RALTs

I know one of the many perks of hitching your wagon to someone else's is the joy of registering and receiving gifts. Obviously, I haven't experienced that paramount moment yet; the wandering of the aisles with your paramour, wielding a scanner and picking china and a toilet seat cover. To be honest, I'm not too distraught about the registering that is. At this point in my life (26.75), I have a pretty comprehensive set of Real Adult Life Tools (RALTs) gathered in the last few years as a working woman.

A queen-size bed purchased my second day in the City? Check. A big flat screen TV courtesy of stimulating the economy? Check. A mickey mouse waffle iron, griddle, and food processor? Check. An industrial-sized Kitchenaid mixer purchased with Biggest Loser winnings? Check. Smaller ticket items culled from Target, IKEA, and the ever classy Christmas Tree Shops and AJ Wright? Check. I don't want for a whole lot folks, I recognize this. (But I'm alone you married people, don't get too envious.)

What has been missing in my life, and from our kitchen, is a decent knife. One. Decent. Knife. Sure, we have no less than eight non-stick cookie sheets, but trying to find a knife sharp enough to open a letter, let alone cut a watermelon? An epic tale of adventure and disappointment.

Cut to last night. There's a giant package waiting for me when I get home from dinner with the lovely Katie. Who doesn't love getting mail that's not a special credit card offer or Pier One Kids(?!) catalog? I have no idea what the special contents of this package could possibly contain.

Folks, this is what true love looks like:
As a "thank you" for my help with the wedding, Julie sent me a set of knives proportionally nicer than anything else I own. And a book celebrating what was until her wedding the greatest day of our lives. Um, who does that? Sending brilliantly thoughtful and expensive gifts two weeks after her own wedding? Amazing.

So. I've got knives to add to my RALT collection. Tonight, I shall try to find something to cut. And I should probably clarify that the cutting will not include me or any other personages.

Save a house and husband, I'm hard pressed to think of any RALTs not in my collection. Is that the new secular measure of a full and satisfying single life? Is it time for me to move on to the next step? And if/when it gets time for me to shack up with someone and register, what do you think I should register for? I'm thinking a lifetime supply of Skittles...

g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s

Having my photographer-extraordinaire sister Alaina in Boston was a boon on many levels. True, she came to shoot the destination nuptials of Julie&Greg, but some of us mostly me really benefited from her artful photographic skill.

Several days before the wedding we gathered for a pre-wedding Boston open house/family meet-n-greet dinner. Surrounded by the very best of my Boston family gathered together to celebrate such a happy occasion--I'm in love with this night.

Then, I saw the photos Alaina had been taking throughout the evening. Sure there are tons of the bride&groom and their families, but she'd also *caught quite a few shots that so beautifully reflect both that night and my overall feelings for this place I call home and the people who flesh out my East Coast family.

I think my eight, fourteen, and eighteen year old self would be pretty darn thrilled with how glamorous my life is now.

*The only staged photo is the upper-right "Saved by the Bell" or "Real World: 1996" class photo. Yes, we were trying to look cheesy, and mission accomplished!

Is it bad that...

• ... sometimes I'm excited to go to bed because there's a cold Coke waiting for me in the fridge when I wake up?
• ... I only started washing my face on a routine basis [read: ever] when I discovered wet wipes for adults pre-moistened face wash cloths?
• ... I print a receipt at the ATM even though I obsessively check my bank accounts online daily?
• ... last week at the grocery store, I caught a man rummaging through the trash next to the Redbox for receipts, and then gathering the high dollar items from those receipts and taking them to the service desk for cash and I didn't do anything except tell Linda?
• ... I check the mail and if there's nothing good or for me, I just leave it in the box?
• ... my internet super-sleuthing skills both amaze and terrify me?
• ... two and a half years later I still don't care?

But really Internet, most of the things on this list are pretty bad, there's no getting around it. But they're guiltily pleasurable enough to post, yah? Are there any here you're shocked by? Any you'd add to your own list?

Old dogs try new tricks

Tonight, I tried something new. Several new things actually. First, I decided that it's time to stop judging people who do things differently than I do (after all, no two people are not on fire), so I gave a few new things a go. Journey with me.

