February!

Oh, February, historically my least favorite month of the year due to illness (thanks allergies), and general cabin fever. Thank goodness I found ways to amuse myself, and others once in awhile. It helps I had a great trip to New York City to look forward to and then muse upon after I returned home!

Food!

I'm trying to photograph less of my food (it's more difficult than I would have thought), but here are a few things:

I've been making good use of the waffle maker I received for my birthday. Here it is topped with Nutella AND Biscoff cookie butter. Try it. You'll like it!

On a particularly rough Sunday, I had an interview with a member of the Stake Presidency to renew my temple recommend. After a short conversation and commiserating over my unemployed status, he offered me as many Jelly Bellies as I liked -- pear and sour apple. Weirdly, they cheered me up. It's the little things!

CPT's Hats Off party

Since I wasn't in any of the plays at CenterPoint Legacy last year (though I did sing at the Fairytale Festival), Chantryce was sweet enough to invite me as her date for the Hats Off "Thank You" party. Even better, Larissa and Jamie gifted me a new/vintage dress that fit me perfectly, so I'd have something new to wear. I felt so pretty, and I enjoyed spending time with a ton of dear friends. I hope to do a show there sometime this year.

Before

After.
The hair didn't work out the way I'd hoped, but it was nice to try something new.
I had a ton of compliments on both the dress and the hair. My friends are the sweetest.

It cracks me up that my hair looks pink in this light. I wish!

Natalie got to wear her gown from The King and I when she sang at the party.
The dress rightly had its own applause -- it's spectacular! 

Jason and me

A few crazies

A small group at Chili's after the party

Galentine's Day

Kate had the brilliant idea to commandeer Parks and Recreations' "Galentine's Day" party idea, and celebrate the women she loves most (or as many as she can gather together on a busy Saturday). I was honored to be included. Kate invited us all to Auntie Annie's Dessert Island, and made sure we all got to talk with one another, and play some fun get-to-know-you-better games, and my peach tart and "Princess Milk" was delicious. Kate's friends are my friends and I adore them all. It was wonderful having them all in one place. I'm already looking forward to next year!

These women are amazing

Valentine's Day

Since I had no official sweetheart this year, my Valentine's Day weekend was low-key. I liked it -- no sour grapes, I promise :)

One of my girlfriends hand-drew her own cards, and thoughtfully sent one to me.
It's the coolest Valentine I've ever received.
It now lives on my bookshelf; I display it proudly.

Valentine's Day was on a Sunday, and I spent it with my parents and little PJ. My nephew is my most adorable Valentine ever. I love this happy little boy!

Here he is squirting himself in the face with a water gun. He enjoys it so much. Almost as much as getting squirted by me - bwahahahaha!

My parents gifted me two lovely and warm sweaters. I wore them both in NYC :)

A belated Valentine's gift from Theresa. I can't imagine why she thought I'd like it.

Fun fact: I LOVE IT!

Evenings out

My friends continued to invite me out to try to cheer me up with the whole job loss thing. It's nice to be thought of. It's even nicer that they took action. I have such generous friends.  They love me for who I am and support me no matter what. I am grateful for every one and sorry that I don't have more photos!

I was lucky to win two free tickets to see one of the "Best of the Best" movies at the Sundance Film Festival. Gina and I didn't know until we arrived that we'd been viewing  Birth of a Nation, based on the true story of Nat Turner, a slave who lead a revolt against white slavers in the early 1800s. It was a beautiful, heartbreaking film. The distribution rights were sold for the highest bid in Sundance history. I'll be very disappointed if it doesn't receive a Best Actor (for Nate Parker) and Best Film nomination at the Oscars next year.

Liz and I happened to go to the Jordan River Temple on the anniversary of my endowment.
The temple was closed the next week so they could start renovating it. I'm sad they're going to make changes -- I was fond of it the way it was -- and looking forward to attending again next year when it's ready.

Chantryce invited the four of us to see a play at Weber State. Afterwards we had dinner at Chili's. These people make me think and they make me laugh.

Aaron called me up out of the blue and asked to take me out to dinner. Have I mentioned how much I adore this man? It's not very often I get him all to myself for a few hours. He gives terrific advice and is one of the people I trust most. Plus, he goes out of his way to have fun and it's fun to watch and play along. I'm lucky that one of my best friends is my brother.

