My Other Car is a SAAB

Well, as most of you know, I won the car! This is my new Mitsubishi Eclipse! Or, as I've decided to call her, Mitsy:

It's a really cool car, and I'm really excited to have it. It's only flaw is that it's. . .

SIGH. . .

Japanese.

Not that I really have anything against Japanese cars, it's just that after the SAAB I swore I'd only buy European cars for the rest of my life.

Maybe. . .

maybe. . .

Lederhosen Mitsubishi?!

Anyway, Mitsy and I have been bonding over the last few days. Observe:

Mitsy pummeling me in chess


Me and Mitsy rocking out to some Guitar Hero tunes

Me and Mitsy on night patrol (hence the mask)

Strawberries!

On Thursday we had cooking club at my house. We did chocolate dipped strawberries, because as everyone knows, the only foods I can make are desserts. It was really fun. Thanks to everyone who came!

My Everest

This picture accurately describes the way I felt while climbing with Cara and Lina at the Quarry last night.

Mostly it's because I'm a big baby and am terrified of heights

So I looked up at that big wall and growled, "You. . .are my Everest!"

And then I conquered it. Ha.

Props to Il Divo

If you've never heard of the group called Il Divo, you seriously should check it out. It's like pop opera. They're a 4-man group, with guys from America, France, Spain, and Switzerland. My best friend introduced me to it saying that she fell in love with it immediately, and 30 seconds into the song she chose I fell in love with it too.

You can go to YouTube and search for the songs. My absolute favorite is one they do in French with Celine Dion, called "I Believe In You". Another really good one is "The Man You Love."

Check it out guys, seriously.

Bleh snow

It is 2:00pm on a Monday afternoon, and I'm snuggled up safely on my sofa, watching tv and blogging while the storm rages outside. On a day like this, I am SO GRATEFUL that I have such a wonderful job, with a doctor who knows when it's time to cancel the day because of the weather.

Yet another reason why I'll never leave this job. :)

President Hinckley

What a shock it was tonight to come home from a very inspiring missionary fireside, and then to suddenly get a message from my sister that President Hinckley had just passed away. President Hinckley was sustained when I was 9 years old, so I don't really remember having any other prophet but him. I really did think he'd kind of just live forever. I grew to love him as I passed through those rocky teenage and adolescent years under his leadership.

I had the opportunity to be in the same room as him many times. I attended many conference sessions over the past 10 years and would spend a good deal of time just looking at the prophet. I attended 2 BYU devotionals at the Marriott Center where President Hinckley was in attendance. I also had the unique experience to be in the Celestial Room of the Timpanogos temple during the dedication (my dad was a bishop in the area at the time) and sat 10 feet away from President Hinckley as he conducted the session that Wednesday afternoon. Even then at 11 years old, I knew he was a special man and could feel the spirit radiating from him.

This is a very sad loss, but in times like this I am reminded of how blessed we are to be part of a church where everything is in its place. There is no confusion about what will happen next. President Monson is our prophet now. The church will go on. We have lost a great man, but we have not lost truth. For this I am grateful.

NYE at the CT

I forgot to post this earlier.

This was taken on New Year's Eve at the Chef's Table restaurant. I was there helping out on one of the busiest nights of the year.

Always a good dress-up opportunity. I like to wear these 4-inch heel glass slippers I have. Naturally, I end up changing into more comfortable ballerina slippers after about 2 hours. :)

NYE at the restaurant is always fun. Usually we have a jazz band that comes and plays, and we decorate the restaurant with glittery hats and tiaras, streamers, and those little paper horn things. Also (my favorite) bottles of Kristian Regale everywhere. I got to take one home this year as a momento (although it was empty by morning).

Masquerade

Last night my best friend and I went to a masquerade at the Provo Historic County Courthouse building and rocked out till midnight. It was so much fun! They were offering "vintage" dance lessons and mask decorating, although we didn't do either. They also ended the night with the masquerade song from Phantom of the Opera. There were some amazing costumes there! I wish I had taken my camera. I love dressing up!

Hair Care

Whenever something particularly stressing occurs in my life, I change my hair. I don't know why.

When I started college I bleached my hair to a dark wood-sy brown color.

When my boyfriend left on his mission, I dyed my hair raven black. Now this may not sound like much, but if you realized how really not black my hair is, you'd realize it was a noticeable change.

