I am super awkward. I am embarrassing. I am Neville Longbottom when the whole Gryffindor house is ashamed of him for having written down the week's worth of passwords only to get in the hands of the accused murderer, Sirius Black.
As Stephen Colbert says, "If you don't know who that is, congratulations on waking up from your eight-year coma. Let me get you up to speed for some of the things you might have missed. First of all the economy is terrible. All human thought has now been limited to 140 characters. And most importantly Neville Longbottom now looks like this. I think we can all agree that that is a real message of hope." But like Neville, I hope to grow out of the awkward embarrassing stage of my life....one day. A girl can dream, right?
But for real. This is a story of why I am borderline anti-social. So this week, in preparation for the roadtrip I was taking with my sister, I was given the task of putting HP6 on my iPod. I had forgotten to pack the night before I had to drive home, so I had to pack Wednesday. I quickly plugged in my iPod and uploaded the book files back onto my iTunes and put it on my iPod. I got home and relaxed a little by doing some online shopping as Saryah was getting stuff together and loading her car. At one point, she put all her clothes, with the hangers still on, on a blanket, and wrapped the blanket up. I felt like we were carrying a dead body into the trunk of her car.
Thursday morning started off like any other, waking up after a few hours of sleep at 4:30am, making sure saryah was awake....hang on.....wait a second.....that's not right. I do not do that. Sorry. No. Let's start over. I managed to wake up to my alarm at 4:30 am. Slowly and sluggishly we made it to the car.....nooooo. I woke up and made sure Saryah was too. We got ready and got the last minute things in the car only to realize after about 1 minute on the road, we forgot something. oops. So we turned around, and hit the road for a second time. I passed out cold in the passenger seat. Two hours later, Saryah was pulling into Buc-ee's to get some gas and for us to change driving. So she fell asleep as we went into San Antonio. What we didn't consider is, despite our early departure from Houston, we hit San Antonio during rush hour traffic. Since we were in San Antonio, we decided to pull off at the next Taco Cabana on the side of the highway. However, this was not happening as quickly as we hoped. I put it in my phone and the closest one was off Hildebrand. When we got there, this one had no bathroom that we saw. Instead of sitting at a table and eating, we went to the car...and ate. lol. the tight space caused me to spill on myself. #fail Then when I went to throw away the trash, we discovered the outdoor bathroom door. #fail
On the way out of the city, we decided to put on the HP6 audio book. The problem was, the tracks weren't playing in order, and we couldn't control it with the usb cord connection......and it wasn't HP6. In my rush to leave my place, I put HP7 on my iPod. #spoileralert #epicfail I had been stressing about starting the HP series again with book 6 because I haven't re-read the series in over half a decade. Overtime I try, I get super angsty and have to stop. Now I was starting with #7. The last one. #facepalm #iamnevillelongbottom
We had to stop listening to it anyway because we couldn't navigate the iPod menu on her car and needed and AUX cord. The problem is, we had passed the last Wal-Mart that would be on I-10 for a very long time. So we had to listen to my music instead. Qué horror! Saryah went back to sleep, and I continued driving. We tried to get gas around half tank just in case there was a long time before the next gas station. It's West Texas; there isn't much out there.
We managed to find a Wal-Mart (with a surprisingly clean bathroom) and got the AUX cord and started at the very beginning. A very good place to start. We realized we had lost time in the traffic in San Antonio, and the weather, while sunny, had a bit of chill to it, so we skipped our planned stop at Balmorhea State Park. Instead we drove straight up to Roswell, New Mexico. It took about 10 hours on the road before we crossed the border out of Texas. It's a pretty big state. When we hit Roswell, we stopped off at a gas station to take a picture with an alien statue, and I re-enacted the Roswell scene where Max tells Liz that he's an alien. #imsuperfunny There were little alien heads on all the lamp posts in town. Our plan was to stop at an alien themed diner, but we weren't hungry as we drove through. The healthy snacks Saryah picked up were doing their job.
We drove the rest of the afternoon to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Truth: you can't trust a city when all the buildings aren't build bigger than two-stories. We checked into the hotel. It was pretty cold out. Please note: deserts get cold at night. After my phone said there was no Panera Bread in the city, we decided on Jason's Deli. On our drive to pick up our order....we drove past a Panera #lyingphone #fail *sigh* Oh well. The food was okay, but people, don't get Tomato Basil Soup from Jason's Deli. It had a layer or grease/oil that seemed so out of place. We showered after a long day in the car and watch some tv on saryah's laptop, because using the hotel's real tv is too much effort. giggles.