Solitary entertainment

In the last year, I have had no less than four young men recommend The Way of Kings to me. I finally had a break in my ridiculously-full reading list and picked it up. I'm about a third of the way through now and it's awesome!

I have quite the collection of bookmarks. It seems wrong to use a bookmark that doesn't match whatever genre of book I'm reading.

I finally finished my book of Florida adventures. I did some heavy editing on my blog posts and finessed the text into the photo book. I'm quite proud of the result. It won't be the last such memory book I create.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary and donate to charity, Disney sponsored a "Show Your Ears" campaign, encouraging Disney fans to Instagram photos wearing mouse ears. I own many tiaras, but no ears, so I had to dig around to find this from my trip in 2010.

After months and months, I finally finished watching all 10 seasons of Supernatural on Netflix. I plan to watch the first 10 episodes of season 11 on Amazon, then finish up on Hulu. I'm so excited to be caught up!
To celebrate finishing season 10, I watched The Hillywood Show's spoof. I'm glad I waited, since it's basically the plot of season 10.

*SPOILERS*


And there you have it. Now that I've returned from New York, I need to focus on the job search. Hopefully there's some fun in there, too. Guess we'll see.

Dicey December

I'll be honest, December was rough. There were definite highlights, like Christmas, and parties, and movies, and friend time. And yet it was all clouded over by the whole "you're alone AGAIN for the holidays this year" reality. I had a couple pity parties. There were a few times I wanted to clobber some clueless lovey-dovey folks in my circle. And some of the Facebook posts with the happy families forced me into a short FB break.

On the bright side, I'm about 15 pounds lighter than I was last year. That's nice. I can handle channeling my sometime loneliness through aggressive exercise (relaxing yoga is good, too). It's all about balance.

Anyhoo, here are some December highlights!

I made some major progress in two of my long-term projects at work. Then I took 12 days off for the holidays. What can I say? I hoard vacation time.

Just thinking about my Is He Dead? friends. "I've never seen such a long dog. That dog's not right!"

I hadn't seen any snow at the beginning of the month, but the rain and cold gave me hope!

I made my peanut butter cups for a Relief Society party and a Star Wars viewing. They are my faaaavorite!!

The Relief Society party included a cookie-baking demonstration, and some tips on how to make my cookies look extra impressive (especially when I'm in a hurry). There was also a raffle for prizes. Through a mix-up, my name was entered twice and I won twice. Mortified, I only accepted the first. Lemon cookies. They were AMAZING!

December 14: The first snow day of Winter 2015. We have had a TON of snow so far. Such a nice change from the previous two years!

I love receiving Christmas cards. I love seeing my friends' families' smiling faces and receiving something in the mail other than bills :)

I  saw Jason and several of my other friends in Babes in Toyland at CenterPoint. Rumor has it the theater won't be doing it again, so I'm glad I can say I saw it. Lots of great moments and comedic timing. The sixties scenes and music were a little odd, tho.

My ward had a goal for a sister in each Relief Society and an elder in each Elders Quorum to pick a night in a 30 day period to attend the temple so that someone was there for all of the 30 days. I picked the 16th and did initiators at the Salt Lake Temple. Afterwards, I walked around the grounds to look at the lights, but I was concerned about poking someone with the umbrella I'd brought with to shield me from the snow so I didn't stay very long. The lights never disappoint, and neither does time in the House of the Lord!

Liz's birthday party is always a highlight! I pieced together a cute cocktail-type outfit, at a bunch of chocolate strawberries, and talked about Star Wars and Christmas with a lot of terrific people. Already looking forward to next year!

With the birthday girl

Chantryce and me

One of my days off work, I spent a day at the movies and saw Spectre, The Peanuts Movie, The Good Dinosaur, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (for the third time). I managed to get my 10,000 steps in anyway by walking around The Gateway between showings.

The picture cut out during The Good Dinosaur and we spent 10 minutes hearing the movie without seeing anything. Fortunately, management rewound the film so we wouldn't miss anything. Afterwards they gave us movie passes as an apology. Oddly, the night before the sound cut out during a big-screen viewing of the Doctor Who Christmas Special "The Husbands of River Song." They also rewound the movie, thank goodness. After that, I'm a little worried something else might go wrong in the near future. Doesn't bad news come in threes?

