10 reasons to blog on a wednesday

1. last night I found a $100 bill in the street. awesome.
2. i hate the pants I'm wearing today. I should throw them out.
3. i'm working on a new mix cd right now. its current songs are
a. Janet Jackson-LUV
b. Blue Merle-If I Could
c .Cassie-Is it You
d. John Mayer-Say
e. Gavin Degraw-In love with a girl
f. No Air-Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown
g. Superstar-Lupe Fiasco
h. you-Chris Brown
i. Circle-Edie Brickell
g. imagine-as performed by David Archuleta on American Idol
(Anybody have any suggestions for other songs to put on the mix?)
4. We had a little American Idol get together last night and pre-show, I rocked it on Guitar Hero. Who knew that could be so fun.
5. I laughed until I cried with Molly, Jared, Steve & Riley last night during our post-show conversation that had nothing to do with AI
6. I may get kicked out of my house and have to move. fingers crossed that doesn't happen. i'm on standby at the moment.
7. i'm taking Friday off to hang with Emily and Lesley: pedicures, movie, lunch, etc...
8. tomorrow afternoon is our support staff off-site meeting--we're going bowling.
9. i resigned to eat a hot pocket today for lunch. not a fan.
10. i pre-ordered my copy of the 4th and final Twilight book, Breaking Dawn, on amazon.com. It will be released August 2nd. The first movie, Twilight, will be out in December.

Rise and Shout

So last night our ward had a "celebrity ball" of sorts. Basically a throwback to your high school's version of "most likely to..." or "best ____", etc... I was nominated for a few categories and ultimately won Best Cougar Fan, for which I am truly honored and proud. I was challenged to sing to Cougar Fight Song, but two bars in, was cut off with the "get off the stage" music. I could have finished though. Anyway, my trophy was a barbie doll spray-painted gold--a little frightening and a little scandalous. Barbie parts don't just disappear with spray paint :) But the evening was pretty fun and we had some good laughs-Rise and Shout-the Cougars are out.

Also, my friend Kristen hosted Friday Nights Light Night at her house last Friday and I am proud to say that we have converted 12 out of the 15 guests to be avid fans of the show. I'm telling you--you should get on board, people. Drama at its finest.

is it March yet?

February has been such a blah month. It's been cold and snowy and gloomy and pretty uneventful and since it is leap year, February will be one day longer than necessary. Blah. Speaking of leap year, I have 3 friends who were born on February 29th. Two celebrate on March 1st and one celebrates February 28th in the non-leap-year years. Two different logics: "I was born on the last day of February so most years, that is Feb 28th" OR "I was born on the day after February 28th so most years, that is March 1st." Very interesting. If you were a leap year baby, when would you celebrate? Anyway, it's not that I think March will be super exciting, but it should get warmer and I'm looking forward to a few things: Ski day at the office, Arkansas to visit the kiddos, weekend in St. George, etc.. and it will be one month closer to the New York trip I have planned with my mom and sisters that I'm totally excited about.
I had a good weekend. It was really nice to not have to work on Monday. Thank you Lincoln and Washington. Kim and I went to the Colbie Cailat concert on Friday night and lasted about 45 minutes. We were at my least favorite venue in Salt Lake City. It's smoky and the layout is terrible and even though we were there a little early, we still couldn't see a thing. She sounded great and I like her stuff, but we were bored just standing there. If I wanted to listen to her sing and not be able to see her, I would have saved my $20 and just listened to her CD. Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty standard but I was on aunt duty to Harris--my sister's almost 3 year old weimaraner. We had a pretty good time together. He is a cool dog. Sunday afternoon I got a call from an old friend who was having a few people over for dinner so I ended up going to a little dinner party Sunday night. I had such a good time. There were about 12 people and I didn't know any of them but 2. We had a lovely dinner and chatted for a while. Again, it was one of those unexpected pleasant surprises that I didn't plan for and it was great. Thanks to BH for a fun night. I'm back at work and already planning for my next day off. I blame it on February.


Thought for the day:
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body; but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -WOW- What a ride!"

