problem with paper

I have a disability. I do not have the capability of dealing with paper. I know I have never been the cleanest person to live with and I have realized the core of it is lack of knowing where to put paper. I create piles and piles on desks, the floor, under my bed. And then I clean up and they get put into boxes because I still don't know what to do with them.
Maybe I'll start drawing on every piece of paper I have, that way I can just bind all the paper I own and put it on my bookshelf as a sketch book. All paper will fall into the same category and I won't have to debate if I should throw it away or not.
When I need some old banking information, or notes from an important meeting, I'll know exactly where to look. Sort of. I have over a thousand pages of sketches so far. I think my life goal is 50,000 pages of sketches. Which means I need to stop throwing so many pages away. And I better stop getting carpal tunnel.

tis the season

okay, it's not quite the season yet unless you're from Canada, (they start their Christmas season after Canadian Thanksgiving, which is before Halloween) but yesterday we were a little tired of the same Sunday music we always listen to so we turned on Christmas music. It was great. And there's no turning back now.

new lifestyle

Recently I went to Costco and thought it would be a good idea to pick up some basic items like shampoo, conditioner and laundry soap. Of course, being at Costco everything comes in enormous quantities. I wasn't so sure about going for the cheap generic brands with these items. I said "why not, we'll give it a try." I was then informed by Brandon that buying so much of each of these items was not just "giving it a try" but actually accepting a new lifestyle. Well I went for it, and so far the new lifestyle is going fine.

voting confessions

When going to vote yesterday I realized I should have prepared a lot better for the day. I knew very little about the candidates, which is important of course. I had browsed through the websites and did some reading on the major issues. Everyone sounded pretty similar to me, probably because the lack of time I had to study in depth on each person. In the end, whether I wanted it to or not, I think the design of their websites played more of a role in who I favored than it should have. Next time I will have to be more involved before voting day.

I was really tempted to write in some random friends for the write-in spaces where there was only one candidate. Did anyone else really want to do that?

celebrity sighting

When I interned in NY my apartment had a list of celebrity sightings, it was a pretty impressive list as you might guess. We lived on the same block as Regis so it was pretty easy to run into him. They probably had 50 or so.

We all know there are a few differences between Provo and NY. Provo still has it's own collection of famous people though. For example: When Brandon and I stopped by the post office the other day we saw Lavell Edwards. Brandon was probably more excited than I was. (actually, there is no doubt about that at all) As we were leaving Lavell was leaving too and as we walked by he smiled and asked how we were doing. What a nice guy. (He didn't always look nice in his pictures) And one time we saw Willie Nelson at Smith's, complete with his Willie and friends van in the parking lot.

And I've decided I'm going to be famous too. I haven't worked out all the details yet.

Halloween confusion

As you can see from the picture, for Halloween Brandon was dressed as 3 hole punch Jim and I was Halloween Pam. (both from the office of course) Unfortunately, not enough people have seen that episode and everyone kept trying to tell me I was a cat. I guess I should have expected that though, not everyone is obsessed with the office.

I heard the greatest thing yesterday though when I showed a couple friends our picture from Halloween. One of them told me that on Halloween he saw this girl dressed up just like I was and he had gone up to her and said "Cool! Halloween Pam!" And she responded by giving him an odd look and saying, "No. I'm a cat"

Most of you probably didn't think that was as funny as I did, but that's okay.

2023

I have married into a very organized family. Every family does things a little different for the holidays. Each family has different traditions, different gift giving methods and amounts. My new family has the rotation system going on, which makes sense, and I just recieved an email that informed me of everyone that I will be buying and recieving presents for until the year 2023. I think I have the present I'm giving for 2015 figured out but the rest I'm still not sure on. I have had a request for a teleporter in 2018, I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull that off or not. Anyone know the year those are suppose to come out?

a story with a moral

Last week I ran out of gas . . . twice. The first time was on the scooter. It was a bit ridiculous because the gas gauge said it was on empty for about 3 days while I drove it around everwhere. When Brandon asked if we needed gas I told him the gas gauge was broken. I thought it was broken because I had just got gas a couple days ago.
What I had forgotten was that although I went to the gas station, I forgot to bring my wallet and therefore did not buy any gas. Somehow though my brain misplaced that information and all I remembered was that I went to the gas station. Then when I was walking my scooter 3 blocks down University Ave. on the sidewalk, suddenly that information came back.
And the second time Brandon was driving the truck and we just pulled off the freeway while we were headed to Costco when the car started dying. We glided for a little while but it started slowing down so Brandon got out and pushed the truck about 100 ft. until we made it into the gas station. I thought it was funny.

