The Tale of Two Donuts

This morning, I bought two raised donuts with chocolate frosting. One for today, one for yesterday.

Typically, I wouldn't have time to spare before work (as I usually have a negative balance of minutes in the "getting to work on time" game), but this morning was different.

1. My alarm went off in the 7's. I hate the 7's. Natalie doesn't like 7's or use 7's. But today was different.
2. I pull into the DMV lot at 7:49 AM. No one is standing in line yet because it's 9 degrees outside. That's right, 9.
3. Finally, one person ventured from their car and the line grew pretty quickly. 9 degrees is pretty cold on bare hands trying to read James Patterson's book "The Lifeguard."
4. I attempt to get a 2-month registration extension. No dice. The max is 15 days, I still need my emissions and safety inspection, a duplicate title, and I'm down 200 bucks.

GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE!

The time is now 8:13 when I exit the glorious DMV. No time to go home and crumble back into bed for a catnap. So I drive my now 15-day extended registration car over to the Albertson's and buy two of the most delicious donuts you could ever imagine. And a 1/2 gallon of milk (they didn't have skim in the little jars). I felt delightfully white trash eating a donut and chugging out of a 1/2 gallon milk carton -- I was happy for every red light I hit.

So dear friends, it's now 8:59 AM. I'm on time for work and perfectly satisfied since I started the day. Here's hoping my after-work adventures are just as exciting as the pre-work windup. Cheerio.

The Craving

All I wanted this morning was a donut. That's right. A round, raised, chocolate-frosted donut from Albertson's. Instead of a donut, here's what I got this morning:

+ 6 inches of snow on my car to scrape off. Not fun since I was only wearing ankle boots.
+ snow-packed roads and a car with only semi-decent traction.
+ 10 minutes late but still the 6th car in the lot. I should have slept in 30 more minutes.
+ Carlee brought in candy canes which I normally love. When Stephanie informed via IM that they were in fact, not donut flavored, I didn't have the heart to eat one.
+ a 25 cent Diet Pepsi (best part so far!)
+ moderately slow influx of incoming email -- hooray!
+ super staticky hair -- it must be winter!
+ a Captain Wordsmith rant (those in the office should know who I'm talkin' bout)

But no worries! Hope is not lost for the day! I'm wearing all brown, the week is half over, I'm going out of town this weekend, attending a Christmas Gala with only strangers, and it's Turkey-freaking-Wednesday*! Whoop!


And this picture is too freaking cute not to share:

*Turkey Wednesday - Subway's special $2.49 sub of the day is Turkey. We go every week.

Cheat to Win

I've been training for the 6k Turkey Trot since late August. Thanksgiving came and went last week and I've been disconnected from the blogging world. No internet at home and little motivation at work (induced by a head cold the size ofKendall's first tumor) has slowed my blogging updates considerably. But here is the rundown of the race.

10 AM Thursday morning was incredibly overcast and windy. Ideal situation for a run huh? Actually, not so bad. The joggers stayed together for the first half mile or so and then we began to spread out. Dad and I stayed together the remainder of the race. He pushed me along during the middle of the race and then I pulled him near the end. It was a good balance. I had a burst of energy at the end and said "Come on Dad, let's sprint!." All well and good, but I was already two strides in front of him. I sandbagged my own dad at the finish! Tacky... but I apologized later. Mallory finished just minutes behind us, then the Kendall/Rachel duo and a bit later the walkers Mom/Grandpa. I finished two minutes behind my goal time but was still pretty happy with my time. In spite of a) never running outside, b) always running on a treadmill, c) always running on level surface I thought I did pretty well.

Nat and Mal. The two who started it all.

Fatties no more.

We're so happy we finished!

Long Weekend

You know you're in trouble when you get to work at 1:00 PM (because you almost died of an influenza strand unseen since 1917) the Monday after a four day holiday weekend and the most pressing email in your inbox is this:

Oh wow. The masses are angry. Or at least one of the mass is angry. I don't even know where to start on the weekend I just had. It was absolutely fantastic -- I can't think of a single thing that would have made it better. In the next few days I'll attempt to post about the big events of the last week. Until then, put those pitchforks away and exercise your mobbing tactics on someone else -- this girl has updated.

Family Photo Preview

Don't I have a beautiful family?

The New Equation

I'm already sad/bummed I have to be at work today, Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. What's slightly redeeming however, is the fact that half the office is out--allowing everyone un/lucky enough to be here the chance to catch up and screw around. It's an interesting balance.

All that aside, I was equally sad/bummed to run through the links on my page of the blogs I check and see that no one, not one!, of my favorite blog reads have updated in the last few days. The soonest update was Stephanie on Monday; but most people are sitting at a 4-6 day update lag. Oh for sad. Everyone was moving and grooving for so long in the blogging world, but we've grown stagnant. In my mind (and in conjunction with other previous offline conversation) I came up with the new equational hypothesis:

If blogging is the new MySpace, and family holidays are the the new time-suckers, then time is getting sucked into family holidays, and blogging suffers.

if(blogging=newMySpace)and(familyHoldiays=newTimeSucker)then(familyHolidays-newTimeSucker)=noTimeToBlog

fate is telling me something

Just 38 hours til the race and I'm sicker than I've been in years. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times--I'm not destined to be a runner.

