cloudNINE Winter 2011 Video!!!

Because I still can't figure out how to put movies on my blog, here's the link to the video I made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V03tD9AQXvI

Yeah, I even made a Youtube account to go with it! Enjoy! (this is mainly for you, Ashley!)

One Gone and One Coming

After a cuh-razy week of packing, my roommate moved out Wednesday. She's officially in Texas now. It's kind of sad she's gone. There is waaaay less stuff in our apartment now. I mean, it feels so empty. I kinda like it, to be honest! But still, I miss Natalie.

This morning, however, I got a phone call from my old roommate and friend who said she's moving back up here next Wednesday! I'm super excited! It's only been just over a month since I last saw her, but I already miss her. She actually graduated, but she's coming back up here for my graduation!! Well... I think there may be other reasons too, but I like to say it's due to me. :)

Moose

My roommate made moose for us for dinner tonight. She brought it back with her after visiting her family in Alaska a few weeks ago (along with some fresh fish, too). It was ground moose that she made into sloppy joes.

Well, I came home from class (which has another story in and of itself) and grabbed myself some of her moose sloppy joes and started to eat. As I was about halfway done, I asked Stanzie if she was the one who killed the moose. I was slightly afraid of her answer, because I find it disgusting to eat something you've killed yourself (yes, I have done that before with a chicken). When she answered no, I sighed with relief. Then she made it worse by saying, "No, we didn't kill it. It was road kill."

I dropped my fork. I just ate road kill! Ewwwwww! I was torn between laughter and utter disgust as I imagined eating that deer that I hit with my car almost four years ago and went through all the "West Virginians eat road kill" jokes I've told all my life.

Stanzie went on. "Yeah, when someone hits a moose, they call the police, and the police call the charity organizations! They send someone out to harvest the moose for meat and then they give most of the moose to charity and the harvesters get to keep some. We kept the leg!"

Then she proceeded to tell me, in detail, how it hangs up in their back shack and dries out and... well... and then I stopped listening because my gag reflexes were kicking in.

Earlier, I was just proud of myself for getting out and eating a new food, moose! But now? Now I just ate road kill!

Excuse me while I puke, and Stanzie continues laughing at me and telling me I'm ridiculous.

Feet and Roommate Pics

Kudos if you know which one's mine! :)



Starting with the one in the 1 o'clock position, going clockwise, I will label them A, B (with the yellow toe), C, D, E, and F.

This might help you out a bit.





If we did Christmas cards... I'd pick these!










Pictures were all taken by Natalie. I only edited them.

My Room

I went to see the movie Unknown with my friend Kelly a few nights ago. For the record, it's extremely intense, but I really liked it a lot. I think it was the most intense movie I've ever seen in terms of action, scariness, thinking (okay, Inception required a lot of thinking and confusion, but too much to the point that I just thought it was stupid and boring), and explosions and car chases. Oh, and the totally unexpected ending that I never, in a million years, would have guessed. My only negative for the movie is that some of the car chase scenes were just too long and got kind of boring for a bit. Yeah, I get bored easily.

Anyway, the movie was good. I really like Liam Neeson I decided. And the world moved on.

I got home and Ashley and Stanzie were waiting for me (they didn't want to see the movie because they're boring). They spent their evening being "productive" and learning a new skill. How to make these little beauties...



A little while ago Stanz and I "decorated" Ashley's room similarly with the pink ribbon (also the same ribbon Natalie used to try and lock me in my room...). This pink ribbon's been through a lot!

Below is Ashley and Stanzie on my bed.



Also I'm pretty sure Stanz would want you to be aware that those are no ordinary fish. They're killer salmon. Not sure why she thought I'd find that comforting while I sleep in their midst but yeah... killer salmon.



Ashley's eating chocolate in that last one. They didn't just stop at my bed, though.



Pretty sure that ball of pink is the leftovers from Ashley's room that Stanz and I decorated about a week or so earlier.