First stop Friday morning? Four Corners of course! It is where the states of Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona meet in one place. Take that A Walk To Remember! Two places at once? Underachievers! We got four! Own3d. We had to drive thorough Arizona to get there and to continue our trip, go through Colorado to get to Utah.
We stopped for lunch at Subway and afterwards, I wanted some crackers. I ate the crackers before getting in the car and went to throw my little wrapper in the car trash bag. When I did, all the crumbs in the wrapper fell out onto the driver's seat. Oh goodness. I didn't know what to do. They were such tiny crumbs. I thought, maybe saryah won't notice and think her car is just super messy. Then I looked at her and she looked at the seat and didn't say anything. I thought 'maybe she didn't notice?' so i went to sit down and she said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" and started laughing. I started laughing. I thought i would pee my pants. I then had to pick up the little crumbs from the seat. #iamnevillelongbottom #epicfail Saryah laughed at me for the rest of the weekend for this.
The drive to Salt Lake City was pretty uneventful. We drove up a super steep hill and were nervous her little car's engine wouldn't make it. As soon as we hit the top of the hill the Capitol was staring at us. It's quite lovely. We drove to her place and met the people. They gave her a warm welcome with a tour. The most awkward part was the man who was moving out said "The Mormons shouldn't bother you too much either" and then him and his wife started telling us a little bit about the Mormons. It was so awkward, I didn't want to make it uncomfortable for Saryah (who has to live in the house) that we were Mormon, and Saryah didn't say anything either. We both agreed after that there will be a better time to bring it up anyway. We unloaded Saryah's stuff, made a list of what she still needed and went off to dinner. We went to this cute little restaurant I found online. Em's. It was so perfect, and I felt a little under-dressed in my tshirt and jeans. I should have had a blouse on or something. Oh well. The food was really delicious too. I have a feeling Saryah will return there often after I leave. We then hit up target, pick up stuff, and then we went to visit Elo!
I was a little surprised when we showed up and her boyfriend was there, but it was nice to meet him. We all hung out and one of her friends came over and shortly proposed to me. lol. oh funny people. Then we quizzed him about what the 7 horocruxes were. He got 5/7. Decent, but not impressive. It was a nice night seeing Elo and catching up a little. We went back to Saryah's place and promptly went to bed, because it was a long and tiresome day.
Saturday morning started off nice and early as we went to Bruges Waffles to meet Ian for some breakfast. We were sitting in the cold, as Saryah didn't bring a winter coat, thinking that the 80degree Texas spring season continues up to Utah. After being 15 minutes late, we called him to see where we was. He said he was a Bruges Waffles waiting for us. As soon as he said that, I knew....there had to be more than on location in Salt Lake City. #fail We went over to the one by him and had a great morning chatting over waffles. yum. We headed off to Whole Foods to get some groceries for Saryah. It was Sample Saturday, and the Whole Foods is pretty big. We went shopping for a bit and didn't find anything. We then went to eat luch at the Pie Hole, a recommendation from Ian. It was good even though it has the feeling of entering a biker bar. We then went to check out he Library, and listen to the HP6 audio book because we were about to start the Snape's Memories chapter. You cannot pause in the middle of such an emotional chapter. We then went back to Saryah's place to relax because it was already a long and exhausting day. I fell asleep as soon as we got back.and was woken up with Saryah saying "Is that Pam at the front door?" In my disorientated state, I was super confused at what was going on, but I went to the door and there was a surprise. It wasn't only Pam; Trey was there too! Que milagro! I was told Trey was working, but he wasn't! Woot! We went on a walk to the Capitol, even though it was cold and drizzling. It is a pretty cool capitol. We then went off to get some Ethiopian food and meet up with Katie. We had a lot of fun at dinner, and stayed much longer than anticipated, just talking. Katie arrived a little late because she got a little lost. It was nice catching up with everyone. We said goodbye to Katie, then went to Target again for some more last minute things for Saryah. We had to say goodbye :( So sad. I told Pam that I would come back for Conference & the Mission Reunion this fall, even though seeing everyone post-mission makes me awkward. Bleh.
