Freaking Out

I know I have mentioned this before, but I'm going to say it again. I hate, I mean absolutely HATE driving in the snow!! I honestly don't know how much longer I can take it! We have been so lucky and haven't had snow in awhile and I have been loving it. So today when the snow was coming down, I was, needless to say, very very unhappy about it!
I had my internship today so I had to drive all the way down to 3300 S and West Temple. I knew the roads would probably be bad, so I gave myself extra time and left my house at about 7:20. Well, the roads sucked! It was slushy and icy and I didn't feel safe going any faster than 20 mphs. Well, other people, especially people in large trucks and SUVs, don't really like that. So every one keep going around me and cutting me off! It was terrible! When I only at 7800 S and Redwood Road at 7:45 I knew I couldn't take it any more! So I drove to the closest Trax station and had to pay to ride (I forgot my stupid pass at home).

I don't know what my problem is. Honestly I have never been so scared of driving in the snow. But lately I just panic. I don't even know how to explain it, but I really get terrified when I have to drive in it. I get really tense and when I get where I am going my back and neck are killing me (probably from being so tense). There are so many times (like this morning) that I just want to pull over and start crying and call someone, anyone, to come and pick me up!
I really, really, really wish I had to money to buy a car with AWD and snow tires. I really think I am going to have to do some majoring figuring out because I cant take my crappy little car much longer!!

Seeing The Sky

Wow!! I think I almost forgot that the sky is blue!! The air has been absolutely disgusting lately and I have hated every minute of it! So it is so refreshing to look out my window and see the sky and I can even see the mountains again!!
I had to go up to the U the other day and because it is on a hill, you can see into downtown..... that is, if it is not covered with gross inversion. I knew the air was bad, but when I was up there, I could see just how terrible it was! There was a cloud of stuff just sitting in the valley.... ick! I know that it's not completely gone, but it's nice to see the sky again!
Another crazy thing the inversion brought was fog. Yesterday in the morning was kind of foggy, but really not to bad. But last night I had to go run some errands and I was blown away by how think the fog was!! While I was walking about to my car, I kind of felt like I was in the middle of a scary movie!! It was pretty eerie!!

In school related news, I have two weeks behind me, and they really weren't to bad. My online class is awesome, mostly because the assignments involve watching TV and live theatre! And I really like my digital photography! I still wish I had an awesome SLR camera, but I'm working with what I have. My internship is........ interesting. Things are just done really really differently there so it's going to take some getting used to. The only other problem with it..... I think that the kids have already gotten me sick. I'm not sure if it's that or the yucky air!! I have so many things to start planning, and that feels kind of overwhelming, but it's nice to know the end is getting closer!!

Beginning Of The End

Well, as always, my break from school went by way to fast and tomorrow is my first day of class. It really feels like just yesterday that I was celebrating the end of the fall semester. I feel like I always have a million things to do so it didn’t really seem like a break. But it has been nice not to worry about homework, reading assignments, lesson plans and driving up to the U. So starting tomorrow it is back to all that…. minus the driving back to the U part!! I actually don’t have any classes up on the campus this semester which is kind of weird!! My internship will be at The Christmas Box House, my digital photography class is at the Murray campus and my film class will be online. Hooray for saving gas money!
There is a silver lining to tomorrow though!! It is the first day of my very last semester of school EVER (unless I get some crazy notion to go back for my Masters…… haha, just the thought makes me laugh histarically)!! I can’t even describe how excited I am about being so close to the end of it all!! It has taken me so long to get to this point and I have wanted to just quit so many times, but somehow have stuck it out! It will be so nice to have that out of the way and to be able to move onto new things!!
So, just like every other semester I have a countdown going on. I guess I could count down the number of actual days, but I think that would make me crazy, so I count down by Mondays. There are only 9 Mondays to Spring Break and I only have to survive 16 Mondays until the end of it all!! And best of all, two of those days are holidays and one is Spring Break, so technically it’s only 13 Mondays. And graduation is only 17 Fridays aways!!! :0)

