Just Throw a Brick

*Inspiring post alert* Good news, friends! Gail Halvorsen is doing a candy drop on Friday! For those of you who don't know who the amazing Gail Halvorsen is,  click on this!  Go down to the "Impressions of a Berlin Airlift Pilot" and read it. I promise, it'll make you a better person. The first time I heard the name Gail Halvorsen, I was in my first month of working at BYU Broadcasting as a closed-captioner. We did a show back then called "Inspiring Lives", and my first one I ever got to do was about "The Berlin Candy Bomber", or Gail Halvorsen. I was putting in some extra hours later one afternoon and when I opened the video, I thought it would just be a meh job, not as bad as a Food Nanny but not as good as a men's volleyball game. And man. I was totally wrong. Out of all the things I've captioned on BYUtv and KBYU over the years, this is hands-down the best, most inspiring show I've ever captioned. Unfortunately, I can't find...

Guys. I have exactly 4300 pageviews right now. That means that either 4300 people viewed my blog once, or one person viewed it 4300 times. Or, far more likely, a mixture between the two. But people. This is big! Coming from the girl who kept her blog a complete secret three years ago, this is the big time. Granted, some people get these kinds of views on their blog every day, but I'm working up! I have six views today already and I haven't even done anything! My Pitch Perfect post got over 40 views, that was big. I know it was just C making people read my writing but hey, 43 views is 43 views and I'll take it. And remember my friends... Always choose to be offended ;) Always! Because that's the mature thing to do. In other news, I just started Greg Proops' book, "The Smartest Book in the World". (Remember, Greg Proops? Of Whose Line is it Anyway? ) No? Well, sad for you. He's awesome, and so far his book is hilarious. More on that next Wednesday. ...

So this week I finished up Prisoner of Light and Fog  and it was an adventure. Thanks, Goodreads... It follows the story of the fictitious Gretchen Muller, an almost-adopted niece of Hitler. In their city of Munich, it is a well-known story that her father, Klaus Muller, died saving the Fuhrer's life during a march to overtake the government. Her father jumped in front of the hail of bullets, saving Hitler's life, and because of that, he treats the Muller family well, helping her brother Reinhard rise through the ranks of the budding Nazi party and treating her like a special niece. However, she meets a Jewish reporter, Daniel Cohen, who has new facts about the night her father was killed, and they paint a very different picture of that night than the one everyone talks about. She then joins in an unlikely partnership with Daniel to find the truth about her father and the night he was murdered. First off, I really enjoyed Gretchen's dedication to her education. When...

Do you ever just have a day that ends and you're like "You know what? I would have been perfectly okay if this day had never happened." Yeah, had one of those last week. And as is practice among people that are adults when this happens, I'm trying to think of good things that have happened lately, as opposed to dwelling on the meh. Unfortunately, adult mode is not working well today, but we'll try our hardest. Good Thing #1: C no longer has to pay an extra underage fee for renting cars! We can rent cars at the advertised price now. Yay...! (working on the excitement level here) Good Thing #2: I remembered to grab a strawberry PopTart on my way out the door today. Good Thing #3: We have cookies and cream ice cream sitting at home for me when I get back tonight. Also a few mini cheesecakes are left from C's birthday so I'll just eat one of those and be happy. Also, raspberries, the best fruit of all. Good Thing #4: My allergies have calmed down a lot...

So me and C went to a movie this week. But not just any movie. This was a one-night-only special event. And it was a gift for C, so it was even more special. What was this incredibly special event? The 2015 DCI Tour Premiere of Awesomeness! (I added the "of awesomeness" part, but it was awesome...Just not in the way it was intended.) What is DCI? It stands for Drum Core International , an organization for people to join that just couldn't get enough of marching band in high school and feel a need to join a "professional" one, touring the country performing against each other, for reasons. (And before you get all snippity, I know it's spelled "corps", but I'm a phonetic reader, so...it's core.) And disclaimer, no matter how many band things I watch, they all start to look the same after ten minutes, no matter the quality of the band, which I also can't tell. Are they good? Are they bad? I have no idea. The only way I can tell how...

