Lessons learned from Mom; or "Oh where is my hairbrush?"

When I was 14-ish I lost a contact in my bedroom. Oh yes. It was THAT exciting. I was taking them out and I dropped it somewhere between my eyeball and case. I called for my mom and she came to my rescue, scouring every inch of my being to make sure it wasn't attached to some inconspicuous piece of clothing that I couldn't see or reach. After about 10 minutes, I gave up, came to terms with the fact that I was going to have to do some strategic planning for the next couple of months, and left. About 20 minutes later, my mom called for me. I found her in my bedroom pointing at a very shriveled piece of polymer on my carpet. Yup. She'd found the contact. Amazingly enough...I soaked it, cleaned it, and it was just fine. No loss whatsoever. I learned a lot from her that night.
Last night I had a very similar experience. Sort of. I was in the kitchen finishing up the dishes when roommate called for me, requesting a second pair of eyes. She had dropped a contact. I went for a head lamp hoping it would cause a glimmer. No such luck. We looked for a while and she left with a similar thought to mine in the previous paragraph. I said the silent prayer "Heavenly Father. There is absolutely NO GOOD reason for me to not find this contact. Help?" It worked. I found it. In her hairbrush. It was that simple. Simple prayer. Simple answer.

I should just tweet.

I really don't know much about Twitter other than it seems to be a way to get snippets of thought out into the real world. Anymore, my thought process is more along the lines of tweets rather than blogs, but I refuse to succomb to the vanity that drives one to document their every move to an inane cyber world. Therefore, I blog laundry lists of partially completed thoughts as seen and lived through my eyes (no where near 20/20).

-Due to physiological genius on my part, I managed to roll my ankle last Friday. I spent quite a bit of quality time with the Costco-sized bag of frozen mixed berries and developed a minor dependence on NSAIDs over the weekend. Last night I looked at my foot and actually said, "Huh. I think I'm actually disappointed by the bruising on my foot. I feel like it should be much cooler than it really is."

-Speaking of anatomy, I've been learning about art. Apparantly the head is standard unit of measurment when drawing to keep the body proportionate. I tried it out and discovered that I have no torso. I mean, I have a torso, but it is disproportionate to the rest of my body. My legs and head match each other, but the torso...it's just a little guy.

Nostalgia.

I know it's really late and I should be sleeping (because 555 comes really early), but I just had one of those highly nostalgic experiences that make me want to write something down. I'll be brief. A friend of mine just got a mission call to Chile. It makes me really happy. I'm so excited for her. She came over to chat for a while tonight and we talked about it. And life. And all those other great things. After she left, I had a realization about today. 7 years ago today I went a field trip with a 5th grade class. It was awesome. We went to a corn maze. And then it rained on us. I came home and showered afterward only to get a phone call telling me that my mission call had arrived. I wasn't expecting it for at least another week because of General Conference. As I've been thinking about it tonight, I realized that once the call came, time flew quickly and I found myself in the MTC, learning Spanish, and counting down my days to Chile. My life hasn't been the same since and I'm grateful for it.

I'd love to kiss you, but I just washed my hair.

My roommate frequently tells me how awesome my hair is. Her hair is very straight. Mine is...not so much. My normal description of my hair usually includes the words "poodle" or "chia pet" however over the weekend I decided that my hair has more of the attitude of an "independent nation". Roommate told me that I should buy it some fireworks...for independence day. Right. With the amount of hair product that makes my hair curly, I don't know that fireworks would be necessary to see flames in the sky. My morning battle with the hair has now been re-defined as peace talks or negotiations. Still-no guarantees as to who will actually win. Some days the battle is worth winning; other days its not worth fighting. In the meantime, there are generally enough bobby pins in my hair to construct a small lightening rod. (Find me in the next lightening storm...you'll have a great time. I'm sure.) In the meantime, I'm going to have to work on my international relations and negotiation skills.

What this really means is...my hair isn't quite long enough for a pony tail.

Once Upon a Time...

I had a conversation with my cousin. She's definitely a connoisseur of the arts. She's always been someone to look up to when it came to anything theatrical or musical or even written. In this previously mentioned conversation we discussed poetry. She was talking about writing poetry and getting through writer's block. The gist of her argument was "write. if you think you're a bad writer, write anyway. write about things that make you happy, sad, excited, depressed. just write. it won't come out if you don't write it down." I've kind of reached that point with blogging. I don't know what to write about anymore so I've just put it off. I don't like that. I need to keep writing to stimulate intellect. Working on it. In the meantime, here's the traditional list of things that I could/should write about but don't really have much more to say about it.

*I woke up this morning with a feeling of perfect contentment. I LOVE THAT FEELING. I was perfectly comfortable. The temperature wasn't too hot or cold. I woke up on my own when I was ready to wake up. I think my general outlook on life would be much more optimistic if that happened regularly. I should probably work on that...

*This weekend is the first weekend in the past six weeks that I have actually been home for the entire weekend. Can I tell you? It has been absolutely delightful. I've been totally productive and non-productive all at the same time. It rained and I wore my rain boots. I ate Chilean food for independence day. I read in the hammock because I could. It's starting to feel like fall. It has been lovely...

*This still sounds really foreign to me, but I've taken up running. For real. I'm sure that I've said it in the past, but it's different now. Sometimes I tell myself things to convince myself that they are true. Running is one of them. I think it's real now. My roommate and I go running 3-4 times a week and she even makes me run sprints. (I'm doing better with sprints now. I can walk that same day now.) I've never thought of myself as a "pacer", but in our little running duo I'm the pacer. She plans the route and I set the pace. That's how it goes and it has been working surprisingly well. I'm even setting my sights on a 12k or even possibly a half marathon for next year. We'll see if my weird cravings for nightly runs continue through the winter.

Really though...I need to keep writing. My conclusions were weak all through school. They'll never get better if I don't keep writing them. Consider this one written with PLENTY of room for improvement.
The End.

Remember when...

Remember when we were little and used to lay down on the hot pavement after we'd been swimming or played in the sprinklers? I had a similar, however completely different experience today. I laid on the concrete slab out back after my run tonight to cool off. Strangely enough...it worked.

On other news fronts...
1) I've run at least 2 miles TWICE this week. (We're getting to the 'epic' point here.)
2) I slept better last weekend on a camping trip than I have in ages.
3) I got a wasp bite on my nose on said camping trip.
4) I've become quite the star gazer.
5) I washed my phone with my sheets last week. (Yet again...epic.)

domesticity...

One of the radiology centers that we refer patients to for MRIs brought us about three pounds of strawberries this week. We picked at them for a few days and I decided to take the initiative and bring them home for jam because there is no way that they would survive the weekend. That means? Oh yes. I spent my morning making freezer jam. 4 pints of it. I may turn into my mother yet.