"I write, therefore I am."

So as many people know, I was in Dallas this past weekend helping my brother move so he could start a new job. However, on my way to the airport I left my phone at his house. I discovered this when I was ready to check-in. In a mad dash, I flew back down the escalator and got to my brother before he pulled out to drive away. We searched his car and I upended most of my things frantically. It became evident that I had not had my phone on the 40-minute drive to the airport, and that it had to be at his house. Unfortunately, I had to work on Monday and all the flights for Sunday didn't look good, and so this was the last flight out of the day, and I had to be on it. No time to go back. When my brother got back to his apt, he discovered that indeed my phone was there. He took it to a FedEx shipping center and overnighted it to me, but since it was the weekend they weren't shipping. It would go out Monday and arrive Tuesday by 3pm guaranteed. However, the tracking number he gave...

Summer 2011: Chapter 6 - Turtle Visit. A month and a few days after I kicked her out , Turtle came back to Utah. She came for longer than the time she spent with me, but I made her give me three and a half days. Thursday night I surprised her with tickets to the Goo Goo Dolls concert, and she was ecstatic. The opening band was the reason *I* was going: Parachute. I started listening to them (and loving them) from the first time they showed up on my Pandora station. Now they are getting all huge and popular. :/ Michelle Branch was there too, and we didn't completely hate her. Then Goo Goo came on, whom I have loved since my older brother introduced me and they played Rockin' New Year's Eve with Dick Clark in 1996. It was a great concert, and had a ton of fun. Friday I worked, so she went elsewhere, then she met me there. We went and got some Buca, then headed for the theatre (to which she did not know we were going). Surprise! We had tickets to Saturday's Voyeur. We love...

Summer 2011 - Chapter 5: Family Reunion! 3 Weeks after saying Goodbye to Turtle, I flew to Ohio for my Family's First Ever Reunion! AWESOME! (AUTHOR NOTE: Pictures *may* be forthcoming for this trip, but right now they are lost on my sister's camera somewhere :/) When I landed, I was met by the fabulous and uber-missed Mrs. Potts. She was kind enough to let me stay at her house, thought somehow the dates I was coming had gotten mixed up and so she wasn't ready. I guess I'm a bad communicator. Still. It was a place to sleep, for which I was grateful, even if it was the floor. My West Valley Studio days with Turtle had prepped me for just such sleeping and I insisted to her that it would be just fine. She was so sweet and felt way more remorseful than was necessary. Her kids are getting so big! It was so great to see her and she even made me a little breakfast the next morning before returning me to the airport where I met up with my parents, R, A, & K. Soon after G ...

Summer 2011 - Chapter 4: Goodbye Turtle :( First: Apologies, because I am so far behind T_T Second: Apologies, because there are no pictures to go with this chapter. Turtle and I didn't do anything picture-worthy... Turtle and I had known this day was coming for a long time, and finally, it had arrived. Time for Turtle to leave Utah. :( I don't really remember anything about the drive, other than it being its normal long-ness and listening to music. We made good time though and got in around midnight, where we were greeted by the most annoying bird. EVER. Now, I'm not a huge pet person, but pets that ANNOY are decidedly on the bottom of my list. The stupid thing squawked ALL NIGHT LONG. He would not shut up for one second. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep. When I'd had enough, I demanded she get up and call her mom to come right then or I was going to kill the thing. We had to finish up The Last Battle before we could start the book she was dying to read. ...

So the very next weekend after going to Zion's (now 5 freaking months ago T_T), I packed my bags and flew across the country to visit two of my Besties from High School, Em and Mel. Super exciting for me because I had not since these girls forever! (And by forever I mean Fall 2009 when Em got married . But still). I had *never* been to visit either of them where they were living, and I had never actually been to Pennsylvania (other than maybe driving through it(?)), so this was an extra exciting trip for me. When I got there, there were squeals and laughing and smiles and hugs and a bathroom break. Then we started driving around and as I looked out the window I realized how much I miss my East Coast. SO GREEN! The trees were gorgeous. They gave me a brief driving tour/view of the City before we went back to Em's to drop off our stuff. We hung out for a bit ad watched some GANGLAND (just because). Then when it got a bit later we decided to go get some eats and maybe do some sho...

To usher in more of Summer, we decided that we needed that all-important trip to a National Park. Last year I took Turtle to Capital Reef . She had a blast. But she'd always wanted to see Zion. So this time it was going to happen. Turtle was getting ready to move (more on that in an upcoming post), so we knew this was our only chance. Joshy decided to join us, and we were more than happy to have him along for the ride. I asked to leave work early as early as possible (to which my boss laughed. Me leave early? HA). My boss was in a strangely good mood and stopped what he was working on and started getting out tour books and maps and telling me all about where we should go in the park (I never even told him that's WHY I wanted to leave early... he got the info through the grapevine). I was super taken aback. Then, even funnier, he went to lunch and when he got back he was like WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?! LOL When I asked to leave early I meant like 3pm. Not 11am. Why would I come to...

Part of the reason I have been so lax in my blogging is that it's summer. And I ALWAYS sucks at blogging during summer, because it's awesome outside, so I hate being in my house, which means I can't be bothered to be around typing about all the wonderful things I'm doing! Seriously people! The sun is calling me! I'm really good at blogging in the winter though, as the beginning of this year proved. But I don't like being more than 6 months behind with the events in ye ole life either, so. I'm just going to have to make sacrifices. Bring on the summer of 2011! WOOO!!!! First event - my birthday. Well, technically that's in Spring, but whatevs. Last year Turtle rocked the awesome boat with surprise laser tag and werewolves. Rounded with an enchilada party by my former roomie. I had no idea how 2011 was going to shape up. But I wanted something fun, low-key, yummy, and amazing. So I decided to have a party at Faustina ( voted best restaurant of 2010 by me ...

2010 can't be complete without Halloween! One of the very first events hosted at my new house (pictures will come someday - as will actual gatherings... but first I need to buy a couch. And a vaccuum, before I unveil such things - sorry), was the Pumpkin Carving Party! One didn't seem like enough for me, so I decided to do two this year. Jessie and some others came over, but not everyone carved. Oh well, I make up for them. Pumpkin #1 Werewolf (in honor of my friends and their undying love of the game): And Pumpkin #2 Kids Trick-O-Treating: They looked awesome and we had so much fun carving them! The first weekend in November I was crazy enough to go camping with friends, which ended up being a lot of fun, albeit a little cold. For Thanksgiving this year, I hosted my own dinner instead of going somewhere else. I slated it as a dinner for those who had nowhere to go. 12 people came and we ate, and laughed, and had so much fun. My boss was kind enough to let us have it in the lar...

Summer arrived. I couldn't do anything near what I achieved with the Summer of Sun: 2009 , since I work full-time+, but we still managed to get in plenty of playing. In June, I took Turtle to the Best. Place. On. Earth. Period. CEDAR POINT . Those who have been, know. And those who have not, have not lived. Turtle always talked about the amazing coasters at Disney and 6 flags and such, and I scoffed. Because there are NOT coasters like the coasters at the Point. And now she knows this is true. We spent a whirlwind 3 days at the Point, with travel days before and after. It. was. epic. We stayed at a super quaint place like 5 miles from the park. The first night we were there, before going to the park, we were sitting out in the hammock just talking (and trying to flip each other over, which I succeeded in, but I fell out too and hurt my knee, so fail), and as the sun was going down, Turtle started FREAKING out. Which, naturally, freaked me out as well. I tried to get her to vocalize...