Thanks To A Creative Person

When I first started blogging one of the first things I did was try to find a cute background. Most of the blogs I read used the site thecutestblogontheblock.com so that is where I went. They of course have lots of cute stuff and I found a ton of things I wanted to use. The only problem.... I was totally stupid and had no idea how to get it to work on my blog. I got so frustrated and went to a plain black background with and extremely boring header. Boring!!!
So I am glad that there are people out there that totally get what they are doing!! And even better, they give very good instructions on how to get the backgrounds to work on your blog. So,
THANK YOU SO MUCH BECKY for being so creative and making so many way cute backgrounds!! You are awesome!!
If you want a really cute background to, you can go to her awesome site http://beckysbackgrounds.blogspot.com/!! Make sure you give her a very big thank you though!! :0)

The Wizard & I

When I first saw the CD for Wicked, I had no idea what it was about. I didn't really look closely at it because the name kind of made me sceptical. I never heard or thought of it again until I was in a Stake musical one year and the song Popular was included in the show. Well one day at practice, while we were waiting for the girl that was going to sing it to show up, a few people started listening the the CD, and that is when I first heard Popular. I LOVED it because it was so upbeat and hilarious!! I think we listened to it three or four times, laughing and being very silly while acting it out! Then we listened to the song For Good and I thought it was so amazing with a sweet message!!
That night when I got home I put the music on hold at the library, really only planning on listening to the two songs I knew. But once I heard the whole thing, I was hooked!! I played it over and over and finally just went and bought the CD for myself! I put it on my iPod and would listened to it every time I was in my car and when I was home alone, I would put it in my CD player, turn it up really loud, and sing at the top of my lungs!

Well in 2007 I convinced my mom that I really needed to see the show so she and I took a trip to Chicago to see it! I had so much fun on that trip with my mom and the show was PHENOMENAL!! I was even more hooked than I was before and I knew that I wanted to see it again!!

So in June of 2007 (wow, I didn't realize how close all of that was til just now) I planned a trip to Los Angeles with two good friends. We did lots of fun things, but I think my favorite parts going to see Wicked at the Pantages Theatre!! It was just as good the second time and it was fun to see it with a different cast!! The cast that time included Jenna Leigh Green (Libby from Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and Carole Kane. After the show was over, I bought a really cool book called The Grimmerie which has all kinds of cool behind the scenes info from the show. The girl that rang me up told me that I could go to the side of the theatre and I would be able to get autographs from the cast!! My friends were so awesome and stood in line with me so I could get the autographs of Fiyero, Glinda and Elphaba!!

Just like before, I couldn't wait to see it again (it's that good people)!! And I didn't have to wait long!! Another friend and I planned a trip to southern California in October and she was nice enough to let me at Wicked to out agenda!! And it worked out really nice because in the few months that I had seen it there had been some cast changes so I saw it was almost totally different people!

After that I had no idea when I would be able to see it again! I couldn't think of any one else to drag to California so I figured I would just have to wait. In January 2008 when I found out I would be going to London, I immediately started thinking about how awesome it would be if I could see the show over there. I was going to be going over a week early with an old friend from high school and a friend of hers and I had no idea if they were into that kind of thing or not and I was trying to think of things to say to convinces them of the shows awesome-ness show they would want to go with me. But I got SO lucky and they wanted to go!! Yay!! So I got to see Wicked for the 4th time at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London!!

It was so much fun to hear the show with the awesome British accents!! And at intermission we realized you could rent opera glasses for only a pound from the seat in front of you, so we got to have and up close view of the second act!!

Well, now the show will finally be coming to Salt Lake! I had been counting down the the tickets-go-on-sale day for months and fought to get onto the ArtTix site for about an hour when I learned that the show had been sold out. I was SO disappointed. It literally ruined my whole weekend I was so upset about it. All I could think about was the fact that I had traveled all over the place to see the show and it was finally coming to my state and I wouldn't even be able to see it! And worst of all, there are scalpers trying to see their seats online. I knew it would happened, but it made me so mad..... it's just not fair to those of us that really want to see the show! Well, I have a REALLY AWESOME neighbor that just found out that the couple they had planned to go with cant make it, so she offered me her tickets!! AHHHHHHH!! I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO WICKED!! I cant even tell you how excited I am!! I have been listening to the soundtrack all day long and now counting dow to April when I get to see it!!!

