the randomness that I call my life

Goodbye 2011

2011-12-31T13:38:00.000-08:00

I am so glad to say goodbye to 2011. I'm not looking for any kind of pity party or anything, but, quite honestly, 2011 has probably been the worst year of my entire life. I've been struggling with so much and so constantly that there have been several times that I was just done and didn't think I was going to make it. Thankfully I have a handful of extremely close friends and I have a family that have been very supportive of me. I'm hoping that maybe in writing this blog, 1: I'll feel some sense of closure by being completely honest with myself and be able to move forward in a way, and 2: maybe help somebody else out there who is struggling with some part of anything I've dealt with and doesn't know what to do.
Those of you that know me very well, know that I have struggled with depression and anxiety for most of my life. My parents took me to doctors and psychiatrists and therapists when I was a kid trying to figure out what was wrong with me and what to do with me. I was diagnosed with different things, such as Intermittent Explosive Disorder and Hypoglycemia. Which I recently found out were probably not the case. But I'll talk about that in a bit.

So this year I kind of hit my rock bottom. Now that's just my rock bottom. Thankfully I didn't get as bad as I probably could have. I know a lot of people that go through much worse before they are able to pick themselves up. But it got bad for me personally. I started spiraling back in January. My therapist recently asked me what I thought had started me going downhill, and I had already been thinking about it, so it was fairly easy for me to pinpoint.

At the beginning of the year, my two best friends in the whole world, had discussed the possibility of dating each other. Now, this probably doesn't sound like a big deal to most people, but our situation is hardly normal. ;) The three of us have been best friends for many, many years. I'll call them P and J. ;) P and J are both gay, and I refer to them as my gusbands. (gay husbands, for those of you not so quick on the uptake) I am very close to both of them, yet my relationship with each of them is very different. First of all they have both absolutely ruined men for me....they are both such genuine, kind, caring guys who are so dear and important to me and I would do anything for either one of them. They’ve both been there for me always, with open arms and without judgement of any kind. I always compare every guy I ever date to them and they never compare, so I probably should stop doing that. :o)

I should probably also point out that P is the only person I have ever been in love with. Many years ago, before he came out of the closet, I was certain he was the guy I was supposed to marry. And he had mentioned it a couple of times....but I think that was just because of the pressure he was feeling from church, etc. because that's what he was expected to do. But I'm not going to go into that here and now because my purpose today is certainly not to offend people. So anyways....long story, semi short....J was in town for a week or so and both of them were coming to me separately, asking me questions and advice about the situation. J was staying with me, so in the mornings before P would get there we'd talk about stuff, and then after J would go to sleep, P would stay later and we'd talk about stuff. But they hadn't actually talked to each other. It became a bit of a stressful situation for me. Which I know they did not intend for that, it's just how my brain reacted.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the possibility of them dating. On one hand it was perfect. On the other hand I knew I would somehow always be left out, even though it was unintentional. And what if it didn't work out? Would I have to choose sides? I couldn't do that. So they finally talked about it one of the last nights that J was in town and decided not to date. I was both sad and relieved at the same time. Then we all talked about it together. I know part of the reason was because of me. Part of the decision was because they felt it wasn't worth risking any of our relationships. Which has left me feeling a little bit guilty at times. I know it shouldn't, because I'm not the sole reason....but it does a little bit. So something during that very emotionally stressful week triggered something in my brain that kind of made me shut down in a way. But they both know I certainly don’t blame them for any of this and we’ve talked about it since. It just is what it is and I love both of them to death.

One of the hardest, and constant things I've dealt with throughout the year is medication changes. Late in 2010 I had finally got into a local clinic's psychiatry program after being on a waiting list. Ever since then, I have been changing medications or changing doses of medications every couple months, trying to figure out the right combination. I've had some crazy side effects and crazy withdrawal symptoms that I wouldn't wish on anybody.
At one point I was sleeping 20 hours a day. And at the opposite side of the spectrum one gave me insomnia. Some that would make me sick anytime I tried to eat anything. Some that make me want to eat everything in sight. One that gave me migraines. A couple that made me super irritable and short tempered. One that made me stutter and not remember words. One that just made me a zombie....I would just kind of sit there and exist. (which would have been horrible if I was on that one during the zombie apocalypse...talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time) One of the ones I'm on now makes soda taste flat. And they all make you dizzy. Every single one. Just weird stuff. And the withdrawals are worse.
Part of the problem I was also having is the fact that the psychiatrist at this clinic I have been dealing with is somebody that I do not like. And I've felt that she has not listened to me. At times I would practically have to get into arguments with her to get her to give me what I felt I needed.

One good thing that happened, and I can not thank my aunt enough for setting this up for me (another person who has been incredibly supportive of me through all of this)....was when I took a trip to Utah back in August. I was able to meet with a friend of hers who is a clinical psychologist and pain management specialist. He was just the nicest person and invited me to his house to chat. He was able to tell me what I had after only talking to me for about 20 minutes. I was Bipolar. Which I've always thought I probably was. Other doctors had mentioned that as a possibility, but never officially diagnosed me.

If you don't know exactly what that means.....the easiest readers digest definition of bipolar: Giant mood swings. You go between the high mania parts which consists of euphoria and super energy to the super low of major depression. With a lot of people the mood swings may only occur a few times a year.
More specifically we talked about the fact that I am probably rapid cycle bipolar with possible mixed states. Which means that I personally can have the cycle so quickly that I can literally have both the mania and the depression at the exact same time. While he was explaining this to me I just remember feeling like a light was clicking on in my head. Yes! Yes! Yes! That's exactly how I feel! Nobody has ever explained it to me like that before. Apparently that particular diagnoses is pretty rare and very difficult to diagnose. So now I knew what was wrong with me.
Then came a rush of emotions. Happiness to finally know. Sadness to know that it's going to take time to treat. Anger that nobody could ever figure it out before. I'd been living for 30 years, taking how many medications that were doing me absolutely no good. Because if you are bipolar, taking just an antidepressant can actually feed into your mania. And he told me that all the things I had been diagnosed with as a child and teenager, they are now finding out are possible misdiagnoses for people that are bipolar. Yay, I was a guinea pig.

So when I went back to my psychiatrist here and told her what this other doctor had said, she didn't want to believe it. Her response was "well, I don't really think you are bipolar because you don't hear voices or have hallucinations." SERIOUSLY!??!!? I'm not telling you I'm schizophrenic! And then she also made a comment about not liking to "put labels on people." Well guess what lady....you became a psychiatrist. It's your freakin’ job. I'm asking you to put a label on me and send me on my merry way. It took me really putting my foot down and basically telling her that I don't trust her and flat out telling her that I don't think she listens to me, to put me on the right medications I needed to be treated with for bipolar.

So since the first half the year I was getting medications that weren't helping (and dealing with the crappy side effects for no reason), I was pretty much just feeling defeated all the time. Whenever I would be feeling manic I would spend insane amounts of money on the STUPIDEST things. Like, seriously.
Did I need 150 glow sticks? No. Not even remotely.
Have I used the wood drill? Saw? Drill? See I don’t even remember what it is. No....it's still sitting in box it was delivered in, not even opened. At least I'm assuming that's what's in that box...maybe I should check.
Did I need a Roku? Well, I could use it, but I haven't opened it.
Do I need 100 Sharpies? Yes...that ones not stupid. You can never have too many Sharpies. That was a trick question.
I also spent probably thousands of dollars on music....but that’s acceptable I think. Music is so important to me and at times music was the only thing that kept me going. So if you ever need to load up an iPod.....give me a call.

If I wasn’t manic spending money doing online shopping a lot of nights would be spent just pacing in my room. I would just be super anxious. A lot. All of the time. If you’ve never experienced anxiety....probably the best way to describe it, at least the way I feel it, is like a giant weight sitting on or pushing on your chest, so that you have a hard time breathing. And a feeling like everything is closing in on you. And some of your senses are kind of heightened. Like noises seem 10 times louder than they really are. And sometimes for me this would last for days. Or sometimes I would have a full blown anxiety/panic attack where it would escalate to the point where I thought I was going to explode. And maybe that is the best way to describe it....you kind of do explode. I would hyperventilate. I would shake. I would not be able to stop moving. And sometimes it would be so bad I would find that I would actually start biting on the knuckle of my thumb. I didn’t actually realize I was doing this until after the fact.....like it was my brain’s way of trying to focus all the pressure that was trying to escape into one place. The first time that happened it really freaked me out. Like I wasn’t crazy enough already....
Sometimes I would just need to drive. Just that feeling of moving would help a bit. But that could sometimes be a double edged sword, because if I was having the depression part too, it would be hard to get the thoughts out of my head of wanting to just ram my car into the giant tree or off the cliff I was driving by.

Then there were just the depressed days. The days I just didn’t feel motivated to do anything. I would just lay in bed. Literally just lay there. Stare at the walls. Sleep. Some days I would watch tv shows or movies. But even that seemed like too much effort at times. And laying in bed for long periods of time is not a good thing for my back pain that I have from my car accident a couple years ago. It just makes it worse. And I’m fully aware of that....but in that state of mind I didn’t even care. It was a vicious cycle.
I found myself often cancelling on friends. Even to do stuff that I loved, like going to Disneyland. Or just dreading going places that I had already spent the money for, like concerts or Broadways shows.....even though I knew I would enjoy it once I was there. It just seemed like so much effort to go. But the thought of having to pretend I was okay in front of people was so daunting. Always having to put on a smile when inside I felt like I was constantly drowning. And the thought of all the people that would be wherever we would be going was sometimes really stressful. Although, I can’t lie...I still have a hard time with that. I just went to Disneyland today and it was super crowded and I was pretty anxious for most of the time I was there.

If you are somebody that deals with depression, you know that some days you just kind of feel numb. Well, that's basically how I felt most of the time. So I started to try to find ways to self medicate or to try to feel something. Anything. I developed some pretty bad habits involving drugs and alcohol. Again, not as bad as I could have....I know some people get pretty bad into drugs and what not. I was always able to function on things I was doing. But I was pretty consistently high over the last year. And I would probably be an alcoholic if I could afford it. Not that I could afford the drug habit at times. Both are a pretty expensive habit. There were even times when I abused the medications I was prescribed. Especially once I found out they weren't doing me any good and my psychiatrist wouldn't listen to me. I quickly learned that crushing up one of my klonopins and sniffing it up my nose would give me a quick high and get rid of my anxiety a lot faster than taking it the way I was supposed to.
I also found myself browsing Craigslist more and more frequently looking for random guys to hookup with. NOT my proudest moments. Sooooo stupid and dangerous. I’m lucky nothing bad ever happened. But, again, just looking to feel something....and that would always give me a rush. Probably because it was so dangerous.
I came to the realization that I had a serious problem when I was keeping a lot of this from even my best friends. Because normally I tell my best friends everything. They know everything about me. And if I was ashamed or embarrassed to tell them something about myself, something was not right. So obviously something here needed to change.

So one other good thing that came of this year is that I finally found a therapist that I LOVE. Which is pretty crazy, considering I have no insurance and I found her at a low income clinic. I have been to several over the years and I have never really liked any of them. I've never had one that I trusted 100%. So I was never 100% honest with them or myself, which really doesn't do anybody any good. And it always was just kind of a game for me when I would go in, to see how much crazy I wanted to let them in on. I had decided this time, before even going in actually, that I needed to fully commit and be honest about everything, and then it turned out that it was a good fit, so it just worked out all around.
So she has been helping me a lot the last couple of months with all of this stuff. Things seem to be going well. And now that I may actually be on a combination of medications that are possibly working I’m more hopeful. I've been on a higher dosage for about a month now, so I won't know for sure for a couple more weeks, but so far so good. I know there is still quite a stigma attached to being on the type of medications I'm on, and I always had a hard time with that as a kid and teenager. But after going part of my life not on anything and then through this year not on the right ones and seeing how low I got, it's worth it. I would recommend to anybody that thinks it might help them to try it. Even a low dose of something could do wonders. Not everybody is as crazy as me and needs the whole pharmacy ;)

I will say I do believe that everything happens for a reason. So maybe I needed this crappy year for the good parts to happen. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten the help I needed if I hadn’t gotten as bad as I did. So in a way, even though it was the worst year, maybe it was the best year. And, as I said earlier, I’m so grateful for my close friends and family that have helped me through everything. Obviously P and J for all they do for me, H for always giving me a place to crash when I need to get away and for everything else, L, L, M, and K. You know who you are. Thank you and I love you all. :)

And here’s to hopefully a better and healthier 2012.

Wowser

2010-03-04T14:27:00.000-08:00

It has been an incredibly long time since I blogged. Probably because my life has been pretty boring since the car accident :o)

But anyways....I suppose I should update everybody

Still going through treatments for my back....going to the chiropractor a couple times a week to get 'electrocuted' and been regularly seeing a neurosurgeon.

My parents got me a recumbent exercise bike for Christmas which is fantabulistical! I love it. Been doing about 45 minutes a day on it...trying to get up to an hour. And it has video games integrated into it because my parents don't know me at all...they must think I'm a big nerd or something. Oh wait..... :o) But I really think it's helping out a lot. It's definitely helping as far as my stamina. I'm able to do more for longer without being in more pain. Which, as you can imagine, has been very nice. Not that I'm really close to feeling 'normal' but slowly heading in that direction is a big step for me.

My lawyer (who is a major douche and I can't stand him) actually started to listen to me as of last week, so that's good. He was supposed to be submitting a 'demand package' to the other lady's insurance company. We are guessing she doesn't have much coverage seeing as how she was a high risk carrier and had a suspended license...so after that we will more than likely have to go through my own insurance which will take some time.

So.....it's just a super slow process. But a little improvement here and there makes me not go completely crazy. Well....you know what I mean.

Been trying to keep busy though.....going to a lot of broadway shows and trying to spend time with friends. My latest obsession:

Mary Poppins

If you get a chance to go see the broadway show....just do it. (Holly...it's in Denver right now...GO) I may even offer to reimburse you for your tickets if you go and don't enjoy it. I don't really see how that would even be feasible. It is fantastic. My favorite show hands down. Yes, more than Wicked and more than Rent. My uncle had some tickets he wasn't able to use due to not getting time of work, so Paul and I got to go. They were pretty much the best seats ever....dead center of the orchestra. Awesomeness.

And here's a couple pictures from Paul's birthday a couple weeks ago. We went to Disneyland to see the fireworks...even though it was raining. And it was still a lot of fun =)

Halloween Time!

2008-10-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

So one of my favorite holidays is almost here.....and as you all know, Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite movies. :)
So last week a new cd was released.....with a bunch of remakes of all the songs by different artists. If you are a fan of the movie and/or music it's definitely worth checking out
I think my favorite song on there is probably Amy Lee's (Evanescence) version of Sally's Song.
I got it off Itunes.....but I'm sure it's on amazon and other places as well. It's called Nightmare Revisited =D

And yes, I have been on Haunted Mansion Holiday this year. Not many times, since due to my being a gimp lately I haven't been able to make it up there much. And even when I have I don't last very long. But I've been on it a couple times. And the dining room table centerpiece they have this year might be my favorite. I'll give you a hint......'No! Not my gumdrop buttons!' :o)

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Now playing: RJD2 - Christmas Eve Montage
via FoxyTunes

The never ending vicious cycle of life

2008-09-06T22:21:00.000-07:00

So I've decided that life is just out to get me. :o)
Sometimes I wish that I could be 10 again....where my biggest stresses were whether or not I was going to be able to convince my parents to buy me the latest New Kids on the Block cassette or whether I was going to make it home from softball practice to see the new episode of Full House. But then I realize that being an adult is better overall. I guess.

I know that I need stress in my life. I don't function very well without it. But I'd really appreciate some sort of middle ground. I don't function well with large amounts of it either.
So continuing in this vicious cycle of figuring out how to get past the latest crises and waiting for the next one to happen....hoping that maybe I'll actually get a break and have a few days to breathe.....the next one came crashing down. Literally.

