LOST

I got the 4th season of LOST for my birthday this year, and the 5th season for Christmas. I watched both during the week between Christmas and New Years, and cried during both finales. I cannot wait to see what happens during the final season which starts in two weeks! Who survived? (Sayid and Sawyer better be okay!) Will the Dharma crew return to the present? Will they find Claire? What will happen now to those who have been following Jacob? Are the Others the good guys or are the New castaways the good guys? Will any of them get home again and/or live happily ever after? And what would "happily ever after" even mean for this group of people? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I can't stand the suspense! This is my favorite show for a reason!

Two weeks!

Yaaaaaaaay!

Gettin' Outta Here!

My Caribbean cruise is coming up fast! Finally! I am so glad I had the foresight last summer to sign up for this trip. I really, really need this vacation and I cannot wait. Tropical beaches! Terrific food! Fabulous friends! Ensuing hilarity! Sunny sun (I hope)! I am excited that my brother Aaron, my best friend Michelle, her friend Brooke, and my friend Shonni are all coming. With them around, every place we go will become a dance party! Aaron even speaks Spanish, which will be most convenient where we're going. Oh, and Michelle has a reliable source that says the South Jordan Fire Department will be on this cruise with us. Sweeeeet!

I've done waaaay too much -- and yet just the right amount -- of shopping in the last couple of weeks. I have some really cute clothes! I love my sassy new swimsuit so much I put heels on and pretended to be Karen from Mean Girls. And I bought the most ROCKIN' purple cocktail dress and shoes last week at Macy's, both of which were 75% off! I would like at least one more suit, and I am in need of flip-flops; otherwise I think I'm ready to go, apparel-wise.

I am SO READY to get out of town!

Me in St. Maartens in 2008

Rehearsin' KMK

(I am really tired, so I apologize if this isn't totally coherent)

So... remember how I auditioned for Kiss Me Kate on a whim? Yeah, it's pretty much pure awesome. I love it! I love the cast and rehearsing is so fun! I am even glad that I'm not one of the leads, because I love the crazy, manic, superhard dancing. There are lifts in every dance that I have yet to master. We need two more men for the chorus (do you know anyone who's available and a good dancer?). I don't get to see my friend Jason hardly EVER but I'm sure he's still in the show. I haven't been in an ensemble in so long I forgot how hard it is to create a character completely from scratch. I have decided on a character name: Norma Billings. My darling double cheerfully agreed to adopt the name with me. She is the BEST!

But, like I said, I have an awesome cast to discover it with. And the pro[duction] team could not be more fun and funny. The director tonight mimed getting on a soap box before he lectured us, for crying out loud! We get pretty wacky and have full permission to be crazy... as long as we're quiet offsides (which, by the way, is why he was lecturing us). We get pretty loud and chatty.

One of my favorite things about the cast is that most of us are in our mid-twenties to mid-thirties, most are married, and everyone is totally comfortable with themselves. We've discovered that the play is rife with innuendo, and some are really good with making it even more naughty (which I'm sure will be toned down before we open). We're having fun with the switching of couples between dances and the fact there are more men than women in the cast! That doesn't happen very often!

It also amuses me that our clothes are getting really beat up. I have owned my character shoes for 12 years, and they didn't start getting scuffed up until this show! The color on the sides of my shoes is almost completely worn off. I will probably have to polish them at least once a week once the show opens. Plus, we do a lot of sliding on the floor, and since most of us wear black sweatpants the dust marks on our hindquarters are inevitable! Why do I mention this? Why not? It's a part of the whole experience!

Several of us have even gone out after some of the rehearsals. A month ago we went to Dairy Queen, and last Friday we ate out at Iggy's. Good times!

We open in less than 4 weeks! It's weird to think I auditioned nearly 3 months ago, and it will all be over in 2 more. I am so glad I randomly auditioned for this play! It's been awesome so far!

A Snow Spell

I might try this tonight...


Ah Cul de Sac. Always so attuned to what I'm feeling at any given moment!

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Anthropologie

Have you ever been in this store? I absolutely love the clothes, but pretty much everything I like is $138. Whenever I go in there I usually end up just buying something cool for my house, like a candlestick or picture book.

Until last week!

A week ago Saturday, I was walking past and saw they were having a sale... a sale on dresses! So I tried on about twenty cute dresses and found one that was just right. Great color, great fit, and affordable!

