The East side of the Canyon

I've never been to the east side of Zions.  I don't think I realized it was so vast, or that the road was quite so.... slightly terrifying? It might not have been had we not all been squished in like sardines. I was pretty much sitting on the lap of the girl next to me.  All in all, successful journey, beautiful views, and we all survived.  Even with one person in the back/trunk of the Subaru, and the fact that the driver drove up the middle of the road and jerked the car over whenever we met another car--which usually wasn't until the last minute (hence the terrifying part).  And the fact that not a single person in the back seat could have worn a seat belt if we had wanted to.  It was an excellent week however.
I went to several weddings, found out I have a few more this coming week plus another bridal shower.  I wonder what is in the drinking water around here and where I can get some? I have at least 5-6 weddings to attend within a 3 week period (not including the two engagements announced over Christmas!) .
Anyways..... It was fun. And I actually felt like taking pictures again, hooray! Lately I had been feeling like I didn't care if I took pictures anymore, I never even had my camera with me anywhere I went (gasp, yes it's true!) I didn't even know where it was for about a week, then discovered the battery had been dead for ages.

So this sign is actually a 30 MPH sign.  Normally I won't condone vandalism... but this made me laugh when I drove by it on my way into town.

It also gave me great pleasure to leave the dreary inversion of the city and head south.  Just look at that smog! No wonder we haven't seen the sun for weeks around here.  Seriously gross and scary looking.

At Zions we saw longhorn sheep next to the road, and we went through the tunnel.  It was long and dark and very awesome. 

Don't worry about this bridge, if you fall you will only fall several hundred feet into that deep ravine......

And what better way to end an excellent day of adventures than with barbecue.  Sonny Boys' in Cedar has absolutely amazing food! I'm hoping that they will soon have a store in Salt Lake or Provo as well.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Christmas

I love Christmas, I love the lights, the music and the smells.  I definitely enjoy the tasty food.  I also love how it tends to bring out the best in people.  It can bring out the worst in some people as well, but I'm not going to spend time expounding that at the moment.  I think that it's a time of year when children get to really be children and believe in magic.  It's a time when adults get a chance to create a little magic not only for their children, but for their fellow man (ie, layaway angels I've been hearing on the news about).

It's a time to remember the Savior and to celebrate his birth (even if it didn't really happen in December, its nice to have a time set aside to celebrate it all the same).  It's when we all have something in tie us together, to remember that we ought to value one another as individuals with all of our differences.  To remember that we are all children of the same God, and to treat each other as such.

So, with so much awesomeness, what can there possibly be to hate about Christmas?  Well, it's a bit personal.  Very personal rather, I have been debating if I would post this, but writing seems to be very therapeutic to me to get things out.

Christmas is a time to be with family.  It's a time to celebrate family.  And sometimes for me it's a just a reminder that I come from a very dysfunctional family and don't really fit in anywhere.  I know everyone's families have their problems and have dysfunctional moments.  But mine really is.  I remember as a child I would sit at the kitchen window and dream about the day when I could just get in my car and drive away and never come back.  It's a horrible thing for a child to think, but I did.  I do not enjoy spending time at my parents house, it is so full of negative energy and bad memories.  The longer I am there the more I am down on myself and depressed.  I often leave feeling like I am only three inches tall.
I am so very different from anyone in my immediate family.  My mother and I in particular do not see eye to eye on, well, just about anything you can imagine.  I often feel that she is constantly irritated at me for everything I do.  I feel that she wants me to be one sort of person, but I am another entirely.  This may sound somewhat vague, I don't know, but the details I could on about would take days, weeks even to sort through.  But what I need to realize is that I am an adult and do not need my parents approval to feel like I am a good person, easier said than done.  

So when the holidays roll around, I generally enjoy them but I dread Christmas eve coming around.  I dread going to my parents house.  While living down south with no car, it was not too difficult for me to find excuses to stay.  I usually had a job that would not allow me to leave anyway, and everyone around me would say "Oh you poor thing!" but I never really minded staying to work every holiday.  Now I have a week off work and the holiday is fast approaching.  I love the holiday in general, but would gladly skip the actual day in a heartbeat.   

Hmmmm.......

Hmmmm well I have nothing too terribly exciting to blog about.  Life is pretty much the same.  I go to work, I go home, I get headaches more frequently again (not just little headaches, headaches that make me lock myself in a dark room headaches) but on the upside I have more days where I feel well enough to eat real food.  Meaning, anything other than jello, pudding or other soft and unsatisfying substance.  Hoping for good weather next weekend to go south for a day or two.  Warm weather sounds very enticing at the moment.

Speaking of the weather, I don't know if my memory is just faulty or what the deal is, but I do not really remember being this bitter cold in Cedar.  I'm sure it was to be honest, but I have just conveniently forgotten it as I've been gone for so long.  And in the heat of a southern summer it is very very easy to forget the bitterness of the wintertime.