When I moved out for the first time and got in a huge fight with this queen bee roommate of mine, I went to St. George and came back with a head full of golden highlights. (This was double treatment - I was simultaneously in the middle of trying to discourage one of my best guy friends at the time from liking me romantically. We never did recover from that.)

When I moved away and was crying all the time because I missed living with my best friend and other single pals, I chopped my hair off.

When I was working 24/7 to finish my independent study classes so I could graduate on time, and all the other stresses from this summer - I had my hair layered, no small feat with hair as long as mine.

Today I am sporting bangs. Yes bangs, but not ones from the 90s. I like them quite a bit. :)

Purpose

I think that lately I've been having a sort of existential breakdown. You know, the kind that most people are already supposed to have gone through by my stage of life. The whole time I was in school I felt like I had such purpose, that I was contributing so much to the community by doing my part to be educated so that I could make the world a better place. Ever since I graduated I've felt a little. . .not lost really, but more like I'm not sure I'm on the BEST path. I mean, my schooling did its purpose - I was just offered a full time position that I LOVE and where I get to help people. It's not just about work though - I just kind of feel like I'm living my life going through the motions, without any real goal in sight. It's really a feeling I've had for a couple years now, but maybe I'm just more aware of it now because I don't have school to distract me anymore. This is really hard for me because I remember a time when I felt like there wasn't anything more I could ask out of life, and now instead I just feel a little helpless as I watch life happen, like I'm not in control of my own destiny anymore. I know that's not true, but it FEELS like it. Although, to be sure, that "perfectness" I remember could have just been the glory of youth, and now that I'm considered an adult I don't look at life through such rose-colored glasses. Sorry these thoughts are so scattered - although it gives a good insight into what living in my head is like. :)

Please tell me other people have felt this way.

The Wedding

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while (I don't know why I'm apologizing, no one knows about this blog!) but December has been busy. I was working at the restaurant almost every night to help out with the Christmas parties and things and that severely limited my free time.

A highlight from December:

This devastatingly handsome guy is my favorite cousin in the world. He got married a couple days after Christmas. This was a surprisingly hard day for me - I've been having a really hard time "letting him go." Ever since we were toddlers every picture taken of me when visiting Idaho has Dare seated right next to me. As kids we played together; as teenagers we confided all our secrets to each other; as college students we talked about our dreams for the future and wrote letters constantly while he was on his mission. He's always been kind of the brother I never had. But now he has a girl he can keep forever, and it's been quite a change to have him focus all his attention on her instead of me. I mean, I always knew he'd get married someday, but it was still hard. Even still, I'm happy for him, in a sad kind of way. He's the best guy I've ever known and he deserves to be happy.

Moving on to less emotional topics - my car is almost fixed! It broke down on me a full month ago but I was so busy working I didn't have time to take it to a shop. About a week ago one of my neighbors very kindly offered to help. He knows a lot about cars and has been doing a lot of legwork for me, finding this one little piece I need for my car. It shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is, but my car is European, and parts are hard to find. :) Anyway, the part came in yesterday so it should be pretty easy from here. I'll post a picture once it's done!

The Car Analogy

This past spring, my friend's cousin adopted an adorable baby boy. I have become addicted to her blog as I have always been an adoption advocate, and I feel like she shares a lot of really good insights. She shared a story she heard at a conference about how teenage pregnancy is like a carwreck. I found it very touching and thought-provoking and want to copy it down here:

A young man and a young woman are out on the lawn outside of a very busy street. The child they are both responsible for runs out into the street. At the same time the couple becomes aware that there is a car coming at a very high rate of speed. There is no chance that the child will not get hit. The car is coming much too fast.

The couple has four options:

1. They can do nothing and watch the child get hit and killed by the car, the psychological memory of this inaction burned in their minds forever.

this is abortion.

2. They can both jump out and sandwich the child between them to brace the child for the collision. If they can stay together, there is minimal injury to the child. however, there is a
80-90% chance that they will split upon impact.

this is couples that try to stay together and/or get married because of a crisis pregnancy.

3. One of the parents can jump out in front of the car by themselves. Injuries to the child are more substantial.

this is single parenting.

4. One or both of the parents and run out into the street and push the child out of the way of the speeding car and into the outstretched arms of a couple on the other side of the street.

this is adoption.