Amen.

Take THAT Lance!

Proof my Dad used to be hip. Talk about a trend setter -- shaggy hair twenty-five years before it was cool. I bet Lance never had hair this cool.


(The Lance reference is a shout-out to all the strangers that think my Dad looks just like Lance Armstrong. And surprisingly, he really does.)

It's Time to Choose Sides

Anyone who watched The Office last night was super thrilled to see the Jim/Pam reunion. The general feeling was definitely bittersweet. How excited am I that Jim is back in Scranton? Stoked. How much do I love what Jenna Fischer does with Pam? Infinitesimal. How enamored am I with Karen, who I should be predispositioned to hate? Quite a bit.

The writers of The Office have done an incredible job of setting up this love triangle that's sure to create a cross-seasonal arc of epic proportion.



(I changed the video from my previous post--I liked this one better.)

It's time now to choose sides. Are you Team Pam or Team Karen? (And who will buy me one of these for my birthday?)

As You Consider...

Dear Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney:

As you finalize your decision in declaring your candidacy for the Presidency, we came up with two win-win options for potential running mates:





1. Condoleezza Rice - Those who won't vote for you based on your Mormon faith probably wouldn't vote for a woman, or an African-American. Those who vote based on demographics will rule one of the two of you out anyway. You may, however, pick up the feminist or the black vote.


2. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch - If they're gonna vote for one Mormon, they may as well vote for two Mormons.

Lessons from Last Night

1. Mullets that are 2+ feet long are even less excusable than your standard fare mullet--a mullet that long doesn't just appear over night, it takes a lot of forethought and planning. You don't wake up one day and just say, "Hey, I think I'll have a 2+ foot long mullet."

2. The waiter at Chili's who looks like my 5th-grade, clarinet-playing music teacher really does work every night.

3. Accidentally kicking over an open vile of "clean linen" air freshener on top of an open heat vent will in fact cause your room to fill with fumes and scent so strongly that, fearing for your life, you have to open your window (35 degrees outside mind you) for ventilation, and then, still able to smell the clean linen through your linens, decide to give the couch a go for a few hours.

4. Sleeping with the heat on in our house, will in fact wake you up and force you to shed the socks, sweatshirt, and beanie you went to sleep with. In hunt of cooler sleeping conditions, it's okay to return to slightly-less smelly, better-ventilated room and fall into fitful slumber for the remaining two hours of the night.

5. Staying up, chit-chatting until 2am isn't as easy as it used to be.

6. Yesterday's makeup will always still be yesterday's makeup.

7. Above all else, clean linen smelling clothes isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. For worst thing possible, See #1.

Only the two best characters on TV, their finest moments, and a classic song by a great artist.

It's a little ridiculous how obsessed I am with these two tv characters. They're not real Nat! Not real. But I can't help that I love them so much.

Sweet Potato

Today is Monday and it has flown! I don't have much to say, but my weekend was really great. It included, a stellar concert, roller-skating, shop-a-thon, the Blue Plate, the gym a few times, a cleaner room, rocking the party at Scum, really funny conversation with our home teachers over dinner, and some great Del Taco. All-in-all, a fantastic weekend.

And, I have some excited prospects on the horizon and I feel pretty confident in my quasi-unforeseen future. Excitement in the future!

And, this picture on my favorite celebrity gossip site made me giggle. Anne Hathaway (Devil Wears Prada, Princess Diaries) looks stunningly beautiful next to Valentino (the designer) who apparently desired to be roughly the same color as a sweet potato.

(Photo isn't really black. Blogger is being a pill. If you're really interested, click the box and it will display the image. Cheers.)

special weekend thanks

...to whoever toilet papered our house on Friday night. It was a nice flashback to high school and a good chance to meet the neighbor as I scrubbed shaving cream off her car.

If you get the urge to repeat, please just deposit the six rolls you used on the front porch (because our house is always in limited supply) and ten dollars in cash money to pay the angry neighbor to wash her car.

Deal or no deal?

2 Showers, 2 Hours

So, from on a scale of 1 to crazy, tell me where I fall.

After having a delightful, disgustingly-full dinner at the Texas with Tiffany, Stephanie, and Amanda after work yesterday I needed to check a few things off my personal "To Do" list. On the list included getting my bangs cut and going to the gym. Due to timing issues (and fullness "I'm going to throw up if I even think about working out" issues), I had to get my hair cut before the gym.

Having not showered yesterday, I realized I needed to wash my hair before I proved to my hairdresser Candace (at SuperCuts, don't think I'm one of those) that I'm a complete scrub who never bathes. The wait list was 30 minutes anyway, so I had time to take a quick shower.

Shower. Check.
Bangs cut. Check.
Work out. Check.
Shower. Check.

That's right. Two showers in two hours. Are you getting the gist of the crazy scale yet? Would my crazy points increase if I admitted I almost had plans to shower again this morning before work? (The sole reason being to show off my new bangs.) No worries though, I needed the extra sleep-in time since I was awake half the night trying to block out the sound of my trasher neighbors screaming at each other.