There are so many people that I wish I could offer the extra ticket to!! I have so many friends that really want to see it and I wish that there was some way I could get extra tickets for you guys, but I really need to take my sister. She was just as disappointed as I was when she found out we didn't get tickets and was positive my parents were going to surprise her with tickets Christmas morning. So now I can actually surprise her for her birthday and I know she will love it!! But that doesnt mean that I am not going to try my hardest to win tickets some how!! Haha, I can never see it enough!

Resolutions

So I guess it is about time that I post some of my New Year Resolutions!! I'm hoping that by writing them down I will be better about keeping them! Most of the time I just think about things I want to do during the year and then honestly forget half of them by January 30th. But this year is going to be different!! Haha, I guess you could say that is resolution number one!



** My biggest resolution is to lose weight. So Amanda, I need your secret on how to lose 20 pounds in three weeks!!

** And going along with that, I need to eat healthier, which sadly means eating less of my favorite food...... chocolate. Sad times to come!

** I am determinded to learn Bella's Lullaby and A River Flows In You on the piano. I have a little bit down, but I want it to be fluid and smooth!

**And I want to get better and playing the piano in general. Which means I need to make myself a practice schedule!

** I will go on at least two vacations, even if they are just weekend getaways! Who wants to go to Forks with me?? :0)

** I want to save enough money to buy an AWD car in the fall and it will most defienetly be equipped with snow tires.

** Since I am almost done with school, I want to get a 4.0 this last semester. It really shouldn't be to hard, I will just have to be more dedicated!



So I think that is about it. I know, it's kind of a short list, but some of those things are probably going to take me all year! I also have some church/spirituality resolutions, but those are kind of personal, so I am going to keep those to myself!!

First & Last

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!! Can you believe that it is already 2009!! The year my brother comes home from his mission in South Korea, the year I FINALLY graduate from college which also means it's the year I have to start paying my student loans back. I don't know what else will happen this year, hopefully lots of good things!

Since it is a new year, I decided that I would write about the last thing I did in 2008 and the first thing I did in 2009! So, starting with December 31st, 2008: I hung out with my good friend Christine. We went to dinner at Winger's and it was very very good! After dinner we planned to see a movie, but we had about 45 minutes before it started so we went over to Albertson's to wander the isles. We found some good stuff, including Jelly Belly's, chocolate and Twilight magazines! After that we headed over to the theater to use out free (a big thanks to Christine's friend Whitnee) movie passes and guess what we saw... TWILIGHT!! Before the movie started we sat eating our jelly beans which was so much fun! We swapped and shared and tried to figure out which flavors we were going to get in the dark. I was very unlucky and ate at least three stupid licorice flavored ones!! Yuck!! And finally after 20 minutes of previews, the movie started!! I know I have seen it SO many times (each one better than the last, believe it or not), but I saw new stuff in it! Like the fact that Rosalie is almost always wearing gloves (weird huh???), it is raining when Edward jumps out his window with Bella, and Victoria steals Weylands shirt. Our movie ended at 12:04 so I guess seeing Edward was technically the first AND last thing I did in '08!!! Haha!
But I'm not really counting that as the first thing. That would be this morning, when I woke up at 9:45, which felt SO nice!! My day started with making breakfast with my dad! We made homemade hash browns which were really really good, sausage, eggs and toast! I love good breakfast! And then me, my parents and my sister went downstairs and had a bowling tournament on the Wii. I, uhhhhh, didn't do so well and came in last!! It was a very off day for me!! But then we put in our Wii Music game and played that hand bells and that was so much fun!! It's funny to watch my parents try to figure it out!!

So that's about it!! I ended the year by hanging out with a good friend and seeing a handsome vampire and I started the new year by spending time with my family, eating yummy food.
So far so good!!