What to do?

Yesterday we had a date night and went to eat at La Caretta, a Peruvian restaraunt. The food was yummy, but our waiter was high on something. The first thing I noticed was the excessive sweating. (Gross.) Geoff is the one who said "he looks high," and sure enough, totally dilated pupils, and he was quite fidgety and walking around with quick, impatient gestures. He was still a good waiter though. We tipped him good. The menu had lots of beautiful pictures of Lima and Machu Picchu. You know I've seen lots of pictures of that place and have wished I could go there someday but never actually knew where it was. So as I'm looking at these pictures I'm thinking, "hmm, 10 days off in August..."

I thought it would be fun to go down there and see the city of Lima, as well as the ancient ruins, and maybe we could go to Ecuador too (since they are next to each other) thinking Geoff served his mission there and might like to go back. He was not as on board with my cute idea. He knows that I have a tendency to get overly-excited about things and am prone to spend lots of money on something I think I want really bad. Like the time I hired a personal trainer. And when we almost bought another condo. And when I wanted to drop 2500 bones on beachfront accomodations in San Diego for a week.

He is right. There's just all of these neat places I want to go and see. I just don't want to still be talking about it when I'm in my 50's and never have done any of it. And there's this sense of urgency too, that it would be best to do some traveling now, before any kids come along. Though I guess we could have them and leave them with grandma and grandpa - if possible. :)

Just round-trip airfare to Peru is $1,000 / person. :( The question is do we want to spend it on travel or save it for a rainy day, or a bigger down-payment on a house. Why must we be responsible?

GOOD news though, I am going to go to New York City this year!! In October! This is one of the places I've really wanted to go, so I am sooooooo excited! I'm going with two of my aunts and an uncle for sure, (my aunt is the one who invited us, bless her!) and we'll see about mom and Geoff. Geoff is a little unsure about what his job/internship situation is going to be at that time, so we aren't booking a flight for him until we know for sure. But I just can't wait.

I am an airhead. :(

George Harry or Hairy George...

Today on the way from work to school, a song came on the radio that totally took me back. George Harrison's Got my mind set on you. I remember loving that song as a kid. And I remember that the music video was this old hairy dude sitting in a dark cabin room all by himself singing while the furniture and wall hangings moved around. I watched the video again to see if it was really as creepy as I remembered. Yep.

Some other songs I remember liking were Sting's Englishman in New York, Gloria Estefan's Rhythm is Gonna Get You, and Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. (I remember watching that video too - a guy standing in front of a fence). Were there others, dad? That's all I remember right now.

I just looked them all up and they're all from 1987. Three-years must have been the magical age.

No match for my erudite vernacular

Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly. DANIEL M. OPPENHEIMER (of Princeton University)

To liven up a boring powerpoint slideshow tonight, our professor interlaced the titles of research articles written by professors that were awarded for their ridiculousness. We've been challenged to use the words "erudite vernacular" in a sentence sometime this week.

The one I thought the funniest was the study of how temperature affects the speed of sound traveling through cheddar cheese.

And the one about how rats can't distinguish between the sounds of japanese and dutch spoken backwards.

These people actually get money to research these things???

Easter Eggs

At work every Easter they pass around plastic eggs with dollar bills in them. Usually fives, tens, and usually a $100 for one lucky person. This year, the lowest amount was 100! I couldn't believe it! That is a lot of money when you think they did it for the whole company! The CFO (I'm just trying not to use names) is the one that planned it and he was so excited to watch everyone open their eggs, he he. He's so nice. It was pretty cool.

Now we're just trying to push through the final weeks of the semester, and then we get a week off! Yay! I'd love to go camping in Zions or something. We'll see.

New bedroom

(Sorry for the poor-quality cellphone pictures! Our computer no longer uploads photos from the digital camera!)

Before:

Here goes nothin'!

After:

My favorite view.

Geoff moved everything out and taped it off Friday night, and Saturday morning got hit with a pretty violent stomach flu, so he was out through the late afternoon. I put most of the first coat on myself, and then mom came and helped me with detailing and the second coat. It was fun!

.

The color ended up going on the wall much darker than I had thought, and dried much brighter than I had thought. But, I think it turned out. I might purchase a floor lamp to lighten it up at night when there's no light from the window. I'm no interior decorator, but, it is cozy and I think for a first time it turned out pretty well.