However, even with adoption, the birth parents always get hit by the car

Patriotism

Yesterday as I was driving home from work, traffic stopped at a red light, and as we waited for the green the sound of ambulance sirens were heard. I looked in my rearview and could see, down the block, a flashing ambulance coming toward our intersection. The light turned green, and nobody moved. No one in our three lanes, nor the three lanes of oncoming. The ambulance was able to quickly move through us and continue to the person in need.

It was one of the proudest moments I have had in a while. Not for me, but for everyone who sat there allowing the ambulance to pass. Usually there's at least one or two cars that go on ahead anyway despite the ambulance, but that was the first time I have seen an intersection so completely frozen under a green light. For some reason, this stood out as an act of patriotism. To me, patriotism is about unity and working together for the greater good, willing to sacrifice. And at that moment, I was so proud to be among these fellow Americans. (As you can see my white blood is flowing today)

Hamster Babies

This past July I was convinced into acquiring a pair of dwarf hamsters. My friend S wanted one but didn't want to make the full commitment, so she suggested that we buy a couple and then switch off weeks - timeshare hamsters, if you will. I knew she wanted one, and I didn't really care one way or the other, so we went to look at a new litter this lady had and picked out these two:

S decided to name hers (the black one) Audi and I named mine Kleenex.

We ended up getting them about a week early - the mom had died unexpectedly and they were urgently in need of care. So we took a small box full of cotton bedding and picked them up. They were hilarious! They were seriously narcileptic their first couple weeks of life. They would run around for maybe 20 seconds, then they'd all of a sudden curl into a ball and sleep for 8 seconds, run around for 20, sleep for 8, repeat. I guess though that when your lifespan is only 2 years then an 8 second nap must seem like a few hours!

Like I mentioned, these are dwarf hamsters, and we got them at a couple weeks old, so when we got them they looked like little colored cotton balls running around. They stopped growing after a couple months and now they are about the size of my palm. Unfortunately S is very sick now due to pregnancy, so I've got permanent/temporary custody of the hamster babies instead of switching off weeks.

Funny story: My little sister watched the hamsters for us while I was on vacation in Florida, and when I went to my parents' house to pick them up I decided to clean out the cage. I left the top off the cage while I was washing all the play tubes because usually the hamsters don't jump out if they can see that it's a long drop to the floor. Well, half an hour later I went to go put the cage back together, and Kleenex was missing! (It's always Kleenex, the scoundrel) I became very worried very fast, because:

1. My parents live in a 3-level 1900s house with lots of nooks and crannies, and there were a lot of places a tiny hamster could get lost, versus the security of our newer 2-bedroom, one level apartment.

2. Hamsters are nocturnal, so wherever she was, if she was safe, she was probably sleeping. So I couldn't even depend on hearing her squeaking or scurrying around.

3. My dad is not fond of the "rodents" as he calls them. I knew that at the end of the day, if I had to tell him that there was a lost hamster somewhere in his house, I would surely die. I was prepared to search for 8 hours straight before (if) finding her.

Fortunately what could have been tragic turned out okay - I found her after only about 45 minutes. Apparantly she had done a death drop from the kitchen table and run to the dining room, where she had squeezed under an overturned pot and settled down for a nap. When I picked up that pot and saw her I almost thought I was seeing things, because it was way easier than it should have been! But not only had she run off - she had taken food with her! There were seed crumbs everywhere! She must have thought she was going on a little picnic. Yeesh.

Mr. Nice Guy

Today at work something very nice and unexpected happened. It was one of those mornings where the phone was ringing off the hook and I was a little frazzled trying to update all the Christmas parties. In the middle of this madness, Tanner, one of the servers at the restaurant, came walking up to the hostess stand with a tall Irish mug full of steaming hot apple cider. He said, "Here Tasha, cuz Bizzle isn't here to make it for you this year."

How sweet!!!!!

Let me explain: My favorite coworker, nicknamed "Bizzle" by the staff, was a manager at the restaurant and the person I connected most with. We used to refer to each other as our "work husband" and "work wife." We would always go to the work parties together. Completely platonic though. Anyway, last winter, every morning when I got to work he would make me a tall mug of apple cider to warm up before the lunch crowd came. It was a very sweet tradition until about March when we ran out of cider, probably because of me. Unfortunately, "Bizzle" doesn't work at the restaurant anymore, and I miss him very much. Tanner, who has also worked at the restaurant for a long time, witnessed this scene and had the heart to remember this tradition of winters past and totally make my day. Thanks Tanner!