I was sitting at a stop light on Thursday afternoon when a lady decided to ram right into the back of me. Yay. I keep change in the little ashtray/trash compartment in the dash, and it popped open and all the money flew out at my face.
Of course my first two thoughts as this is happening are:
"Are you freakin kidding me?!?!?!? I just got my car back last week!!!!!" (from being fixed after the last person that decided to back into me) and "This is seriously going to cut into my nap time that I was so looking forward to"
I seemed to be ok. Just kinda shaken up a bit.
Pulled over. Got out of the car. The lady that hit me started apologizing saying she thought the light was green. Blah blah blah (shout out to Terry) ;)
She tries to figure out all her insurance information. Meanwhile I am looking at my car. The whole back end is completely smashed in. My trunk is popped open and won't close. The tail lights are all shattered.
Then the sheriff that happened to be driving by, pulled over. He was very nice. Asked us both for our licenses and he ran them. Turns out that the lady's license had been suspended. And my neck was starting to hurt a bit. Double yay.
This happened just up the hill from my apartment, which also happens to be just outside of Hillary's work....so she came out to make sure I was ok and stayed with me for awhile. She was very helpful....asking the sheriff questions I probably wouldn't have thought of. I had to hang out for awhile because they had to write up an incident report since the lady's license was suspended. While waiting, 2 other sheriff cars came. Tow truck came to tow the lady's car, since she couldn't drive now (well....technically she wasn't suppose to before either). I decided to drive my car home since it was just down the hill like a quarter of a mile. And thank God it was only a quarter of a mile.....it really wasn't drivable. The trunk wouldn't stay closed and the bumper was hanging down so far it was scraping on the back tires.
So yeah.....made a million phone calls to get the insurance crap going, my car towed to the shop, making a dr's appointment and getting a rental car-which was a whole other pain in the butt that I'm not very happy with. Currently driving a huge Dodge Durango for over $50 a day. TRIPLE YAY!!!!
Went to the doctor yesterday afternoon. She gave me super strength ibprofen, vicoden and flexirol. :D Which is good....because as of today I am quite possibly in the worst pain I've ever had in my life. I'm trying really hard not to be a baby about it....but dang. My back and neck are killing me.
So hopefully this won't take too long to get all worked out.....but I'm not holding my breath seeing as how there is going to be a whole investigation process because of the stupid lady with a suspended license. *sigh*

Anyways......my new current obsession is a new album by Brooke Waggoner. It's kind of folk/pop. Catchy stuff. You should check it out.
I promise to blog sooner than 6 months next time. :o)

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Now playing: Brooke Waggoner - Young Friend
via FoxyTunes

Cheerfully depressed

2008-04-29T18:27:00.001-07:00

Apparently several months have gone by without my ramblings.
I guess I've been busy. =p
The last few months have been pretty crazy.....had a lot going on. I can't believe it's already the end of April. I don't really think I have a lot to ramble about....but here's a rundown of some of the things I've learned so far this year:
*You MUST remember to make time for yourself
*Sometimes it's ok and a lot of fun to ditch responsibilities to go goof off with your best friend for an afternoon
*Reality tv in general sucks....and Hollywood writers should never go on strike again. Thankfully they came to their senses and we have new episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives back ;)
*Even the best relationships need constant work
*There are certain physical activities that are a lot easier and much more enjoyable 170 pounds lighter ;)
*Salads are freakin awesome and much easier to eat everyday when you add fresh mushrooms, broccoli, snap peas and bell peppers (thanks Hillary and Dave) ;)
*Even when you think you have a lot of patience....you can always use more
*Mariah Carey songs can sound pretty awesome as emo/rock songs (thank you hottie David Cook....who I've decided is my new boyfriend, by the way) hehe
*My family and close friends really are the most important things in the world to me and I can't take that for granted
*Johnny Depp CAN get even hotter when he sings....even if he is slitting people's throats in the process (that's right....go rent Sweeney Todd)
*You don't always have to put up a front...it's ok to let your guard down and let people know you aren't ok
*The Foo Fighters are freakin awesome in concert...and Dave Grohl is dead sexy
*Dinners with Terry and Leeayn are never a let down ;)

Latest favorite movies:
*Sweeney Todd...obviously
*Enchanted....super cute movie and catchy songs
*Dan In Real Life....one of my new favorites!!! Super cute movie and an awesome soundtrack. Rent it if you haven't seen it!
*Juno...another super cute movie with an awesome soundtrack. Very clever.
*Once....yet another one with an awesome soundtrack. They won the best song Oscar this year for Falling Slowly

Most played songs on my non-existent Ipod ;):
*Once Soundtrack
*Dan In Real Life Soundtrack
*Juno Soundtrack
*Sweeney Todd Soundtrack (do we see a pattern here)
*Jason Castro from American Idol (cutie with the dreads) singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow
*Foo Fighters - Come Alive
*Iron and Wine - Boy with a Coin
*Spoon - The Underdog
*Vampire Weekend - M79
*Kate Nash - Foundations (Emmy....have you heard of her??? I love her cd)
*Ingrid Michaelson - The Way I Am
*Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes
*John Mayer - Say
*The new Radiohead CD
*Janet Jackson - Feedback
*Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown - No Air

And just today the new Madonna cd was released. Of course I downloaded it....I am a huge fan of her last one, Confessions on a Dance Floor. If you are fan of that one you should definitely check out this one. It's pretty fantastic. =)

Nothing else too terribly exciting.......
Oh, I started a third job. You know....because I'm crazy. No, but really it's another easy, work from home thing. Addressing envelopes and postcards for a real estate company. Easy money.
Oh, and I also broke up with the boyfriend. It was fun for awhile, but he just got too needy and I don't do well with that. I really need my space. So he had to go. Unfortunately he acted like a 5 year old and it didn't end well....but whatever.

So I will leave you with a funny quote from Jim on The Office:
"Because right now, this is a job. If I advance any higher, this would be my career. And if this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train."

2007

2007-12-20T18:53:00.001-08:00

Or more appropriately....2007? Where did you go?
I mean seriously, I know they say that the older you get, the faster time goes....but come on! This is ridiculous. It doesn't seem even a little bit like Christmas to me yet. I think because in my brain it was just last Christmas. Of course it doesn't help that stores these days put out Christmas stuff the day after Valentine's Day, so it's easy to get confused. And yes, that means I still have shopping to do. :o)
So this year has been an interesting one for me. I've had a lot of ups and downs emotionally...unfortunately mostly downs. And I've had a lot of health issues....but things seem to be slowly getting better. Especially now that I'm finally getting over my almost two month battle with strep throat/tonisilitis. ;)
Since surveys seem to be the way to go lately, I'll share this one that a friend posted on myspace:

* How old did you turn this year? 27
*What was your favorite day or event this year? Squishie Girl's Weekend!!!!
*What was your least favorite day or event of the year? Hmmmmm......I guess I'll say the week of the fires
*What was the craziest thing you did this year? lol probably making out with a stranger :o)
*What was the stupidest thing you did this year? I don't think I did anything overly stupid....I might have to get back to you on that one
*Who were you most thankful for this year? My family....including Hillary :)
*Did you quit your job or get a new job this year? Yes...I quit after almost 8 years at TERI. I didn't really get a 'new' job per say....but I did work for Hillary's boss for a few weekends at one of their offices.
*Did you move this year? Yes! Moved into this apartment with Hillary in January. Man....has it really been almost a year?
*Did you make any extravagant purchases this year? I don't think I did.
*Something you did this year that you are very proud of? Um....Losing another 60 pounds to put the grand total around 150 pounds :)
*Something you did that you are not proud of? no comment....so yes, there is something, but I won't elaborate :p
*Did you lose somebody close to you this year? No, thankfully
*Do you have any goals for the next year? I want to get back on track on my diet and finish losing the last 60 pounds I want to lose

And then here are some of my favorite pictures from this year:

Larilyn and Jenna with our cousin Josh at our brother's wedding

Hillary and Tigger....I don't think this one needs any more captions than it's already had before :o)

Terry and Leeayn reading and studying the new rules at 'The Club'. How many things are wrong with that sentence?? lol

What happens when the fire alarm goes off at the hotel at 6 in the morning? Kumbaya singing and trust falls. :o)

Illinois!!!

This guy was standing outside of Disneyland with a sign asking for a free ticket. He told me he's gotten into like a dozen broadway shows in New York this way. I wonder if he ever got in? lol

Dad counting the money at Club 33. lol

Hillary doing laundry

SISTERS!!!

Me and dad at my brother's wedding reception

Braden sleeping with the trash. (it's quite comfortable, you know)

Braden and my dad. This is one of my favorite pictures of all time. =)

Devin and Heather goofing off on their wedding day

When Hillary ripped her pants in the Starbucks parking lot on the way to Disneyland

Hillary and her little brother Brian =)

Jenna, Hillary and I camping in 115 degree weather in Utah

I love this picture of myself. That doesn't happen very often so it's definitely going on here. =p

Wow, it's been awhile.....

2007-11-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

I realized I haven't blogged in forever......
This one isn't really an important blog.....but I found this questionnaire interesting because it had different questions than they usually do.

1. Would you bang your neighbor?
Well the neighbor boys are pretty hot.....but gay. So no, I don't see that happening.

2. What describes your current status?
that's a loaded question.......I'll go with "stressed"

3. Where are you?
in my room in front of the computer

4. What's the last TV show you watched?
America's Most Smartest Model (No Desperate Housewives tonight)

5. I've come to realize the last person who held my hand is...
Probably one of my clients......certainly hasn't been a boy lately :p

6. What is your middle name?
Marie

7. Who have you talked to most today?
Hillary

8. Do you carve pumpkins every year?
no

9. Color of the underwear you have on?
lavender

10. Shirt?
black tank top

11. I'm always...
worried about stupid things

12. Who's on speed dial 2? 4? 6?
don't use it

13. Honestly, how many people do you have strong feelings for?
?? this question confuses me. I love all my family and close friends very much.

14. What's your favorite season?
Fall/Winter....which is the same thing in southern California :p

15. Good advice if you ever go camping?
bring somebody who knows how to put up the tent hehe

16. Are you a bad influence?
well that probably depends on who you ask

17. Are you in love?
with a person? not right now

18. Rather have your name or your siblings name?
I like my name....I think all my siblings names suit them

19. Would you do anything for someone else?
For any of my family or friends

20. Have you ever been called a bitch?
most definitely

21. Best Friend(s)?
Hillary, Paul and Joe
AE: 21b. BFF's?? Terry =)

22. What is your ring tone?
"Love Today" by Mika

23. What song is on?
"Here" by Idina Menzel

24. Are your grades good?
not in school

25. Do you ever think people hate you for filling these out?
don't think so....people usually steal them and do it themselves :p

26. Does your best friend have a myspace?
yes

27. Whose page did you visit last?
Karlton

28. Last time you went out to lunch?
went out with Paul on Wednesday

30. Who is your favorite character from Friends?
Chandler

31. Do you have a tattoo?
not yet....I'm such a chicken!

32. Do you want another one/or one at all?
yes....I have like 4 in mind. Wanted a Jack Skellington one for like 10 years

33. Do you have one or more Britney Spears CD?
um....yes?
Ok, I'm not gonna lie....I'm a fan :p Of her music....not her. Kind of like my relationship with Michael Jackson. Wow...that sounds wrong. lol I just like his music.

34. What did you do last night?
I don't remember......I've been sick, so I probably just watched tv or a movie and went to bed.

35. Are you a Lost fanatic?
fanatic really doesn't even come close to describing how obsessed I am with that show

36. Say you were given a drug test right now. Would you pass or fail?
I'd pass

37. Do you have a song by Ozzy Osbourne in your library?
yes

38.iPod or Zune?
Believe it or not I don't have either.....but I'm intrigued by the Zune.

39. Do you watch Family Guy regularly?
Absolutely

40. King of the Hill?
no....can't stand it

41. Do you read trashy romance novels often?
never have

42. What's the last thing you bought?
groceries

43. What's the last thing someone bought you?
My dad bought me flowers and medicines when I first got sick a couple weeks ago
Oh...and Hillary bought me a cute makeup bag the other day =)

44. Do you ever sing obnoxiously in the shower?
No lol

45. What's in your CD player right now?
In the cd player in my car is a random cd I made last week.

46. What's your favorite romance movie?
More of a romantic comedy kind of girl......Return to Me would be at the top of that list

47. Another favorite movie?
Rent

48. Do you believe everyone has a soulmate?
hmmmmmm.......I don't know about that

49. Can you sing?
I can sing ok I guess

50. Can you play any instruments?
yeah....piano, drums, clarinet and a little guitar

51. Have you ever been to another country?
Yes

53. Are you ever a freak about cleanliness or organization?
lol I definitely can be

54. Have you ever been to South America or Africa?
no

55. Do you know how to knit?
sort of....not really

56. Do you have a job?
2 of 'em

57. Have you ever written love song lyrics yourself and put them on?
I used to write song lyrics......but put them on? on what? I have a notebook full of them somewhere. Well, not all love songs. But there's probably a couple of those.

58. Favorite sports team?
Chargers, Padres, Bears, Lakers

60. Baskin Robbins or Coldstone?
I've only been a couple times, but I think I prefer Coldstone

61. Physics or chemistry?
no thank you

62. Facebook or Myspace?
well I only have a myspace, but I've been told by several friends that facebook is better

64. R-rated or G-rated movies?
yes....I love movies

65. Walk or Run?
walk

66. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars?
Well I've only seen Star Wars...so I'll go with that one. Plus if I didn't Kerri might kill me ;)

67. Fly or road trip?
Road trip

68. Batman, Spiderman, or Superman?
eh, not really into the superhero thing. The guy that plays Superman in Smallville is pretty hot though

69. What's your favorite Disney movie?
not counting pixar or Nightmare Before Christmas because those aren't classic Disney....
animated: Sword in the Stone
live action: Summer Magic

70. What did you do for your last birthday?
Hillary, Paul and Patty took me to see Keane in concert on my birthday and the next night Larilyn took me to see "A Light in the Piazza" =)

Name SIX things you did this past weekend
1. sleep
2. work
3. watch tv
4. play video games
5. be sick
6. go for a walk

List FOUR people you can tell pretty much anything to:
Hillary, Paul, Joe, Mark

List THREE favorite colors
1. blue
2. pink
3. green

List TWO things you want to do before you die
1. go on a cross country road trip
2. become independently wealthy :p

That's it for now.....
I promise to blog again soon with more important goings on =)

A,B,C's of my randomness

2007-07-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

A
• Are you available?: depends on who's asking :o)
• What is your age?: 27
• What annoys you?: stupid people

B
• Do you know anyone named Billy?: BILLY HILL!!! and the Hillbillies, of course
• When is your birthday?: May 11th
• Who is your best friend?: Hillary

C
• What's your favorite candy?: reeses cups
• Crush?: eh.....
• When was the last time you cried?: earlier today

D
• Do you daydream?: too much I think
• What's your favorite kind of dog?: Paisley =)
• What day of the week is it?: Friday

E
• How do you like your eggs?: over easy
• Have you ever been in the emergency room?: yes
• Have you ever pet an elephant? can't recall such things

F
• Do you use fly swatters?: I have before....but not really a regular occurance.
• Have you ever used a foghorn?: No
• Is there a fan in your room?: yes

G
• Do you chew gum?: yes....I always have Orbitz gum with me
• Do you like gory movies?: not really
• Favorite board game?: not really a "board" game, but Apples to Apples

H
• How are you?: pretty good.....tired
• What's your height?: 5'9" or so
• What color is your hair?: brown

I
• What’s your favorite ice cream? vanilla
• Have you ever ice skated?: yes......but not well
• Ever been in an igloo?: no

J
• What's your favorite Jelly Bean?: buttered popcorn jelly bellies
• Have you ever heard a really hilarious joke?: yes.....arrrrrrrrrrrrutabega :o)
• Do you wear jewelry?: yes

K
• Ever been kayaking?: no
• Have you ever flown a kite? yes
• Do you think kangaroos are cute?: sure

L
• Lions or tigers?: ligers
• Do you like black licorice?: no way
• What are you listening to right now?: the fan, my pager going off and "The Night of the Dancing Flame" by Roisin Murphy

M
• Favorite movie as a kid?: had lots.....I'll say Labyrinth
• Ever shopped at Moosejaw?: yeah, the last time I climbed a mountain ????????
• Favorite store at the mall?: Hot Topic, Bath and Body Works and Disney Store

N
• Do you have a nickname?: yes, many
• What’s your favorite number?: 13
• Do you prefer night or day?: night

O
• What's your one wish?: to be independently wealthy
• Only child?: no
• Do you like the color orange?: yes

P
• What are you most paranoid about?: losing people close to me
• Piercing?: yes
• You know anyone named Penelope?: that's one of my Starbuck's names. :o)

Q
• Are you quick to judge people?: yes....I'm really bad about that
• Do you like Quaker Oats? sometimes
• Know anyone that makes quilts?: yes

R
• Do you think you're always right?: no
• Do you watch reality TV?: a couple of shows....but I'm certainly no 'junkie' like some people I know :o)
• Reason to cry?: ???? what is a reason I have right now? what is a reason I think is good? I don't get it.

