merry merry merry merry christmas!

I love christmas time for many reasons. getting presents, giving presents, santa, the smell of pine...but with a lot of thought and study, I was able to narrow my favorite things about christmas time down to two. they are similar, but both worth noting:



mint m&ms. i'm normally not a huge m&m fan, but these are not normal m&ms. They are little candy-coated pieces of minty heaven. the problem is, you can't find them anywhere. somehow the word got out that they're so great, and now i can't find them anywhere. Target, WalMart, Shopko, Smiths....no luck. they have a million kinds of m&ms, but no more mint. so if anyone knows where to find them, please let me know. I finished my last bag weeks ago, and now i'm panicking.


thing number two:



these are new, so i'm not sure if they're seasonal or not. but i recommend getting your fill ASAP, in case they're gone after christmas. They're soft and fluffy like a regular 3 Musketeers, but they're minty! and it's dark chocolate! i really can't think of anything they could do to improve on that. maybe wrap it in money or something.


*both of them are also gluten-free, in case you were wondering.

thanks

thanksgiving this year was really fun. we went to the oregon coast with my family. here's what it looked like:





as you can see, my nieces and nephews are very cute.

5 inches

i got my hair cut.





the flash was really bright.

don't be so selfish for once in your life.

if you don't hate helping people, you should look through this list and maybe pick one of these things to do for the holidays. these are all just ideas from my place of employment, but if you don't live in SLC, i'm sure your local homeless shelter has plenty of opportunities as well. if you want to do one, let me know and i'll give you the contact information. or just go HERE.





HALLOWEEN
We are now accepting Halloween costumes for children from toddler to age 17. We have approximately 55 children in Shelter and 125 in our Housing program. Costumes may be new or gently used and can be delivered 7 days a week to our facility at 210 S. Rio Grande Street (455 West).



WINTER SHELTER
Adopt a bed for our Community Winter Shelter in Midvale!

The Winter Shelter is scheduled to open November 1st. Adopt a family bed for one family or for the season. A bed kit includes:
- One top and one bottom full/double sized sheets (they do not need to be fitted)
- Two pillow cases
- Two pillows
- Two washable blankets large enough to fit a full-sized bed

Five bed kits will adopt a bed for the winter season!
Our goal is to get five bed kits for each of the 60 beds in our family shelter to provide residents throughout the winter months. Residents are allowed to keep their bedding when they transition out of the shelter.



THANKSGIVING
Thanks to so many Thanksgiving dinners provided in the community, our shelter residents are able to eat their meal at one of these events. We do not have an opportunity to serve a meal at the Shelter, but we do collect items for turkey boxes which are delivered to residents in our housing program. For a list of items, click here: [Turkey Box Needs]

If you would like to find out more about volunteering to help serve a Thanksgiving meal in your area, visit www.informationandreferral.org.



CHRISTMAS
Our holiday Radiothon Broadcast tradition is coming up; we will have six radio stations broadcasting live from our shelter on Thursday, December 20th and Friday, December 21st. We will need volunteers throughout the day between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. to help gather donations from the street, organize donations in our warehouse, and take donor calls in our call center. We are also looking for volunteers on Saturday, December 22nd, Sunday, December 23rd and Monday, December 24th to help in the same areas. Sign up early! This is a great opportunity for families, groups and individuals. Email jpaulsen@theroadhome.org to schedule a time.

Men's Christmas Bags
We are now accepting donations of items such as full-sized bottles of shampoo, shaving cream, razors, etc. for the Men’s Christmas Bags that will be handed out to 600 homeless men on Christmas Eve. For a complete list, click here: [Men's Christmas Bags]

Candy Cane Corner
The Candy Cane Corner is our holiday store stocked with all new donated items. Our families have a time scheduled so they can shop uninterrupted for their spouses and children. Volunteers are on hand to help pick out items and gift wrap. We are now accepting donations for the Candy Cane Corner. For a complete list of needed items, click here: [Candy Cane Corner Gift Ideas]

