Guess Who Knows The D, E, and A Chords On a Guitar

Are you guessing?  Did you get it?  I'll give you a hint...this girl!

After cruising around in my awesome black Toyota Camry (rental remember) I realized that I have been wanting to learn the guitar for a couple of months.  I started to wonder....hmm....where could I find a guitar to start learning?  A pawn shop, ksl.com, a friend or neighbor that has a guitar hanging around that they aren't using?  I guess all of the above.  The only problem would be that I have no clue what to even look for in a guitar.  Aren't they all some kind of wood with 5 strings?  Probably not.  I'm pretty certain that like all other instruments out there different kinds mean different sounds.

Thus enters the guitar store.  I opened its doors and was transported into a world of picks, strings, bridges, and wood.  The man behind the counter was kind enough to talk me through the guitars and help me come to the conclusion that it would be best for me to rent a guitar for 3 months and then if all has gone well I can start looking into which guitar would suit me best.

Walking out with my rented guitar, black case, and an assortment of picks I started out on my great guitar adventure.

Lazy Days

Sometimes you need lazy days.  Days were you do nothing of extreme importance.  I am greatful for todays lazy day.  There were only 2 things that I did to be productive.  I finally was able to take my car in to be fixed and I spent some wonderful time with some great friends/neighbors/family.

A cool thing about today was that my rental I am now driving was a free upgrade because they didn't have a comparable car to my own at the rental store.  It also has California government plates so I feel very important driving it.

My brother made the neighbors and myself dinner tonight which was nice.  He is quite the catch and someday some girl is going to come along and realize that.

Ice Castles

Today was filled with ice castles, cold, rearranging, and books.  As I type my arms are chilled by the cold metal touching my skin on my computer keyboard.  The night air seeps through the thin window of my bedroom and reminds me of the time of year.  In its chilling affect it can still bring beauty.

Words To Live By

Its possible that I can have my dream.

Only you can do the things that you can do.

Don't make your fear more powerful than your dream.

When you want something as bad as you want to breath that is when you find a way.

Success comes through failures.

Behind every fear is the person you want to be.

Fear is self imposed.

When you face a fear you realize it is not that big.

Don't be afraid to fail.  Be willing to fail.

Success does not define us.  We define ourselves.

When you change the way you look at things.  The things you look at change.

- References unknown to me

Men Can Be Cat Ladies Too

One thing (or I guess I can say three things) that my brother inherited when he started house sitting my parents home while they are away, were my mothers three cats.  Whatt, Pyewacket, and Winnie.  As he likes to call them fatty, the chosen one, and dumb dumb.  As far as I can tell he only puts up with their antics and overall annoyingness because he knows how much our mother loves them and would be heartbroken if anything happened to them.  The funny thing is that now he is a young single man living in a household of female cats.  It doesn't get much better than that.

To ease his feelings towards his new situation for Christmas he received a great guide, "Men Can Be Cat Ladies Too".  Within its depths it gives him all the knowledge that he needs to be a "well adjusted" cat man.  It includes question and answer sections, worksheets, and even pickup lines using your cat.  I just hope that it helps.

(I'm secretly laughing long and hard over all of this)

New Socks

Nothing is better than new socks.  Crisp clean socks with no holes in them.  The whiteness makes me feel like I am starting new and fresh myself.  Thank you mom!

Adventures With Cars And Snow

The first adventure reminds me that I am watched over always.  I am only still here by the grace of God and I am not ashamed to admit it.

As I drove up a snowy, black canyon Thursday I narrowly missed becoming a participant in a huge wreck.

The roads were dark and windy.  I only knew where I was on the road because I could see the bright tale lights ahead of me to show me the way.  The problem arose when the break lights of the car in front of me started to flash red on and off.  Now, I am very familiar with the concept that when you are driving in the snow you should never just push in your brakes and expect to stop because you will start sliding like nothing else.  You should always pump your breaks.  This is what the car in front of me did.  Little did I know that he wasn't just pumping his breaks to slow down, he was pumping his breaks to come to a complete stop.  This surprised me because as I started to slow down because I had noticed his flashing break lights I wasn't slowing down enough to come to a complete stop.  It suddenly stuck me that car in front of me was stopped.  The realization came to me that I would need to move into the other lane to avoid slamming into the back of the now stopped car in front of me.  I moved over to the next lane and I learned why the car had slowed down and stopped.  Sparks started to show up on the road and a car a little further up from the vehicle I was initially following and had now avoided suddenly slammed into yet another vehicle that had slid and smashed into the side barrier on the road.  With driving skills I do not possess and a presence of mind to use them that I am not practiced enough to have at my beck and call I turned back into the lane I had just vacated.  Twisting my steering wheel so that my tires were going one way while my car moved another way because of the snow, I was able to avoid 1) the car in front of me, 2) the cars that were now participants in an accident, and 3) the barrier on the other side of the road.