A recent funny "overheard in the office"

This one was funny:

5PM What's Known As Divine Intervention.

Customer care rep on phone: Okay, sir, we'll talk occasionally. (pause) Well, yes. (pause) Okay, sir, I have to go. (pause) I believe in Jesus! I believe in Jesus! (pause) Sir, my other line is ringing. I have to go.

Milpitas, California
Overheard by: Alisha
-----------------------------------------------------

That reminds me - this morning my coworker told me a story of her 7-year old little boy - always a handful with a flair for the dramatic, and cute as anything. Saturday night he hadn't slept well and so the next day in church he was acting up. It was during sacrament meeting and he was sooo grumpy and wouldn't calm down. As the sacrament came around she held it in front of him so he could take one and he refused, yelling, "I'm ignoring Jesus today!" He he he, isn't he cute!! Oddly enough, she got him to calm down by threatening to take him home before primary and sunday school, because he LOVES his primary and sunday school classes.

Goodbye MVP

Well it was an interesting day, I guess. I had to interview a government officer this morning (someone that mom works with) for my class. It sucked that I had to ask for time off work to do it, but at least they let me go, and I'm glad the lady was nice enough to let me interview her.

I decided to go with a lighter color for the bedroom and so had to make a trip back to Lowe's for another can of paint. (This lighter color will be so pretty though!). As we were driving out of the parking lot we passed an ex-boyfriend - whom I affectionately refer to as "slimeball" - and his new wife. We could've stopped to say hi, but we didn't.

We are being forced to say goodbye to our favorite weekend pasttime of the past four years... our Hollywood Video MVP plan. They are "upgrading" to a plan wherin you actually have to pay for your movies, so we are probably done. Most Friday nights we'd drive to the video store, pick out three movies, bring them home and watch them and pop popcorn. It's a little sad that things are going to change. We're looking into some other options, like Netflix, but I'm hesitant. It won't be the same as dropping what you're doing and going to pick out whatever you're in the mood for at that moment. We've had it good for four wonderful years!

Am I 80 years old??

It is 3:30 in the morning. It's been months since I've been able to sleep through the night without having to wake up to go to the bathroom. It's like I'm 80 or something. Now I can't go back to sleep because of the suffocating feeling of having a stuffy nose. I've been a month and a half nasal-spray sober, but I fear having done permanent damage. Hoping that sitting up for a few minutes will help.

Mother Nature says...

APRIL FOOLS!!

And we thought it was spring around here... (those poor little birds on the tree)

It is the beginning of quarterlies again! I am so busy! Love it!!

My friend Brayden and his band, Formerly So, have a new song, and it's pretty good. Listen/watch here.

Must be funny...

My good friend Ashlee posted some thoughts and I want to link to it here because it is pretty much the way I've been feeling for a couple years. So far, my "bucket-list" is made up only of places I want to see and visit, ha ha.

Did I at one point say that learning how to create databases sounded like fun? Here's a secret: IT'S NOT. I swear it is made way more complicated than it needs to be, with all the "relationships" and "cardinalities" and "join-tables" and whatnot. And Microsoft Access is a foreign language. I'll do the work to get through the class, but I'm perfectly happy to leave the database designing to people who enjoy it and are good at it. :)

No title

I won't lie, work kind of sucked today. But nobody's fault but my own. I'm such a damn airhead sometimes. It's what has always scared me the most about being in accounting; making an airhead mistake with costly repercussions. I guess this wasn't as big of a deal as that, but I annoyed at least one person anyway. One of the girls I was working with said, "Well, we made that mistake once and we won't make it again." I guess she's right.

Anyway, Geoff and I both got invitations for Phi Theta Kappa today. I think this one is for GPA's above a certain point. These last two, we have to sign up and pay in person at the school during business hours (which means rushing through a lunch break). It's not a big deal, but it'd be nice if they'd have some kind of online method or something. I wonder what they do for distance ed students.

Better get going on homework.

Oh yeah - Geoff got a couple of internship interviews this week too, one of which we know is a good one. Yay! Keeping our fingers crossed.