(Harris is a lot bigger now but this is one of my fave pics of him)

who wants to be in my dance crew?

Well, I hope you all had a fabulous day yesterday. Under the excuse of "I walked home last night and actually never even made it to my home", I went into work in the afternoon after a leisurely morning with Les and Harris baking cupcakes. I put in a good solid two hours of work and then helped Melinda make a sign for her boyfriend's big Valentine's party. It turned out really cute. I had to make a last minute trip to the florist for one of my bosses and then I met some girfriends for dinner. What a fun group of girls. We had a very lovely time. Randomly there happened to be six old guys (not cute old like 80 but creepy old like 50 who think they can date younger girls) at a table next to ours (six cute girls) and we could hear them making jokes about putting our tables together. eeewwww. And why are six old guys out together at dinner on Valentine's Day anyway? Does anyone else think this is weird? Anyway, three of the girls left after dinner with the prospect of having a Valentine a little later in the evening. Molly and Jocelyn and I headed to the theater for Step Up 2. LOVED IT. It's a really cheesy and predictable movie, however the dancing is sick. sick = amazing. The story is much better in the first movie but the dancing in #2 is brilliant--just ridiculous. I could watch pretty people dance all day long. Yea for street dancing!

would you like to get arrested?

Happy Valentine's Day! What a week. The beginning of the week was pretty uneventful--just your standard Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday started out like an average day but quickly unraveled throughout the day. It started to snow and it wasn't that bad but the wind was ridiculous. The office sent an email out about 4 telling everyone to try and get home. I just needed to get across the street (literally-just on the other side of the freeway) to my sister's house so I spent a little more time getting things done at work. I scooted around 4:45 and made it about 1/3 mile in 2 hours. It was utter chaos and the highway patrol and lehi PD did very little to improve the situation. By the time I made a little progress, I was informed I had two choices: south on the freeway or turn around. All I needed to get to was the next light up to get into my sister's neighborhood but they were not letting anyone through. There was a highway closed down and the first 100 yards of this highway was the ONLY way in to their neighborhood and they wouldn't even open up that part. It was ridiculous. I turned around and went back to the office. Les and Matt, through their various routes and detours couldn't get anywhere either so they joined me at the office. I made a sandwich and watched American Idol in the conference room. There were about 4-5 other peeps in the office who didn't make it out either. Around nine, we got pretty ancy and decided to get in the car and try and do something. I jumped in with Les and Matt was behind us. I don't think i can even explain the scene properly. Literally thousands of people displaced just waiting for one road to open. Lines and lines of cars just circling like sharks. A baby was even born at the Maverick station next to the office. After trying a number of ways to move, Les made a command decision to go around the long line of cars and up to the police barricade that was just yards in front of the light into their hood. Throughout the argument with highway patrol agent 535 (who was just plain mean and ugly) lesley was asked twice if she would like to be arrested and if she would like her car towed after refusing to move her car. My favorite line of the evening:

535: I'll have your car towed. You can not wait here--you have to move.
LJD: Oh, that'd be great. I'll wait for the tow truck right here. I'm sure he'll be here real soon.

We went back to the Maverick station and regrouped with Matt where we decided to walk home. Not the best idea but someone had to get to the house.Their dog, Harris had been home and alone for more than 15 hours and they were worried about him. The snow wasn't that bad but the wind was pretty brutal. So at 10:30 Matt and I geared up and started walking. About halfway up, a nice lehi PD officer picked us up and drove us the rest of the way. He was driving through the neighborhood to give the ok to open the road. Les waited patiently back at the barricade and as soon as it was opened, went through. She is proud to say she was car #2. She got home at midnight. (She probably couldn't tell you the last time she saw midnight) It was a disastrous evening and one like I've never experienced. I can not recall a time where I've not been able to get home. We were all very flustered and exhausted. We all got home safe and sound and all was well with the puppy. But I never want to spend 7 hours trying to go across the street again. Cheers to the great Blizzard of '08.