And the moral of the story is: check your gas gauge. And I apologize to Brad for not posting this blog before Monday.

the slipper transformation

I knew there would be a lot of things that I would learn from being married. I have to say that what I learned most recently is kind of embarrassing to admit. The other day I learned that my pink slippers are not pink, they are gray. They are so gray Brandon was shocked when I mentioned something about them being pink. Not just shocked, I think a little disgusted as well, and rightfully so. I got them as a present on my mission, they look like pink slippers your grandma would wear. (Only gray not pink, as I have now realized.) It was kind of like that story about the frog that sits in the warm water that is gradually heated up until it is boiled but he doesn't realize it happening. My slippers turned gray so gradually I thought they were still pink. I tried washing them. I think it helped.

what if we always ran?

When I was walking on campus the other day I saw this guy in a tie just sprinting somewhere. I've always wondered how our society would function if we all just ran everywhere we went. Everyone would start as babies just learning to run and we wouldn't really walk much, unless carrying large things like pianos or in the case of a serious injury. We would all be healthier and get more things done because we would save time by running everywhere. We would all have great stamina to run incredibly far, way more than we think is possible. That's my idea. Who's with me?

the history of your mom

Awhile ago at work some of my friends were telling their favorite "your mom" lines. Recently I was listening to a book called Collapse and it talks about all these different nations and what happened to them. One of these nations hundreds of years ago had your mom lines too. Who knew it went back so far? It was during a time where people were starving and cannibalism was starting for people trying to survive. So this book said the worst insult you could say to someone at that time was "the flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth." I would say that's pretty harsh.

I am dead

I recently discovered that I am dead because I have no blood pressure. I think that is a requirement for a live body, which I am not. I was with Brandon by one of those blood pressure machines and he sat down and got his blood pressure. So I sat down to get mine and it gave me an error message and said my blood pressure was 9. So I tried again and it did the same thing, then Brandon tried again, it worked fine, then I tried again and got another 9. I gave up. A week or two later I was by the machine again and tried two more times. Still no blood pressure. I'm just not really alive.

the comment dilemma

I have so many mixed feelings about this comment number attached to each blog posted on Provo Platinum. I definitely appreciate the ease in which I can see if there is something exciting I should read about, or even more importantly, read additional comments about. But at the same time I am intimidated to write whatever random thing I want to. Now everyone knows before even opening my blog how pathetically few comments I have. I can't decide if I should:

A. use that as motivation to write more interesting and/ or controversial blogs

B. pretend like I don't know everyone is going to be looking at how many comments my blog has

C. join the army and stop blogging altogether

D. somehow learn computer programming and start my own blogging friends website (that could take years... or longer)

E. make as many comments on my own post as possible so that people think it is a really interesting blog

entertaining public

Recently I've seen some really interesting people out on the street. I wish I had pictures but you'll just have to use your imaginations. One guy I saw was riding his bike along a pretty busy street but his bike was very unique because instead of a bike seat he was somehow sitting on the seat from some cushy office chair that had the legs taken off and a bike attached underneath it. I don't know how he managed to peddle while sitting on that mammoth bike seat, but he did.

The other event was when I was driving along and I saw this guy who had long straggly hair and a beard, with bleach streaks, and a button down shirt and super short 80's cut off shorts, and tennis shoes. It wasn't so much his outfit that caught my attention though but that he was just going for a jog down the street while dribbling a basketball. okay, maybe it was the outfit. This was along another busy street. He must've been 60 years old, former basketball star, and now he just likes to go jogging with a basketball. I've never tried it, maybe it makes jogging more fun? I really don't know.

Here are some funny commercials that I'm adding links to just because they make me laugh and I hope you like them too.

