Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!

As promised, here are a few pictures from the Halloween party at my house. I didn't take nearly as many as I thought I did. I think it was because every time I picked up my camera to take more, someone distracted me and I put the camera back down. So, some of my friends and their awesome costumes didn't make it to my blog, and I apologize.

But, here are a few. This is Garrett as Wario.

This is Katey as a stick man.

This is Robin as Wednesday Addams (which was cool, because we had just been watching Addams Family Values before she came.)

This is me playing Operation with Eric, who showed an hour early to the party accidentally.

And this is my roommates and I. I'm the one with horns who isn't Satan.

One more... This is when my friend Lewis decided I made a great hat rack.

I decided my viking name would be Volsunga the Unsettling. I'm sure I would have made the history books with Ivan the Terrible and Alexander the Great if I had actually been a viking.

It was a fun party, and thanks to everyone that came! Believe it or not, I still have to wear that costume two more times. I guess I'm getting my money's worth... though I think from now on I'm going without the wig. If I've learned anything from this Halloween, it is that I am NOT a cute blonde.

I killed a caterpillar...

...and I feel bad about it. But that's only one of the many things that went on this weekend.

Friday night I helped my mom put on a spook alley for the primary kids coming to her trunk-or-treat. Because the spook alley was inside the church, we had to walk the line between mildly eerie and downright evil, and sometimes it was a tricky line not to cross. For instance, we had a gypsy telling fortunes, but her fortunes were along the lines of "If you eat all of your candy tonight, you will get very ill," or "If you decide to serve a mission, you will learn many things." We had the usual boxes of gross things to touch, spider webbing, fog machine, and a skeleton with Groucho Marx glasses-and-nose on so it wouldn't be too frightening. We only made one girl cry, and it was because she was frightened that she was glowing under the black light. I don't have any pictures of this evening, but just envision me dressed as a viking leading groups of kids through the silliest excuse for a spook alley ever.

You heard me, a viking. Simmer down, I'll show you in a minute.

Saturday morning my roommate Jenny and I joined a handful of other young single adults in the surrounding stakes to go mountain biking on the Rail Trail between Park City and Coalville. Considering I have barely touched my bike since my mission it was pretty bold of me to think I could ride 19 miles all at once, but I was guaranteed that the trail was all downhill or flat, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

We were told it was a 19 mile trek, and there were convenient mile markers along the trail to help us keep track. There were also two pit-stops along the way where young adult leaders were waiting with water and snacks. Like this:

The first two-thirds of the trail were a lot of fun... mostly downhill, beautiful rural scenery. The last 8 miles or so was less fun because it was all flat and the trail was a lot rougher. Actually, as I wearily rode past the 19 mile marker and saw that there was still quite a ways to go I began cursing the adult leaders under my breath for being liars, and hoping that this wasn't some kind of faith-building "appreciate your pioneer heritage because THEY didn't know how far it was to the end either" kind of activity. It was actually 22 miles total; the leader had just miscalculated the number of miles.

At the end Jenny and I celebrated by drinking four CapriSun sport drink pouches each, two at a time. We were thirsty.
I would recommend the Rail Trail to anyone. Well, the first 14 miles or so of it anyway. Start in Park City, end in Wanship, and you have yourself a pleasant fall Saturday afternoon. Keep going to Coalville, and you have a good workout as well.

Oh, this is where the caterpillar comes in. Somewhere between Park City and Promontory (our first stop) I accidentally ran over a furry orange-and-black caterpillar, who was just trying to innocently cross the trail. It looked like this:
Which means, one less of these will be around. I apologize.

Okay, this went longer than I thought. I'll blog about the halloween party (with pictures of Haley the Viking) later when I have more time.

No mere mortal can resist...

In the spirit of Halloween, I thought maybe I’d blog about things that creep me out. These are going to be pretty random (or seemingly so), but here they go:

Box Elder Bugs. I lived in a house a couple of summers ago that was absolutely infested with them, and I’d regularly wake up in the middle of the night with one crawling on my arm or my cheek or my ear. I used to have a rule about bugs; if they’re on their turf they can live, if they’re on my turf they’re dead. But now, Box Elder bugs are dead wherever I find them. Vengeance will be mine!

The sound of scraping ice. I don’t know why, but this has the same effect on me as nails on a chalkboard. I get goosebumps and my jaw tightens and my shoulders shrug up near my ears and I just want to curl into a ball. So you can imagine how fun it is for me to try and scrape my car windows in the wintertime. I feel like a Tyrannosaurus Rex because my arms don’t want to extend out from my body [enter reference to the movie Meet the Robinsons here.]

Guts. Not blood, just the guts. I can see all the blood in the world, as long as it’s not covering internal tissues. Those videos of operations and scopes going into bodies and what not are just TOO much for me to handle. I almost fainted in 2nd grade when our well-meaning teacher showed us a clip of a heart operation. You know those anti-smoking commercials where they chop the lung in half to show you all the junk that is in there? ACK. I hide my eyes every time.