S
• Do you prefer sun or rain?: depends. I hate it when it rains on work days because then I have to be creative with what I do with my group at work. We spend a lot of time outside. If it's a weekend sometimes it's nice to have a rainy day
• Do you like snow?: I like looking at it and being in it for short periods of time. I HATE living in it
• What’s your favorite season?: Fall

T
• What time is it?: 11:30 pm
• What time did you wake up?: 6:30am.....half an hour late
• Who did you last text?: Jenna

U
• Can you ride a unicycle?: never tried....maybe I'd surprise myself
• Do you know anyone with a unibrow?: yes
• How many uncles do you have?: 6...well, 7 if you count Uncle Craig :o)

V
• What's the worst vegetable?: lima beans
• Did you ever watch Veggie Tales?: yes
• Ever considered being vegan?: not really

W
• What's your worst habit?: judging people
• Ever been inside a windmill?: don't think so
• Ever been whale watching?: no, but I want to!

X
• Have you ever had an x-ray?: yes
• Ever used a Xerox machine?: yes
• Play the xylophone?: yes....in drumline

Y
• Do you like the color yellow?: yes
• What year were you born in?: 1980
• Do you yell when you're angry?: sometimes....but mostly just at stupid drivers

Z
• Do you believe in the zodiac? sure
• What's your zodiac sign?: Taurus
• When was the last time you went to the zoo?: a couple of years ago.

5 Favorites

2007-07-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm totally ripping this off from the morning radio show I listen to, but I just thought it was a great idea. I wanted to share my 5 favorite things right now in my life. =)

not in any particular order.......

1. Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer
who would have thought I'd have some sort of makeup item on MY favorites list :o) But that's why I like it, it's not too over the top for me.

2. Sara Bareilles cd: Little Voice
my favorite new artist. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this cd. It just came out last week. I downloaded the single, 'Love Song', a couple of weeks ago and loved it....then downloaded the cd when it came out last Tuesday. Already had tickets to go see Rocco DeLuca and The Burden this weekend and found out on Friday that she was opening up for them. Talk about freaking out. Because I did. And she's awesome live. You can preview the songs on itunes. I think I downloaded the whole album for like $7.00 or something. Not bad.

3. Harold and Maude
A great movie. I used to watch it all the time and hadn't in a few years. Pulled it out the other night and forgot how great it was. Dark, twisted humor......if you like that sort of thing and haven't seen this cult classic you should netflix it.

4. Ebay
I LOVE ebay. Since I've been losing weight it can be very expensive to have to keep buying clothes in smaller sizes all the time. It's great that I can buy clothes on there for cheap. I've gotten some great pairs of jeans on there for between $5 and $20. My favorite pair....soon to not be because they are getting too big....I got for like $12.

5. Hillary!!!
It's great to have a best friend that puts up with all your crap all the time. She's the best and I love her!! Sisters forever!!! =)

And just to reward you for sticking it out.....here's a few pictures from the last few weeks, including camping pictures and whatever...

A cool pic of our tent (that us girls put up all by ourselves I might add)

a few pics from the area we camped at. It was called Snow Canyon. And I wish it had been snowing....would have preferred that over the 112 degree weather I think :o)

Didn't see a single turtle while we were there.....

it made me sad.....

The puppy was sad too. ;)

SISTERS!!!!!!!!! minus Larilyn =(

even though it's super dark....it's funny because it looks like there is a light bulb above my head. Since I'm always getting so many good ideas, you know. :o)

Me and Jenna!!

me and Paisley :)

Getting ready to brave Disneyland on 4th of July.....which apparantly isn't that big of a deal. It was pretty empty around there....especially for a holiday.

Getting ready for Rocco DeLuca and the Burden!!! =)

Ok....that's it for now. Random movie quote of the day from Harold and Maude:

"My body is the earth, but my head is in the stars." Who said that, Harold?
"I don't know."
"Well, I suppose I did, then."

Puppy Wuppy!!!!

2007-06-15T15:41:00.001-07:00

Ok, yes it's true....I have not really ever been a pet person.....but how can you resist this?!?!?

I don't care who you are......Paisley is freakin adorable!!!!! =)

It was inevitable....

2007-06-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

1. When’s the last time you ran?
A couple of nights ago when I was jokingly running like Pheobe from Friends. :o)

2. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them?
No

3. What are you dreading right now?
I always stress about money and I'm kinda dreading my doctor's appt. on Thursday

4. Did you celebrate 4/20?
Not this year. Haven't celebrated 4/20 in like 10 years.
And it's funny to me that most of you that stole this survey didn't know what that meant. :o)

6. Favorite ice cream?
vanilla

7. When was your last doctor’s visit?
about a two months ago

8. Do you get the full 8 hours of sleep a night?
I couldn't even tell you that last time I got that much sleep in one night.

12. If anyone came to your house on your “lazy days” what would they find you wearing?
pajamas

14. Have you ever been on your school’s track team?
no

15. Do you own a pair of Converse?
no....used to

17. Do you eat raw cookie dough?
used to sometimes

19. Don’t you hate when the radio ruins good songs by playing them too much?
YES!

21. Do you watch Trading Spaces?
no

22. How do you eat oreos?
I haven't eaten an oreo in forever

23. Have you ever stayed online for a very long time waiting for someone?
I don't think so

24. Are you cocky?
haha sometimes I can be

30. Could you live without a computer?
shutdown....aneurysm....die
that's pretty much how it would go down

31. Do you wear your shoes in the house?
not usually

33. At what age did you find out that Santa wasn’t real?
I have no idea

34. How many phones, house phones and cell phones are in your house?
1 house phone, Hillary's cell phone, my regular cell phone and two work cell phones

35. What do you do when you’re sad?
watch movies that make me cry :(

36. Who would you call first if you won the lottery?
Hillary

37. Last time you saw your best friends?
Saw Hillary about two minutes ago in the living room.
Saw Paul last night at Applebees
Saw Joe at Thanksgiving =(

40. Who or what sleeps with you?
right now....just a bunch of pillows

AND NOW MOVING ONTO FORTY FiVE OUT OF NOWHERE…

45. Is anyone on your bad side right now?
yeah

46. What jewelry are you wearing?
just woke up.....just have little star earrings on

47. What’s the first thing you do when you get online?
Email, the farm, weather check and People.com

49. Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy?
YES!

50. How do most people spell your name?
Oh, so many ways.....probably the most common is Lorel

51. Would you wear a boy/girlfriends clothes?
yeah....used to in highschool all the time

54. Where do you work?
with developmentally disabled adults during the day, and at home for Stater Bros. at night

56. What are you doing tomorrow?
Bleh, tomorrow is Monday. Going to work and then I have a staff meeting. Then it's probably laundry night.

57. Is Justin Timberlake becoming the next Michael Jackson?
um, no

58. Favorite name for a girl?
Bridget

59. Favorite name for a boy?
Jack

60. Will you keep your last name if you get married?
don't know

61. Your favorite restaurant you don’t get to eat much at?
Hana's. Man, I haven't had sushi in FOREVER

62. When is the last time you left your house?
last night to go out for Sara's birthday

67. Do you return your cart?
Usually

69. Do you have a dishwasher?
Yes

70. What noise do you hear?
the coffee maker and the cars going by on the street

71. Would you survive in prison?
probably not

72. Next concert you hope to go to?
Going to see Rocco DeLuca and the Burden in a few weeks. =)

73. What was the last thing you ate?
just had some scrambled eggs for breakfast

74. Who was the last person you said “i love you” to and meant it?
Jenna

75. Who is the youngest in your family?
Braden

76. If all of your friends were going on a road trip, who would be the most likely to over pack?
if not me than probably Hillary

77. Do you know anyone with the same name as you?
oh you have no idea. sometimes it gets ridiculous when I'm in a crowded area and I hear my name constantly being called :o)

78. How many shoes do you own?
I don't know....like 6 pairs maybe

79. when was the last time you ate peanut butter?
Yesterday

81. What service is your cell phone?
T-Mobile

82. What’s for dinner?
don't know yet.....we need to go to the store today. but I bought a cool new crock pot yesterday, so maybe that will have a part in it

83. What’s the last thing you purchased?
dinner last night at Applebee's

84. Do your siblings ever pay for stuff for you?
yeah, Larilyn does sometimes

85. Where is your cell phone?
on my bed

86. Is your phone on vibrate or ring?
ring

87. What brand are your pants right now?
Mossimo

89. Did you eat breakfast this morning?
Yes

90. Do you like marshmallows?
sometimes

91. What irritates you most on the internet?
when it's a slow connection

92. What brand is your digital camera?
HP

93. Do you watch movies with your parents?
not really

96. What song best describes your life right now?
hmmmm....that's a tough one.....I'm going to say No Doubt's "Simple Kind of Life"

97. Do you own expensive perfume/cologne?
nope....mostly just Bath and Body Works body sprays

98. Are you taking college classes right now?
no

101. Do you like sushi?
YES!

102. Do you get your hair cut every month?
not usually

103. Do you go online everyday?
Yes

as promised...

2007-05-31T15:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, sorry it took me a few days longer than promised, but here are some more wedding pictures =)
And yes, I have a TON....So get settled :o)

First, here's more of the setting up process and then what everything looked like when it was finished:

Devin and Heather

Devin, Heather's dad Shawn and my dad

One of my favorite pictures EVER!!! My brother Braden and my dad. Awwwwww =)

Grandad supervising ;)

setting up lights in the trees

Part of the driveway where some of the tables were set up

The cake
The yard

I love this picture of Heather getting ready =)

Devin getting ready

Hillary and Braden being weird and smelling their flowers haha

I took this picture from the upstairs window and I hate that it is so dark, but I love it. All the tables had just been taken down and Devin and Heather were dancing in the driveway.

Heather and her mom, Marilyn

Me and Heather

Me and Braden

Me and Grandma =)

Me and Larilyn

Me and Aaron and Noel (for those of you with short term memory problems, they are my old roommates) :o)

Mom and Dad

Me and Dad

Me and Devin

Devin and Heather opening gifts

Larilyn and Heather showing their sisterly love

And then here's a couple of family pictures....minus me :(.....from the actual wedding day

siblings =)

And then one more of Devin and Heather.....or as they have been called lately HEAVIN :o)

congrats if you made it through all those. haha

wait for it......

2007-05-21T22:59:00.001-07:00

Wow...has it really been almost 2 months since I blogged?!?!? I feel like Lola!! :o)
So much as happened!!!

First of all, we've now learned a valuable lesson........
Apparantly it's a good idea to keep hydrated and make sure you are getting enough sleep....otherwise you wake up on your bathroom floor, completely disoriented and covered in Listerine....not sure exactly how you got there. I know it sounds like I just drank too much, but in fact, it was quite the opposite.
Most of you that read my bloggings already know about the latest 'incident' in my life, but for those of you that don't, here's the story in limerick form:

There once was a girl named LaRelle
Who woke up and realized she fell
She tried to stand up.....

oh screw it.

Most of you know the story anyways....for those that don't, here's the Reader's Digest version: I fainted. Hillary had to take me to the ER. (my first time ever there) They think I was dehydrated, stressed out and overall exhausted. I missed almost 2 weeks of work because Kaiser sucks ass and wouldn't get me my authorization to return to work even though I was ok after a few days.
If you want more details feel free to email/text/call/send a message behind a plane going by my house.....

Other goings ons:
My birthday celebrations!! Hillary and Paul got tickets to see my favorite band, Keane, in concert!! They were playing in LA on my birthday. Can't get much better than that. Here's a picture from that night:

Keane is awesome in concert!! Seen them 3 times now.
The next night Larilyn took me to see Light In the Piazza at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It was really good too!! I have always loved the music from it and it was really cool to finally see it live. =)

Possibly the biggest event of the last couple months....my little brother getting married!!!
I wasn't able to make it to the actual wedding up in Utah on the 9th....but they had a reception down here in California this last Saturday and I have TONS of pictures. I will just share a few now and will post a bunch more in the next couple of days....I need to sleep!!!

The morning of the reception....I look ridiculously tired already....and we haven't even started yet

Apparantly Hillary had already had her coffee :o)
and apparantly her spinach....now she's climbing trees.

We were in charge of putting lights up in all the trees. I'll put more pictures of the trees and decorations up later.

putting up the signs on the road:

Bet you'll never guess what else I was in charge of........music you say? you got it. Here's me and my brother Braden setting up my computer. We set it up to play out the upstairs window overlooking the reception area. Worked out quite nicely.
And then here's some 'after' pictures....once we were all dressed up.
GaHillary's super cute dress
I think I look lame in this picture, but you can see the whole ensemble anyways.....

And I suppose I should put up at least one picture of the bride and groom now.
My brother Devin and new sister Heather!! =) Aren't they so cute it's disgusting?? haha

ok, seriously, I need to get some sleep now. (see the beginning of this post if you don't get why) I promise to post a lot more pictures in the next few days =)

WICKED DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-03-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

So I just have to say that I have once again confirmed that Wicked is my most favorite thing in the whole world. I'm thinking it's safe to say that I'd pretty much give up anything else to go see Wicked. Seriously.
I was really excited to go, but nervous at the same time because I was really afraid they cast wasn't going to be as good as my favorite cast. They were, in fact, just as good....and it was really cool and very interesting to see how they interpretted the characters differently.
So if you live in southern California, or if you just plan to visit sometime in the near future (hint, hint: Kerri, Terry, Emmy, Monica, etc) you must go see it!!! I know we will definitely be seeing it a few more times while it's here. =)
And now for the pictures that you all requested......

modeling my awesome new Wicked shirt:

and then just a couple of random pictures for ya:

Random movie quote for the day, from Fight Club:
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

Because apparantly this is turning into the 'questionaire/survey' blog :o)

2007-03-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, just a quick life update and then a new questionaire I'm stealing from my sister.....
Life is good. Work is good. Apartment is freakin awesome. The diet thing is going pretty well...I've lost a total of about 130 pounds now. =) I'm on day 15 of 19 straight days of working. Going to see Wicked on Saturday!! That about sums up my life right now.

and now for your entertainment....

1. What time did you get up this morning?
6:25am

2. Diamonds or pearls?
i like both

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
hmmmm.....don't remember....probably The Holiday

4. What is your favorite TV show?
Lost

5. What did you have for breakfast?
a peanut butter protein shake

6. What is your middle name?
Marie

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
mexican food

8. What foods do you dislike?
not a huge italian food fan

9. Your favorite potato chip?
don't like potato chips very much

10. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
i've been all about the random mix cds lately....but I'll say Julia Murney: I'm Not Waiting

11. What kind of car do you drive?
2005 Toyota Corolla

12. Favorite sandwich?
turkey

13. What characteristics do you despise?
does stupidness count??

14. Favorite item of clothing?
either a pair of jeans I got off ebay that are super comfortable or my green guitar shirt that talks about music

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation,where would you go?
Australia

16. What color is your bathroom?
white with a green rug and multicolored striped shower curtain

17. Favorite brand of clothing?
don't really have one

18. Where would you want to retire to?
here in southern California. but maybe have a house in Florida too :0)

19. Favorite time of day?
the time I get home from work?

20. Where were you born?
Provo, Utah

21. Favorite sport to watch?
probably football

24. What laundry detergent do you use?
Sun liquid detergent with 'a splash of cuddle soft' whatever that is. But it smells fantastic!

25. Coke or Pepsi?
diet coke

26. Are you a morning person or night owl?
definitely a night owl

27. What size shoe do you wear?
9 1/2 - 10

28. Do you have pets?
no....but hopefully getting fish soon

29. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone?
not really....or at least nothing more than I already stated at the top of this blog

30. What did you want to be when you were little?
I don't remember.....maybe a teacher of some sort

31. Favorite candy bar?
baby ruth

32. What is your best childhood memory?
I don't remember much from my childhood....I know, sad......but probably just always getting together with family. I loved being around my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all the time.

