My take on the Olympics

I don't own a TV, and 95% of the time I'm perfectly happy with my television-less life. Being a person who generally lacks self control, I would probably piddle several hours away watching various MTV reality shows and killing brain cells; therefore I'm glad to eliminate the temptation. The other 5% of the time during which I desperately wish I had television access is usually during sporting events, political elections/speeches/debates, and General Conference. The last two weeks have been an excellent example of my sincere yearning for TV. Not that I've had any free time to watch the Olympics, but pretty much every night I've dreamt about going home, turning on the tube and doing homework whilst watching speed skating and attractive Scandinavian skiers in the background. Thanks to my dear brother and sister-in-law, I was fortunate enough to watch 2 nights of Olympics in the comfort of their home. During these 4 or 5 cumulative hours, I learned heaps of information which I'd like to share here:

-Bob Costas has been the same age for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl, he looked 40, Now that I am 25, he is still 40. Further, Bob is probably the most beloved person in the country. If you don't like him, you're most likely un-American. He is incredibly knowledgeable (or at least convincingly so) about every existing sport, nay, every topic.

-News-flash: Athletes are generally good-looking people and have great bodies (with the exception of bob-sledders). Who would have thought that people who work out for a living would be hot??

-Although the Cold War has been over for 2 decades, I think Americans still have some serious angst for the Russians. Any chance we have to beat them, is considered a particularly sweet victory. Even more importantly, we'll seize any chance we have to openly criticize them, especially for wearing ridiculous ice skating costumes, or not abiding by the rules.

-I realize that I am an extra sentimental person, but the Olympics serve me as yet another opportunity to get emotional. I'm proud to say I only got teary-eyed a handful of times while listening to the "Star-Spangled Banner" and watching various human-interest pieces and athlete bios.

-Maybe the reason we love the Winter Olympics so much is because we'd like to think we could excel in some of these more obscure sports if only we applied ourselves...

-I knew very little about Canada; apparently it is the second geographically largest country in the world and Queen Elizabeth is the head of state. Thanks NBC and Wikipedia.

-According to my brother, Matt, Ice-Dancing gold medalist Scott Moir looks just like Justin from the Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place."

-Great Britain's national anthem, "God Save the Queen," is the same tune as "My Country Tis of Thee"?!!

-Shout out to the 801 for being home to SO MANY Olympic Athletes. Apparently Salt Lake is a great place to train. Greatest snow on earth, elevation, Olympic venues, mountains...

-Thanks to Mrs. Miller's 6th grade world social studies class, I know that the Greeks invented the Olympics back in 700 BC, however I now have some serious suspicions that the American government has been feeding the IOC millions of dollars to keep the Games going. Why would I suspect such a thing? The Olympics serve as yet another reason for the US to arrogantly show the world how much better we are than everyone else by keeping close tallies on medal counts.

-Shaun White's hair is glorious and so is he.

-Sad that the US didn't win a medal in women's figure skating, especially given my personal rich history with the sport. In the fifth grade, I was Nancy Kerrigan for Halloween and my best friend was Tonya Harding. Enough said.

-Even though we go four years without caring one iota about such sports as curling, ice-dancing, and skeleton, for 2 short weeks, we are transformed into experts, allowed to criticize athletes for the slightest mishap; all while sitting lazily on our couches.

-As for the ski divas: Lindsey Vonn wears too much make-up, and Julia Mancuso is way cooler anyways because she dated Steven Nyman.

-Viewers are incredibly flighty and are just as fleeting as the Olympic coverage shown on TV. One week we are in love with mogul skiers and the next, we worship a new 16-year-old figure skating darling. The media absolutely controls our obsessions with these athletes!

-I wonder at what age I will stop fantasizing about winning a gold medal. I can't count how many times I have role-played standing on the podium, nor through how many sports I've dreamt about accomplishing this feat. I still have hope for 2014...

In summation: America IS the best, and I LOVED watching the Olympics. Despite my cynicism, I cannot wait for the Summer Games in 2 years.

my friend, the model

Today is a special day, February 25th; Analisa is another year older. In fact, this is the year in which I can say we've been friends for half our lives. Way to go ALX, we made it!

I cannot think of a better way to celebrate her birth than by sharing a sprinkling of her fantastic (and extensive) photo collection and allow you all to become a bit more acquainted with her. Did you know...

