truths list.

the only way that you could NOT know that i am obsessed with lists would be if you did not know me AT all. someone who does know and love me a lot, sent this list to me and i laughed my bum off while having several "oh my gosh, YES. nailed it." moments. 

and for your laugh lines, i will now share this list. 

truths for mature humans.

1. part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die (thank you google incognito... no one needs to know how much time i spend on pinterest, online shopping, and all the really really random and silly things that i wiki...).

2. nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong (luckily that is VERY rare).

3. i take back all those times that i didn't want to nap as a kid (oh how i love naps. and juice boxes. and being tucked in. and having someone brush my hair).

4. there is a great need for a sarcasm font (i would probably have to type in that all the time and then have my serious statements unsarcasamed... that would save a lot of time and inadvertent offensive moments).

5. how the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet (good gosh they look awful).

6. was learning cursive really necessary (only when in a hurry..it is like they KNEW we would get too busy to actually write out our letters).

7. mapquest really needs to start their directions at #5...pretty sure i know how to get out of my own neighborhood (...let alone driveway).

8. obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died (what, i get curious).

9. i cannot remember the last time that i wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. bad decisions make good stories (welcome to my blog of blunders).

11. you never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you are just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day (approx 14 minutes ago).

12. can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after blu-ray? i don;t want to have to start my collection over...again.

13. i am always slightly terrified when i exit out of word/excel and it asks me if i want to save any changes to my ten page document that i swear i did not make any changes to...(i lose minutes off my life every time).

14. "do not machine wash or tumble dry" means that i will never wash this. ever. (or even buy it...)

15. i hate when i miss a call by the last ring, but when i immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail (what did you do when i didn't answer? drop the phone and run away?)

16. i hate leaving the house feeling confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day (what a waste. boycott getting ready.)

17. keep phone numbers in your phone just to you know who not to answer when they call.

18. i think that the freezer deserves a light as well (so true... i blame my freezer burned foodies on the things that i could not see shoved back there in the arctic shadows).

19. i would rather try to carry 10 overloaded bags in each hand than to take 2 trips to bring my groceries in (i consider it my weight training for the day). 

20. the only time i look forward to a red light is to send a text (texting while driving is dumb and i swear this makes the light go green faster..).

21. i have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger...(if you are eating while reading this, it is not because you are hungry, it is because you are bored).

22. how many times is it appropriate to say "what?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

23. i love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front (stay strong brothers and sisters, stick it to the UT drivers!).

24. shirts gets dirty. undies get dirty. pants? pants never get dirty and you can wear them forever.

25. high school kids get dumber and dumber every year.

26. there is no worse feeling than that millisecond you are sure that you are going to die after leaning back in your chair a little too far (or when you think that there was one more stairstep).

27. sometimes i'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is. 

28. even under ideal conditions, people have trouble finding their car keys in the pocket, their cell phone while talking on it, their car in the parking lot... but everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away in about 1.7 seconds (eyes closed, first time, every time). 

j.k rowling.

"I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls."
— J.K. Rowling

i like her.

sunday school.

i am lucky to be in the ward with one of the best sunday school teachers i have ever had. perhaps i hold this opinion of him because although he is much more intelligent than i am, we are good friends.  but the reasons that we get along are based mainly on the fact that we process thoughts the same way. when he is not kicking my butt at mario kart or talking my ear off about hockey, we always have very stimulating conversation.
our first real spark of friendship happened 2 years ago.  i was speaking in the ward for the first time and afterwards he stopped me and said,
" judaic numerology?  i had no idea that you were the type to study that just for fun. and you quoted two of my favorite church scholars. well done."
so i had met a fellow nerd that enjoyed dabbling in a little pythagorean numerology and we also both love elder talmage. friendship was just meant to be. mike shared this with our class today:

When he was a student, Elder Talmage was once approached by a man offering to sell him an excellent oil lamp. Elder Talmage already had a lamp he felt was satisfactory, but he allowed the lamp seller to come up to his room to demonstrate.

“We entered my room, and I put a match to my well-trimmed lamp. My visitor was high in his praise. It was the best lamp of its kind, he said, and he had never seen a lamp in better trim. He turned the wick up and down, and pronounced the judgment perfect.

“‘Now,’ he said, ‘with your permission I’ll light my lamp,’ taking it from his satchel. … Its light made bright the remotest corner of my room. Its brilliant blaze made the flame in my lamp weak and pale. Until that moment of convincing demonstration I had never known the dim obscurity in which I had lived and labored, studied and struggled.”

Elder Talmage bought the new lamp, and he later suggested what we can learn from the lamp seller as we teach the gospel: “The man who would sell a lamp did not disparage mine. He placed his greater light alongside my feebler flame, and I hasted to obtain it.

“The missionary servants of the Church of Jesus Christ today are sent forth, not to assail nor ridicule the beliefs of men, but to set before the world a superior light, by which the smoky dimness of the flickering flames of man-made creeds shall be apparent. The work of the Church is constructive, not destructive”.

need i say more?
oh yeah. and i am a mormon.

immediate sharing.

there is a particular boy in my life who knows me far too well, without even really knowing me. we have a beautiful friendship. and this is what he just shared with me via fbook and i have already read 4-5 times.

***please note: female readers do not just read drama filled, intense, fictitious novels.  thus the melodramatic side of the reader that Urquico describes, is not always present (e.g. "weeping at 2 AM"? i don't weep. i sigh and sniffle, and only occasionally).

Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico

(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.