Yeah, nice job. Too bad we only get to live with it for a week because of white glove. This week is finals week! ACK! I should probably be studying...




But going through pictures is just so much fun!

Ashley and I made cake mix brownies and then decided adding peanut butter would be delicious. It was.

Playing With Light

It's hard to spell your name backwards...



We made oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies. Best. Cookies. Ever! Thanks to Ashley for the recipe! Pretty sure I'm gonna puke, though, after eating so many...







We tried to outline each other with the light. This was fun...



But you can see what a difference changing the batteries in the flashlight made!





We live in Cloud 9. NOT Apartment 9. Especially if Natalie's around.



Smiley face with the giant nose... Ashley said it looked like an upside down question mark.



The Thinker. Or at least an attempt...



I tried to do Mickey Mouse. Because, you know, I'm me. It turned out to more resemble Pooh Bear, though. Actually, it doesn't really resemble anything really well...




Me in my fail of a "gangsta" pose.



This is what Ashley and I would look like if we were one person. Kinda creepy, I know.

On Saving Money

When I worked in Disney World one of my roommates, Natalie, liked to be frugal. One of the things she did to save money was, instead of buying expensive tupperware, she would keep old plastic sour cream or cream cheese containers.

One morning, she made herself a lovely salad for lunch before work. She put in some carrots and lettuce and tomato and all kinds of delicious greens. She then put it in the fridge as she took her shower and finished getting ready for work. I watched as she happily went to the fridge, pulled out her salad in her giant sour cream container and chuckled to myself as I thought about other people at work might think she was eating nothing but sour cream for lunch. However, her idea was a smart one to save money.

She came home from work that night, though. Upset with me for not noticing and not telling her (sarcastically of course). Turns out she had two identical looking sour cream containers in the fridge. One with her lunch and the other with, surprise! sour cream. She took a container of sour cream with her to work for lunch. Gross!

Apparently, to make things better, she had taken it to work and a coworker did make fun of her for bringing the sour cream with her. She opened the container to prove she wasn't just eating sour cream for lunch. But failed. I love Natalie!

Rainy Day With No Roomies

Of course, as Idaho weather is horrible and unpredictable I'm not even surprised that the canoe trip was canceled. Again.

In happier news, Breyers ice cream is on sale for $2.88 at Broulims. I bought some last night because my roommates wanted smoothies. But I'm not really a smoothie lover so I made a milkshake. I inherited a smoothie maker from my previous roommate. I figured we should use it at least once.

Our apartment has officially dwindled to half it's usual capacity and I'm left with my own room! And an entire day to relax! I was supposed to have an exam open today, but my teacher still hasn't opened it. I'm hoping she forgot and I won't have to do it this weekend! Yeah, that is a real possibility. She forgets things a lot.

I'm kinda freaking out about classes because of the five classes I have only received one grade back in three of them (two exams and a project) and nothing back from the other two. And we're halfway through the semester. Seriously, I have literally no clue how I'm going to do this semester.

Anyway, hope your days go great! It's wet and cold and slushy and mucky outside with all gray skies and disgusting mud. It's one of those days where I think I'll make soup and curl up in my nice warm blankets and play with my new ITouch read. It's gonna be a good day now. I can tell. :)

***Oh, and so far every single person I've asked has responded that a vacuum tube is a tube on a vacuum and nothing more, however some asked if there were dirty connotations***

Long Weekend

It's a three day weekend and I have hardly any plans. One of my roommates is going to IF to be with her mom and my other roommate is going to Provo to hang out with her family.

My friend, Ashley and I have been trying to do this canoeing thing since last summer and finally this weekend will hopefully be it. It was canceled other times due to Idaho's crappy weather (99% of the time Idaho weather is crappy. This is why I will absolutely never ever live here ever never never ever ever.). We got an email today saying it may be canceled tomorrow since it's been rainy and gray all day today, but they're going to try and meet anyway. They're gonna make us wear wet suits because it's supposed to be cold. Ah well, I'll just cross my fingers!