She loves unicorns?

She loves animals?

She loves nature?

She loves this guy?

Happy Birthday!

Matt

Happy Birthday to this guy (the one on the right)!

a Sunday miracle

I know I write about food quite a bit on this blog, but only because it warrants special attention in my life. Many years ago, when I was a proud subscriber to "Seventeen" magazine, I read a quote by Tyra Banks that read, "I eat to live, I don't live to eat." Apparently she was trying to reveal her big diet secrets and convey how she kept her figure as a supermodel. Most 15-year-old girls would have read into this article and thereby developed major body image issues. I however, rather than starving myself, found great sorrow in this philosophy and somewhat pitied poor Tyra. I live my life to the exact opposite of her mantra: I live to eat. Perhaps this attitude explains why I’ve never graced the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and why I am not the host of “America's Next Top Model” (*side note: this show might be my biggest guilty pleasure in life, I can and will watch it for hours), but I’ve found myself to be an above-average happy person living this way. That being said, I’d like to tell you a little story.

Being a church-goin gal, I’ve sat through many Sunday School and Relief Society lessons in my days. Some of the teachers are good, some not so good, and some are excellent: they bring treats. After sitting through my first two meetings today and listening to my grumbly tummy, I contemplated where I might be able to find some food in the building. After visiting the kitchen and finding nothing, I was left only to hope for a delicious treat in Relief Society. Upon entering the room, I looked for any clues that might hint at possible goodies. Major indicators of RS treats generally include:

-kitchen towels covering small to medium sized humps

-distinct smells (my closest friends will tell you I have the nose of a blood-hound)

-elaborate centerpiece or table displays (usually someone who goes all out, will go ALL OUT, if you know what I mean)

-object lessons (typically the food detracts from, rather than reinforcing, the implied message since most of the partakers develop single-tracked mind aimed solely at obtaining the baked good. As the plate is passed around, people -i.e. ME- are far more concerned with choosing the largest cookie than with the lesson itself. Regardless, I still warmly welcome food/object lessons.

-Holiday Sundays (Christmas, Valentines, etc…)

-teacher of the day: most wards have a token (or two if you’re lucky) treat-maker, and the one Sunday out of the month on which they teach cannot and should not be missed.

After surveying the area, I realized there was an extensive table display with a few Reese’s PB cups here and there. There was also a side table mysteriously covered with a jacket. My initial thought was, “well, something’s better than nothing. I only have one more hour to go until I can go home and eat.” Little did I know that I was about to witness the greatest Relief Society miracle of all time. Two minutes into our lesson on free agency, the teacher uncovered the side table to reveal the following:

-gummy Bears

-M&M’s

-homemade blueberry muffins

-donuts

-Reese’s peanut butter cups

-brownies

-carrot sticks

-snap peas

-cherry tomatos

-peanut M&M’s

-sour gummy worms

-chocolate chip muffins

-peanut butter bars

I thought I was dreaming. Seriously. The added bonus was that there were large quantities of everything listed AND our Relief Society is rather small. Never in my life has such a spread of deliciousness been made available to me during church. This is a day that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Here's the take-home lesson kids: go to all of your church meetings. You will be blessed.

Updates

I returned late Monday night from a wonderful weekend trip to St. George and found the sugar cookies sitting right where I'd left them. I ate two. They were delicious.

In case you were wondering about the mouse... apparently the Rodent Kings (I capitalize this because I'd like to think that there really is a bureaucracy for mice/rats somewhere out there, plus it's probably the name of some indie band I don't know about yet) have granted my wish and produced neither a dead mouse, nor another sighting of my furry little friend. Voile! Problem solved, without becoming an intentional mammal killer and having my PETA membership revoked.

Several weeks ago (after blogging about it) I tried the Beefy 5-layer burrito from TacoBell. It was disgusting and awesome.

Heidizzle Smizzle (I cleverly disguised her name so that online hackers will not know her first and last monikers) gave in to my threatening, blackmail-type post and has finally been leaving comments on my blog. Dear friends and family, don't think that you can get away with those shenanigans; I will pull the same dirty trick on you. My embarrassing photo archives are vast.

And lastly, since this is kind of a boring post, let's include some (non-embarrassing) pretty pictures. I've had SERIOUS river fever lately.