Bodies of water where I can’t see the bottom. I LOVE playing in the water, but if there is even the slightest possibility of something living swimming around me and potentially taking off one of my legs, then I won’t do it. Clear lakes are fine. Murky, seaweedy ones are not. And in the ocean, while I’ll splash around near the shore, I sure won’t go far.

Hypnotists. I can’t believe people would willingly surrender their free agency to a guy who is often creepy looking and intends to make a fool out of you. That’s not right.

Provo. I’m not lying about this, and I’m sure a lot of it is just in my head, but the handful of times I’ve spent any extended amount of time in Provo I always get the heebie jeebies.

That’s plenty I think. This weekend I’m running a spook alley for my mom’s primary kids and having a gigantic Halloween party, so look forward to pictures from that.

3:53am

Usually this time of morning the only thing I'm pondering is the inside of my eyelids, but about ten minutes ago I woke up feeling more nauseous than I remember being in a long time. I blame the meal I had last night at Ruby River Steakhouse (which was not good) before seeing Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D(which was very good). So in an attempt to settle my stomach I'm drinking a Dr. Pepper (which was the only carbonated beverage I could find in the house), and while I let the good doctor do his thing, I thought that I'd blog a little bit about nothing. I usually don't drink the hard stuff; rather, I drink Caffeine-free Diet Dr. Pepper when I drink the stuff at all (my friend Bust calls it "super unleaded.") So ironically, the stuff I usually avoid to get a good night's rest is the very thing I'm using to try and go back to sleep. Ha.

So what's on my mind at this hour of the morning? Not a whole lot. I can't even remember if I was in the middle of a meaningful dream or not. Dreams are silly... I had a professor once describe dreams as being like "a bunch of overhead transparencies stacked on top of one another and your brain trying to make sense of the picture it sees as a result." I think that's fairly accurate; however I have no idea how my subconscious has access to some of the things it drudges up. Maybe I'll describe some of my most bizarre dreams for your entertainment while I drink the last of my soda and then I'll try to go back to bed.

A couple years ago I had a dream that I was on a beach of some sort, and I had a carton of orange juice in my hand. For some reason, the orange juice carton was the embodiment of a woman I taught on my mission named Wendi. And, for whatever reason, I was arguing with it (or, uh, her.) She (as the carton of orange juice) was being sassy with me, and I kept threatening that if she didn't stop her mouthing off that I was going to drink her until she was gone, and then she'd be sorry. She persisted and so I began to guzzle away, and I remember her pleading with me to stop. At this point in my dream I woke up.

Another time in high school I dreamed that my friend Cammie and I were in a field of waist-high weeds, just chatting and shooting the breeze. Then suddenly we heard something rustling in the weeds. It was a pack (or herd or gaggle or whatever) of weasels! So Cammie and I ran for our lives, terrified, to a nearby abandoned car in the middle of this field and barricaded ourselves inside. As we were watching the weasels jump and claw at the windows and doors, the last thought I remember thinking before I woke up was "Wait... it's not like they're bears or lions or something; they're weasels. What are they going to do, nibble at our ankles?"

I've only had one recurring dream, and it isn't even a specific dream as just a theme of a dream. Every now and then I'll have a dream that a boy with whom I'm friends but toward whom I have no romantic interest will somehow convince me to marry him. So the dream usually is about the time after engagement but before marriage trying to figure out how I can gracefully get out of the situation without hurting anyone's feelings before the deal is done and it's too late. Every now and then it's already too late, and I'm trying to figure out how to get out of the marriage. Kind of strange... it's always a different boy and a different setting, but the same plot unfolds. Is it some kind of message from the heavens warning me about something? As much as I hate conflict, I'm pretty sure I have enough of a spine by now that I'd definitely end things before they were taken that far in real life.

Contrarily, every now and then I'll dream about a boy with whom I am sublimely happy and comfortable and safe with, and we'll talk and laugh and battle wits and go on adventures together, but it's always a boy that I don't recognize and I can NEVER see his face. It's almost as if he were standing in the bright sunshine and were a silhouette so that I can't see any detail every time I consciously try to figure out who it is I'm with. Weird.

Well, my Dr. Pepper is gone and I'm feeling a bit better, so I'm going to try this sleep thing again. Thanks for allowing me to spend this time of nausea with you.

"It's only life after all..."

I have a confession: I’m blogging at work.
Well, I’m pseudo-blogging. I’m typing this into a word document to be emailed to myself later today, to be opened and entered into my blog this evening. I’ve found as of late that by the time I get home from work I can’t recall any of the profound things that go through my head during a workday, so I’m going to write as I go. Not only that, but my evenings tend to fill up with things more important than blogging. (“Nonesense! There’s nothing more important than blogging, Haley!”)

Things more important than blogging include:

Parties. My pal Garrett and I combined forces to throw a bit of a party last weekend. There were lots of people there from all kinds of different social spheres, and it seemed from my corner of the crowded room that everyone was enjoying themselves. For more on this party see Garrett’s blog.