Sunday morning was super sad because I had to say farewell to my lil sis, We woke up early and had a nice big breakfast of omelets and toast. yum yum. She then dropped me off at the airport. SOOOOO SAD. While at the airport, I had time to continue reading Born to Run. My dad, lil sis, and broseph had read it already, and Saryah's been trying to get me to read it since. I finally got it out from the library, and as I read it, the more I fell in love with it! You know those moments in life where you hear something or read something and it just kind of rings true to every fiber of your being? It was as if I had always known it on some level but was waiting for the memory to be awaken from my state of forgetfulness. I loved it. It is about a people in Mexico who run ridiculously long lengths with no real problem. As someone who hates running with a fiery passion, I was not expecting to really like this book as much as my dad and siblings did. The people in the story were truly inspiring and the stories and facts that backed up theories about running, just seems to ring true to me. It definitely altered my way of thinking. Here is just a little quote from the book that I loved:
On a side note/tangent:
I do supply chain management for a living. Part of that includes cost savings. As someone who is current focusing on cost savings at work, when I see a deal, I want to jump at it. In this spirit of frugality, I begin my story. Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced they will be adding iPhones to their service. I looked at multiple articles (this is only one example), which compared the pricing. You see, if you get your phone from T-mobile, you have to pay an unsubsidized prices (meaning, you have to pay all $600 of the phone). I've read another article recently about how Americans don't like having to pay a lot of money up front even if there is cost savings in the long run. It's true. To fight the instinct that Americans have, T-Mobile has said "no pay the subsidized price up front and then every month pay $20 extra). I see what you are doing T-Mobile, and I am pleased by your sneaky ways. Even with paying for the phone outright, I would still see about $800 in savings in the next two years. For me, that's kinda awesome. However, to avoid Early Termination fees, I have to wait for three months. THREE! #firstworldproblems
Now on a more serious note, The Boston Marathon Bombings. I am grateful for the men and women in uniform who protect us. I am grateful that the other suspect has been apprehended It was a truly horrific bombing that happened there. It's serious moments in life like this where I am left with a loss for words. I think my first reaction was more of a "I can't believe this just happens" state of shock. It was a terrible incident, but with a mixture of comedic relief in the middle of all the emotional turmoil, I think Stephen Colbert ended his opening monologue perfectly when he said “These people tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do is show just how good those people are.” It's sad and tragic, but in these moments, I feel hope when I see strangers helping each other and showing selfless service towards other. In the tragedy, there is good breaking through to give light to others. As John 1:5 states, "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Light and Darkness. I recall something I read about light from Robert D. Hales in "Out of Darkness into His Marvelous Light" that said:
As Stephen Colbert says, "If you don't know who that is, congratulations on waking up from your eight-year coma. Let me get you up to speed for some of the things you might have missed. First of all the economy is terrible. All human thought has now been limited to 140 characters. And most importantly Neville Longbottom now looks like this. I think we can all agree that that is a real message of hope." But like Neville, I hope to grow out of the awkward embarrassing stage of my life....one day. A girl can dream, right?
Thursday morning started off like any other, waking up after a few hours of sleep at 4:30am, making sure saryah was awake....hang on.....wait a second.....that's not right. I do not do that. Sorry. No. Let's start over. I managed to wake up to my alarm at 4:30 am. Slowly and sluggishly we made it to the car.....nooooo. I woke up and made sure Saryah was too. We got ready and got the last minute things in the car only to realize after about 1 minute on the road, we forgot something. oops. So we turned around, and hit the road for a second time. I passed out cold in the passenger seat. Two hours later, Saryah was pulling into Buc-ee's to get some gas and for us to change driving. So she fell asleep as we went into San Antonio. What we didn't consider is, despite our early departure from Houston, we hit San Antonio during rush hour traffic. Since we were in San Antonio, we decided to pull off at the next Taco Cabana on the side of the highway. However, this was not happening as quickly as we hoped. I put it in my phone and the closest one was off Hildebrand. When we got there, this one had no bathroom that we saw. Instead of sitting at a table and eating, we went to the car...and ate. lol. the tight space caused me to spill on myself. #fail Then when I went to throw away the trash, we discovered the outdoor bathroom door. #fail
On the way out of the city, we decided to put on the HP6 audio book. The problem was, the tracks weren't playing in order, and we couldn't control it with the usb cord connection......and it wasn't HP6. In my rush to leave my place, I put HP7 on my iPod. #spoileralert #epicfail I had been stressing about starting the HP series again with book 6 because I haven't re-read the series in over half a decade. Overtime I try, I get super angsty and have to stop. Now I was starting with #7. The last one. #facepalm #iamnevillelongbottom
We had to stop listening to it anyway because we couldn't navigate the iPod menu on her car and needed and AUX cord. The problem is, we had passed the last Wal-Mart that would be on I-10 for a very long time. So we had to listen to my music instead. Qué horror! Saryah went back to sleep, and I continued driving. We tried to get gas around half tank just in case there was a long time before the next gas station. It's West Texas; there isn't much out there.