I bought it. It was only $59 and as I walked to my car I was euphoric. My first dress from Anthropologie! I couldn't wait to wear it to church on Sunday.

Then I took it out to iron and realized it still had the security doohickey on it.

You know, the thing that if you try to remove by yourself spurts ink all over the garment.

Argh!

Well, I wasn't in the neighborhood again until this past Saturday. So I took it to the store and asked them to remove the security doohickey. The salesgirl apologized about leaving the doohickey on and said that since it was such an inconvenience to come back in she would give me another $20 off!

Did I mention that I hadn't complained at all? I was totally nice, so when she said that I was stunned. Stunned and thrilled! $12 less later and I had paid only $47 for a $138 dress.

I wore the dress to church yesterday and even had a few compliments on it. Best of all, I felt pretty and sassy and proud of my lucky break.

Happy me!

The Baklava Story

There are several stories I like to tell from the mission that I served in Arizona for my church, but my favorite is the Baklava story. I gained a lot of weight in my first seven months, and decided to give up chocolate in an effort to lose some of it. Since it was just a few weeks before Christmas and everyone thought giving the Sister missionaries candy was a brilliant idea, it was quite a sacrifice. (Sadly, my resolve only lasted about three days. Oh, well. It was a good idea. It still is.)

Well, on that second day I was sitting in the backseat of our Toyota Corolla, and I said to my two sister companions, "You know what I really want? Baklava." My companions laughed and said things like, "Oh, Sister. You are so funny!" 'Cause, honestly, where does one find baklava in Northern Arizona? I admitted it seemed far-fetched, but the fact remained that I wanted some.

That evening, we visited a member family; we were teaching a less-active member there. After the lesson we sat and chatted for awhile, the mom turned to us and said, "One of our Christmas traditions is to make Christmas candy and set it out for visitors. We have cookies, chocolate, and baklava."

I was stunned, and my companions' heads whipped around to stare at me. We quickly filled in the family on my declaration from that morning, and they quickly dished out some of the sticky pastry and presented it to me. It was delicious -- exactly as I had hoped!


The story continues:


Six months later, I was serving with one of those Sisters again. We were serving in North Phoenix and tracting in 112 degree heat. And as we walked along I said offhand, "You know what sounds good? Steak." And Sister W quickly said, "Don't do that!"

"Do what?"

"Don't give me 'do what?' Sister I-Want-Baklava! I don't like steak!"

She was joking, but that night we had a steak-and-chicken stir fry.

Now, some might call these a coincidence, but I don't think they were. I think they were thoughtful blessings from my Heavenly Father. I think this because they came at times when we were struggling. We were working really hard, but having trouble finding people who wanted to hear our message. And since Heavenly Father wasn't about to take away the agency of the listeners and make them accept us, He instead gave us little blessings to remind us that He was still mindful of us and wanted us to be happy.

I've been thinking about this story a lot lately as I reflect on 2009. I had to go through a lot of junk last year, and the "big" blessings I think I want aren't working out the way I keep hoping they will. But, whenever it seemed life was getting too hard, I'd go to Cafe Rio and realize I had a free meal, or a dear friend would call and invite me to lunch, or I'd remember that I already had money set aside to cover my co-pay for the umpteenth doctor visit. Heavenly Father would divert my attention from my struggles with wonderful, personal, tender mercies to remind me that He knows and cares about me.

I am very grateful for these little blessings. There is a lot I can't control -- relationships, my job, scary drivers -- and I tend to get really overwhelmed with the details of life. I don't like surprises and I don't like changes. But all I need is to recognize one of those tender mercies... and then I notice another and another and suddenly remember how blessed I am and how good life is in general. I know I can't manage everything I have to do by myself. My difficult trials are only manageable with Heavenly help, and since I'm not always good at asking for help I'm glad that Heavenly Father knows how to get through to me!

3 Attributes of a Technical Writer

We're hiring a new technical writer at my company.

In the past when we've hired a new writer, my boss would start by sifting through resumes and cover letters, picking the best ones, and then having a phone interview. If the candidate did well during the phone interview, we'd invite him or her into the office to meet with the rest of us for an hour. Then we'd discuss the pros and cons of each candidate and decide which fit best into the team.