Volunteers are instrumental to the Candy Cane Corner (CCC). We need volunteers to help stock the store, organize the inventory, assist families with shopping and gift wrap items. Volunteers are needed Monday through Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. beginning December 3rd.

what a crock.

i bought a crock pot, to help with my previously mentioned health condition. i figured since meat and vegetables are "safe", a crock pot would be the perfect thing for me. so i bought it last week, and cooked chicken and vegetables twice in it already. i brought it to work for lunch and everything, and it tasted so good. but all week i've been wanting to make a roast. in fact, when i pictured myself buying a crock pot, i pictured myself making delicious roast and having a real sunday dinner with friends or something. well, tonight i made my first roast---

let me preface this by saying that i was a vegetarian for 10 years. from the time i was 13 until i was 23. it all started when i had a really gross dream about bacon fat. i was eating tons of sausage and bacon, and drinking the fat (in the dream), and then i woke up and ran to the bathroom and barfed (in real life). then i decided i never wanted to eat meat again. so i didn't, until ten years later when i was in Hawaii at a restaurant called "Cheeseburger in Paradise", and the guy next to me was eating a tasty cheeseburger (in paradise), so i decided i wanted one too. i've been a meat-eater ever since that moment. i haven't however, been a meat-cooker. that part still grosses me out.

so i don't know why, when i was having those daydreams of myself cooking roast, it never occurred to me that there would be things like fat, juices, and grease involved. but there were. i thought i had picked a really lean looking roast (with some "marbling" like my sister told me to look for). i seared it just like they say to. i put in potatoes and carrots, and a little bit of broth, and salt and pepper, and then let it crock all day. by the time lee got off work, i was pretty excited to show off my home-cooking.

i do want to point out, that lee was happy with the roast. he even said it was as good as his mom's (maybe he said that when i was crying, but it still counts). i however, was not happy with it at all. there was so much grease! my plate was all slippery from it. and it seemed like the vegetables had been cooked in pure fat or something. they were heavy and tasted fatty. needless to say, i felt sick all night, and was so disappointed. it was so bad, that when i went to put the leftovers in tupperware, i was gagging, and considered just throwing it away.

luckily, lee will eat it. he better enjoy it while it lasts though, because my red-meat-cooking days are over.


*p.s. that picture is what i imagined my roast would look like. it didn't.

i can't. i'm allergic.

as you might remember from previous posts, i have been sick a LOT lately. enough that i was starting to consider quitting my job and trying to collect social security for my disability. the annoying thing was that all of my symptoms sounded like the kind of symptoms a 10 year-old would make up if they wanted to fake sick and stay home from school. Nausea (constantly), bowel issues, headaches, always tired, feeling dizzy, etc.

so anyway, i took a few trips to the doctor, who first told me i was anemic (yeah, i know). then he told me i am allergic to wheat (also referred to as gluten). so at first i was like "oh good, i finally know what's wrong with me!", but then i immediately changed to "oh no! i can never eat bread again in my entire life!".

so the last few days (since the life-changing diagnosis), have been a huge struggle to figure out what is safe to eat. the first day i pretty much lived on Fritos, because my friend told me that corn chips were safe. yum. and i used to eat oatmeal every day for breakfast, but those days are gone.

here's one thing that made me feel better though.



at least being wheat-free doesn't mean i have to be healthy or something.

boo

i don't know why i always think i like haunted houses. i do this every year. i get all excited, and try to convince people to come with me to a haunted house, and we wait in line--i'm still excited--we talk about scary things. then the minute we walk through the door/web/curtain/whatever, i completely lose it. and not in a "oh, this is so scary and fun!" kind of way. no. more in a "where is the exit, i'm having an anxiety attack" kind of way.

so yeah, i did this again last night. this time, it was more embarrassing than ever because it was at the lamest, cheesiest haunted house there is. at lagoon (which you may remember from this). there's this thing called Frightmares (for those who aren't familiar---which i wasn't until last night) that lagoon does every October. i guess they just kind of make all their rides spooky? i'm still not totally clear on it. anyway, they also add a few haunted houses. so brooke, jefe, lee and i went, and brooke and i convinced them to wait in line forever for this cheesy haunted house. but as soon as we walked in the door i remembered why i hate haunted houses so much, and i was immediately, legitimately scared.