Paint, primary fun, and farewell dinner

Layed in bed this morning and stared at the white blank walls and wondered what the room would look like if I painted it blue and left the white trim. So, I went and bought paint and supplies and wall decorations and a new bedspread and pillows and we're going to paint it next weekend. We've never painted before so I'm excited to see what it will look like! I think it will be cute!

This morning we had the quarterly primary activity. We did an indoor campout in the cultural hall, with first aid training, a craft project, a "cave of wonder" (a tent with a tunnel leading up to it - tables covered with blankets) where they learned a song, and relay races. The relay races were my station and Geoff came and helped me. (The kids loved Geoff. He is good with them). We had 16 kids show up so we split them 8 and 8, the older kids and the younger kids. I think the older ones understood the relay races a little better than the younger ones, but at least they were able to get out some energy. It was fun.

Tonight we went to a farewell dinner with Jared and Ashlee, since they're moving in three weeks. Jared's family and some friends and mission buddies and their wives were also there. Ashlee was doing it as a surprise for Jared, and I pretty much almost gave it away. In a dumb facebook questionaire it asked what our plans for the weekend were and I put "a farewell dinner with friends." Yeah, Jared saw it and because he was already suspecting something, he figured it out. But Ashlee lied and was able to convince him I was talking about someone else. Yeah, I'm smooth (a.k.a. moron). But apparently I wasn't the only one there that almost gave it away, ha ha. Anyway, we're both so shy so I was worried it would be so uncomfortable but it really wasn't. It was at the Mayan in Sandy, which is like a multi-level maze of tables, decorated like something from the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. You feel like you're in a fancy treehouse somewhere in the jungle, and there are cliff divers every half hour or so. The food was okay, but I would go again for the atmosphere; it was fun. Between dive shows, the divers walk around and pretend to be natives, dressed in loinclothes. They pretended to be awed by the balloons. Kind of cheesy. I think it would be fun to be a diver but awkward to walk around in a loincloth.

Ceremony

Tonight after work mom and dad came over and we drove over to the school for the Phi Kappa Phi initiation ceremony. They had a pretty good dessert bar and then there was a pretty good speech, and then we picked up our stuff. I picked up Geoff's since he wasn't there. But mom and dad came and I really appreciated them spending their Friday night on my dumb ceremony thing. They are pretty great. We took a few pictures and I'll post them later when I get them from dad.

One thing the lady said in her speech was to the parents, thanking them for their support. It make me think of my parents, who've always shown such support by coming to my boring choir concerts and softball games and paying for my piano lessons and chauffering me everywhere and just taking an interest in my life. I was thinking a few weeks ago of the time shortly after we'd moved to Spanish Fork. It was the 7th grade and I was coming straight from gradeschool into a world of class periods, where everyone else had grown up together, and my clothes weren't right and my hair wasn't right, and I was so shy and felt so out of place. One morning I just broke down crying at the thought of facing another school day, and mom said heck with it, and excused me from school for the day and took me to the mall to buy a new outfit. My 'rents are the best. I have had so much support from mom and dad, I am a lucky girl. I've also been thinking a lot about all the fun memories in Pleasant Grove. Childhood was so happy and carefree, and that's the way it should be. Thanks mom and dad, love you.

80's rock

The 80's sure were great, weren't they? Musically anyway. I don't remember much except that the "Hip to Be a Square" song was on Sesame Street. That would be such a fun time to grow up though. I imagine it as an explosion of great music. There's a new playlist, which I've stayed up way past bed-time making. (It was fun.) I'm sure I'll add much more as I think of other songs. The only one I looked for that they didn't have though was Peter Gabriel.

I got an invitation for Beta Gamma Sigma. I guess the difference between this one and the other one is this one is specific to the school of business; the other one was across all majors.

Lunch post

Doing lunch office-style today, so I can study for a test I've got tonight. Not going to start that for a few minutes though.

What makes a random person on the phone want to call me "hun?" It's a little weird. Someone I know got called "sweetie" the other day and it made her upset. Is it an effort to assert yourself as the authority or is it just the way some people talk. Maybe both. (This is only referring to random people. As a term of endearment I think it's sweet).