We managed to find a Wal-Mart (with a surprisingly clean bathroom) and got the AUX cord and started at the very beginning. A very good place to start. We realized we had lost time in the traffic in San Antonio, and the weather, while sunny, had a bit of chill to it, so we skipped our planned stop at Balmorhea State Park. Instead we drove straight up to Roswell, New Mexico. It took about 10 hours on the road before we crossed the border out of Texas. It's a pretty big state. When we hit Roswell, we stopped off at a gas station to take a picture with an alien statue, and I re-enacted the Roswell scene where Max tells Liz that he's an alien. #imsuperfunny There were little alien heads on all the lamp posts in town. Our plan was to stop at an alien themed diner, but we weren't hungry as we drove through. The healthy snacks Saryah picked up were doing their job.
We stopped for lunch at Subway and afterwards, I wanted some crackers. I ate the crackers before getting in the car and went to throw my little wrapper in the car trash bag. When I did, all the crumbs in the wrapper fell out onto the driver's seat. Oh goodness. I didn't know what to do. They were such tiny crumbs. I thought, maybe saryah won't notice and think her car is just super messy. Then I looked at her and she looked at the seat and didn't say anything. I thought 'maybe she didn't notice?' so i went to sit down and she said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" and started laughing. I started laughing. I thought i would pee my pants. I then had to pick up the little crumbs from the seat. #iamnevillelongbottom #epicfail Saryah laughed at me for the rest of the weekend for this.
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| Ah yes. The Cool Bus. :) |
I was a little surprised when we showed up and her boyfriend was there, but it was nice to meet him. We all hung out and one of her friends came over and shortly proposed to me. lol. oh funny people. Then we quizzed him about what the 7 horocruxes were. He got 5/7. Decent, but not impressive. It was a nice night seeing Elo and catching up a little. We went back to Saryah's place and promptly went to bed, because it was a long and tiresome day.
Saturday morning started off nice and early as we went to Bruges Waffles to meet Ian for some breakfast. We were sitting in the cold, as Saryah didn't bring a winter coat, thinking that the 80degree Texas spring season continues up to Utah. After being 15 minutes late, we called him to see where we was. He said he was a Bruges Waffles waiting for us. As soon as he said that, I knew....there had to be more than on location in Salt Lake City. #fail We went over to the one by him and had a great morning chatting over waffles. yum. We headed off to Whole Foods to get some groceries for Saryah. It was Sample Saturday, and the Whole Foods is pretty big. We went shopping for a bit and didn't find anything. We then went to eat luch at the Pie Hole, a recommendation from Ian. It was good even though it has the feeling of entering a biker bar. We then went to check out he Library, and listen to the HP6 audio book because we were about to start the Snape's Memories chapter. You cannot pause in the middle of such an emotional chapter. We then went back to Saryah's place to relax because it was already a long and exhausting day. I fell asleep as soon as we got back.and was woken up with Saryah saying "Is that Pam at the front door?" In my disorientated state, I was super confused at what was going on, but I went to the door and there was a surprise. It wasn't only Pam; Trey was there too! Que milagro! I was told Trey was working, but he wasn't! Woot! We went on a walk to the Capitol, even though it was cold and drizzling. It is a pretty cool capitol. We then went off to get some Ethiopian food and meet up with Katie. We had a lot of fun at dinner, and stayed much longer than anticipated, just talking. Katie arrived a little late because she got a little lost. It was nice catching up with everyone. We said goodbye to Katie, then went to Target again for some more last minute things for Saryah. We had to say goodbye :( So sad. I told Pam that I would come back for Conference & the Mission Reunion this fall, even though seeing everyone post-mission makes me awkward. Bleh.