33.What are different jobs you have had in your life?
babysitter, office assistant, technical/customer support for software company, Respite worker, resource counselor

34. What color underwear are you wearing?
my, my.....getting personal......but if you much know, tourquoise/tan/white striped

35. Nicknames:
Relle, LaRelley, LaRelley-O, L1, Lo, Penelope

36. Piercing?
none

37. Eye color?
brown/green/grey

38. Ever been to Africa?
nope

39. Ever been Toilet papering?
many, many times. I even did a speech in my speech class about "The Art of Toilet Papering"

40. Love someone so much it made you cry?
unfortunately

41. Been in a car accident?
yes

42. Croutons or bacon bits?
croutons

43. Favorite day of the week?
Friday

44. Favorite restaurant?
don't really have one.....I'll say Hana's because I'm really craving sushi right now

45. Favorite flower?
rose

46. Favorite ice cream?
vanilla

47. Disney or Warner Brothers?
hmmmm.....let me think about this one......

48. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Jack in the Box

49. What color is your bedroom carpet?
tan

50. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
none

52. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
can I just say the mall??? If not, then probably Target

53. What do you do most often when you are bored?
surf the internet

54. Bedtime?
when i feel like going to bed....usually when I'm done working at 2am

55. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire?
everybody's!

56. Last person you went to dinner with?
Hillary and Paul and I went to Islands last weekend

58. What are you listening to right now?
I Don't Feel Like Dancing by The Scissor Sisters and the annoying neighborhood children yelling at each other outside

59. What is your favorite color?
blue

60. Lake, Ocean or river?
ocean

61. How many tattoos do you have?
none....but getting my Jack one VERY SOON!!!!!!!!!

62. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
chicken

Hope you enjoyed yourself.
Here's a quote from School of Rock:
"Dude, I service society by rocking, OK? I'm out there on the front lines liberating people with my music!"

my turn to steal ;)

2007-02-28T23:17:00.000-08:00

What's your name?

1. YOUR REAL NAME: LaRelle

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle): LaRizzle

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME (color and fav animal): Plaid Turtle

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, and childhood street): Marie Winterhaven

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of moms maiden name): Irvlajoh

6. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME (favorite color, favorite drink): Plaid Pepper

7. YOUR IRAQI NAME (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, last letter of your moms middle name): Avaoeln

8. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME (grandmother/grandfather's first name). Eva Joseph

9. YOUR GOTH NAME (black, and the name of one your pets): Black Bongo

10. YOUR PORN STAR NAME (pet name and a street name): Stormy Joliet

11. Your names as pronounced by Harry Carry (always backwards!): Elleral

What I do on my day off

2007-02-19T14:47:00.000-08:00

Ok, I finally finished my table. It's pretty freakin awesome if I do say so myself..........and I totally do. :o)
There is a theme going on with it......100 points if you can guess what it is. And Hillary and Larilyn are not allowed to guess. :p

and even though I look like a dork in this picture.....

Yay for craft projects!!! =)

It's time for everybody's favorite game......keeping LaRelle occupied when she's working in the middle of the night

2007-02-15T22:52:00.000-08:00

1. Name one person who made you smile yesterday?
Hillary

2. What were you doing at 8:00 this morning?
walking out the door to go to work

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
looking for jeans on ebay

4. How have you felt today?
blah. jenna left and i have a migraine.

5. What is the last thing you said aloud?
"ok. sleep well."

6. How many different things did you drink today?
water, tea, diet dr. pepper, diet root beer

7. What color is your hairbrush?
purple and black

8. What is the last thing you bought?
besides groceries?? I bought two new pairs of shoes the other day.

9. What was the last thing you gave someone?
As far as a gift I don't know.....but I gave Jenna a hug last night

10. What color is your front door?
brown I think

11. Where do you keep your change?
in a little round box that I painted that says "defy gravity"

12. What was the weather like today?
finally clear and sunny.....68 degrees

13. What is the best ice cream flavor?
vanilla

14. What is something you are excited about?
Living in my new apartment with the bestest friend ever and going to see Wicked on March 24th!!

15. When was the last rainbow you saw?
last year sometime

16. What size shoe do you wear?
10

17. Do you have any secrets?
no.....at least one of my friends knows everything about me that might be considered a secret to the general public. And a select few know everything. You know who you are ;)

18. Who are you listening to?
cindy talking to me on the phone :o)

19. Do you want to cut your hair or dye it?
yes

20. Are you over the age of 25?
yes

21. Do you talk a lot?
I have my moments

22. what's the funniest thing you've heard in the past few days?
pretty much everything that is ever said in our apartment :o)
and my favorite from tonight:
'crap....you forgot to say anal sex to him'
'oh! anal sex!'

23. Does your name have an x in it?
no

24. Do you know anyone named Charles?
yes

25. Do you lie about your weight?
not anymore! ;)

26. Are you disappointed in anyone right now?
not so much disappointed as frustrated with somebody

27. Are you typically a jealous person?
no, I don't think so

28. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter "B":
Bryce

29. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter "J":
Joe

30. Who's the 1st person on your received calls list?
probably Cindy since she's talking to me right now

31. Do you like Eminem?
he's ok

32. What are you thinking about doing?
right this minute?? i'd love to go to sleep

33. Do you have naturally straight hair?
yeah, it's pretty straight

34. What color is your cell phone?
white and silver

35. Who is the worst person in your life right now?
I don't think I should answer that

36. How many times have you swore today?
lol I don't think I want to answer that one either :o)

37. What are two things you want to tell two different people?
um......tell Jenna that I love her lots and I'm going to miss her!!!!
and to thank Hillary for being such a great friend and for everything she does!! :)

38. What is the last thing you ate?
a protein style burger from In 'N' Out for dinner

39. Have you seen the movie "Donnie Darko"?
no, I actually haven't....but I really want to

40. Do you have work tomorrow?
yes....both jobs. but then I have a 3 day weekend

41. Is marriage in your future?
I'm not planning on it anytime soon

42. When was the last time you said "I love you."?
last night on the phone to my aunt

43. What should you be doing now?
sleeping

44. Do you have a nickname?
RaLelle, L1, LaRelley, Relle, LaRelley-o, Lo, Penelope ;)

45. Are you a heavy sleeper?
not really....only if I'm super tired

46. When was the last time you used a skateboard?
probably when I was like 16

47. How many things are bothering you right now?
can't really think of anything major

And there you have it. I need to try and get some sleep.
and because I must leave you with a movie quote....here's one from Rent, since I just watched it tonight:
"There will always be women in rubber flirting with me!"

This one's for you, Terry :o)

2007-02-09T22:34:00.000-08:00

You ask and you shall receive. We are all a little weird anyways. :p

The long awaited apartment pictures

2007-02-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

Hey all!! Ok, you all have been hounding me for pictures, so I figured it was about time I got some up. I think we are pretty much settled in at this point, but it's still kinda weird.

Here's looking into the living room from when you first walk in and then a couple more shots of the living room

Looking the other direction into the dining area. We are planning to get a fish tank to put in the big shelf of the entertainment center (that didn't fit in the living room) :o)

then looking into the kitchen

Then going into my room....yes, I was too lazy to make my bed today. Deal with it.

And, even though according to some people who shall remain nameless *cough*Hillary*cough* it's weird to take pictures of your bathroom, here's a picture of mine. Mostly because of my kickin' shower curtain that I spent $50 on. Well worth it I'm sure. Or at least I'm trying to convince myself of it. It really is pretty cool though.

And here's the really cool stuff we made. Top picture is our mail slot thing and key hanger thing. (yes, those are in fact the technical terms) And the bottom picture are just some boxes we painted yesterday for fun.

Ok....that's it for now. I should probably take some pictures of the outside too....but not gonna happen tonight since it's dark outside.
Thanks for looking. =)

stolen from Monica...

2007-02-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

I love this!! It's like playing Scattergories on my blog. :-)

Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Your Name: LaRelle

1. Famous Athlete: LaDainian Tomlinson

2. 4 letter word: luck

3. Street name: L Street

4. Color: lavender

5. Animal: leopard

6. Vehicles: Land Rover

7. Tropical Locations:

8. College Majors: linguistics

9. Dairy Products:

10. Things in a Souvenir Shop: lighters

11. Boy Name: Luke

12. Girl Name: Linda

13. Movie Title: Labyrinth

15. Occupations: lawyer

16. Flowers: lillies

17. Celebrities: Lisa Kudrow

18. Magazines: Ladies Home Journal

19. U.S. Cities or State : Los Angeles

20. Pro Sports Teams: Lakers

21. Something Found in a kitchen: ladel

22. Reason for Being Late: lazy

23. Something You Throw Away: lint

24. Things You Shout: LAME!

25. Cartoon Character: Ludwig Von Drake

I promise I will be putting up pictures of the new apartment very soon!! Check back shortly! =)

Another unique questionaire....to cure Amber's boredom 8-)

2007-01-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

1. You have 10 bucks and need to buy snacks at a gas station, what do you get?
Diet Dr. Pepper, a low carb protein bar and some Orbitz gum

2. If you had to be reincarnated as some sort of sea dwelling creature, what would you be?
Dolphin

3. Who's your favorite redhead?
Lucille Ball

4. What do you order when you're at a pancake house?
harvest grain and nut pancakes at IHOP. my weakness.

5. Last book you read
The Watchers by Dean Koontz

6. Have you made out with anyone on your myspace friend's list?
lol yes

7. Describe your favorite pair of underwear.
wow, this questionaire is quite personal.... lol probably my red/pink/white striped ones

8. Describe the last time you were injured.
the only semi recent bad injury that I can think of was a couple years ago when I tore a ligament in my foot....I think from bowling. you know....that really dangerous sport.

9. Of all your friends, with whom would you want to be stuck in the middle of a jungle?
I wouldn't mind being stuck with any of my friends....but I'd rather be stuck with Jack or Sawyer. (no offense, friends)

10. Are there any odd things that make you feel uncomfortable?
I think it takes a lot to make me uncomfortable, but people who overdo shock humor can be awkward

11. Are there any weird things that turn you on?
can't think of anything....unless you consider hot guys with eyeliner weird

12. What is the wallpaper on your cell phone?
speaking of hot guys....Matthew Fox from Lost

13. Pop?
?? either this means music or this questionaire was created by somebody in the midwest. ;)
I'll answer for both...SODA: diet Dr. Pepper Music: yes ;)

14. Flavor?
um, cherry? I don't understand

15. What type of shirt are you wearing?
a t-shirt that says "good morning! let the stress begin!"

16. Prescription medication?
none right now....but I wouldn't mind some purcocet ;)

17. If you could use only one form of transportation for the rest of your life, what would it be?
a car because I suppose a unicycle isn't very practical

18. How many people are on your myspace friends list?
87

19. How many people on your myspace list do you know in real life?
almost all, except for a couple of bands and a couple celebrities. I refuse to add people I don't know

20. What are you listening to right now?
The Devil Wears Prada soundtrack. Good stuff.

21. Most recent movie you've watched:
New movie in theaters: The Holiday
Movie on dvd: Return to Me

22. Name 3 things you have with you at all times:
cell phone, chapstick, gum

23. Would you rather give or receive a foot massage
give. I don't like people touching my feet.

24. Name a teacher you had the hots for:
I don't think I ever really had the hots for any of my teachers. In highschool all the teachers were old and decrepit. There was a pretty hot substitute teacher....I can't remember his name though. I don't think he ever subbed for any of my classes though. Although it probably would have helped if I had ever really gone to class. :p

25. What is a saying that you use a lot?
"Whoa, Turbo!" and "I don't know how to respond to that."
That second one is especially useful for the people I spoke of earlier that overdo shock humor.

27. What is your favorite part of the chicken?
the tasty part? chicken is my favorite

28. What's your favorite city?
Anaheim!

29. Favorite kind of cake?
yellow cake YUM!

30. What's the first word that comes to mind right now?
banana

31. When was the last time you saw your mom in person?
I think I saw her yesterday sometime....if not, then definitely the day before that

32. What makes you feel like puking?
Paris Hilton

33. What did you have for dinner LAST NIGHT?
I hate to admit it to the farm folks....but I totally had Panda Express for dinner last night. don't hate me. ;)

34. How long have you been at your current job?
TLC - 3 1/2 years
EMS (Stater Bros) - almost 5 months
and I guess since I still technically work there even though I'm in the process of quitting:
T.E.R.I. - 8 years

35. What's the last thing you said out loud?
I'm on call for work and I had to call a store and tell them to close there bakery freezer door. So the last thing I actually said was probably "thank you. good bye."

36. Look to your right, what do you see?
my bed and I'm pretty sure it wants me to crawl back into it and go back to sleep

37. Look to your left, what do you see?
my closet door

38. Who is the last person who spent $100 on you?
I have no idea. probably my parents for Christmas.

39. Who's your favorite villain?
Oogie Boogie maybe

40. What's the last piece of clothing you borrowed from someone?
can't remember

41. What's the last piece of clothing you bought?
a Dr. Pepper t-shirt from Target

42. What phrase makes you laugh no matter where, when or how?
"I LOVE MERYL STREEP!!!"

43. Go into your text message log on your phone...what is the last text you sent?
"Hey, sorry. :( I'm going to go to bed though so I'll probably give you a call tomorrow night."

44. What is the last text message you received?
"Ok. Sounds good. Sweet dreams. Talk to you tomorrow. :-)"

Random movie quote of the day, from Nacho Libre:
"I was wondering if you would like to join me in my quarters this night... for some toast."

how boring am I?

2006-12-21T15:21:00.000-08:00

So I was sitting here thinking I should post a new blog.....looking at my last few that I posted. And I thought to myself, "Good Lord, I am a boring person. Who on earth would want to read this crap?" I wish I was more creative with my blogs like Kelley. Her blogs always make me either laugh out loud or cry or sometimes both. And I don't have any cute kids to post pictures of like Traci or Natalie or Holly or Kerri or cute puppies like Terry. And everybody else's are always entertaining in one way or another. So I thought about that for a couple of minutes and then I quickly got over it. If you don't like it you don't have to read it.

here's a semi-random collection of pictures for your viewing pleasure.....

Here's my new boyfriend (haha), Chris Daughtry. He's freakin hot and he was amazing live at the Jingle Ball concert I went to. And he can seriously pull of the eyeliner well.

Here he is again, backstage at the concert with Ace Young. (also not bad looking, and pretty good live)
My cousin Josh on Thanksgiving

Josh at the beach. One of my favorite pictures!!

SISTERS!!!

Christmas decorations in New Orleans Square at Disneyland

A couple semi-decent firework pictures

The 'snow' after the fireworks and then me getting super excited about it. :o)

A closeup of the different ornaments on the ginormous Christmas tree at Disneyland

Small World Holiday
that concludes my randomness for the day
Stay classy San Diego

just because i feel bad i haven't posted anything in awhile

2006-12-18T23:52:00.000-08:00

EIGHT LASTS

8. last cigarette: 9 years

7. last beverage: diet a&w root beer

6. last phone call from: Hillary

5. last text message from: Cindy

4. last cd played: Gwen Stefani's new cd (it rocks, by the way) THANKS HILLARY!! =)

3. last BUBBLE bath: no idea...it's been a long time.

2. last time you cried: Friday night watching the movie The Holiday

1. last meal: my mom's homemade chicken and dumplings. YUM!

SEVEN have you's:

7. have you ever dated someone twice: yes

6. have you ever been cheated on?: don't think so

5. have you ever kissed someone & regreted it? yes

4. have you ever fallen in love? yes

3. have you ever lost someone: yes

2. have you ever been depressed: yes

1. have you ever been drunk and threw up? lol tequila is not my friend

SIX things you did in the past three days.

1. Went to school: no...but i did look at info about registering for school

2. Went to work: yep...all 3 jobs today

3. Colored: lol yes, tonight at work

5. Got drunk: in the last 3 days? Um, no

6. Slept: yes

list FIVE people you can pretty much tell anything to

1. Hillary
2. Paul
3. Patty
4. Mark
5. Cindy

FOUR of your favorite artists

1) Keane
2) Gwen Stefani/No Doubt
3) Idina Menzel
4) Alanis Morrisette

list THREE favorite colors.

1. Blue
2. Green
3. Plaid ;)

list TWO things you want to do before you die

1. write a screenplay based on my favorite book

2. write a song that gets on the radio

THIS YEAR HAVE YOU?

Made a new friend - yes

Laughed until you cried - yes....probably this week even

Went behind your parents back - hmmmm......

Met someone who changed your life - I don't think so

Gotten close to someone: yes

Found out who your true friends were - yeah, i guess

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF

1. Bush? don't have much of an opinion of him

2. Gay Marriage? doesn't bother me

3. Lowering the drinking age? seems pointless since people will drink if they want to drink

4. Straight, Gay, Lesbian, Bi? whatever makes you happy

5. Who is the best hugger that you know? Paul

6. Do you believe in love at first sight? I suppose

7. Is there something you want to tell someone: not that I can think of

Christmas at DCA

2006-12-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to share the few pictures I took at DCA last night. The first is of the big tree they have there...sorry it's blurry. And then the others are ones I took from the Sun Wheel. I thought they looked really cool. I especially like the last one.