But no worries. I'll shower after the gym this afternoon and before the Ben Lee concert I'm attending tonight. Uh oh. Do you think I'll need to shower after that too?

MOck as You Will...

Mock me as you will (and I already know which of you are going to comment on this post), but I'm still a little bummed about Reese and Ryan.

Aren't they just so cute? Though I was never the hugest fan of Ryan (he's not exactly warm and cuddly), I just can't imagine Reese with anyone else. Thoughts on who she should pursue next?

Big Winner & Sore Loser

I love me some Faith Hill. Love(d) her and hubby. Saw them in concert and had a great time. But, I may have to reevaluate my love and adoration.

Check out this clip from last night's Country Music Awards. Hill obviously thought she had it in the bag:



Hill's camp is adamant that the whole thing was a joke. Thoughts either way?

Either way, all is not lost. I love Carrie Underwood even more than Faith. Been a fan since Idol... bought her album when it came out... which is more than I can say for Hill.

boom!

I ran another fiver at the gym tonight. Boom!

A Huge News Day!

The Breaking News hardly stopped all day!

7:09 - Having new medication to help me sleep better, I awaken on my own in the 7's -- this is the first time in as many months.

10:01 - Having secured 30 tickets to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, I have secured my title as "She Who Can Score Tickets to Anything on Temple Square." I can put my Grandma's mind at ease and start gearing up for the scramble to get tickets to the MoTab's Christmas concert.

11:48 - Having seen a mouse in our area, the department decides it's a good time to lunch. Of course said mouse ran and hid in my cube. That's the last place it was spotted.

1:33 - Having returned from lunch, but still slightly worried about said mouse (who was in fact moving slowly due to rat poisoning it picked up in the suite next door), the mouse is spotted and captured with the aid of my recycling box and a wrapping paper cardboard roll left over from last Christmas. Said poisoned rat is walked across the street and ceremoniously placed beneath a pine tree where it will live out it's very short remainder of existence.

1:34 - Having received an email from Mel, I come to learn that Britney is divorcing K.Fed. Shocker. Is nothing sacred?!

4:58 - Having consumed nearly the rest of my Chilis To-Go bag of tortilla chips, I remember that my stomach isn't larger than said bag of chips and I might , and for the first time in recorded history, actually bust a gut.

5:43 - Having realized that I'm out of BIG NEWS moments, and having realized I am officially out of ways to add "Having" to the beginning of my BIG NEWS moments, I quickly and concisely end this post.

The List

Yesterday in church we met in a surprise combined meeting for 15 minutes. (In this case surprise could be a misleading word, because you might be anticipating an unexpected fabulous announcement like church is getting downsized to two hours or snacks will be provided in all block meetings, but surprise in this case simply means unexpected.)

The stake has decided to force everyone to attend the ward in whose boundaries they reside... meaning everyone who's illegally attending our ward is getting the boot. While this process is sad (as our ward will be losing all the "old-timers" and 25 percent of our attending body), the best part about this whole announcement was the way they went about announcing who got the boot.

During the meeting, a list of 64 names was posted on the bulletin board. These individuals didn't make the ward team and are being cut.

Is it morbid to find this slightly funny?

TGIF

"Have a great weekend!," the goth angel standing on a ladder in the Manhattan temple taking down Halloween lights (Christmas lights-in costume) said.

Another Miracle!

My previous Starburst post was the most commented entry ever. Y'all sure love yourself some confectioners quizzes. So... I have another guessimate game for you.

I just opened four two-pack of Starbursts (that's eight people). It was quite the score! Actually, it was a fabulous random pull... A full pack of Starburst is prize to whomever can guess correctly the eight Starburst color-combo I pulled.

A few hints:
1. None of the "Old Maid" color were pulled.
2. My favorite color was NOT the majority pulled.
3. There were twice as many of the popular color pulled as any other.

Good luck!
(In the time it took me to write this post, all eight are gone...)

Go-Kart? Go Drive!

What is adults fascination with go-karts? Really, I just don't understand.

I went on a blind date in January where the guy (the one in red shorts and the yellow dress shirt, remember that fiasco?) forked out $75 for us to drive these mini-cars around and around and around (100 laps worth of around). What a wash.

Why oh why oh why? Man, aren't go-karts just mini-cars? What's the allure when you're a full adult with a license? Why not just drive your car around? Ironically they go faster than go-karts and have better turning radii. People. Get a clue.

A Starburst Miracle!

Today is the day after Halloween and there's still a ton of candy floating around this office. The bowl of individually wrapped Starburst and Skittles is the one I simply can't resist. (The Skittles no longer exist as I've eaten them all.) So I keep going back to the Starburst bowl. Again, and again, and again.

I just had a Starburst miracle. I grabbed two packages of two-count Starburst (confusing I know, but think the grand total equaled four) and discovered all four were my favorite color. A miracle!

How Well Do You Know Nat
1. What color were all four of my Starburst?
2. What combination of two is considered the Starburst "Old Maid"?