I'm not sure I will ever fully grasp how I managed to avoid all the dangers that surrounded me that night, but I fully know that I was watched over.

The second adventure took me 8 men to help me escape.

After spending an enjoyable Thursday night with my parents it was time to leave and continue on in my chosen plans for the weekend.  The only problem was that my parents (missionaries) are currently living in a cabin for the winter and the cabin in which they are staying resides down a little hill covered in snow.  Can you guess what happened?  If you are a deft thinker you probably have already come up with what occured to me.  I got stuck.  My cute little care couldn't for the life of it get up that small hill covered in snow.

I attempted the assent a couple of times on my own before admitting defeat.  I had to call for backup.  My mother went and recruited my father to direct me and help me make it up the hill.  Too bad I do not the possess the driving skills of my father.   He directed me over and over again on which direction to turn my wheel, how much speed I needed to have, and how much of a running start I would my car would need to have.  It would all have been great if I hadn't of backed up too far over in one direction and stuck myself good in the snow.  We then had to start all of the directing and tire spinning all over again with my father pushing on different sides of my car to get unstuck....needless to say, it didn't work.

In came more reinforcements.  My mother after observing our efforts realized that we would need more help and her call was answered by the rest of the male senior missionaries on the mountain.  Over the hill they came like the Elders of Israel to help.  All of them took a side and with a little effort I was unstuck.  My father then directed me out of the vehicle in which he took my spot and shamelessly showed me how it was done.  Backing up to a good distance, he pushed down on the gas petal and gunned it up the hill.  If only I had his talent.  I guess I just need a couple more years of driving experience or I just need to always have 8 male senior missionaries available to me when I get stuck....one of the two.

The third and final adventure was just dumb.

While spending the weekend with my wonderful grandparents we woke up on Saturday morning with a fresh blanket of about 6 inches of snow.  Out of the kindness of his heart a sweet neighbor came by and started to dig out my grandparents driveway with his four wheeler.  It only made sense that I should move my car so that the entire driveway could be cleared.

I got into my car and drove it around the block so that I could come back and park it back on the driveway.  As I pulled up to my grandparents house again I noticed that it wasn't quite done and that there were a couple of spots that I could help dig out before I moved my car back onto the driveway, so I jumped out of my car and started to help.  Here comes the kicker, I left my keys in my car and my car "smartly" locked itself.  Upon realizing this I knew that I was in a pickle.  The snow plows were starting to come around and my extra key was in my apartment an entire state away.  What now?

After unsuccessfully asking 2 separate neighbors for help, one of them a young man (who was no help), and trying to break into my vehicle myself (what are we teaching our youth if we cant break into our own cars with a coat hanger), and my grandfather trying to help the conclusion was drawn that a lock smith would have to be called.  He arrived and 10 seconds later my car was open.  I wish I made as much money as he does for as little work.

Birds In The Winco

I received quite a surprise today as I accompanied my grandmother and mother to the grocery store today.  As we deftly made our way through the crowded produce isles I heard a sound I would never have expected to hear while grocery shopping in the confines of an indoor store.....the high pitched churping of birds.  Looking up I saw them.  Three birds jumping and chirping happly up in the rafters.  What a funny sight to see.  Evidently these birds fly in when delivery trucks back up to the store and the large delivery doors are opened.

I didn't mind shary my grocery store with a few unexpected guests.  I could see how others might object to them because of "health reasons", but it made a nice change to the normal hectic chore we were in the midst of completing.

Teddy's Story Joint

The are 2 things that I absolutely love.  Reading and laughing.  I stumbled across this video while wasting time and it combined the two wonderfully so of course I was hooked.  It also makes you think so that's a bonus.

The Look Of Singleness

Like most others during this time of year I spent much of my Saturday Christmas shopping to find the perfect gifts for those on my list.  As I walked out of one particular store an older Hispanic woman caught my attention.  Through broken English, hand gestures, and repeated words for my sake of understanding she made her desire clear that she would like me to drive her across the busy center street nearby.  Since there were so many cars on the road she felt it would be safer for someone to drive her than to walk.

Once I finally knew what I could do to help her out I was more than happy to give her a lift the short distance to the other side of the road.

As we drove taking a few U-turns and side streets to make it across the car cluttered road she continued to talk and ask me questions in her broken English.  Most of them were the basics like if I had grown up in Utah or if I was Christmas shopping, but one of them struck me.  She asked if I was single and when I assured her that I was she gave me a knowing look and said that she could tell because my face looked single.  The way I presented my face let her know that I was not married.  I wondered over her words and thought deeply about what in my face would let her know that I didn't have anyone special in my life.  My normal thought would be that single girls try harder to look more ready in public by doing their hair and wearing make-up to look more attractive, but this Saturday I had done neither.  I wore my hair in a ponytail and had not put make-up on.  So what could it be about my face that would have told her that I was single?