That's my only plan for the weekend, though. Unless you count that on Monday my friend and I are going to watch a movie that's required for my Sociology class.

Just gonna be me and Kiara all weekend. Unless of course Kiara decides to go home (she lives only two hours away). Then I get the apartment to myself.

I'm ready for a nice, relaxing weekend with lots of sleep and down time. (Except for the exam I have to take tomorrow and the two huge upcoming midterm projects and my mountain of Spanish homework)

Personal Triumphs

I have a confession. I'm super competitive. Not many people know or believe this about me. I'm not competitive in the loud, obnoxious, "If you win I'll hate you forever" type of way. I'm competitive in the "I have to beat you or else I can't feel good about myself" kind of way. I'm usually able to, in general, keep quiet about my little obsession with having to be better than everybody else (which, by the way, I'm totally not).

Pretty sure I've been this way my whole life. At the bookstore we had to sell discount cards. If I hadn't sold more discount cards than anyone else, I was going nuts inside my brain. I also tried to make sure I had more sales than anyone else. Not that my bosses (or anyone for that matter) saw or cared in the least about that, but I sure did.

In school I always secretly compare my grades with everyone else. Anytime I get the chance to figure out another students grades I always grasp at it to make sure that I'm doing better, or at least as well as said student. If not, then I get all depressed and work super hard until I make that happen. I force myself to try and be in the top ranges. I don't necessarily have to be the best (cuz that's totally a lost cause), but I have to just be better than usual.

Last winter my roommate Ashley worked really hard and got a 4.0 GPA at the end of the semester with 15 credits. I love Ashley to death. She's very smart and a great roommate. But I just felt like I had to beat her. Secretly, of course. I never told her how much it bothered me. But that's one of the reasons I took 20 credits last semester and did so well. I had to just prove to myself I could do it.

It's a bad obsession overall. But in some ways it's good because I push myself so hard to be better, and I actually do become better.

Today at the gym I was really excited that I finally made my goal of running 4 miles in 50 minutes. I ended up going over 4.5 miles in one hour. I was really really proud of this little triumph of mine. Until I looked at the guy on the treadmill beside me who was on mile 6 in 45 minutes, running without even wheezing. There's no way I'll ever be able to do that.

Then I went over to the weights. I was really proud of myself for being able to finally do this one arm machine at 40 pounds. I felt like this was a super successful workout. Personal triumph. As I got up, feeling the burn in my arms, I noticed the guy sitting down right behind me. He changed it to 110 pounds. Again, no chance I could ever beat that it seems. Fail.

For me, going to the gym and improving on my exercising is a great personal triumph. I have to be careful not to let other people who are way more in shape than I am ruin that for me. It's nice to go to the gym with my old roommate Ashley because we're both about the same level and we both push each other to do a better workout. Well, at least she helps me, I don't know if she has that weird competitive thing or not.

It made everything better when I came home and my roommate, who also works out, told me it looked like I lost weight. I'm not sure if she was just trying to be nice or not, but that made it all totally worth it.

Now I just have to stop comparing myself to people all the time. That can be my next triumph.

My Old Roomie Got Married

Oi! So much to say!

I'm sore. I've been exercising more and more lately and today and yesterday was particularly hard. Especially since now I have an ITouch. I get so bored running and doing the elliptical at the gym it's nice to finally have cool music to listen to!

Oh yeah, I got an ITouch!!! As much as I despise Apple and am risking being disowned by my family for giving them money, I have to say Microsoft has nothing close to an ITouch (that I know of). This little device is incredible, plus I got a fantastic deal on it! The only negative is the back is a little scratched up, but it came with a free case so you can't even tell.