i don't know what it is about teenage drama geeks and goth nerds dressed up as scary monsters, and jumping out at me around every corner, that i can't handle. i am fully aware that they legally aren't allowed to touch you. i am also aware that they are pre-teens who probably have to be home by eleven, and definitely did their own scary make-up. still, when they are hiding in dark corners and snorting (? i didn't understand that but it still scared me) at me, my heart beats really fast and i feel like i want to cry (but i didn't, don't worry). part of it might stem from the fact that school shootings and crazy family murders are always executed by those same drama geeks and goth nerds. so maybe, deep down, they have the potential and desire to turn it into a real haunted house, and torture everyone. well, luckily lee caught on to the seriousness of my fright fairly quickly. he went from pushing scary guys into me and laughing in the beginning, to completely shielding me from them in the end. and he didn't even make fun of me until much much later in the evening when i had calmed down.

pretty much, the pre-teen fellow dressed in all black, with glow-in-the-dark lipstick, who jumped out at me at one point and stayed right in my face, summed it up best when he loudly whispered into my ear: "i'll be in your nightmares!"...needless to say, he was.

things i like lately

1. Home Cooking With Paula Deen---this is a show on the food network. now, don't start thinking i actually cook along with paula. i just like to watch her cook delicious foods, and listen to her southern accent. plus, i happen to know (from seeing her on oprah once) that she survived an abusive marriage, and started her business on her own. so there.



2. Scrabulous---online scrabble for total nerds like me (and lee). it's the second best thing to real live scrabble. and the third best thing to real live boggle. maybe i should look for online boggle...

3. my new job! i love it.

4. cherry coke zero---i love it right now, but i can see myself getting sick of it soon, and then being grossed out by it. so this might be a temporary love.





5. Best Week Ever---i've always loved this show, but lately it's been especially funny. their commentary on pop culture is better than anyone else's. also, we saw one of the comedians at bumbershoot, so i feel like now i have a special "in" with the show or something (but i don't).

good news!

i took a very important test today, and was quite pleased with my results. i wanted to share them with my family and friends, so here you go:





yes, that's right. when it comes to the MTV reality show "the hills", i'm most like Whitney. Phew. I am so glad i'm not like stupid pushover heidi, or dummy airhead audrina. i know you're all dying to figure out who you're most like, so go here and then let me know. if you're a heidi, we can't be friends. sorry.

help

i haven't posted in a while for a few reasons. here they are:

1. i was out of town, in yellowstone for a week

2. i've been sick (off and on) for about a week (yes, the same week that i spent in yellowstone)

3. it's gotten cold in my house, and when i type, my fingers get increasingly cold. to the point where i've just decided not to use my computer. until today when i finally admitted to myself that summer is over, and turned on the heater.

4. i'm still sick.

here are my symptoms, and i'd like to know if anyone has a diagnosis:

a.) gross taste in my mouth at ALL times

b.) upset stomach

c.) raging headache

d.) everything i eat tastes gross. even if it's something that i know for sure isn't gross, like ice cream. it still tastes gross and makes me want to throw up.

e.) grouchy and rude to people

f.) acting like a baby who needs her mommy when she's sick


if any of you have any guesses about the diagnosis, or would like to offer tips as to how to get better, i'd welcome both. mostly because this is what i look like right now, and i need help:

cheaters

i don't want to name any names, but some people might not have taken the quiz on my previous post very seriously, and therefore cheated, throwing off the scores. so i just want to make it clear to everyone that VANESSA is the winner! she will receive a prize package containing all sorts of entertaining/pretty things. i'm so impressed that even though i haven't seen vanessa in forever, and we don't talk super-regularly, she still got 90% on my quiz (without cheating)! i think all those late night conversations when we lived together, and long emails really paid off.

you don't even know

i used to make these quizzes a long time ago, and i decided enough time had passed that i could make one again. i'm sure some of you probably have missed taking quizzes about my life. well, here you go. here's your chance. plus, there are some people who have never taken one. plus, i'd really like to know how well all of you "friends" really know me. the person with the highest score gets a prize! the person with the lowest score gets a punishment!