Tuesday after work was class, then after class we went to a Provo City Council meeting (a requirement for our dumb governmental accounting class). We listened to one guy propose a business plan which included removing a historical house on University Pkwy and building a men's-only student complex. We heard from him, from his developer, from some other dude, etc. We couldn't believe how much butt-kissing there was. Kiss kiss kiss all over the place. And one other thing I thought was funny was that there was soooo much concern about what was going to happen to the trees out front. The builder explained that he was going to put the parking lot entrance in between the two trees. Oh my golly they probably talked for fifteen minutes total about the two trees. Guy had to add a clause to the contract that promised he would leave the two trees in the ground. We wanted to hear about the budget, (because that's what we're studying), but it was last on the agenda, and after an hour we hadn't even gotten passed the first item and it was getting late, so we went home.

I was surprised that the city could have so much power over what happened. If someone wants to erect a building, they have to have approval from city council first? No wonder all the butt-kissing. The builders have to have approval from the city to keep their business in business. I was also surprised that the city council can make provisions such as what the outside of the building has to look like. Interesting...

Geoff got a call from our bishop last night asking how we were doing and how our marriage is doing. I didn't know what to make of it. We fight once in awhile... once in a great while, (I think that's pretty normal), but our marriage is fine, so I wonder what made him think that. He said he's been feeling restless about it and I wonder how long he's been thinking about it. There's been some other stuff going on so maybe that's it. He's doing his job though; it is nice of him to be concerned about us and to make the phone call to see.

Calizzle ma nizzle. Foshizzle!

Okay this was funny so I had to post - I'd love to know your names too! (particularly the izzle, love that one)

Names
1.YOUR REAL NAME:
Cali Rae Stanley

2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle name)
Ray - no middle for my mom

3.NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
William Winston

4.STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)Staca

5.DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Red Cockatiel

6.SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
Rae Spanish Fork, he he he that one doesn't really work I don't think?

7.SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
THE blue orange julius

8.FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Cast

9.STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Chocolate chip chocolate chip... as good as tommy two-times eh?

10.ROCK STAR NAME:(current pets name, current street name)
Wally 1360... sounds like a wannabe rapper!

11.YOUR GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of real name plus izzle)
Calizzle

12.YOUR IRAQI.. NAME:(2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, first two letters of your middle name, last two letters of your first name then last three letters of your last name)
Aaraliley

13.YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black tajma hama lama jaba faba... sounds like some kind of chant

Pandora don't feel bad

I've heard of Pandora.com before, but never bothered to try it until yesterday. It's awesome. It's a free, commercial-free online radio station. You type in the name of an artist or song that you like, and it finds other artists and songs that are similar-sounding and plays them for you. You can further customize your radio station by giving songs thumbs up or thumbs down, and you can add variety by including an additional artist or song.

I put Collective Soul and Lady Gaga in mine, and it was commercial-free heaven.

Except for when I gave one song a thumbs down and a little message popped up that said, "We are sorry for playing this song. We won't play this song on your radio station ever again." What? And then I got a message that said, "We were unable to save your feedback, it's all our fault."

This radio station is making me feel bad. I feel like a big meanie when I get those messages, like I bawled it out and it's apologizing profusely for its gross errors. For ruining my life!

Yes, I am easily manipulated; I can't help it. I'm sorry okay? It's my fault, I won't ever do it ever, ever again!

Walster is my bud

Wally kept me company the other night. This is him sleeping on me.

For what's in a day of a dandy life

This morning we went to Pirate O's and got dad a birthday present; a little gift basket with some foreign goodies. We were able to find Vegemite there. Dad served his mission in Australia and I think I remember him saying that he liked Vegemite. I also got a little thing of stroop waffles. If you've never had stroop waffles I highly recommend giving them a try! When Alison went to Europe two summers ago she brought some home to me and I've been hooked ever since. There's only two places around here that sell them though: The Dutch Store and Pirate O's, and they're both in Salt Lake so we have to make a special trip for them once in awhile. Anyway, then we went to the mall and Geoff sat around being bored while I shopped. We took dad's present down to SF. When we got home Geoff decided to go to Wendover again.

I really don't mind at all when he goes out there; I personally don't love going (which is why I don't), and he's not really the party animal type so I don't worry. It's kind of nice once in awhile to have some time alone to do whatever. This time I treated myself to a big nap and then went in search of some purple shoes. (Found them!) Now I've bought stuff to make orange julius and I'm going to snuggle in and watch some movies. I love homework-free Saturdays! :)