While I thought on this a realization hit me and I thought about my sister.  She has always been beautiful, but there was something that happened to her when she met her husband and was truly and wholly loved by him.  She glowed and continues to glow to the point where she is gorgeous.  Her face and eyes exude happiness and acceptance.  I think that this was the look that the woman knew about when she saw my face.  She knew what a face looks like when they are loved by someone.

How The Other Half Lives

I spent the afternoon waking up and down Park City's Main Street window shopping and people watching.  I was very much just window shopping because who could afford the things on sale!  Below are just a few of the examples of things I found for sale there.  The first was from an oil painting.  The second and third were from photographs of the narrows in Zions National Park I believe.  The last is from a mink fur coat.

As I was taking the pictures of the cost of the photographs (I didn't want to take pictures of the actual items because I was pretty sure I would have been reprimanded for doing so) the store associate asked if I was sending the price to my husband.  I didn't want to burst her bubble by 1) letting her know I wasn't married and 2) that there was no way I would ever buy something so expensive (I was taking the picture from utter sticker shock) so I played along and informed her, "that there were only so many suggestions I could give my husband for Christmas gifts".  It did kind of make me feel good that I could be mistaken for someone that was married and had a husband rich enough to buy me a $72000.00 photograph.

The store associate from the fur coat store also came up and asked if she could help me as I took a picture of the price of the fur coat, but I think she only did so because I was in the very back of the store and she was probably afraid that I was PETA or something and was going to mess up the coat.

$70,000.00 Oil Painting

$72,000.00 Photograph

$32,000.00 Photograph

$23,995.00 Mink Coat
Do you think the $5.00 off of $24,000.00
really helps people feel they are getting a
bargain?

The Reason For Accident Reports

Yah, I did it.  You know how a couple of weeks ago I was in a car accident where a man backed up into my car at a stop light?  Well after opening up a claim with his insurance company they came back to me and said that the man was no longer certain if "he had backed up into us or if we had rear-ended him".  AHHHH!  This stressed me out completely because if they took his word for it (as they probably would because they wouldn't want to pay) I wouldn't be able to get my car fixed soon because I would then have to pay for the repairs and my insurance premium would shoot up.  

This is where I am very grateful that my brother told me to call the police at the scene and have an accident report written up.  The only reason that I now do not need to stress out is because I ordered the accident report online, e-mailed it to the insurance company, and pointed out to them where it was written on that accident report that the man who backed into me actually backed into me.  They couldn't refute the evidence and accepted liability.

I have now learned my lesson.  I wasn't going to call the police in the first place because the guy that hit us seemed so decent at the scene.  He pulled right over, admitted fault, and said his insurance would pay for the repairs on my car.  If my brother had not called the police I wouldn't have a leg to stand on at this time and I would be stuck with repairing my car on my own.  Thank you bro.  You just took a lot of stress out of my life.

Men and Women

At the store the other day I had a great example of the difference between men and women.  As I was perusing the cough medicine isle trying to find the alka seltzer cold and cough medicine a women came and started to stare adamantly at the selection of deodorants.  She would pick each deodorant out one and a time, read the back, and smell it to see if it had a pleasing aroma.  This went of for a very long time (I know this because the whole time I was trying to find the alka seltzer.....remember I am in a cold induced haze currently so it probably took me much longer than it should have).  In the middle of her selection process a man calmly walked up the isle, in 2 seconds grabbed a deodorant, and walked back out of the isle.  He didn't need to take any time if finding exactly what he wanted.  Of course there are a couple of reasons for this.  Either he just grabbed what he always uses or maybe he is a guy and it just didn't matter.  All he needed was some deodorant so he found a kind that was for men and was good with it.  What a difference there was between these two processes.

Still Sick

I've still got this awesome cold that keeps getting worse.

All I Want For Christmas

Haggard Face

Its official.  I now have my first winter cold.  The cough, the sore throat, and the achy body.  That is what I get for living with 2 roommates who are both sick.  Now I get the enjoyable task of working and talking on the phone training people while trying to not sound sick all the while feeling like death.  How can such small bugs cause so much havoc to the human body?  At least the heat is finally on in my apartment and I don't have to fight through an illness while shivering.  Is it starve a fever and stuff a could or stuff a fever and starve a cold? Wait!  I have both.  What do you do then? This is when I wish I was still 10 years old and could curl up to my mom and have her make me feel all better.

A Glimpse Into My Afternoon

I sat in front of a fireplace and it felt like time stood still.  I started out reading, but in glancing up at the flames I became mesmerized.  The fire licked and crackled around the logs feeding its ever burning glow.  The flames became characters in my book fighting the every continuous battle waging on.

My Purple Backpack And I

I have gone on many adventures and there has always a friend that journeys with me.  My purple (used to be blue) backpack has been on most if not all of my travels.  Through my urban treks and miscellaneous wanderings it has carried everything from my keys to the book that currently has my full attention.  It continues to fade and wear out as I sling it over my shoulder while walking out the door and I will be heartbroken when I finally need to retire it, but until that point it will continue to be the perfect companion.