Oodelolly

I'm far busier than I prefer to be these days.

Busy-ness makes some people feel important. It makes this person feel grumpy.

So, to relax every now and then I'll pick up my guitar and work on a song or two. I only have a fistful of songs that I feel I've mastered, and a bazillion that I'm slowly working on. My goal is to someday be one of those people who can sit around a campfire and rattle off songs at people's request. Yes, it must be near a campfire for some reason.

Notwithstanding my current projects (including the song from Robin Hood, which now clears up the title of this post and brings you full circle), I'm always looking for suggestions of songs that are fun to play on the guitar and not ridiculously hard. So I throw the question out to you, gentle readers... any suggestions?

On a previous episode...

I wasn't ever officially tagged to do this, but it looked interesting... It's The Year Tag. (Thanks, Robin!)

20 years ago. I was finishing kindergarten. According to my mom my kindergarten teacher praised her one day for being so diligent in teaching me how to read. My mom shrugged and said, "she taught herself." And thus began the overindependence of Haley.

The only other memory I have of kindergarten is racing my friend Maria to the door when the bell rang, and as we got to the door she hit her head on the brick and cut her head open. Without a moment's thought I banged on the door frantically until someone came to help her. She came back to school the next day with five stitches in her head. I think that might have been the day I convinced myself I was a superhero for saving her life... even though, technically, the race had been my idea to begin with.

10 years ago. I was working at the Magna Pool as a cashier. It was a pretty monotonous summer, but it beat the heck out of serving hamburgers and hot dogs at company parties at Lagoon, which is what I was doing the previous summer. I've had some kind of job at least part of the year since I was fifteen. Thanks to dad for that killer work ethic.

5 years ago. I was in Chandler, AZ for the fourth month of my mission. I had just been put in charge of the area and given a companion who had only been out as long as I had, who had a hard time working and with whom I struggled to get along. I hadn't been trained very well, I constantly felt that I wasn't doing things well enough, and I felt powerless to do anything about it. My district leader (who was a good friend of mine) had been sent home with a brain tumor and I was worried about him. (He passed away that October.) I was on a bike, and the desert breeze that time of the year had all the comfort of a hot blow dryer to the face. Overall it was about the lowest point of my mission... and it was when I learned, for all my independence, how dependent upon the Heavens I really needed to be.

3 years ago. I was about to get the dumbest job I've ever had - at a used mattress store. I had spent the first half of the summer looking desperately for something that would take me for the summertime, and out of desperation that's the job I took. I can't tell you how many days I worked there without a single customer even entering the store. I think it's because most people correctly recognize that buying a mattress second-hand is kinda gross. That job would later inspire me to write a poem called Working for a Man Named Curly.

1 year ago. I had graduated with my degree and was learning the hard way that it was pretty useless. I spent May and the first half of June looking desperately for a job that would allow me to stay in Logan (land that I love), but around this time had given up and moved home to Salt Lake to continue to job hunt. It would be another depressing month and a half before I'd find the job I just quit.

So far this year. I quit the job that was making me grumpy, found a new one that makes me happy, and done a lot of strange and fun things in between. For instance, we were so certain that game 6 would be the end of the NBA finals that we watched the game and threw a funeral for the Lakers. Potatoes and everything. It was fantastic.

Yesterday. I woke up in a sleeping bag to a rooster crowing at about 5am in Manti, UT. Got home from Manti at about 11am, unpacked a bit, showered, went to see Get Smart with my mom, and took an hour nap before going to dinner and the Bees game with a friend. It was a full day. A fun, full day.

Today. I sang a solo in my mom's ward (and didn't know my knees could shake so badly.) I hustled out of there to get to Ward Council, where I represented both the Relief Society (having been made RSP last week) AND the Activities Committee (having not been released quite yet from my Activities Chair calling.) After church I ate the usual Sunday dinner with the family and the gang, and then came home to catch up on blogging.

Tomorrow. I need to make some phone calls at work, and get some clarification on a few other projects before my boss leaves town for the rest of the week. I might just get to go on an outreach appointment to visit some senior food box recipients too, which I look forward to. Tomorrow night will be FHE, then I'll train the girl taking my Activities calling, then I'll hopefully have time to go running.

The rest of this year. I'm hoping to make my life more routine and make some necessary things a habit rather than an afterthought. I want to look into MPA programs around the area to see if Nonprofit Management is something I could dig.

Sorry it's been so long between entries. It's been a busy couple of weeks.

Uncanny...

... isn't it?
(Photograph taken several months ago at a Relief Society function while chopping apples for the refreshment. I only recently recovered the picture from my roommate.)

First Day

Once upon a time I worked in a magical land called Oakcrest. I say magical because that summer I became a person I had never been before: giggly, silly, and heaven forbid, emotional. [Enter comment about how you've always known me to be one or all three of these things here.] Though I wasn't awesome at pretending to love thirteen year old girls, I learned a ton about myself and had a blast spending the whole summer outside. And, I worked alongside some of the most wonderful girls to ever grace this earth. One of which is camp-named Talula, and it is she whom I thank today.

Talula introduced me to a holiday she invented on June 1st. I don't know that she has a name for it, but today I've decided to call it simply "First Day". Each June 1st she tries to do something she's never done before. Three years ago I adopted this holiday for my own, and have observed it ever since.

First Days of yore:

June 1st, 2006: Antelope Island. I had never been. I found it to be a place full of brine shrimp flies and sagebrush... but also discovered it was an excellent place to take pictures of the sunset.


June 2nd, 2007: Attempted walk from Logan to the Idaho border. Observed on the 2nd because the adventure required a Saturday, not a Friday. I say "attempted" because 6 miles short of our goal my foot malfunctioned, and we found it very difficult to get up from our short rest in Richmond. We called for our ride to rescue us from there. But, definitely a first for me.

And today, June 1st, 2008: Ensign Peak.

June 1st being a Sunday I was somewhat limited as to what I could do, and decided a simple local hike would suffice. I'd never been to Ensign Peak before today, and I found the hike to be the perfect way to spend a Sunday evening (though it was quite windy.)

It's strange because you could really do something new every single day of your life, but for some reason it's fun to pick a specific day and plan something specific for it. Things I'd like to do on future First Days include hot air ballooning, seeing Craters of the Moon, and running a 5k. Feel free to adopt this holiday for yourself. What kinds of things would you do?