I miss this place:

and this place:

and heck, even this place (kind of):

Yeah, I know they're all on the Colorado River, but they represent pretty different places and experiences. Bonus points if you can identify all three!

My Greatest Challenge

This morning I woke up to the following scene in my kitchen:

Apparently my roommate had a cookie-baking extravaganza last night and left these delicious morsels to tempt me. I would normally indulge and not think twice, however, this same roommate had left a pan of brownies out earlier in the week, telling me that I was "welcome to have some." She just recently moved in and is obviously not savvy to my eating capabilities; the pan was gone in a day and half, and I personally accounted for 85% of the damage done to said brownies. I felt rather guilty.

SO. You can imagine my moral dilemma upon finding this delightful assortment of baked goods today, without receiving an open invitation to partake. I examined the plate of decorated sugar cookies for a good five minutes, carefully trying to determine which could be extracted from the plate without being noticed.

Has she counted the cookies?

Is she particularly attached to a certain color?

Just how delicious ARE they?

Will the concentric circles on the plate be askew if I take one?

These questions, and many more, raced through my voracious brain as I grasped desperately to devise a plot clever enough for me to savor a single (or perhaps two) cookie(s). After realizing that further time spent scheming was going to make me late to work, I put my tail between my legs, admitted defeat, and left the house EXTREMELY unsatisfied.

Returning home several hours later I found the same cookies, which had some how become even more delicious-looking in my absence. Through the miracles of frosting and sweets, their enticement had increased at an exponential rate, defying all logic. Again I scrutinized the plates of goodies, but gave up after only a few minutes. I approached this problem from every angle imaginable, but sadly it just did not seem possible.

My roommate is still not home, there is still no offer of delicious sugar or oatmeal raisin cookies, and my tummy remains devoid and denied of treats: this may be the hardest thing I've ever had to [not] do.

P.S. The photo of the Prophet was not planted; however its placement, combined with the location of the cookies, does seem very ironic...

after-church photo shoot

A few Sundays ago I dragged my roommate (and her

camera- sadly mine is out of commission right now)

out to take unas fotos of Mt. Timpanogos. She obliged

and I was happy, especially since it was a particularly

pretty day. Thanks Pearl, for use of your digital device!

if you only saw one thing during the super bowl...

This was by far the highlight from multiple hours of television watched on Sunday. If anyone knows where I can download this song, please notify me ASAP. It is quite possibly my favorite new tune. This and the Outback Steakhouse jingles. Seriously.

red shoes, not red sox.

I have a strange obsession with Minneapolis/St. Paul. My entire life (or at least the past 3 years) I've had a burning desire to visit the Twin Cities in order to do the following:

1) Attend a live taping of my absolute favorite program, "A Prairie Home Companion," starring Garrison Keillor. It is performed weekly at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul.

2) Go to a Minnesota Twins game. The purpose of this would be two fold as my quest to visit every Major League Ballpark would be that much closer to completion and also because the Twins are arguably my favorite AL team (RIP O-Dog, good riddance Thome).

3) Visit my favorite Nelsons (that's NELSONS not NIELSONS).

Last week, one third of this goal was (partially) realized when I viewed a special live broadcast of "Prairie Home" shown in select theaters, nationwide. I sat alone in bliss watching and listening to GK and the crew up on the big screen. I'm pretty sure I was the only attendee under the age of 55, but I can assure you that it was the perfect end to an otherwise hellish week of school. Some may feel that the price was a little steep, but hey, we were supporting public radio and after all, it may be the closest I get to St. Paul for a while. Twenty-two dollars well spent.

skipop

If you go skiing on an epic powder/bluebird day, your experience will only be further enhanced when you come home and find what your roommate has purchased for only $1.25 from the local gas station (sadly, not a Mav): a huge bag of the butteriest (yes) popcorn imaginable. Here is a simple equation to demonstrate the kind of joy you can expect:

+

=

Dizzle of the most High

Upon viewing some old photos, I came across these gems and decided they must be shared with the world (and my blog readers). Please note her impeccable fashion sense (and that she's donning a doyers hat) in both shots. This is also an attempt to shame Heidi into making a comment on my blog; something she has yet to do although I KNOW she's reading...