Weddings. Saturday I drove to Logan to witness a friend of mine get married. It was a civil marriage held in a very full relief society room. As I sat through the ceremony with babies crying and music coming from a boom-box on someone’s lap and someone’s cell phone going off fairly loudly TWICE during the proceedings, I made a solemn vow to myself… that I’d never allow the song “From This Moment” by Faith Hill be played within 500 yards of my wedding. Oh, and that I’d never get married in a relief society room.

Guitars. I did have some down-time on Sunday that I could have used
blogging, but decided instead to practice my guitar. I took a guitar class last semester that taught me a lot of cool things, and I know I’ll lose that ability (as well as the calluses on my fingers) if I don’t keep it up. Right now I’m working on perfecting the songs Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, Gimme One Reason by Tracy Chapman, and Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls. This is my guitar. Yes, it's blue. Rad, I know.

Exercise. No explanation necessary. I have more energy when I do it…so I did it Monday instead of blogging.

Boss’s Day. You heard me. You may correctly remember that I frequently struggle appreciating my own boss, but my roommate Cristi’s boss I have nothing against. Consequently, I helped her make “gourmet” caramel apples Monday night to give him in honor of the occasion. We learned many valuable lessons in the process; primarily, that dipping caramel-covered apples in another warm substance (such as chocolate) just has the tendency to re-melt the hardened caramel and cause EVERYTHING on the apple to slide in the direction of gravity’s pull. They didn’t turn out as well as we’d hoped, but still, they’re better than a sharp popsicle stick in the eye. Here, look:


Temples. Last night was temple night for my ward, so I went. I had good intentions to blog afterward, but I started talking with my roommates and before I knew it, it was midnight.

So you see gentle reader, I’ve been a busy girl. But I do appreciate all you that bother to read this in the first place. And in the future, I’ll try and keep fresh material coming more frequently than I have this week.

By the way, the picture at the beginning of the blog is another example of me wasting time at work. I found a room full of puppets and sneakily took some pictures of them before anyone could catch me. Could you imagine the look I would have gotten if I had been caught? :)

Grumpy pants

I had a fairly average day at work today until the last 15 minutes before I went home, when I had an encounter with my boss that made me all kinds of grumpy.

Now for those of you who know me well at all, you know that I'm generally a happy person who is not inclined to let grumpiness last for long. But for whatever reason, I couldn't shake the grumpy funk from me.

I arrived at home to find that my roommate had purchased me a pair of sweatpants that were on clearance from Old Navy. Bright yellow with white racing stripes down the sides, for only $4. Surely no one wearing such affordable yellow pants can be grumpy for long, right?

Wrong. Notwithstanding the bright happy color and the extreme comfort of the pants (I'm telling you, they're awesome), I persisted with my foul mood. In fact, I declared them to be my "grumpy pants" so I would never forget the day I received them.

I then began to make pinatas for a work function tomorrow, which turned out like this:

In the process I managed to slice open my finger with some scissors. Cursing the day under my breath I rustled through our cupboard for some kind of bandage to stop the bleeding, and that's when I found the cure to my grumpiness:

That's right. A Darth Maul band-aid. For whatever reason, one of the grumpiest characters ever conceived is what finally made the stormcloud over my head go away. Let this be a lesson to you all... I'm not exactly sure what kind of lesson, but surely you've learned something from this story. Even if it is only that the Old Navy at the Gateway mall is having an awesome clearance sale.

"If you want this choice position, have a cheery disposition..."

I have a tendency to avoid anything that might make me seem like a typical man-hating LDS single girl who is obsessed with the fact that she is not married and every waking thought is geared towards how to resolve that "problem."

Because, well, I'm not that girl.

However, even the most "happy-to-be-me" girls in this world have moments of frustration about the LDS dating scene. And I AM one of those girls.

My singles ward has been lovingly referred to as the Island of Misfit Toys from that Rudolph cartoon. Everyone in the ward has some kind of eccentricity to some degree. I wouldn't dare say where I figure myself to be on the spectrum, but I acknowledge that I'm on it somewhere. And as far as romantic prospects go in my ward, they're pretty slim at this point. My brand of eccentricity just isn't quite compatable with the brands or degrees displayed by the boys in my ward. But, we all get along just fine as friends! We all hang out 'till we're blue in the face! And it is inside this whirling vortex of meaningless fun that I find myself stuck now.

I'm a big believer in actively trying to change your circumstances if you're not happy with them. And, since this year I've had at least 6 friends get married as a result of a successful blind date, I'm officially declaring myself completely and totally open to them. Really. I know they're not for everyone, but I consider myself a person who gets along easily with just about anyone, and though I may not be everyone's ideal date, I wouldn't send them screaming from me either.
So! If you know any guys you think I'd get along with who are pretty open to meeting new people, let me know. I am trying to make this blind date thing happen with my friends as well, so if you'd like me to return the favor I'll see what I can do.

As for you marrieds... Congratulations on not having to worry about this anymore. And I promise to have a more universal theme for my next entry...