we aren't allowed to take her blood, but she can take ours), a girl who is deathly afraid of needles (she passes out all the time), people that have tattoos (which make it kind of hard to find veins.. even though you are supposed to find them through feel, it kind of throws me off when I have this wolf staring at me), and a couple people that just aren't attentive to what they are doing.

For instance, on Friday some guys was sticking my hand when all of the sudden I started to get a hematoma (blood pooling inside the skin creating a bump). It wasn't just a little one either. It was like a marble was in my hand... and it was growing. He didn't even really notice because he was paying attention to the tube rather than the venipuncture site. I called his attention to it and he freaked out. Pulled the needle out without taking off my tourniquet which made blood spurt our of hand. I pulled the tourniquet off and stuck a cotton ball on the site. It hurt so bad. He felt bad, but at the same time I was kind of irritated with him. I put all the pressure I could on it, but it still was raised and hurt incredibly. I still have a bump and now my hand is all bruised. He then asked if he could do my arm. My confidence wasn't too high so I said no. Would you have said yes? I don't think so.

But just to reassure everyone out there, this doesn't happen all the time. So don't worry about it. You have to have someone who just isn't paying attention to have one this big or painful (and they hardly happen as it is). It just makes me look like a druggie with all these bruises (my arms and hands are full of them... I look abused). But still really fun.

Born To Run... Am I?

Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall.

It all started with a McDougall's question of why his foot hurt. His answer took him to search for a hidden tribe called the Tarahumara (spanish pronunciation). They are the world's greatest long distance runners. When I say long distance runners, I mean 50 miles plus. They run for hours and love every second of it. During the story you take all these side trips learning about ultraracing, barefoot running, the evolution of humans, the pure joy of running and the terror known as the modern shoe. It's such a cool book.

In one section of the book they talk about how running has changed from pure recreation to a way to stay fit, a means to an end. When it is seen in that light it is a trial. You blast your iPod trying to distract yourself. I do this all the time. I used to love to run. Running was fun. I liked running in my neighborhood, on the soccer field, on the track, wherever. My mind would drift and I would find myself thinking about other things rather than concentrating on the burning of my muscles. It was totally liberating. I think that all ended after my freshman year in high school. After a few years of rebelling, I tried to get back into my running groove. But it seemed to have changed. I didn't run for running's sake. I ran to get skinny. Lose weight. Reading this book made me miss my days of real running.

So I have made a goal: I am going to run again. I imagine that my goal will have the product the book's author had; incredible 180 in running ability, desire and love. But my imagination tends to get a little wild at times and I think this is one of those. I am still going to try.

For anyone looking for a good book to read I recommend this one. So good.