I still have a few more WDW pics I'll get around to posting eventually.

Here's a couple of my favorite quotes from one of my new favorite movies, For Your Consideration:

"You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater because then all you have is a wet, critically injured baby. "

"You know what they say about blind prostitutes? You have to hand it to them!"

"Question. Would it surprise me to tell you that I am 1/8th Mighty Choctaw?"

You all should go see that movie. Good stuff.

Oh...and a BIG THANKS to Amber, my super awesome secret santa!! She rocks! :)

Dedicated to Kerri

2006-11-29T00:27:00.000-08:00

Hey Kerri.
Welcome to my Chargers Blog.

They are 9-2. Leading the AFC West.

BITE ME.

just kidding....love ya :)

Here's a couple of pictures from tonight at Disneyland :

let your conscience be your guide....words to live by
It's funny because it's ironic

Pretending to be stuck on a runaway sleigh always makes for good picture opportunities.

Although I'm pretty sure Hillary got a little more into it than I did ;)

that is all.
carry on.

Room pics and MGM Studios

2006-11-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

Ok, sorry I've been slacking.....here's some more pictures for your viewing enjoyment. :)

Here are some pictures of our hotel. It was super nice......it had a huge living area and a full kitchen, a huge bedroom and a ginourmous bathroom.

We spent one of our mornings at MGM Studios.
Here's one of the original carousel horses from Mary Poppins. It's on display in the cue for The Great Movie Ride.

Terry decided on a light snack....

And then she was nice enough to share with Leeayn.

Tower of Terror

The giant guitar outside of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster

Our picture from riding Rock 'n' Roller Coaster

The ugly sorcerer's hat they have in the middle of MGM.

Ok, more later.

Happy Turkey Day everybody!!! :)

Not to detract from Florida pictures....but.....

2006-11-13T23:04:00.000-08:00

Monica's Holiday questionaire was too good to pass up, so here ya go. And if you actually make it to the end there's a few pictures for ya.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? hot chocolate. I do usually have a glass or two of egg nog around Christmas, but it's too strong for me so I usually put have egg nog and half milk.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? As a kid Santa would usually just set them around the tree. I don't think Santa bothers to bring me anything anymore. haha
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I like both, but I think I prefer colored
4. Do you hang mistletoe? I am this year!! (shout out to Hillary) ;) lol
5. When do you put your decorations up? There should be a national law that nothing Christmas related can be put up until the day after Thanksgiving. I guess we usually do it like 2 weeks before Christmas.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? probably my mom's homemade rolls. I think I'm drooling now.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: I really don't remember much. I do remember driving home from our big Christmas Eve get togethers and looking out the window up into the sky for Santa. We always do a lot of Swedish traditions on Christmas Eve...that's always fun.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? The truth about Santa?? Is he a woman? For the love of God, please don't tell me that he's a woman. Somebody's going to have to fill me in on this one.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We usually exchange our gifts with aunts, uncles and cousins then. And some of my friends and I have in the past exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve day.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? With lights and random ornaments collected and made over the years.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? It's pretty to look at. Hate to live in it. Deathly afraid of driving in it.

12. Can you ice skate? Not without falling a million times....but it can be done.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? um.....all of them. There isn't really one in particular that stands out.
But my friends and family are awesome and always get me great gifts.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Being with my family. And my friends too. :)
15. What is your favorite Holiday dessert? My aunt's rice pudding. YUM!! (am I drooling again?)
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Like I said above, probably our Christmas Eve get togethers

17. What tops your tree? An angel my mom made
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving gifts to people. It's fun to shop and find stuff that you know people will like. :)
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Carol of the Bells. Preferably the Mannheim Steamroller version
20. Candy Canes! yuck or yummy? Yuck
21. Fave Christmas Movie? I love a lot of them. A Christmas Story is definitely towards the top of that list. Nightmare Before Christmas, Scrooge, Muppet Christmas Carol, and White Christmas are all definitely up there. And I'll throw in a plug for Rent just because it takes place during Christmas ;)

I can't believe Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK!!!
Here's a few pictures from this weekend at Disneyland:

Me, Hillary and Paul in front of Small World Holiday.

The reindeer at Santa's Reindeer Roundup. It's pretty cool to see real reindeer.

BOYS! If you've seen Hocus Pocus you will hopefully understand.

But if you haven't then you will probably just look at us like Paul did. ;)

I've got a blackbelt in crazy
More Florida pictures coming soon!!

Magic Kingdom

2006-11-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Here's some more picture for ya :)
These are all from our first full day there. We spent a good part of the day at the Magic Kingdom.

As Leeayn put it....it's like Disneyland on steroidsI like the way their Haunted Mansion looks.

This Leota scared the crap out of me. Her eyes open every couple of minutes and look around. Can we say eepy-cray?
can I get a woot! for pirates? although I do have to say I like the one at Disneyland much better.

Alice in Wonderland and Mickey and Minnie topiaries

I heart Wheezy

THE FREAKIN PEOPLE MOVER!!!!! I am so hoping they decide to bring it back to Disneyland. One of my favorite rides.

This was a cute little Winnie the Pooh area.

Larilyn and I in front of the ginourmous castle
I'm not sure where DCA went. I think it must have sank into the big lake that was there. ???

Ok, I'll post more later :)

Halloween!

2006-11-06T23:38:00.000-08:00

So since people have been asking for pictures I thought I'd post a few. But since I'm dead tired tonight I'll just post some from Halloween night. That should suffice for awhile, right?
We had sooooo much fun and I promise I will post more pictures soon.

We got to go to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party ON Halloween night, so it was really cool. Almost everybody there was dressed up. I hadn't dressed up since I was a kid, so it was pretty fun. Here is me in my costume......shutters and all. They only ended up lasting about an hour because they were a pain in the butt to carry around all night. I ended up ditching them in a trash can outside of Pirates. Of course then I had people trying to figure out who I was suppose to be....one CM called me Granny.

Everybody together now....."No, no, no, no Carlos! Don't tell him! Don't be chiiiken!"
Here is a group picture...minus Amber and Jonathan who were silly enough to show up without costumes ;)

Me, Leeayn, Terry and Larilyn
They had a special fireworks show. Not the best pictures, but I thought they looked cool.

The parade was freakin awesome. One of my favorite parades ever. It starts with the headless horseman racing down the street. I wasn't able to get a good picture of him though.

Dopey!

I thought these dancers were really cool. The way they moved around was kind of Thriller-esque (yes, I'm making up words as usual)
These guys were my favorite....but I didn't get the greatest pictures of them. They swing their shovels around in unison and they scrape them along the ground to create sparks. Really cool looking in person. But I mostly wanted to post this picture so you could see all the orbs!! They are everywhere! I actually got quite a few in pictures from that night. :)

Ok....that's it for tonight. I will get more up in the next couple of days.

And for those of you that care here's a quick life update:
I know I said in the last blog that I was putting moving on hold for awhile....but now I'm hopefully moving out soon with Hillary. We are looking at apartments and hopefully things will work out so we can move in the next little bit. If not I think I might have to hurt somebody or something.....it needs to be done before I go more crazy than I already am.
Work is good. Busy, but good. Still doing all 3 jobs. Yes, I'm crazy. No comment from the porch or grassy knoll needed.
Got Wicked tickets for March 24th!!!!! Woot! :) I think I'm going to need to open a seperate bank account for my Wicked fund so I can go every month while it's in L.A.
Um.....I think that's it. Aren't I exciting?
I'll leave you with one more picture....just because he's hot. I would love this picture but it was quite pricey. I'll have to settle for a picture of the picture. :)
Random quote of the day from Girl, Interrupted:
"You know, taking us for ice creams in a blizzard... makes you wonder who the real whack jobs are."

It's update time!

2006-10-23T18:12:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! It's time for a quick update and then some pictures from the latest Disneyland trip.
Ok, first...New York. I'm thinking I'm putting the crazy talk of moving there on hold....for now. Who knows what will happen in the future, and I'm certainly not completly ruling it out, but for now I'm not planning to move there anytime soon. I am still going to visit early next year, and if all goes well and I love it there I would say there is still a good chance I would move there eventually. Only time will tell on that one.
Then, I was going to move back to Carlsbad....but that is now on hold as well. I've decided to pay off all my bills and be 100% debt free before I move out again so I don't have that constant stress in the back of my mind. So.....I'm hoping, that with the money from my new job (which I will talk about in a minute) I will be able to move out shortly after the first of the year. Not completely sure where to or who with, but I have a couple of options, so we'll have to wait and see what happens there also.
So.....my new job. Otherwise known as my 3rd job, because what sane person has more than 1 job? (yes, that was a trick question....but this is hardly the forum for discussing my sanity levels) I've been doing it for 2 weeks now. The first week kinda sucked because I didn't know what I was doing. Last week was much better and I'm a lot more comfortable with everything I need to do. So the job in a nutshell: there are roughly 160 Stater Brothers stores here in southern California that we take care of. If the temperature gets too high or too low in any of their freezers/cases/boxes/whatever then it will send a call to my pager and I have to log into that stores alarm system and see what the problem is. Then, depending on what it is, I either have to call the store (and tell them to shut the door because somebody probably left it open) or call the on-call guys to go check it out. It's a pretty easy job, and I've figured out the patterns so that I'm able to fit some sleep in in-between calls. It also hasn't cut into my social life nearly as much as I thought it was going to, so that's been great. My friends don't hate me. :)
That's pretty much it.....Larilyn and I leave for Florida on Friday!!! Yikes! I have a lot to do before then....but it's going to be soooo much fun!! I'm sure I will have TONS of pictures when we get back that you'll all have the pleasure of viewing.
Here's some pictures from my latest Disneyland trip:
Because we can't be boring and just take normal pictures on Tower of Terror :)

Our obligatory under water picture?

While we waited for Turtle Talk we played this game where we would take turns telling each other what kind of face to make and we had to do it without really thinking about it. This is apparantly my sly/tricky face. Although I think it's fair to say it could be easily confused with my completely smashed, drunk off my rocker face.

Hillary always gets all the good looking guys. hehe
It's probably cause of her really cool pirates shirt.

Just a cute picture of Paul

Our duck friends that live on Tom Sawyer Island. (and apparantly speak spanish)

Paul demonstrating Mickey's Fantasmic moves. (He's actually quite good and can do the whole routine)

And last, but not least, we all had to test our strength at removing the sword in the stone. I decided to leave it in and just pretend to be straining because I didn't want to make Paul and Hillary feel inferior. :)

And I know this last picture was from the last, last trip and everybody on the farm has seen it since it's my avatar...but it's one of my favorites! :)

Disneyland!

2006-10-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics from a recent trip to Disneyland!
Hillary, Paul and Patty are the best friends in the whole world!! :)

The Mickey flower planter out front

A HUGE pumpkin at the beginning of Main Street and the decorations that were on all the lamp posts
they had the CALIFORNIA sign all made of candy corn...
HAUNTED MANSION HOLIDAY!!!!
We took a few hat pictures just because we are too cool ;)
And then a couple more random pics.Paul looking tough in his pink cowboy hat. haha

We ended the night with Splash Mountain...because who doesn't want to get soaking wet when it's 60 degrees outside? Hello!

Am I crazy you ask?? Quite possibly....

2006-09-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

So big, scary, exciting, crazy news......

I have talked with a handful of people (and I think briefly mentioned on here last time) that I've had this weird urge to pick up and move to New York. I've just casually looked at apartments and jobs online, but just didn't think I had the guts to actually pick up and move across the country to a big city all by myself. I joked with a couple of my friends, asking if they would move to New York with me...."Oh, sure" they would say, knowing I was joking. sort of.
So it's come down to this.....
My good friend, Patty, and I have decided that we are going to go to New York City early next year, either late February or early March, and check it out. We aren't going to move there yet.....just visit for a few days and get a feel for what it's all about. Maybe do a little apartment and/or job hunting and just see what happens. If we end up liking it there is a good possibility we will move there. We probably would say, to start out, that we would live there for a year, and see how things go.
So that's my big news. Scary as it is....I think it might end up being a lot of fun. :)

And just as a side note......Yes, I am still obsessed with Wicked. I've watched my dvds I got several times over. I am also currently side-obsessed with the movie Rent. I've never been obsessed with two things at once. It's been interesting. And then Season 2 of Lost comes out on dvd Tuesday, with season 3 starting in a month.....at that point I think I might actually explode. lol

I think I'm the only one left......

2006-08-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

I think everybody else already stole....I mean, did this. So I figured I'd jump in on it too. :)

[my name is]: LaRelle Marie Irvine

[in the morning i am]: annoyed that my alarm clock is going off when it is WAY too early
[love is]: fantastic
[i dream about]: when I remember my dreams (which is rarely) they are really strange

-W I T H .T H E. O P P O S I T E. S E X-
[what do you notice first?]: eyes...then teeth and smile
[last person u slow danced with]: i have no idea

-W H O .W A S .T H E .L A S T. P E R S O N-
[you talked to on the phone]: Patty
[hugged:] probably Paul
[you instant messaged]: Jenna
[you laughed with]: Paul, Hillary, Patty, Ryan and Sara :)

-D O .Y O U / / A R E .Y O U-
[could you live without the computer?]: that's not even funny to joke about
[what's your favorite food?]: chicken enchiladas
[whats ur favorite fruit?]: i love all fruit.....watermelon might be my favorite
[what hurts the most?] a paper cut probably. that's the worst thing. ;)
[trust others way too easily?]: No...quite the opposite usually. I'm suspicious of people.

-N U M B E R-
[of times i have had my heart broken?]: really probably only once (not that it was fun that one time)
[of hearts i have broken?]: lol oh i'm sure the numbers are endless lol
[of tight friends?]: just a handful of really tight friends. Lots of good friends though. :)
[of cd's that i own?]: Hmmmm....haven't counted in a while but somewhere around 900. I have 30 gigs of music on my computer right now. Way too much to choose from. I never know what I want to listen to.
[of scars on my body?]: I just have a couple from when I was a kid
[of things in my past that i regret?]: I don't think I really have any regrets. I've done a lot of stupid things in my life (mostly as a teenager) but I really don't regret any of it. I'm thankful for everything I've been through because I've learned from everything. I wouldn't be the person I am today otherwise.

-O.T.H.E.R.T.H.I.N.G.S.-
[i know]: a lot of useless information
[i want]: to be able to afford to move out of my parents house again
[i have]: the best friends! (INCLUDING internet friends! Even though I don't really think of them as 'internet' friends....because they are REAL friends lol)
[i wish]: we could have 3 day weekends every weekend
[i hate]: stupid people (especially stupid drivers)
[i miss]: my friends that live far away
[i fear]: losing people close to me
[i hear]: the Rent soundtrack blasting on my speakers and some coyotes outside that must have caught some dinner.
[i search]: on google! (I'll stick with Kerri's answer)
[i love]: my friends and family
[i care]: about lame things sometimes
[i always]: waste too much time on things like video games when I should be doing productive things
[i dance]: in my living room when I'm home alone and whenever I hear a good song.
[i sleep]: with my fan going. I have to have the noise or I can't sleep.
[i cry]: during sad movies
[i do not always]: want to be social. Sometimes I prefer to just stay home by myself.
[i write]: music. Or at least I try to. haha
[i confuse]: people
[i can usually be found]: at work/home/hanging out with friends
[i need]: to go back to college but I really don't want to
[wuss]: sometimes I guess
[daydreamer]: definitely.....just last week I had convinced myself I was going to move to New York City.
[brat]: I don't think I am generally speaking....but I suppose I have my streaks.
[sarcastic]: don't even know the meaning of the word
[angel]: yeah, when I was like 5
[devil]: let's just say devilish qualities
[friends]: are the best!
[shy]: only temperarily around people I've just met
[talkative]: I get that way when I'm hyper
[adventurous]: on occassion
[intelligent]: I like to think I am. lol

Concerning The Friends (You Claim To Have)-
[impacted you the most spiritually]: not sure....lots of people for different reasons I guess
[wish you saw more often]: Terry and Kerri and families, Amber and Jonathan, Kelley, Holly and all my other 'internet' friends!
[most sarcastic]: out of all my friends?? if it's not me then it's probably Paul
[wish you knew better]: probably Holly :)
[knows you best]: Paul
[best outlook on life]: Larilyn

Self-Analysis.
[a smell that makes you smile]: vanilla
[a city you'd like to visit]: New York
[a drink you order most often]: used to be Dr. Pepper......now it's Diet Coke/Pepsi
[a book you highly recommend]: I know I always say this one....but it's my favorite! Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
[the music you prefer while alone]: Broadway music. Not everybody appreciates it, so I don't bore people with it. Right now I've been obsessed with the music from Wicked (see previous blog) and the Rent soundtrack.
[your favorite film]: Trying to decide between Chicago and Rent. (I see a theme here)
[a TV show you watch regularly]: Lost. That's pretty much the only show I watch.
[you live in a(n)]: house
[your transportation]: Toyota Corolla
[your cologne or perfume]: right now it's Cherry Blossom body spray from Bath and Body Works
[under your bed or in your closet you hide]: nothing under my bed......I have all my R rated movies hidden in my closet while living in my parents house lol
[something important on your night table]: important?? I don't have much on it....my pirate skull magic 8 ball that Patty gave me, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory mug that Hillary gave me for Christmas, a necklace that Paul gave me, hand lotion, some drugs (aleve and sinus stuff), and my gameboy.