This time, the position is for a technical writer in California, so we can't really follow our normal process. Instead, after sifting through the resumes our Human Resources manager has been setting up half-hour phone interviews where all of the writers (here in Utah, by the way) gather together to "meet" the candidate and ask questions. Next week, my boss will fly to California to meet the front-runners in person. I imagine that we'll all meet together when she returns to hear her impressions and determine which candidates fit best into the team.

It's been a little disorienting, and I can only imagine how difficult it will be for this person to learn the ins and outs of the job from almost 1000 miles away. It also makes the rest of us wonder why they're hiring for California while the rest of us are here. All sorts of unsettling rumors are going around...

But that's not the point of this post. Yesterday, the person we were interviewing asked us what attributes a technical writer would need to succeed in our company. My boss pointed at me to answer the question. I tend to freeze when caught off-guard (which is why I prefer to perform in scripted plays rather than improv), and it was 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. I felt like I was pulling the answer out of thin air, and didn't felt at all confident about it, which I could tell annoyed my boss.

However, later when we were talking about all of the candidates we'd interviewed so far, she decided to use my answer for our judging criteria. When I expressed surprise she chided me for not having more confidence in myself. She's probably right, but I'm still excited that my off-the-cuff answer seemed to be a good one.

1. A good listener: We need to be humble and teachable. While we learn about the technology we're writing about, we have to be willing to listen, figure out what questions to ask, and take criticism. It's fine to have professional pride, but we're working together as a team to get the product out. We also have to be able to ask for help from our teammates when we need it. No writer is a complete loner.

2. Write like the reader: We need to write so that anyone can understand the product. What do they do? Why do they need the product? How can I organize the information so that it's readable? This also implies that we actually learn the product and the tools we write with.

3. Be innovative: Our writing process and documentation isn't perfect. We need to continuously look for ways to improve the documentation and the way we work so that we can make the doc more effective and the writing team more cohesive.

Anyway, I just wanted to write these three attributes down while I still have them in my head. It will be interesting to see who we choose and how the new writer and this new situation affects our team.

Non Sequitors

1. Working 11 hours in a day is a great deterrent to shopping. I felt no desire to shop after I left work on Monday. Not that any of the stores were still open....

2. Why does popcorn not stay in my hand or actually make it to my mouth? I dropped more popcorn this weekend than I care to admit! On my lap, on the floor, in my hair... nothing was safe.

3. The choreography in my latest play is AWESOME! I am black and blue, but it's great exercise and looks so cool!

4. The last play I did at Rodgers Memorial was about a group of actors putting on a play. So is this one. At least I'm consistent :)

5. I cannot WAIT to go on my next vacation. I deserve one. I cannot believe I signed up over 4 months ago! Good foresight on my part...

6. I am convinced there would be a lot fewer car accidents if more people -- a.k.a everyone -- used their blinkers faithfully. I am so tired of guessing what people are going to do.

7. Why is it that no matter what time of day I drive home from work, every traffic light turns red just as I get to it? And why is it always green on the way to work? I kinda wish it were the other way around so that I could get home 5 minutes faster.

8. If you want to avoid getting stuck in traffic, don't ride with or follow me, because I have horrible luck.

9. If you want to beat the rush in any sort of fast food line, come with me because I have awesome luck.

10. I am really excited to get the blinds back up over my windows again so I don't feel like people are watching me all the time.

11. I really should have my girlfriends over to my place for a Girls Night In. Maybe in February after my show opens...

12. My Christmas decorations are still up. I just cannot bring myself to take down the lights; I will miss them!

13. I preferred The Blind Side over Invictus, though both were excellent movies.

14. The other day I thought "I think I'm going to get everything done by deadline!" which pretty much guarantees I'll get more work this week.

15. The word of the day is concatenate. It means "to link together in a series or chain." For example: "The movie actually concatenates into one extended narrative several episodes from various books in the series. I found this word in a project I'm working on and had to look it up. Try to use it in a sentence today.

16. I only have 1 chocolate orange left. It's going to be a long year until they come in season again. (Not that it's stopped me buying them in the summer before. I miss how the BYU Bookstore always had a huge supply in stock.)

17. There are so many times I'm listening to a good song on my headphones at work and I just want to sing out... I'm pretty sure no one would object (for a few seconds anyway) but my coworkers would no doubt be very shocked!

Faith in the Future

As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.

-Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Best is Yet to Be," Ensign, January 2010