Take My Quiz on QuizYourFriends.com Can you Ace my quiz? Yes! No Let's Find Out!

mcfly?

this is so weird. the other day i received a text message from the future! December 6, 2019 at 11:30pm to be exact. here's a picture so you know i'm not making it up:





i was at work when i got it, and it was approximately 10:15am, and since i was obviously intrigued, one of my co-workers decided to call the number from her phone to see who it was. according to the recorded operater voice, the number was "unavailable"---even more weird.

as you can see, the message is blank. lee thinks it is my future self (in the year 2019, as shown) trying to send my current self a message, but since my current self doesn't have the kind of advanced technology that my future self has, i am not able to receive said message. i think i might have to agree with that. especially because i wrote the future back, and said "what are you trying to tell me?", and never got a response. i rest my case.

I'm "it"

So, vanessa tagged me, which means i get to complete this quiz about myself. I secretly love to complete quizzes about myself, so this is a great situation for me. you, on the other hand, might not find it as interesting to read. but since i've been tagged, it's my responsibility to the blogging community to fill this out.


Jobs I've held...
1. Phantom Lake Pool Snack Shack (my first job, and chris eide and i both got fired for talking trash about the boss's daughter)
2. NY Bagel Boys (i only lasted one month, then quit because i got too grossed out when i had to cut meat for sandwiches)
3. BYU Testing Center
4. Primary Children's Hospital Psychiatric Technician (current job)

Movies I can watch over and over...
1. Amelie
2. Stomp the Yard
3. Good Will Hunting
4. Rushmore
5. Raising Arizona

My Guilty Pleasures...
1. Celebrity gossip magazines (all of them, every week)
2. Celebrity gossip tv shows
3. Mariah Carey
4. Diet Coke (all day, every day)

TV Shows I enjoy...
1. ANTM (america's next top model)
2. Project Runway
3. Intervention
4. Run's House

(oh man, i just realized those are all reality shows. what am i doing with my life?)


Places I have been on vacation...
1. Caye Caulker, Belize
2. Belfast/Dublin, Ireland
3. Venice, Italy
4. Austin, Texas

Favorite foods...
1. Popcorn (lots of salt, not too much butter)
2. String Cheese
3. Brown Rice
4. Peanut Butter

Awards I have won
1. i don't want to talk about it
2. oh, wait. i think i won "student of the quarter" once in high school...
3. no, i think that was actually my brother. sad.



Hobbies I enjoy...
1. photography
2. wrapping gifts, and sending them in the mail. also, receiving gifts.
3. selling things on ebay
4. sewing

Secretly, I wish I could....
1. quit my job (but i guess that's no secret)
2. play just ONE sport without looking like a fool. just one.
3. start a business of my very own.
4. constantly fill out quizzes about myself.

A random thing about me...
my hands can squish until they're so tiny that they can fit into tiniest of little openings (jars, car windows, etc.). i think i might be missing bones in my hands. seriously, it's pretty weird.



so now it's my duty to "tag" people. it's unfortunate that many of the people i want to tag, don't have blogs. but anyway, i hereby tag the following people:

1. leland
2. natali
3. shalee
4. shea

grand opening!

as you may have noticed, there's a new addition to my blog, over to your right. it's the scrolling gallery for my new EBAY STORE! my friend natali and i decided to sell some of our vintage clothes on ebay. then it got to be so fun that we decided to open a full-fledged store and keep looking for more vintage clothes to sell. the final product is up and running as of today, so please look and see if there's anything you want to BUY, or maybe you want to give a loved-one a gift of pure vintage goodness. whatever the case may be, you should check out our store and see all of the shoes, purses, dresses and other wonderful things we have to offer. if you don't want/wear/like/support vintage clothes, then you could always just buy something and consider it a donation to me. i'm willing to work something out with you, no matter what your vintage needs are. check for new listings every week!