My latest obsession

2006-08-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here's the deal.

I have a sickness.

I know I have it. Those that are close to me know I have it. It's bad.

I know I tend to get overexcited about things sometimes. That may be annoying to some, and so I apologize. But really that is just the way I am and I don't know that I can fix it. Nor do I really know if I want to fix it. It's makes me me. And "IT" is simply the fact that I tend to obsess over certain things. I don't know if it's directly related to what's going on in my life at the time, or the mood I happen to be in when I experience particular things, or what......but we are now (and when I say 'we', I of course mean me, and whoever cares to join me in my crazy little world) entering the phase of obsession that is, simply,

WICKED

And let me just say that I could not have asked for a better sister. Larilyn bought these tickets for us and I know she went through a lot of crap to get them. I'm so glad I have such a great sister!!!
So we went to see Wicked on Friday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. I love that theater.....I saw Beauty and the Beast there and Lion King, and I think something else, but I don't remember what it was. We had pretty good seats, so that was great.
If you don't know what Wicked is about,
A. have you been living in a cave for the last 3 years? and
B. it's the untold story about the witches from Oz and how they grew up and went to school together. It tells the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West became wicked.

Now I've been in love with the music from Wicked for a couple years. When it was nominated for several Tony's the year it came out they performed one of the main songs during the awards show and I was hooked. I got the soundtrack. I got the sheet music for the piano. I was really into the music for quite awhile, but it wore off, as most of my minor obsessions do.
But now it's back in full swing!
Wicked is the best thing.....EVER!
Really....to me, right now, it is. I even said last night that I would probably give up all my Nightmare Before Christmas collection to get front row tickets for this weekends performance. It is playing just through Sunday at that theater and then it's moving on. I have been checking ebay and craig's list constantly to see if anybody is foolish enough to sell tickets for less than $500 a pair. There's no way I could afford to go, and yet I keep hoping some miracle will happen. I've been listening to the soundtrack constantly in my car (except while my clients are in the car.....no sense in bothering others with my obsession), and I've been scouring the internet like a mad woman looking for any videos I can get my hands on.
I just paid $45 for two bootleg dvds....one with the original broadway cast and one with the cast that we saw here. And that's actually a bargain. The couple of other people I talked to wanted like $50 for one, and they said they weren't the best quality. So hopefully the ones I am getting will be fairly good.
And on the plus side, I have read that because of the high demand here in Southern California, they are bringing Wicked back to L.A. indefinitely starting in February. YAY!!! I'll probably be going to see it like once a month.

IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN WICKED YOU MUST SEE IT!!!!!

I promise you that you will not be sorry. It is FANTASTIC! The music is incredible and it is really funny. It is by far my favorite musical I have ever seen.
And yes, I love it even more than Chicago, which some know was my previous ridiculous obsession.

I really wish I knew why I was this way though. It gets kind of scary at times.
But I suppose there are worse things that could be wrong with me. haha

thanks for reading my rambling and I apologize for my over-enthusiasm
i need to start a support group. WAA. Wicked Addicts Anonymous.

Something for Amber to read ;)

2006-08-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

Well it's been almost a month, so I guess I better update. Plus I wouldn't want to have Amber be bored more than she needs to be. lol
Nothing all that exciting going on with my life. Same old boring stuff. I'm going through my bi-monthly (or so) routine of thinking about getting a new job. I'm getting annoyed with some of the things my boss has been doing lately and I get angry when I think about it too much (which I tend to do while I'm trying to sleep) So my natural angry conclusion is that it's time to find a new job. So then I come to my senses and realize that would be stupid since I love my job and just get annoyed from time to time. So now I'm just stressing about how I'm going to approach talking to my boss about my latest aggravation. *sigh* I'll get over it.

Larilyn and I are going to see Wicked this Friday!!! WOO HOO!! I've been wanting to see it for so long I can't believe it's actually happening. And then we are going to stay up in Orange County and go to Disneyland on Saturday morning. :) Good times. (that ones for you Amber) hehe

I've been going to a lot of movies the last few weeks.....so of course next will be my obligatory movie reviews:
The Devil Wears Prada.....EVERYBODY should see this movie! It is fantastic. I cannot wait for it to come out on dvd (which will probably be in like 2 weeks, knowing the way dvds have been lately) It is very funny and I think most everybody can relate to it at some point. I loved Meryl Streep in it....I even tolerated Anne Hatheway who I normally don't really like very much. GO SEE IT!
The Lake House....good old fashioned cheesy chick flick. It was cute. I'll probably buy it when it comes out on dvd (again, in like 2 weeks). Keanu Reeves was even tolerable in it.
Pirates of the Carribean.....really? Do I really have to tell you people how I felt about this movie?? I went to the midnight showing. I've seen it a second time since then. Jack Sparrow is hot. Need I say more? Didn't think so.
Nacho Libre....if you like Napoleon Dynomite, you will most likely love this movie. I did...but I'm silly like that. And sometimes I like to wear stretchy pants. Just for fun. lol XOxxOxoOxoX
Lady in the Water....very good movie. Not really scary though. The 'creature' in it freaked me out a bit, but other than that it wasn't scary at all. It actually was really funny, which was suprising, but very nice. M. Night Shamalamadingdong strikes again. :)
I think that's it.....there might be one more, but I can't think of what it would be. Must not have been that good then.....
And speaking of movies....they are suppose to be playing The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D at the El Capitan for Halloween this year..... YAY! :)

I guess that's it for now. In a couple of days I'll post one of those fill inthe blank things that I'll steal from Kerri (who apparantly stole from others).....I'll try not to let it go another month.

I hope everybody has a great week!! :)

You asked for it.....

2006-07-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, here are some little known facts about me. Some are more embarrasing than others....and some may be more personal than you wanted to get.....but here goes nothing:

1. I am a big computer nerd. I play more video games than I care to admit. Seriously. I own two computers, a Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Gameboy advance and a Playstation 2.
2. I actually enjoy cleaning the house. It's like therapy for me. My mom even pays me to clean her house.
3. I have major ADD and OCD problems (hey lady, nice blouse! - that's my shoutout to John)
4. I know lyrics to several Air Supply songs and also several Eminem songs. And I like them.
5. When I was 16 I stole my grandfather's car with two friends, in the middle of the night, to go find alcohol. (I don't even think Larilyn knew that one)
6. I could probably recite the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail from start to finish from memory
7. In high school I was known (mostly within my 'circle' but by others also) for the parties that I threw. I won't go into detail about what kind of parties those would be.....but keep in mind I lived in Fallbrook :p
8. I used to help my Grandfather out at his liquor store when I was little. My duties included getting people their cigarettes and printing up their lottery tickets. This was between the ages of 7 and 10. Perfectly legal, I'm sure.
9. As a child I was hyperglycemic. When I somehow managed to get my hands on something with sugar I would go completly crazy and at times become violent.
10. I have never cried as much in a movie as I did the first time I watched Somewhere In Time.
11. I never really appreciated my parents and everything they did for me until I moved out of the house when I was 17.
12. The only guy that I've ever really truly been in love with turned out to be gay.
13. I hate even numbers. (see number 3 above) :p

Yes, I'll admit it, I am a teenage girl at heart

2006-06-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

So in case you didn't hear (which I highly doubt seeing as how excited I've been about this whole thing)....

I FINALLY SAW JOHNNY DEPP IN PERSON!!!!!

Ok, wait.....let me start from the beginning.....
Three years ago: I was at Disneyland when they had the first movie premiere and heard that they weren't letting people stay, so had left the park, later to find out they did let people stay. (yes, I was mad about that) I heard that there were lots of good spots up till shortly before celebrities started arriving.
So this year we (Paul, Hillary and myself) got there at about 1:30, thinking we should still have no problem getting a good spot. After all, it was going to be the longest red carpet ever, wrapping around Town Square, going all the way down Main Street and wrapping around the hub over to Adventureland. Apparantly I was wrong......people were lined up and down the street, and they were prepared with blankets, unbrellas, pillows and what not. We kept walking just to kind of scope out the situation and finally decided to just plop down in front of the castle, near the end of the red carpet. After making good friends with our 'neighbors' we found out that a lot of people were there as early as 3:30 in the morning. Now I love Johnny Depp and all, but I don't know if I would do that......
well ok, maybe I would.....but that's beside the point.

So we get situated and Paul runs to get food and drinks for us. People are pretty spread out at this point with their blankets and all. Some people just laying out, sleeping, playing cards, talking on the cell phones. We eat, we talk with our new friends, we make fun of people walking by.....I mean, we people watch politely. We were right across from all the radio show booths that were set up. A few of the pirates from the movie were going through each booth sitting down and doing interviews.
The whole thing was quite the spectacle. They had a pirate band going around playing songs and a bunch of pirates on stilts. (I'm assuming so everybody could see them....seemed kind of weird to me) A lot of juggling pirates on stilts, wanna-be stand up comedian pirates on stilts, another pirate band on stilts, etc. You get the picture. Lots of stilts.

Here's the guy that plays the pirate with the wooden eye. (sitting down next to the guy in the red shirt) He was super skinny.

Here's the 'little' pirate.

Here's Kevin McNally who plays Mr. Gibbs. He seemed really nice and was going up and down taking pictures and signing autographs.

By about 4:00 more and more people were trying to squeeze their way in so we stood up and moved as far forward as we could. So for the next 5 1/2 hours we were standing in the hot sun, in a crowd of people, not able to move much without forfeiting our spots.
People finally started coming down the red carptet by about 6....but the first little bit was just a bunch of what we started calling "normies". Just regular people who probably won tickets off a local radio station or whatever.
We ended up seeing quite a few celebrities....here's the pics I took:

That's Rosanne in the grey jumpsuit with the blonde hair. She turned away just as I was taking the picture. of course.
The blonde walking next to the lady with the black hat on is a girl from some Disney Channel shows....don't know which ones though. Hannah Montana maybe??

Christian Slater signing autographs

Niko (??) from American Idol. Hillary knew who he was. I took this picture especially for Kerri since she's so into that show. ;)

One of the London twins.....I don't know if it was Jeremy or Jason....signing autographs

Dennis Rodman.....opting for the cowboy hat instead of a dress. I think the guy in the white hat was some sports guy, but I don't know who.

I don't know who this was. Hillary knew so I took a picture.

Here's Tony Shalhoub from Monk (in the white shirt in the middle) One of the ladies next to us kept yelling at him and offering him handi wipes. lol I'm sure he never gets that.

Rodney Peete and Holly Robinson-Peete and their family

Daisy Fuentes

For the life of me I can't remember this guy's name or what he is from. Maybe somebody here will know.

Marla Sokoloff (she used to be on Full House a lot, she played Tom and Lynette's babysitter on Desperate Housewives for awhile, she was in Dude Where's My Car?)

Jon Cryer

Tony Hawk

My camera said my batteries where getting low (even though I replaced them halfway through these pictures) so I decided not to take many more. I didn't want to have no juice left for Johnny!!!
We ended up seeing a lot of Disney Channel stars, like all the kids from High School Musical, Erik Von Detten from Princess Diaries, the boy from That's So Raven, some girls from Cheetah Girls, Dylan and Cole Sprouse from Suite Life with Zach and Cody (those twins that played the kid on Big Daddy and Ross' son on Friends), etc.
We also saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tia Carrere, Lisa Rinna, Harry Hamlin, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Stacy Keibler, Cal Ripkin, Jerry Rice, Ace from American Idol, the guy that plays Lex Luthor on Smallville (with hair), Beau Bridges and his family, Ally and AJ (they have some popular song right now....can't remember what it's called) and I'm sure some others I'm forgetting and a few other people I didn't recognize. Oh, and we saw the director Gore Verbinski and the producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

A couple more pictures after it was dark:

Christina Applegate signing autographs

Mark Hoppus from Blink-182

Then nobody was really coming for awhile....it was after 8:30 and things seemed to winding down. We were worried that the big stars were not coming that far down the red carpet. We were exhausted and tired of standing and almost decided to leave.......Finally at about 9:00 Kiera Knightly came through.

Here she is signing autographs. She was very pretty in person and had a beautiful dress on.

not the best picture of her I'm sure. lol
She was very nice, taking lots of pictures and signing autographs for everybody.
Then there was more waiting. and waiting. and waiting. and waiting.
At about 9:20 we started hearing screaming slowly coming down Main Street. It kept getting closer and closer and we figured it had to be Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.
All of a sudden there was a massive crowd of people coming through....but people were screaming and taking pictures. They were walking through really fast and I was afraid I was going to miss him after all that. I finally saw Johnny Depp right as he walked right in front of me!!! Yes, I may have screamed a bit like a teenager. Hey, I have had a crush on that man since I was like 10 years old. I'm allowed to scream a little bit like a teenage girl.
I was trying so hard to get a picture of him I didn't even see Orlando Bloom (who apparantly was like 3 people behind him). But that's ok....I met my goal for the day....to see Johnny. :)
Here's the only picture I got of him:

He's towards the middle on the left, with one of his (in)famous hats on. I didn't quite get the camera up high enough to be above the hand in front of his face. Also, notice the orb in the picture. lol

So that was my day. It was exhausting, but totally worth it. Hillary and I have already decided we are going to go again next year if they do the premiere there for Pirates 3. We'll just be more prepared and get there earlier next time. YAY! :)

Here's the special map they had out for the day:

It opened all the way to this poster inside:

The free button they gave us as we went in. :)
There was a lady walking around early in the afternoon asking trivia questions about the movie and giving out free cds of the soundtrack. My question was "What was the name of the monkey in the movie?" JACK of course!!

They had this set up at the beginning of Main Street.

Paul and Hillary on the red carpet afterwards. (more orbs!)

Ok, that's it. Sorry I didn't get more pictures. But it was really cool being there in person!

And sadly, it's over

2006-06-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

OMG! How much fun was this week?!!!??! I know I had a fantabulous time!
It was soooo great to finally meet both Scott and John. They were both a lot of fun and just what I expected. And of course it was wonderful as always to see Kerri and Terry and the kids and Leeayn!! Why don't we all live closer again?? Eh, we'd probably get tired of each other. ha ha

I realized that I didn't get as many pictures as I thought.....even less good ones. But here's the few I have.

Kerri striking a pose waiting for the fireworks.
Larilyn and Emily 'bonding'
Traci and Mitchel 'bonding' ;)
Terry and Leeayn. You have to look closely though.....it's hard to see Terry with that camoflauge shirt on. ha ha
Kerri posing again with Emily's hat
Emily and Kerri (but I don't remember what they were doing)
Pat and Cindy :)
After we invaded Pat and Cindy's lunch with her mom and sister.

I can't wait for the next trip!! Don't forget.....I am campaigning for the Jonas 2007 trip!! :)
And I can't wait to see more of everybody else's pictures. :)

It's finally here!!!!

2006-06-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

BAN-FREAKIN-ANA!!!!!!

It's finally here!! :)

can you tell I'm excited?? No?? Ok. But really, I am. I'm so excited to see all my out of town Disney friends that I hardly ever get to see. And I'm so excited to finally meet John and Scott. It's going to be a good weekend.

Anyway....last night was my trip to the Whaley House!! Unfortunately I think I had built it up in my head too much. It was cool to see and to read all the history about it and stuff, but I think I was expecting to have some "supernatural" (or whatever you want to call it) experience. And of course, I didn't, so that was kind of a let down. I did get some cool pictures though....with lots of orbs. I would really love to go there in the middle of the night with just a couple of people sometime....but that's not going to happen since the latest they ever stay open is 11, and it's in the middle of Old Town San Diego with is always way crowded. It's a hot spot with lots of bars and restaurants and such. And a big tourist place also. So it's always really noisey. I'm hoping my friend Patty got some better pictures than I did, but I haven't seen them yet. She took over 100 pictures I think. If she has any good ones I will post them later also.