However, I do seem to recall a few memorable winters in Utah's Dixie.  My sophmore year of college we had a bunch of people over to play games and a huge blizzard sprang up and some of the people ended up sleeping on our couch because they couldn't get their cars out.  A friend brought his truck over and pulled them out the next morning.
Another time there was a huge ice storm and everything was frozen solid.  I don't know how the driving was, I had no car.  But walking was fun.  Did I say walking? I meant sliding and skating on the frozen roads and sidewalks.
That same year our furnace broke, we had no heat.  It was COLD in that house.  Our bishop lent us his nice space heater and we slept in the living room near the space heater for a month.  We covered the doorways with blankets or something and just camped out in the family room, slept on the couches.  At the time I was highly miserable, being cold all the time and stuff, but I sometimes miss those days in some ways.  I miss the people more than the circumstances at any rate.
I remember dancing in the falling snow in the parking lot behind the Villa apts with an old boyfriend, and I remember making snowmen in the front yard with my roommates.  I also remember one night during a light snow storm I went on a walk with my roommates and we were running up our street falling into random yards making snow angels.
I also remember walking to work in snow so deep I was practically doing bunny hops through the knee high drifts.
All in all, snow isn't so bad.  I just dread driving in it, or having to trudge through it to get to work and then sit in my office in wet clothes for several hours. 

Happy Memories

Title says it all.  Lyrics are in no way mine, I think they belong to Billy Joel or someone who wrote them for him maybe? Who knows, I just love this song.

Piano Man

It's nine o'clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's an old man sitting next to me
Makin' love to his tonic and gin

He says, "Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes."

la la la, di da da
La la, di di da da dum

Chorus:
Sing us a song, you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us all feelin' all right

Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke and he'll light up your smoke
But there's some place that he'd rather be
He says, "Bill, I believe this is killing me."
As his smile ran away from his face
"Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"

Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talkin' with Davy, who's still in the Navy
And probably will be for life

And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessman slowly gets stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone

Chorus
sing us a song you're the piano man
sing us a song tonight
well we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us all feeling alright

It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see
To forget about their life for a while
And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the microphone smells like a beer
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, "Man, what are you doin' here?"

Oh, la la la, di da da
La la, di da da da dum

Chorus:
sing us a song you're the piano man
sing us a song tonight
well we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us all feeling alright

Tidbits

I heard a great story from my cousins the other day. I have embellished only a little bit since I was not present at this event and can only derive some things from the times I have heard this story told to me.

When my cousins were little, my aunt worked a lot and was gone most of the day. My uncle worked from home. When C and J were 6 and 4 respectively, they had an minor adventure that has been often repeated.

One day C and J were hungry. Their mom was at work, their dad was in the basement also working. They went downstairs to ask for lunch and their dad told them to be patient and he would come up shortly to get them something to eat. Well, the kids did not want to wait until later, they were hungry right then. So, without bothering to put shoes on (as it was summertime) they went out the door, down the street and rang the neighbors doorbell. When the neighbor opened his door he was surprised to two little children looking up at him with sad faces. "We're hungry, can you feed us?" asked C. The neighbor was shocked, but took them in and fed them peanut butter and jelly sandwich's.

When his wife got home she was also surprised to see the two children sitting at the table happily munching away at their sandwiches. She called their mother, who was slightly horrified and apologized profusely while thanking the kindly neighbors for taking in her children. The neighbors were highly amused at the whole thing. I was also highly amused, hence I attempted to put to words the entertaining events which I have heard told repeatedly.

Epic Weekend: Bryce, Chuck, and Three Little Nuns

At long last I went to visit the land of red rocks and warmth.  I didn't even have to scrape ice off my car the entire time I was there-- it was great. Thursday afternoon I decided I didn't care if I was broke on all fronts, so I just ended up taking off for the weekend and seeing who was there.  I was pleasantly surprised by the number of friends I got to see or spend time with.  I spent the entire weekend visiting Bryce, chatting with three little nuns, and watching Chuck.  It was an epic weekend.
On my random adventures I saw many interesting things.  In Fillmore I saw a big bear, and what I think is a buck deer.  There was a sign that said not to climb on them sadly enough.

 

Although exhausting, this trip completely recharged me, I went from feeling like I was 90 to only 60.

But back to the positive side, Bryce Canyon was AMAZING! It wasn't even cold up there, perfect hiking weather.  I think that spur of the moment trips seem to agree with me rather.

Things I am Grateful for

It's strange how lately I find myself loving things I used to rather dislike on various levels for various reasons.  Social media being a good example here.  However, I am now finding that things I used to have mixed feelings about for whatever reason I now am grateful I have, or some of these things I just liked to begin with in all honesty.  Like sleep. I have always like sleep, just not to the excess I have been doing it in recent weeks.

-Sleep
-new pajamas
-movies
-Jamba Juice
-old roommates
-texting
-free phone upgrades
-social media (yes, believe it or not the day has come when I am promoting social media! I can type instead   of talk, which is much easier lately, and keep in touch with people who live far away who I don't see on an ongoing basis)
-gift cards that I can get movies and crafts with to keep me occupied
-ice packs for achy joins and muscles
-asprin
-ice cream