Primero. I just don't think I'm a fan of the forehead band. I want to be, because every time I try one on, I think it's kind of fun; but it just makes no sense. Granted, very little of fashion makes sense--and I count myself somewhat of a fashion risk-taker--but I have a hard time getting around the forehead band. To be fair some are better than others, but I felt kind of silly wearing this to Costco.
I am, however, pleased with the way I did my hair around the band. Put your hair in a loose pony-knob. The elastic should be on top of the knob. Roll it up and over the band and back down. Pin strays if necessary. I let some of my bangs loose, but could have rolled them up and over the band the other direction as well (in fact, did it when I got home and like it just as much). The good news in all of this is you can use the stretchy forehead bands to create the same look without the band crossing your forehead; just push it farther back. Super easy, people will compliment. Guaranteed.

Segundo. Tercero. Quatero. I wore brown flip-flops with a black ensemble. I shopped for frozen food at Costco. I got the hot dog combo instead of pizza. How do you people function? This is not a world I understand.

What other new things did I try this evening? Let's go ahead and add listening to commercials on the radio, not darting around in traffic, and deciding not to eat my standard box of Satan's Candies Good'nPlenties. How do you people function? This is not a world I understand.

The new me was a fun experiment in walking in someone else's shoes for awhile. And I may not have walked a mile--and there may have only been one set of footprints when the going got tough--but all in all, I'm glad for the old me. Maybe I will go get some Satan's Candies Good'nPlenties afterall.

It's not a tumor.

To those of you whom I a) haven't seen since Thursday, b) talked to on the phone since Thursday, or c) read my Twitter stream since Thursday, I've been baby-knock, knock, knocking on death's door.

Thursday morning I woke in Portland with a clogged head. Ears, nose, throat--the trifecta of summer head cold delight.

My bi-coastal flight on Friday stressed my ears; I was truly worried my eardrums were going to explode. Unable to pop them upon landing, my hearing was underwater for the next two days.

Saturday I was half-way into my swimming suit before that idea was tossed to sea. Back into bed where I spent the remainder of the day. May I present this travesty of a tweet:

Having only slept 4 hours the night before Sunday, I still managed to drag myself out of bed and to church for Sacrament Meeting. I sang two verses of a rather rousing opening hymn before the book was too heavy to hold up any longer. No more singing, no more book holding.

I'd had high hopes for Monday. Sadly, the cough, the running face, and the bass voice still wanted to hang around.

Okay, so Monday night, I hardly slept a wink. In fact, it was 6:45 am Tuesday morning before I even fell asleep. I just wasn't sleepy. Sleep wouldn't, couldn't come. I showered at 2:15am, took pills at 3:30am, and wrote an email to work at 5:06am.

Why? Well, a) I wasn't sleepy. And b) I was letting my overtaxed, overtired, overwhelmed brain create anxiety. You see, there's a symptom I haven't told you about. The hand tremors. Only at night, my right hand shakes. Sometimes, it spasms more than others, but enough that it's noticeable, and it freaked me out. That, paired with the control I've lost in my left hand:

Suddenly, everything made sense. I probably had a BRAIN TUMOR. Sleep? A possibility of the past as my mind raced in a hundred splintered directions. The only way I got the 90 minutes of sleep I did was to tell myself I'd see the doctor first first first thing in the morning.

Long story short. It's not a tumor. (Probably.) Hand tremors are a common side effect of antihistamines. My viral summer cold is working its way out the door. I'm not contagious, so it's okay for me to start coughing in your mouths again. Mostly, I can't wait until the man voice is gone. Wait, I take it back. I can't wait until the cankersores and swollen tastebuds are gone. (When it rains, it pours.)

Folks, this is what happens when you let an overtired mind wander and you watch too many medical shows on television.

But, the left still might have the palsy. Stay tuned.

2009 going out in style

Alternate title: Be Careful What You Wish For

You may have noticed my new blog layout. My friend Long Time Coming finally met my friend Procrastination. How do you do good sir.

The new template has a more robust archiving feature (see right sidebar, lower quadrant), and each of my blogging year lists how many posts have been written in each respective year. Considering 2006 was only 3/5ths of a year, 2009 is far and away the weakest link.

Doesn't someone want to bet that I can't at least surpass 2008's blog total? That's 113 blogs (plus this one).

Wait. That's kind of insane. Just barely more than three months until we bid farewell to the aughts. That's at the very least, 1 blog a day, R18. (Wasn't math so much easier before you had to decimal point?) That's a lot of content. But still, I kind of like a challenge.

So, someone dare me to do it. And then, I'll let you, the faithful readers, vote on each post (note the fancy 'lil checkable boxes at the end? you don't even have to log in!) to see if it's worthy of a counting. Sound like fun? Oye, sounds stressful.

Someone pull the trigger and I'll say good-bye to my truly stress-free life and become a slave to the machine.