Here's some orb pictures I took:
In the courthouse (San Diego's first courthouse actually) Notice the orb a little above and to the left of the books on the table
Another one in the courthouse....and orb next to the flag pole.
My friends Patty, Hillary and Paul in the courthouse.
The back balcony, where the ghost of a woman has been seen crying on several occasions.The theater. It was San Diego's first theater and there was a little stage in here. Notice the two orbs right in the middle of the picture.
Here's the cool looking piano that was in the theater.
Paul and Hillary on the front porch. :)
And then here's the picture that freaked me out when I first looked at it on the computer:

But then I realized that it was just my own reflection. I had a jacket with a white stripe down the arms on. This room had glass in front of it. It freaked me out at first though.

Anyway....overall it was a fun time. I'd like to go back and take more pictures. They had a book there with pictures that people had taken and sent in. They creepiest one was of a little boy and you could see his shadow on the wall and there was another shadow directly behind it. It didn't have any kind of a profile though....just a dark shadow. Creepy.

And just because I can....here's a movie quote, from Fight Club:
"You know why they put oxygen masks on planes?"
"So you can breath?"
"Oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you're taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric....docile. You accept your fate. It's all right here. Emergency water landing - 600 miles an hour. Blank faces....calm as Hindu cows."
"That's, um... That's an interesting theory."

Top 20 Favorite 80s Songs

2006-06-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm bored.
I couldn't think of what I should talk about. I decided this would be fun. I'll probably forget some really good songs and want to change them later....but for now, here's my top 20 favorite 80s songs: (and yes I originally started with top 10 but couldn't narrow it down.)

20. "Just Another Day" by Oingo Boingo
19. "Take Me Home Tonight" by Eddie Money
18. "Don't Get Me Wrong" by The Pretenders
17. "Like A Prayer" by Madonna
16. "Things Can Only Get Better" by Howard Jones
15. "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order
14. "Don't Lose My Number" by Phil Collins
13. "Tenderness" by General Public
12. "Ride Like the Wind" by Christopher Cross
11. "Rio" by Duran Duran
10. "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel
9. "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall & Oates
8. "Let's Dance" by David Bowie
7. "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash
6. "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" by Michael Jackson
5. "With or Without You" by U2
4. "Father Figure" by George Michael
3. "When Doves Cry" by Prince
2. "Close To You" by The Cure
And the number one song of the 80s is
1. "Take On Me" by a-ha :)

There you have it. My favorite 80s songs. And I have to give Honerable Mention to Escape Club's "Wild Wild West". Not because it's a great song, but because when it first came out I happened to record it off the radio and Larilyn and I would jump on our beds and sing along to it. (obviously not knowing what it was about) That stopped when our mom heard us and took the tape away. Parents. Sheesh. ;)

Do you guys agree with any of mine?? Disagree with all of them?? What are yours?? Let's share. ;)
I know somebody is going to mention one and I'll go "OH YEAH!!"

to freakin get Larilyn off my back about updating!!! :)

2006-05-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so apparantly everybody (read: Larilyn) is requesting an update. Not only online, but now when I see her in person as well. It makes it very difficult to live with her. ;)
Seriously though, I haven't had much to talk about. I've been really sick since my birthday. Happy birthday to me. yay. I've had some major throat/tonsil/ear infection decide to take up residence in my head. I really think it's worn out it's welcome. (not that it was welcome to begin with) I think I have serious issues with my immune system. It always takes me forever to get over stuff. But anyway.....enough of that....here are the highlights of the last couple of weeks since my last update:

*Got my tax return! That's always fun. Getting money back is always better than having to pay money. Of course I was a good girl and immediately deposited that right into my savings account. :) does anybody actually believe that?? well you should, because I did. HA!

*My birthday was FANTASTIC!! Well, other than being sick anyways. My three best friends in the whole world - Paul, Patty and Joe - took me out to dinner at Applebees and of course embarrassed me and had the waiters/waitresses bring me ice cream and sing to me. I got some cool gifts. Paul gave me a REALLY COOL Nightmare Before Christmas music/jewelry box. I'll have to take a picture and post it later. He also got me a computer game I've been wanting. Joe brought me the most beautiful flowers. (again, pictures to come) Patty got me a subscription to the Lost magazine. (yes people, I know I have a serious addiction, bordering illness with this tv show. But it is sooooo great!!! Everybody should seriously watch it!) She also got me some Sudoku books and a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory poster. Larilyn gave me a game for my DS that I've been wanting. My parents gave me Kingdom Hearts 2 for my ps2 and an Itunes gift card and the piano music from Corpse Bride. Anyway, lots of fun stuff. :)

*Patty's birthday was last Friday. We took her to dinner and we were suppose to go to the Whaley House. The Most Haunted show on the Travel Channel said it was the most haunted house in the country. EEK!! Exciting!! We ended up not going though because dinner went longer than planned, so we will hopefully be going this weekend. Dinner was good.....we went to Chili's. I had called about 45 minutes before we got there to get our name on the list because since it was Saturday night there was probably going to be a bit of a wait. We got there and we were second on the list....yet we still had to wait another 40 minutes. Let the anger issues commence. I was really frustrated about that. But other than that everything went well. That just made it so we didn't have enough time to get down to San Diego. But I will keep you updated when we do go (hopefully this weekend) and I'm sure I'll have pictures. We've been talking about going for a long time, so I'm really excited.
So after dinner we just ended up going to Starbucks. HAVE YOU TRIED THEIR NEW LINE OF BANANA DRINKS?!?!?!? YUM!!!
Sorry....I think I'm a little too excited about that. But they are really good. :)
Then we went to the beach and sat and talked......and had the interesting experience of a couple showing up awhile after we got there and then proceded to have sex on the beach no more than about 4o feet away from us. Of course it was dark, but the moon was out, so it wasn't THAT dark. And there were lots of people around. Guess they just aren't very shy. So the four of us that were in the car - Me, Paul, Patty and Hillary - proceeded to roll down the windows and sing at the top of our longs along with the song playing on the cd player - Engelbert Humperdinck "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You". (is that what it's called?? You know.....it's just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you....) I'm not sure if they were mad....they kept at it. I think we amused the people in the cars on either side of us though. Good times as Amber would say.

*Ok.....I'll admit I did spend about $100 of my tax return money. But seriously, the rest is in savings. I apparantly am on a Broadway kick again and bought a bunch of soundtracks. I got Avenue Q, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Company, Into the Woods, Cabaret, Chorus Line and Ragtime. I seem to go through phases with the music I listen to. I'll listen to a certain genre of music for a couple of months and then move on to another one and so on. I really do like all kinds of music, except for really twangy country. Sorry. But everything else, other than hardcore east coast/west coast/whatever rap, I really do like.
I also purchased a handful of dvds out of the bargain bin on Amazon.

Well....I guess that's about it for now. I think I'm going to a bonfire at the beach tonight with some friends......that's always fun.
LOST SEASON FINALE TOMORROW!!!!!!! My life will be meaningless after that.....or at least until October when the new season starts. ;)
Stay classy San Diego.

UPDATE TIME!!

2006-05-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Isn't everybody so excited!?!??!
I'm sure you are......you've not been able to sleep at night.....lack of an appetite.....checking back here every half hour to see if I've updated. Come on, you know you have. ;)

Anyway.....
I really don't have much of anything exciting going on in my life as of late. My group at work has been changed around again....which has actually been really good because I'm not having to drive as far. That means saving money on the ridiculous gas prices.....for the running tally, we are at about $3.37 here. So work has actually been really good lately. We've been spending a lot of our time working in our garden. Now I am by no means a garden expert and have been pretty much learning as we are going here, but things are turning out pretty well. We even picked a bunch of lettuce we had grown to make a salad at our last monthly party and it was great. It's great for those guys to physically see the outcome of their hard work. We just planted a bunch of flowers, cucumbers and corn. And one of the other groups planted a bunch of tomato plants today. I'll have to take pictures to share this week. :)

Last Saturday Larilyn and I went to Disneyland for a couple of hours. (that's a big rub to some of you. you know who you are) We went to eat lunch, go on Haunted Mansion to see the cool new special effects (which are awesome!) and watch Billy Hill. Good times.
Sunday was highly uneventful. I did pretty much nothing productive all day. Slept in until 10, watched movies, and goofed around on the computer. I felt bad about not doing anything, but once in a while I really need a day like that. Sunday night was my friend Tim's birthday party at T.G.I. Friday's. more good times. ;)

So I've decided to start a new thing on here.....I'll call it my "crush" of the week. When I mentioned it to Larilyn she made the (sarcastic) comment that it would just be Johnny Depp every week......just as a different movie character. HA! What a silly idea Larilyn.
So here's my first week.....
JOHNNY DEPP AS EDWARD SCISSORHANDS:

Ooooookkkkkkkk.....just kidding. This week's will be Josh Holloway. He plays Sawyer on Lost. (which if you haven't watched, you are CRAZY!) Best freakin show on television. Here's a few pics of the hottie himself:

So I guess that will do it for this time. You can now get back to your regularly scheduled lives. :)

summer movie excitement!!

2006-04-23T18:57:00.001-07:00

Stolen directly from Amber....
I bring you my list of movies I am excited for (and not as excited for) that are coming out this summer! :)

Starting off with the ones I'm very much excited for......
Anybody that knows me to any extent will know that I am ridiculously excited for PIRATES!!!!
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to be exact.
Comes out July 7th and I'm hoping to be at Disneyland for the June 24th premiere so I can see the stars in person!! Of course I might faint if I actually see Johnny Depp in person....but I think I'll take my chances. :)

Click
starring Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale and Christopher Walken. 1. Love Adam Sandler 2. LOVE Christopher Walken So it's a match made in heaven. Plus the storyline, though completely fantasy, looks like a cute idea and should be really funny. :)

Cars
I love all Disney/Pixar movies, so this probably won't be an exception.

The Break-Up
Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. Looks really funny and it's by the same guy that did Down with Love, so I'm hoping it's going to be good.

Lady in the Water
The next movie by M. Night Shamalamalamalam ;) I've loved all of his movies except for Unbreakable, so this should be great.

The Omen
Looks like it's going to be FREAKY! It's a remake of the orginal. I hope it's as creepy as it looks and doesn't suck.

Other big movies coming out:
MI3
I've actually never seen the first two, and I'm becoming less and less of a Tom "Insane" Cruise fan, so I probably won't see it. Maybe I'll Netflix the trilogy someday.

X3
Never really seen the first two of these either....just parts of both. this one looks cool though so I'll probably Netflix the first two and catch up. :)

Superman Returns
I am semi interested in this. Looks like it would be good. Never was really into any of the older Superman movies though. Plus the guy playing him is pretty cute.

Poseidon
Looks like a decent movie. Never saw the original though.

Snakes on a Plane
Destined to be a cult classic I think. I'll probably Netflix it if I don't see it in theaters.

Anyway......that's my .02 worth. Take it or leave it. :p

gas prices

2006-04-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

So I don't know how gas prices are in the rest of the country...I'm assuming they are getting higher and higher like they are out here. Today it cost me almost $35 to fill up. Which I know may not be a lot of money to some people, but to me, who doesn't make a whole lot of money, that can be. Especially when you have to fill up as much as I do. And especially when just a couple of years ago it would only cost me like $17 per fill up. I read today that the average gas price in San Diego county this week is $2.99. And it's just going to keep going up. I don't know if anybody else is interested, but I heard about this e-mail on the radio the other day and thought it might be worth passing on. It doesn't sound hard and it seems like it might actually work. Do with it what you will....

Join the resistance!!!!

This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your consideration.

I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.97 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas!

And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here! 's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers.

It's really simple to do!! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to, at least, ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

blah blah blah

2006-04-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

So I decided it was time to change it up a bit. I think I like it this way....except for the way the comments are set up now. But my html knowledge is extremely limited, so I'm not sure how to change that. If you are as confused as I am about it, you have to click on the number next to the title of the blog to comment. We'll see how it goes.....

While I was making the picture at the top Larilyn commented that I like a lot of Jack's. Even weirder than that is that all their intials are J.S. Jack Shephard (Lost), Jack Sparrow, Jack Skellington. (enter Twilight Zone music here) Oh, and Jack Daniel"S" (ha ha totally kidding)
Anyway, yes I know I am pathetic. Humor me anyway.

Easter was relatively quiet around here. Most of the family went to church and while they were gone my good friend Joe came and visited me. :) He was down from Utah just for the day, so it was really cool that he came by for a couple of hours. I don't get to see him too often. Tonight we had our family dinner. Very low key and uneventful.

Went to Disneyland again last night with Larilyn. Went to see Barrage while they are here at California Adventure. They are a VERY COOL violin group that play and sing and dance. They used to play at Disneyland a lot a couple of years ago, but have been gone so it was great to see them back. Unfortunately it was just for this week, so I was only able to catch them a couple of times. Hopefully they will be back. :)

Wow...this blog is extremely boring. I'll try to liven it up with a movie quote from Anchorman:

Ron Burgundy: "I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal."
Veronica Corningstone: "Really."
Ron Burgundy: "People know me."
Veronica Corningstone: "Well, I'm very happy for you."
Ron Burgundy: "I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany."

Apparantly the natives are getting restless ;)

2006-04-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

So I guess I better update. But I really don't have much to say. (no comments from the peanut gallery please)
Went to Disneyland twice in the last week. First time was with a bunch of friends. It's becoming a bit of a ritual for us to hit up the bar at the hotel before going into the parks, so that's always interesting. ha ha But I forgot to ask the bartender if he knew how to make Kongaloosh. ;) His name is Nathan and he is really nice and he has a cool accent. Good times with good friends. Second time was with Larilyn. That trip was very spontaneous and it was a lot of fun. Larilyn of course had her new camera in tote, so she took a lot of pictures that night. You can see a few of them on HER BLOG. I especially thought that first picture of the castle was cool because it has orbs in it!! I'm intrigued by that sort of thing. If you don't know what orbs are you can read about them here. Maybe it's Walt! (Disney....not the boy from Lost) Anyway, we had a ton of fun. :)

Speaking of Lost......last night's episode was ok. Not on my top ten favorite episode list, that's for sure. I think after a few weeks of so much going on in each episode it was just a let down. It wasn't a horrible episode or anything....just not as action packed. The next new one looks better. Of course we have to wait three weeks for that one. (where is that eye rolling smiley when you need it?)
Here's a picture of Matthew Fox that I came across. Looks like his Party of Five days. he he But he was still hot.
AMBER...do you have a paper copy of this one?? Do you even still collect these?

Movie Reviews:
I saw The Benchwarmers with Larilyn on Tuesday night. It was pretty funny. Some of the dialogue was pretty cheesy and the acting was, well, average for Rob Schneider and David Spade....but it was still good. Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynomite) was really funny it it also. You should check it out if you get a chance, but it wouldn't hurt to wait for it to be on dvd.
I also watched Flight Plan with Jodie Foster. Good movie. You should rent it if you get a chance. It takes a while to get into it, but once it does it's good.
Wow....I sure give Roepert and Ebert a run for their money, eh? It's a wonder I don't get paid for this. :p
I remember the movie Clue was being discussed earlier this week somewhere....seriously if you have not seen that movie you need to rent it!! (Or buy it since somebody pointed out that it was like $5 at Target) It is one of the funniest movies ever and has a great cast, including my favorite actress of all time Madeline Kahn. so go get it. seriously. you won't be sorry. and even if you are it's only $5. Actually, if you go buy it and hate it I will give you your $5 back. I give it the LaRelle-antee. If you don't like it I'll buy it from you. Surely I can never have too many copies of it.
Current obsessions: Nothing really. I've been too busy with too many different things to be obsessing over individual things like I usually do. I've just been really into Lost the last few weeks with all the new episodes. Still really into the Pussycat Dolls cd. Don't remember if I mentioned that on here before. It's a pretty good cd. Good for dancing.
Sorry for my babbling.
Actually I'm not sorry. You guys wanted an update, so you got it. Nobody's forcing you to read this. ;)

HAVE I MENTIONED HOW FREAKING EXCITED I AM FOR JUNE!?!?!?!?! ;)
My butt is tired of sitting on this curb. Bring on the motor mansion and company!