See This Now

i saw this movie last week and i feel like i need to promote it myself because i haven't seen it being promoted anywhere. it is so great, and was at sundance in january, but i didn't get a chance to see it there, and now it's in (very few) theaters. anyway, it's called Eagle vs. Shark.

Here are a few pictures that might give you an idea as to how great it is:




and you should probably watch the trailer


it's so funny, and sweet, and might remind some of you of Napolean Dynamite a little bit. but i liked it much, much more. i'll warn you, there are some unexpected parts and there's some flavorful language, but it's all oh so worth it.

go see it, and then tell me how much you love it. don't tell me if you don't like it, because i might no longer like you.

but wait, there's more!

i was in las vegas last week, walking through a casino at a high speed, because i hate casinos(the only time i've really liked being in a casino is the time me and shae went to Reno and played roulette. we decided what color to bet on by calling random friends in the middle of the night and yelling "RED OR BLACK?! RED OR BLACK?!" as soon as they answered, then going with their pick. then we played the nickel slots all night, and almost went to see pat benetar in concert. it was great, but that's not my point).

my point is that i was walking through this casino, when something caught my eye. it was a familiar face:



what was the Infomercial King, Ron Popeil doing in this casino you ask? well okay, it wasn't actually him. but a Ron Popeil slot machine is just as good if you ask me. maybe better.



for those of you who are not familiar with Ron Popeil, he's the creater of such wonderfully innovative household items as the Food Dehydrator, the Veg-O-Matic, the Chop-O-Matic, the Popeil Pocket Fisherman, and the ever-popular spray-on hair (GLH-9 Hair In A Can Spray). He has many other inventions that i can't think of right now, but just turn on your tv at around 3am and i am sure you will see him. He practically invented the infomercial. he definitely perfected it. now that i think about it, it's perfectly understandable that he would have his own slot machine in vegas. it probably chops up vegetables and stuff to.

they just wanna, they just wanna

last night some friends and i had a girls' night. it was so perfect, and consisted of several of my favorite things:

1. hair removal (not as weird as it might sound)

2. candy consumption

3. making fun of people (mutual friends, eachother, celebrities, etc.)

4. facials

5. exchanging beauty tips (did you know that it's good for your skin if you rub melon rinds all over it? true)

6. celebrity gossip (RIP tammy faye)


the best was the waxing. two of the girls are actual estheticians so they totally knew what they were doing. i got something waxed that i never even knew i could wax...




my nostrils!




it was the coolest thing ever! i know you are probably grossed out, but i think everyone should try it. especially old men who have those hairs sticking out of their noses/ears all the time.

we waxed other things too. all in all, a LOT of hair was removed at girls' night.






also, there were endless amounts of diet coke, which made me feel right at home (don't judge me). especially because almost everyone there was also an addict.




so girls' night was a success and i even made gift bags for people, because i started to get carried away for a while and must have thought i was going to an 11 year-old girl's slumber party or something. or maybe an awards show, because they give away those gift bags to everyone who presents an award. only their gift bags have ipods and digital cameras in them, and mine had nail polish and lip gloss in them. but whatever.

tis the season

have you been spending all your free time lately trying to find the perfect gift for me? something that you know i'll love, but that is also practical? well, look no further. i've decided to publish this summer gift guide just for you. so here are a few things i feel that people should buy me. and i don't have any preference which items come from which friend/relative.






and these come in adult sizes:



and it's not like it would kill someone to buy me this pretty dress:



if you really love me, you'd want me to have this (or at least something similar):



i realize my birthday is five months away, and Christmas is six months away, but i think mid-summer is a great time to show love to your friends through material goods. don't you?

75.5

i thought i would do way better on this.


take this quiz and tell me your score. i'd like to see where i rank.