Well, I finished Rules of Civility  on Monday, and I ended up liking it well enough. Thanks for the pic, Goodreads... In the end, Katey talks about how one decision can affect a lifetime, and how these decisions she made from 1938-1940 really defined her and made her who she is. While Tinker is a running theme, Eve kind of disappears after the first half of the book. While at first I was annoyed because she was easily the most entertaining character I've read about in awhile, at the end she talks about how you meet these people, they come in and then they leave and you're left with the memories. In that way, the whole missing Eve thing really worked. And since Eve is just one of those people that makes friends wherever she goes and is always moving on (we see this from her rejection of Tinker), it fits that she's only in the book part of the time. This book really was a snapshot of life - the happiness, the sadness, the anxiety of a new job, the excitement of new, you...

It's funny how people are so into their anniversaries. I know coworkers that take the day off and don't even do anything. Like, what the heck? The same people do that for their birthdays too. I'm like, we're all adults here, right? Do we need to take our birthdays and anniversaries off work? Is that a thing? I'm not sure. I'd much rather be at work earning money that bumming around all day at my apartment while C rips up sod. I don't know. I'm a freak. I guess if C was home too and we went and did something fun that'd be different, maybe? It's also weird that a bunch of people knew about it. I was like um, who told you? Did I, by mistake? I usually try to keep that stuff under wraps since nobody needs to know. It's me and C's holiday, people. Not the whole world's. Heck, half my family didn't even know. Holla for secret holidays! In fact, I was in college before I finally learned the exact day of my parent's anniversary, ...

(Did anyone else have the song "One Week" from Barenaked Ladies pop into their head as they read that title? No? Just me? Cool.) Ahem. It's been one year since this happened... (This was going to be a gushy lovey post about how much I love C, but there are honestly so many of those boring posts on so many boring blogs out there about how everyone is so grateful for their husband, and he's the hottest in the world, and no one else compares, blah blah blah. Are all those things true about C? Of course. Is he the best man in the world. Indubitably. Do I need to write an essay about how great he is? I could, but why?) In short, I'll just say this. This first year has been so hard. I had no idea how hard it would be. It has been hard to move out on our own, no roommates to talk to, to go to a ward where I didn't know anyone and pretend like everything was okay. It was hard to not have a job, to learn to cook regularly, to get a job, to be happy at the...

Maybe I'll start doing themed days on the blog, would that be weird? Wednesday I could talk about books I'm reading? Yay/nay? Well you're going to get it today anyway, because I need to talk about Bernadette.  And I'm not good at reviewing books, I just write my honest-to-goodness thoughts, so don't expect anything super deep, logical, or moving. *spoilers ahead* Okay, people. What the HECK was with that ending? I understand it's a satire about technology and Microsoft and that type of thing, plus it's in Seattle so you get the typical Seattle weirdo vibe, but I guess satire isn't really my thing. Maybe I'm not smart enough for it? I'm just a sucker for good stories. Where Bernadette  went meh for me was around the last little bit, where they go to Antarctica to find her. I loved how she escaped from the intervention with Aubrey, that was unexpected, just what I like to read. But the rest of it, and especially how it all comes down to an unse...

Well, if you haven't noticed, there's been a few changes around here. I had one of those CHANGE ALL THE THINGS urges this week, so I went with a new color scheme and hope to get an original graphic for the background soon, so I don't have to have to use someone else's design. I added the tab bar, so now you can see my favorite posts, and a lame introduction to me and C, because I hate introductions. They always feel tacky to me, but all my favorite blogs use them, so I figured I'd better put something up there. I'll keep tweaking this blog a bit, so if you come back and it looks weird, don't worry, it probably won't stay that way...? In other news, C is busy pulling up sod, and I'm busy putting up birthday decorations for my coworker. She does everybody else's birthday decorations, so I went all out. There's a streamer curtain, paper confetti and candy everywhere, and a large gnome on her desk. I didn't get the gnome but someone told me...