Sunday morning was super sad because I had to say farewell to my lil sis, We woke up early and had a nice big breakfast of omelets and toast. yum yum. She then dropped me off at the airport. SOOOOO SAD. While at the airport, I had time to continue reading Born to Run. My dad, lil sis, and broseph had read it already, and Saryah's been trying to get me to read it since. I finally got it out from the library, and as I read it, the more I fell in love with it! You know those moments in life where you hear something or read something and it just kind of rings true to every fiber of your being? It was as if I had always known it on some level but was waiting for the memory to be awaken from my state of forgetfulness. I loved it. It is about a people in Mexico who run ridiculously long lengths with no real problem. As someone who hates running with a fiery passion, I was not expecting to really like this book as much as my dad and siblings did. The people in the story were truly inspiring and the stories and facts that backed up theories about running, just seems to ring true to me. It definitely altered my way of thinking. Here is just a little quote from the book that I loved:
Love of life! Exactly!...It wasn't just how to run; it was how to live, the essence of who we are as a species and what we're meant to be...Perhaps all our troubles --all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome -- began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way. [...] Maybe the ancient Hindus were better crystal-ball-gazers than Hollywood when they predicted the world would end not with a bang but with a big old yawn. Shiva the Destroyer would snuff us out by doing...nothing. Lazing out. Withdrawing his hot-blooded force from our bodies. Letting us become slugs (99). -Born To Run by Christopher McDougall
"Just move your legs. Because if you don't think you were born to run, you're not only denying history. You are denying who you are" (244).I think the person I found the most interesting would have to be Barefoot Ted. Yes. That is what he was called. But he runs more or less barefoot. The reasoning behind it just made sense to me. Therefore, Monday after work, I went on my first barefoot walk. True story. I went to the lake around the corner of my place, slipped of my flip flops, and walked around the lake next to the side walk. I also discovered that the lake has Texas Bluebonnets growing all over. It was beautiful. It felt good, and made me super happy. That night, I enjoyed a good FHE night of a sidewalk chalk art contest. Since it's a church activity, You can't really single people out, because I would feel too badly. Everyone got a participation prize!
On a side note/tangent:
I do supply chain management for a living. Part of that includes cost savings. As someone who is current focusing on cost savings at work, when I see a deal, I want to jump at it. In this spirit of frugality, I begin my story. Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced they will be adding iPhones to their service. I looked at multiple articles (this is only one example), which compared the pricing. You see, if you get your phone from T-mobile, you have to pay an unsubsidized prices (meaning, you have to pay all $600 of the phone). I've read another article recently about how Americans don't like having to pay a lot of money up front even if there is cost savings in the long run. It's true. To fight the instinct that Americans have, T-Mobile has said "no pay the subsidized price up front and then every month pay $20 extra). I see what you are doing T-Mobile, and I am pleased by your sneaky ways. Even with paying for the phone outright, I would still see about $800 in savings in the next two years. For me, that's kinda awesome. However, to avoid Early Termination fees, I have to wait for three months. THREE! #firstworldproblems
Now on a more serious note, The Boston Marathon Bombings. I am grateful for the men and women in uniform who protect us. I am grateful that the other suspect has been apprehended It was a truly horrific bombing that happened there. It's serious moments in life like this where I am left with a loss for words. I think my first reaction was more of a "I can't believe this just happens" state of shock. It was a terrible incident, but with a mixture of comedic relief in the middle of all the emotional turmoil, I think Stephen Colbert ended his opening monologue perfectly when he said “These people tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do is show just how good those people are.” It's sad and tragic, but in these moments, I feel hope when I see strangers helping each other and showing selfless service towards other. In the tragedy, there is good breaking through to give light to others. As John 1:5 states, "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Light and Darkness. I recall something I read about light from Robert D. Hales in "Out of Darkness into His Marvelous Light" that said:
As children, we learned how to keep darkness away by turning on a light. Sometimes, when our parents went away for the evening, we would turn on every light in the house! We understood the physical law that is also a spiritual law: light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time.I know that our Heavenly Father knows us and loves us. I do not doubt and cannot forget. Even though the world is in turmoil, and there are moments ahead in the our future as human beings that might be difficult; He is aware. Our God is a God of love.
Light dispels darkness. When light is present, darkness is vanquished and must depart. More importantly, darkness cannot conquer light unless the light is diminished or departs. When the spiritual light of the Holy Ghost is present, the darkness of Satan departs.
...we are engaged in a battle between the forces of light and darkness. If it were not for the Light of Jesus Christ and His gospel, we would be doomed to the destruction of darkness. But the Savior said, “I am come a light into the world.” 13 “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” 14
The Lord is our light and, literally, our salvation. 15 Like the sacred fire that encircled the children in 3 Nephi, [in The Book of Mormon] His light will form a protective shield between you and the darkness of the adversary as you live worthy of it. You need that light. We need that light. Carefully study the scriptures...and listen to the teachings of your parents and leaders. Then, by obedience to wise counsel, learn to claim the protective light of the gospel as your own.
You may wonder, “How can I do that?” There is only one way: you must learn to generate that light each day by believing on Jesus Christ and following His commandments.
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