My old roommate Kassie got married a few weeks ago and her reception was on Saturday in Blackfoot. I rode down with Alyson who is Kassie's sister Kellie's (who was also my roommate) husbands sister. Yeah, see if you can figure that out! Alyson happens to be in my ward this semester and we remembered each other from back when Kellie and Alex (her husband and Alyson's sister) we dating. Anyway, I rode to Blackfoot with Alyson and her boyfriend, Brian. This is us by the giant potato in front of the potato museum in Blackfoot. Yep, Idaho has a potato museum. Stop laughing.



I got to the reception and Kassie and Joe were standing at the front meeting people. When I walked in Kassie's mom said she had to hold her back because she was jumping up and down trying to run to me! We hadn't seen each other since last July! My horribly wrapped present went over well. At least I thought. See, once I got there and saw the table with all the beautifully wrapped pink gifts with ribbons and expensive bags and such, I became very self-conscious of my magazine wrapped gift. And then I realized I'd forgotten a card. As I walked into the room a little boy came over and offered to take my present to the table. I gave it to him and decided to disown the gift after that. No one saw me! I was safe!

And then last night Joe and Kassie came up to Rexburg. They came by my apartment to say another goodbye until January. While there, they mentioned the gift. "Yeah, you know we had this incredibly strange gift you may know something about." I had no idea how they figured me out. Since a lot of Joe's old roommate's who I'm sure were perfectly capable of doing the same thing were there, I thought I was safe.

And then they explained that my magazine I had used still had the address on it. It said Apt. 23 and since I live in Apt. 23 they knew it was me. Blast it! I hadn't even thought about that! Ah well. They said thanks. :)

This is Joe, Kassie and me.



I don't know why I do this to myself. Kassie is seriously one of the most beautiful girls I know and I feel so hideous and fat and ugly standing beside her. But I love being with her because she's so stinkin' awesome! And Joe is incredible too. Seriously, this is my third year at BYU-I... I've seen a lot of weddings/marriages. But theirs is definitely the one I'm happiest with and I think it'll just be fantastic! I'm so happy for them! Kassie really is one of my most favorite roommates I've ever had and Joe is so great. I'm so glad I get to be friends with them!

Speaking of favorite roommates, I've been going to the gym with my old roommate Ashley lately. And by "lately" I mean yesterday. But we're trying to go every M/W/F at 6:45am. Early, I know. But hey, maybe it'll be good. I miss rooming with Ashley. She's also a favorite roommate. I love going to the gym with her. We both think the other is more in shape, but actually I think we're about the same. Although I really do think she's thinner. Anyway, I like going to the gym with her because I push myself harder when she's around and I feel more wiped out when I'm done. We also have plans to go rock climbing and canoeing this semester. I'm so excited!

And continuing with awesome roommates, I seriously have some of the best this semester! We all get along so well. There hasn't been any fighting or even bad feelings or anything. It's so nice! I love my roommies!



This is them eating my totally awesome apple pie. And that reminds me, I never showed pics of my apple pie so here they are. It looked better before it went in the oven. But it tasted great! At least my roommates said so.





Anyway, I should probably get back to work. All my homework has kind of just piled on me at the last minute (well, no it was more that I knew about it and chose to let it pile up to the last minute but... you know, I'm the victim here!) so I better go. So on a slightly related note (studying), I'll leave you with this final picture. This was my desk during finals week last semester. I had everything I needed. Book, notes, study guide, paper, pen, and most importantly, food,

Good Friends Work With Limited Resources

My old roommate's wedding reception is tonight. Did you know you're supposed to dress up for those? Well I didn't. I don't go to these things very often, okay?

At least I bought her a present! But I was too cheap to buy wrapping paper. And I was too lazy to go on campus to get a copy of The Scroll (school newspaper). So I used this convenient magazine/coupon booklet thing that was in our house. No one in my apartment has scissors... except for my hair cutting scissors but I didn't want to use them so I wrapped her present with just exactly enough paper. It looks amazing if I do say so myself!





Don't be jealous of my superior gift wrapping skills. Wouldn't you want your wedding present to be this awesome? That's what I thought.