So now that all my trip posts are done, it's back to actually writing for this thing on a regular basis. The break has been nice but a lot has happened. Here's a list! Books read: 1.5 -  The Fault in Our Stars  and I'm almost done with Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I've really been liking Bernadette , it's been intriguing and hard to put down from start to finish. Definitely recommend, especially if you like books that aren't written in the "traditional" sense. This book is kind of a scrapbook of dialogue, emails, memos, letters, etc, but Maria Semple actually pulls it off. Usually those books annoy me, but this one doesn't. I'm hooked. And I'm actually at the part of the book where we're all like yeah! Where did you go, Bernadette??? But seriously, where? We're all wondering here. Also, is this not the coolest book cover ever? I don't know. It's just awesome. Thanks for the pic, GoodReads...  On the other hand,...

In conclusion, I tried cheesesteaks, Dunkin Donuts, and deep-dish pizza for the first time. I walked around three new cities (WC, Philadelphia, and Chicago). I took public transportation (ew). I rode four planes. I survived a potential rat uprising. I did not get blown away. I got hissed at by an evil cockroach army. I stood a foot away from a wallaby. It didn’t kick me. I saw big buildings. I got sprayed by a fountain. I saw the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Michigan. I booked hotel rooms and flights all by myself. I smiled at a stranger’s baby. I visited two different temples. I did not get pooped on or attacked by a pigeon flock. I had an amazing Caesar salad. Me and C still like each other. The end. 

The next day we visited a Dunkin Baskin Donut, aka a Dunkin Donuts and a Baskin Robbins in the same building. I guess it makes sense, since most people want coffee in the morning and ice cream later in the day. Unless you’re me, and you want ice cream all the time. I got a chocolate chip muffin and it was totally encrusted in sugar. I tried to scrape some of it off (I’m not a huge plain sugar fan) but some of it was just anchored on there. It was still good though. Then we drove out to Millennial Park, home of the famous Chicago Bean. That thing is weird. You have to see it personally to have it make sense, but it’s weirdly cool. Since the park is adjacent to the Chicago Institute of Art, I guess all the stuff in the park used to be an exhibit and then they just left it up since it was so popular with the public. There are fountains with moving faces, boardwalks, and a little garden right in the middle of it. You have to donate like five million dollars and your first and second-b...

After our little jaunt around Pennsylvania, on to Chicago we went! After a foggy landing (couldn’t see the ground until we were on it,) we found a Sonic, it was after 8 pm so duh, half-price shakes. Let this be known to all – their peanut butter cookie shakes are divine. It’s like someone took like 50 Nutter Butters and smashed them into tiny pieces and put them into a cup. Ahhhhhhh. We took a tour of the school interested in C and met with a few different people and made some great contacts. Teresita, the secretary in the math department, was awesome. She’s one of those people that once you start talking to her, you feel like you’ve known each other your whole lives. She was a great contact to make, and she said she’d help us out with anything we needed if we ended up moving out there. She was awesome. We also met with a friendly math professor. It was adorably obvious that he was a math teacher that doesn’t deal much with people, but he did his awkward best to make us feel welco...

Next, we ventured to Philadelphia, to tour around and see the sights with C’s friend K. What are the sights? First, we saw the Philadelphia temple, which is in the process of being built. It’s right in the middle of the city (I think?) and it’ll be really nice when it’s finished. C wanted to eat a cheesesteak from a famous place (Pat’s) that required lots of walking, but the sandwich was good. My favorite part was the bread, I don’t know where that stuff came from or how they make it, but I want to find them and make their bread forever. However, to reach the magical sandwich land, we had to take a subway and public transportation is not my friend. The end. Also, the subways in Philadelphia are not like the subways in While You Were Sleeping. They’re below ground, where the sewer smell is the worst. They’re also magically about 10 degrees cooler than the outside temperature, a fact that mystifies me. And, when the Great Rat Uprising takes place, they will definitely crawl...