Art Show

To anyone who likes to check out art the BYU BFA show is currently hanging in the HFAC. My stuff is alright, but there are some amazing oil painters that I graduated with that are definitely something to see. We are having a reception for the show on Thursday August 17th from 7-9 in the HFAC jungle. I'm not sure what the jungle is, but that's what the advertisements they gave us say. I think it's just the area where they always put the tables of punch and cookies by the stairs. So if you're not into art you can just come for the cookies and punch. It's not a huge show, but still pretty good. And if you know any art directors, feel free to invite them too. We really wouldn't mind. I promise.

matching shirt day

It seems like I may have mentioned before in a blog about how we wear matching shirts to work every Friday. I love it because matching makes me laugh. So every Friday I wear the same navy polo shirt and then I walk into work and about 90% of the co-workers sitting in rows at computers all have on their navy polo shirts too. Which I also love because I don't have to think about what to wear. Last Friday however, (when I meant to write this blog but never did) I hadn't done laundry for awhile so all I had that was clean were some black cords. Usually I avoid wearing black pants and navy shirts, not the best combination. But for matching shirt day I make special exceptions. And that's what I wore all day.

amazing discovery

So Brandon and I were finishing registering at Target the other day and we overheard this couple talking to another couple that was registering also. They asked if they could give them some advice because they just got married recently. We half way eavesdropped, we figured we already knew what they would say because everyone we know who has gotten married has told us how horrible Target's return policy is. You can only return 2 items per person per year (they mark your drivers license or something bizarre like that) and they only give you in-store credit for that specific department, like only the home decor department or just kitchen appliances, etc. Really lame. People shop at Target though, and if they happen to buy you something on your registry that you need to return it's not the best (like stores that give you cash) but still way better. So it's easy to feel obligated to register there.

However, this couple had much better information. They explained what you have to do is change the wedding date on your registry so it's after your real one. That way you can just register for the presents you received after you're married and then you can return the ones you don't need. Ingenious! So if you ever plan on getting married and would prefer not to have 43 blenders and 12 toasters, (which I guess happens whether you register or not) plan your registry wedding date wisely. And tell everyone- except Target.

those hanging

Whenever I'm driving around and I say to myself, "oh that's a cute house" it almost always has a hanging plant in front of it, or lots of them. I think hanging plants are the key to good looking apartments. I think I will become a hanging plant collector. I don't know if that is a common hobby or if I could join clubs for that, but if not maybe I'll just start some.
My sister Heather and I have had this theory for awhile. When we lived in our super super ghetto apartment Heather bought us a beautiful green, flowing, hanging plant that changed our living room probably 2 whole steps to. (from super super ghetto to just ghetto) Unfortunately she moved home and I was left to care for our hanging plant and I guess it needed water more than I would think of it. After months of not even sporadic watering it was clearly dead. I kept it for another few months, actually even more than that, hoping it would come back to life. (I still didn't water it though) So that was my first hanging plant experience. But I think I've learned some things from it ( like watering more than bi-monthly is helpful) and I'm ready to try this plant thing again.

best compliment ever?

Brandon has given me tons of nice compliments ever since we first started dating, it's something I have really appreciated. The other day, however, he wasn't quite as smooth as he normally his. We were driving up to his house to have a 4th of July BBQ with his family and we stopped by this farm place so I could see where we're going to have our reception. (It looked really cool, just a pretty park with lots of trees and ducks) Sometimes I get car sick and I mentioned that I felt a little nauseous. Brandon told me that he makes lots of girls nauseous. Then he smiled sweetly at me and told me that there's only one girl that makes him nauseous. I gave him a funny look wondering why he was telling me that I make him feel sick but he was just kept smiling like it was a good thing to say. I let him know that people usually don't like to be told that they make them sick. After we laughed for awhile at how Brandon's compliment didn't really come out the way he wanted it to he insisted that it was the nicest compliment he has ever given me and that he was sticking with it, I make him nauseous. (apparently it's suppose to be like having butterflies in your stomach and being nervous, I'm not sure really how he came up with that)

work bonuses

One of my favorite parts of new jobs are the random things you get to learn that you didn't expect to. For example, at my current graphic design job I expected to gain more proficiency with illustrator and flash, which I have. However, I had no idea I would be learning and permanently ingraining into my brain what covalent and ionic bonding is. That's what happens when you spend many many hours trying to figure out how to get those electrons to spin the way you want them to.

At other jobs I've also learned random things. At my first job I had the Dewey decimal system mostly memorized, I knew what categories were where in the library. At the pie factory I learned how far in advance pumpkin pies are made before Thanksgiving, along with how you say "boxes" in Spanish. At the school supply warehouse I learned about drug dealing and how to use a box knife with great skill. At the grocery store I was pretty proud of my ability to name the aisle for any food item you might be trying to find. That's just a few examples, but I think you get what I'm talking about.