Oh, and Cathryn, your wedding present will be ten times cooler! But you'll have to wait ten times longer too because I'm only giving it to you in person. :)

I LOVE My Roommates!

My roommate's been having pain in her stomach for a couple of days. We've been working on making her go to the hospital. A few days ago, I was cooking in the kitchen and my other roommate Kiara was on the couch. We suddenly heard a loud "Aaaahhhh! Nooooooooooooo!!! Uuuugh!" general pain-ish sound coming from her room. Immediately Kiara and I were at the door. I knocked and called through, "Daisy, are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Silence. Then, just as I reached for the door handle to go in, Daisy came out laughing. "I'm sorry guys, I'm just on the phone with my mom and she just told this boy back home that I like him! Ugh, I'm so mad at her!" I don't actually know the whole story but really, that wasn't fair. We had freaked out for nothing. I guess it's okay, adrenaline is fun sometimes! Oh, and she's feeling much better now. No worries! :)

I LOVE my roommates. We all get along so well. There hasn't even been the slightest annoyance (that I know of... maybe they do all hate me!) from any of us all semester. We went to the store Friday night and bought a bunch of toys. Baseball and bat, glove, bow and arrow, frisbee... all found in the kiddie section of course because we wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise.

Then we came home and played. We drew a target on our window in the front room. The arrows are like suction cups so we try to practice our aim with our little $4 bow.

We had FHE last night. We found out our group at 6 and FHE is supposed to be at 7. Our apartment alone planned it all. I'm so proud of us! Daisy prepared the lesson. We all cleaned the apartment super fast and then Kiara drove us to Broulim's so we could get snack (chips and salsa!). We ran over to the other apartments and told them where we were meeting and when and it ended up going very well. Especially when we let them all have a try with the bow and arrow!

We tried to play baseball in the house too. But Daisy hit the ball into my face. So we stopped. Ahhh, the joy of no parents!

I went to the Dean of the Communications dept. today. She's awesome! She was super friendly and told me that I could absolutely get credit for the Disney CP, and was excited when I mentioned I wanted to be a campus rep possibly next year. She said all I have to do is write something about what I learned. She said she didn't care how long it was or exactly what I wrote or what format because it would be primarily for me. Basically, I'm gonna get credit no matter what, I just have to have at least some hard document showing that I learned something. I no longer have to worry about that.

I also finally got my Astronomy assignment figured out after hours and hours of hard work. And then found out that I found and plotted stars for June 6 instead of June 13 by accident because I counted wrong. Fortunately I went and talked to the teacher (you know how hard that is for me, two in one day even!) and he said it was fine... thank GOODNESS! He actually laughed at me though because seriously, if he said no that would have been hours of work down the drain.

Kay so this turned out longer than I expected (as is usual) so I'll stop here.

Identicals

My roommate's identical twin is in town this weekend. I was shown pictures before and I was well prepared to tell them apart. I saw them. I truly can tell them apart... it takes me a second, but I can do it. I mostly do it by facial expression (if it looks familiar it's Alexis, if not it's Ashley) but I'm slowly noticing other differences.

BUT their voices and mannerisms and just the way they talk is so identical it's stinkin' hilarious! They came in our room just now and I was just listening to them talk to each other. I swear it was exactly as though it was only Alexis just talking to herself. I had no idea which one was talking because their voices are exactly the same and they talk the same way with the same phrases and everything.

I had to work to keep from laughing.

Alexis has a yellow coat. Ashley has a blue one. This I know.

I also know that they have a lot of fun trying to confuse people as twins.

One of them came in in the blue coat just now and for a second I seriously thought it was Alexis wearing Ashley's coat to confuse me. I had to just stare at her for a second to figure it out... probably creeped her out. It was Ashley. I figured it out when she gave me the weird look. It's easier to compare them side by side, okay?

This is gonna be a fun weekend, I've never roomed with identical twins before...