The Weekend Update

Here are some random thoughts from the weekend:

1. Fool's Gold is TERRIBLE! I'd like to state that I didn't have high expectations going into the movie but I thought it would be mildly entertaining. I'm a big fan of fluff and I enjoyed their last movie together (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) but wow--this one is really bad. I can't really explain why it was so bad--but it was just kind of a mess. Story lines all over the place and it was oddly violent for a romantic comedy. Anyway, don't go see it.

2. Apparently you have to specify the non-alcoholic pina colada at the Red Iguana. I was the first one at the restaurant and while I was waiting for the other girls, I decided to get a drink. I looked at the list and under the "non-alcoholic" drinks, it listed a pina colada and I thought, yum, that sounds good. I'll have one of those. The other girls arrived right as he was bringing me my drink and Jocelyn saw it and said, "hey, that looks good. I'll have one of those." Needless to say, about a quarter of the way through, it dawns on us that our drinks are full of Bacardi. Are we retarded? We quickly traded it for the kid version and all was well. Bottoms Up!

3. The dilemma of the gift card. Why are they so hard to spend? I currently have NINE gift cards and I've had some of them for a while. And I know I'm not the only one like this. It it just this inexplicable phenomenon. I do not know why it is so hard to spend, in essence, "free money". However, I did use one gift card over the weekend--I got a pedicure and LOVED it. Thanks Missy!

4. Grocery buggies are very helpful in moving. Some of my girlfriends moved this weekend, and, although, I was of NO HELP, I stopped by later in the evening to check-in on them. As I walk in I'm greeted by a few old Keller's Food Town grocery buggies. Apparently, the complex leaves them in the parking garages so that you can use them to haul things up to your apartment. very handy.

5. When you ask someone how many tickets they bought for a concert and they reply "two" it is safe to assume that they probably intend to take a date and you should not invite yourself along. Here's how the conversation went:
NJ: Riley, how many tickets did you buy for the Sara Bareilles concert?
RJ: Two
NJ Okay, well i'll buy one and we can all go together
RJ: Um, ok.
Pause for ten seconds
NJ: Oh wait, back up. You were going to take a date, weren't you?
It is amazing how brilliant I can be on a Sunday night. :)

don't let the sun go down on me

So it's been snowing all week and it just really is getting old. The sun decided to shine today and it is soooo nice. It's been a pretty uneventful week. Last Friday night, a couple girlfriends and I went to the viewing of President Hinckley. I don't think we quite realized what we were in for. Two hours of the five hour wait (yes, you read that correctly) were in the frigid outside. After some emergency cups of hot chocolate and an emergency delivery of blankets (thank you to Joc's sister) we were able to manage. The crowds at the conference center were unbelievable. My favroite line of the evening was from Molly stated while we were coming up with ways to stay warm: " Do you think it would be inappropriate for me to ask the large man behind us to give me a hug?" :) So after we were able to get inside (after peeling off our layers of Lighting McQueen and Disney Princess blankets) we sat inside the conference center for another few hours. They replayed his 95th birthday celebration so that was entertaining as well as the "something's a little bit off" woman who incessantly waved her pink scarf up and down and around in a circle apparently trying to be a signal for someone. This literally went on for hours until as we were being escorted out, she found who she was looking for. Phew... close one. It was an odd feeling of being somber and joyful and a little bit inexplicable. The THOUSANDS of people wandering up and down and around the escalators made it a little surreal. We were ushered through very quickly and just like that, it was done. We were walking back to the parking lot. It wasn't life-changing and there wasn't any kind of spiritual awakening but it was a really nice experience. Just a small way to honor a man so influential and loved and who impacted me in a very personal way. We closed the evening with some chips and salsa and chocolate cake. Pretty good day.

I'm glad it is the weekend again. Molly and Jocelyn both had their birthdays this week so the girls are going to celebrate with a fabulous dinner at Red Iguana and delicious dessert at the Melting Pot followed by the late showing of the new movie, Fool's Gold.

I'm LOVING America's Best Dance Crew on MTV right now. It's pretty crazy the things these dancers can do. Check it out.