Ok....I'm done. I think I'm going to go to Starbucks.
Monica, you should try the Vanilla Bean Frappachino. Not a hint of coffee in it. Just the best vanilla milkshake you'll ever have. Or maybe the White Chocolate Mocha (my drink of choice as of late). But of course I don't want to be responsible for you having to dump out another cup of coffee you don't like. Everybody else who is normal and likes coffee ;) should get a Caramel Macchiatto. Good stuff.

boredom

2006-03-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

	*Playing favorites*
	Favorite color?	Blue
	...Band?	Keane
	...Taco Bell menu item?	Ranchero chicken soft taco
	...Candy bar?	Babe Ruth
	...Concert?	Tie: Keane /Third Eye Blind and Goo Goo Dolls
	...Movie quote?	"But why is the rum gone?"
	...Monopoly game piece?	I don't know....the thimble
	...Nickname?	RaLelle, Cinderelley
	...Pizza toppings?	Pepperoni and pineapple
	...cell phone service provider?	T-Mobile
	restaurant?	Applebees
	....breakfast cereal?	Honey Nut Cheerios
	...website? (other than Myspace you nerd=)	yahoo games
	....roadtrip?	only one I've ever done is to Utah....several times
	....beer?	bleh beer is nasty
	*This or That*
	Britney or Christina?	Britney
	Own a pet monkey or take part in a "heist"?	pet monkey!
	Team Jolie or Team Aniston?	At first I was Team Aniston...now I'm Team Jolie
	Paris or Nicole?	Nicole (if I have to choose)
	Firefighters or police officers?	Firefighters
	Silver or gold?	Silver
	Internet Explorer or Netscape?	Firefox
	Fly or drive?	drive
	Night or day?	Night
	Beer or liquor?	um.....liquor?
	Law & Order or CSI?	LOST ;)
	Glasses or contacts?	neither
	Martha Stewart: Domestic goddess or Satan's spawn?	Domestic goddess who sold her soul
	Godfather or Goodfellas?	Godfather
	Backstage or front row?	Backstage
	*Keep Dreamin'*
	If you could marry any celebrity, who would it be?	hello? Johnny Depp!
	If you won the lottery today, what's the first thing you would buy?	A house
	You're on death row - what's your last meal?	chicken enchiladas from La Capilla
	If you bought a puppy today, what would you name it?	Fred
	What is your dream job?	movie critic
	If you could travel anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would it be?	New Zealand
	If you magically had a kid tomorrow, what would you name it?	Jack if it's a boy.....Bridget if it's a girl
	If you could live anywhere on the planet, where would it be?	probably here in Southern California (If Mr. Depp won't let me live on his island) ;)
	Who would you "be a little gay" for?	lol Catherine Zeta-Jones (not that there's anything wrong with that)
	What is your dream motor vehicle?	Toyota Highlander hybrid
	If you could go back in time, what historical period/event would you time travel to?	not sure
	If you could star in any movie, what would it be?	Pirates of the Carribean :)
	You're stranded on a desert island - what five members of the opposite sex (or same sex, if you so choose) would you want with you?	Only 5? ;) Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, David Duchovny, Matthew Fox, Josh Halloway
	If you were having a dinner party, what four people (living or dead) would you invite?	Johnny Depp (anybody getting a theme here?), Ellen Degeneres, Albert Einstien and Quentin Terrinteno
	If you could get rid of one celebrity that annoys you, who would it be?	just one? Paris Hilton
	*Randomness*
	What animal represents you best?	monkey
	Ever seen a pedestrian get hit by a car?	not in real life thankfully
	Where was the last place you went to on an airplane?	Salt Lake City
	What is your most cherished old school Nintendo game?	Super Mario 3
	How many times have you been out of the United States?	4
	What food do you refuse to try?	anything they make people eat on Fear Factor
	What's your middle name?	Marie
	What is the coolest city you have ever been to?	San Diego
	Who do you IM with the most?	probably Terry or Cindy or my uncle
	McDonald's Chicken McNuggets: yay or nay?	McDonald's: yay or nay: NAY!
	Ever posted a glittery/animated comment on someone's Myspace page?	No and I refuse to
	Do you know who Glenn Coco is?	as in from Mean Girls?
	What television channel do you watch the most?	ABC or E!
	What perfume/cologne are you wearing right now?	Just Cherry Blossom body spray from Bath and Body Works
	What is your Starbucks beverage of choice?	Iced Venti Caramel Macchiato with light ice and extra caramel and an extra shot of expresso YUM! Vanilla Bean frappachinos are pretty good too.

American Idol and other ramblings.....

2006-03-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

So I watched American Idol tonight. I really don't watch it, but I just happened to be in the room while it was on. So I guess tonight's show was all about Stevie Wonder, which is great, because I LOVE Stevie Wonder. But I can't even imagine having to sit at a piano with the man and singing one of his songs right there in front of him. Talk about pressure. There is no way I could do that. Not that I can sing or anything....but, you know. I won't even comment on the one blonde girl who didn't even know who he was. (Except: How on earth can you not know who Stevie Wonder is?!?!?! She must of lived under a rock in North Carolina.)
I can't say that I was overly impressed with any of the people on there, but I didn't see the whole show. I did like Mandisa (sp??). I thought she did a really good job with her song and has a really good voice. I didn't see Ace perform, but I've heard a lot about him, so I went to the AI website.....Hello! He is not bad to look at. If he can sing as well as I've heard people say, you can sign me up for that. :) Ok....moving on....

Has anybody seen the Dove movies that were made with old tv shows and Felicity Huffman?? It's funny to see her interact with the characters on the Brady Bunch. I really like Felicity Huffman, so maybe I'm biased, but you should check it out if you haven't seen it:
http://www.dovenight.com

Since I'm talking about commercials:
I HATE...I repeat....I HATE those freakin commercials for doublemint mints. I would die happily if I never had to see those again. The song is sooooooooooooo annoying. Here is one of them. You can be annoyed with me. :)

My weekend was pretty good. Friday night I had a Princess House party. It went ok. Not a lot of people showed up. I think that was mostly due to the nasty winter storm we were having. But I still got several orders and did fairly well. We are having another one this Saturday, so if you are in town and want to come by, feel free. :) Saturday was fairly uneventful, which was very nice since it was rainy and blah. Sunday was Disneyland with several friends. That was a lot of fun. Possibly due to the fact that when we arrived at 3:30 we first headed straight for the bar at the hotel. I won't say anymore about that....but a good time was had by all. We ended up staying until midnight, even though most of us had to work the next day, so I was dragging pretty bad on Monday.

So....I think that's it for now. I must find something productive to do. I'll leave you with a movie quote from one of the greatest movies ever, What's Up Doc?:
"Steve, you didn't tell me you were married!"
"We're not married."
"Congratulations!"
"But we will be soon."
"Condolences."

Oy!

2006-03-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

And did we all see the lovely picture of Mr. Depp in this weeks People and US Weekly magazines?? GOOD MORNING!!!
This is especially for you, Holly. but I'm sorry....you are going to have to share. ;)

Is it hot in here??

thoughts.......or something like that

2006-03-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

Sundays.......are good. But only lead to one horrible thing......Mondays.

The Oscars were on tonight!! Woo hoo! I watched a good portion of them. I have to say I wasn't overly impressed with Jon Stewart as the host. I like him and all, but I just don't think he did that great of job as a host. One line he said that I thought was pretty funny was "I do have some sad news to report: Bjork could not be here. She was trying on her Oscars dress and Dick Cheney shot her." I think the best part of the whole show was when Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep were on stage (possibly drunk) giving out the special Oscar award. I was bummed that Brokeback Mountain didn't get best picture and Heath Ledger didn't win for best actor. I guess maybe I was a bit biased seeing as how Brokeback Mountain was the only nominated movie I had seen....but it is such a good movie! I know people don't want to go see the movie about gay cowboys...but it's not really about that. I think most anybody can relate to this movie. And the music is incredible! I really need to go buy the soundtrack. I'm glad they won in that catergory. :)
I need to add Crash to my Netflix list. I've heard from everybody that I know that has seen it that it is an awesome movie. Obiviously the Academy concurs with that.

Not much else is new around here.....I've been busy (slowly) putting all my cd's onto my new computer. When you have 800+ cds that takes quite a bit of time. I'm a little over halfway through now and I have about 20 gigs of music on the computer already. I would have no problem filling up that Ipod that holds 7500 songs.

Um.........I guess that's all I feel like talking about.....I'll leave you with a movie quote, from Jennifer Coolidge's character in A Mighty Wind:
"Thank God for the model trains, you know? If they didn't have the model trains they wouldn't have gotten the idea for the big trains."

weekend festivities

2006-02-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

So of all weekends I had to be sick, it would of course be the one where I had a bunch of stuff going on. If I wasn't scared to death of such things I would have my doctor rip out my tonsils right now. I've had tonsillitis three times in the last three years now. Not a fun thing. I should buy stock in Zithromax.
When I came home from work on Friday (yes, I worked on Friday after going to the doctor on Thursday to get my antibiotics) my new computer was being delivered by the UPS guy. Excitement ensued....for about 5 minutes and then I went and crashed in my bed because I was exhausted. I don't remember doing much that night. I do remember looking at the Dell boxes sitting in the foyer and thinking "Hmmm...I should set up my new computer" but I never got up the energy.
So Saturday morning (when I finally got the energy to get out of bed) I set up my computer. It is WONDERFUL!!! My last computer was crap with a case over it that I bought at Fry's a couple years ago for a couple hundred dollars. I know, I know...you get what you pay for. It started acting weird a few months ago and freezes up whenever it feels like pissing me off. You know, like right after I've typed a big long blog like this and right before I push the save button. So it's so nice to have a normal computer again. And I got an upgrade to a 19" flat screen so that's really cool. :) I spent most the late morning/early afternoon goofing off with it.
Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of going to Traci's parents house here in San Marcos to see her and Perry and Dexter. Of course I did have reason to go there....Traci, being the cool person that she is, had earlier in the week obtained an autographed copy of Corpse Bride for me. Her friend was at a Best Buy in West Hollywood where Tim Burton AND Danny Elfman were signing them. How totally cool is that?!?! So I went to pick that up from her. I got to meet her parents and spent some time visiting with everybody. Then I went to my old roommate's house where they were having a game night/party shindig. Good times, but I ended up staying a bit later than I had originally wanted to, so I ended up staying up a lot later than I should of considering I was sick.
Sunday was Paul's birthday, so I had been planning this party/get together thing for Sunday night for the last couple of weeks. So my cell phone was ringing CONSTANTLY all morning and afternoon. People getting directions/times/ideas for gifts/blah blah blah. I love my friends, and I love modern technology, but sometimes I just want to throw my phone out the car window while I'm driving over a bridge. Anyway, in between phone calls I ran a couple of errands and straightened up my room and did laundry. The party that night went pretty well. We had about 15 people show up for dinner at Red Robins. I'm sure the waitress hated us. But whatever....she was kind of annoying and wasn't all that great. I'm actually holding back my real opinion and being nice because I do realize there were 15 of us. But at one point she took away somebody's food when they weren't even done with it yet. Hello?
After everybody was done eating and drinking....and drinking......and then maybe drinking some more....and closing down the place, a few of us went out to Pechanga Indian Casino to, yes, drink some more and try to win some money. I told myself to only waste $20 on slots, and suceeded for a while. I actually won an extra $15 at one point....but being the idiot that I am, I kept going and ended up losing that and the $20 I started with and then an extra $5 since I have no self control. $25 really isn't that big a deal.....but it just sucks to lose. Plus I was still feeling like crap and there I was at 2 in the morning standing in the casino when I should have been home and in bed. The things I do for friends. ;)
Monday I was feeling a little bit better, which was great. I then preceeded to pretty much do nothing all day, which was even greater.
And the only thing better than a three day weekend is that there are only 4 work days before the next weekend.
And if anybody is still reading this, bless you. I'm sure not everybody gets as bored as I do and actually reads everybody else's blogs.

Disneyland Pictures

2006-02-16T15:40:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from our family Disneyland trip last month...Larilyn and I are making a scrapbook for Joshua of his first trips to Disneyland. I'll post pics of the scrapbook pages when we're done.

My cousins Leisl and Rebekah on Dumbo
nu=3269>3<5>243>WSNRCG=323353555;347nu0mrj"> Joshua on Casey Jr
nu=3233>437>783>2324437874434ot1lsi">Our Tower of Terror pic. From left to right in the back row it's my brother Devin, my Aunt Gale and Rebekah (both with heads down), me, my Uncle Danny, Leisl, and my sister Jenna.
nu=3269>3<5>243>WSNRCG=323353555647:nu0mrj"> Joshua dancing to the marching band. :)
nu=3269>3<5>243>WSNRCG=32335287:6;43nu0mrj"> Joshua on the teacups. (Or "peecups" as he called them)
nu=3233>437>783>2324437874432ot1lsi">

Anybody wanna move to Fiji??

2006-02-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

So I've decided I'm going to start contacting none other than Mr. Johnny Depp and trying to convince him to let me be the 'caretaker' of his island in the south pacific while he is not staying there. Surely he needs somebody to trim the palm trees and tame the wild boar, right?? And what better person could there be than his number one fan. I mean, he could trust me....I'm not a freaky fan. (no comments from the peanut gallery) All I would need is a little hut and for food/supplies/rum/people magazines/whatever to be dropped off every few months. That's not too much to ask for, right??
And when that plan doesn't really work (I'm not an optimist) I'm going to just pack up and move to Fiji. Seems like a nice place. Not too crowded. Definitely no traffic. I hate traffic. I feel like I sat in traffic almost all day today. That would be my main complaint about living in southern California. Traffic is the most horrible thing ever. Seriously. The only thing I can think of that I'd rather not do than sit in traffic is to sit in a room full of spiders. But on some days I might pick the spiders.

Grammy's are on tonight! Woo hoo! Although a new Lost episode is on right in the middle...so I'll be switching....but I'm still excited.
Speaking of music....two songs I'm obsessed with right now are "Beautiful" by James Blunt and "In Over My Head" by The Fray. Check it out...good stuff.

People are requesting updates......

2006-02-01T17:02:00.000-08:00

I keep thinking I need to post a new blog.....and then I get to the computer and am too lazy to type anything up. But I guess it's about freakin time I do.

So I guess the biggest thing that's happened in the last couple months is my younger brother coming home. He was on a mormon mission for two years in Eugene, Oregon. We didn't see him or really talk to him that entire time. Just got an e-mail once a week and an occasional letter. It's been a little weird having him back but it's been great. We had quite the full house with all the family here when he first got back, but everything's quieted down now.
While all the family was here we all went to Disneyland. It was a combined Devin coming home/Grandma's birthday trip to "The Club" I think the final ressies were for like 16 people or something. I didn't go to "The Club" though....I volunteered to save myself some money and more importantly 'baby-sit' the younger kids while everybody else was there. It was soooooo much fun...probably one of the best days of my life. It was my cousin Joshua's second time there and he did so well. We doubled the amount of rides he would go on. Although the "Lelepant" (Dumbo) and "The Peacups" (teacups) and "Horses" (Carousel....where he will only sit on the bench) were the staples of the day, he did branch out and do Storybook Land, the Train 3/4's of the way around (not the dinosaur section) and the Monorail. We also did Casey Jr a few times...but he had done that last time. We tried Monsters Inc, but that was a mistake. He doesn't do dark well at all. We hoped he would like it since it is his favorite movie....and actually he didn't freak out as much as he could have or would have the last time he went, so it was ok.
When I load my pictures maybe I'll post a couple.

Ummm......I've been obsessed with the newest Madonna cd for the last couple of months. It's FANTASTIC! If you like electronica/dance music you should run and get it right now. I'll wait......
Ok, are you back?? It's great, right?
(i'm so lame)

Anyway.....not much else going on....Paul and I are deejaying a Valentine's dance in a couple weeks. Well, hopefully. It was on the 15th, but then I got a message they changed it to Valentine's Day. Paul had already arranged to take the 15th off work. Don't know if he can change or not. I'm kinda annoyed they waited till the last minute to do that. So annoyed that I might say 'sorry, it's valentine's day and I don't really want to be working'. but of course I wouldn't say that because then they wouldn't have anybody and I'm not that mean. Usually.

Lost is a re-run tonight. Poo on abc.

I need Starbucks.

Ok, I'll bite

2005-12-06T16:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, I decided to join the blog fest over here since none of my online friends are on myspace, where I socialize with my friends that I see all the time. Plus after reading people's blogs over here I always have comments and can't comment without being a member. So now you'll all be wishing I had stayed away and you'll be telling me to shut up. :)