My mom makes fantastic sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. I couldn't get enough of the gingerbread this year. They're cute AND tasty!

Couldn't resist a few "End of the Year" apps. Here are what the internet deemed my most significant photos from the year:

Three years ago, I went to Disneyland for New Year's Eve. Two years ago, I attended a dance and an after party. Last year I played games with my best friend and her family.

This year, I had a quiet night at home in my pajamas, watching Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and eating popcorn and chocolate cake, and reading The BFG and Imzadi. I needed some "me" time. It was great. (I did have to ask my downstairs neighbors to turn down their music around 2 am so I could go to bed. They were very nice about it.)

Calm before the storm, maybe? Who knows. But I'm looking forward to the new year!

I had a birthday

and lots of celebrations!

The first was the perfect way to start: Besty Birthday with my Kate. She and I were born only a few weeks apart, so we like to get together sometime in the middle and celebrate each other at the same time. This year, we splurged at The Melting Pot where I ate more than my fair share of the chocolate fondue, and the excellent waiter gifted us both with bottles Garlic and Wine seasoning to take home - yummy! We also laughed and cheered when we realized we'd found each other highly nerdy and completely perfect gifts.

Kate and her vintage USS Enterprise shuttlecraft, complete with Captain Picard action figure.
When we got on TRAX after dinner, a young man exiting the car said: "Is that a shuttlecraft? Like, from the Enterprise? That's so cool!" He sounded jealous he didn't have one. Sorry, dude!

Me and my warm, fuzzy TARDIS blanket. It is warm and big enough to wrap around my body and still have enough fabric to cover my toes. Fantastic!

The party with the family is always a highlight, and this year was no exception. My mom cheerfully cooked the weird menu I requested (Monte cristo sandwiches, strawberry salad, caprese salad, Brussels sprouts with bacon, and chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting), I was showered with gifts that included repairs at my condo, movie gift cards, and a new popcorn popper, and I had a satisfactory conversation about Harry Potter with a couple of my siblings. I even played a round of Clue with Adam, Lindsey, and the G-unit, and I won!

David's face in the background kills me

My nieces prepared a little song and dance for me, and Dave expertly accompanied them.
They even provided an encore -- be still my live-performance-loving heart!

Adam's homemade cards are always spot-on and awesome. He should go into the business.

My actual birthday was over Labor Day weekend. It's always nice when I have the day off from work, and even better when my friends do, too! I spent the morning at Jordanelle Reservoir with some friends from church and tried paddle boarding for the first time. I was surprised when I liked it as much as I did. A couple of the other ladies were jealous I was able to move from kneeling to standing without falling into the water (thank you, yoga!). Such a lovely, chill activity. I miraculously wasn't even sore afterwards.

Did I mention it was 66 degrees that morning?
It warmed up a little, but I'm grateful I didn't fall in the water.

Angie, Pamela, DeEtte, me, Melia, and Angela

Melia and me

I bought these shorts on sale at the reservoir shop that day. I've been looking all summer, so I found them not a moment too soon :P
Right after we took this photo, I realized that it was easier to maneuver if I held onto the handle at the top of the paddle. The more you know!

Phase two of the actual birthday involved some quiet time during which I ate a frozen treat from Nielsens Frozen Custard (maple walnut), did my favorite restorative yoga routine, showered, and made treats for rehearsal the next night.

Looks a little like a gnarled old man wearing a hat, doesn't it?

In the evening, Liz and Chantryce joined me for some barbecue and an action flick.
(Come on, folks. How am I still single?)

I walk past SugarHouse Barbeque every week on my way to church and it always smells amazing. It was darn good. I need to go again soon because I did not eat enough.

Gorgeous dates.
(Can you see my tiny tiara?)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was just as action-packed and entertaining as I'd hoped. Also, I want forever more to sit in a lounge chair when I see movies, even if Liz commented that we're one step closer to the human predicament predicted in Wall-E ;)

Before going home, I stopped at Larissa's house (I forget why I thought I could do that so late at night. I promise not to do that to you again, Riss, before you have a chance to respond, even on my birthday). She had a gift ready for me anyway. I hadn't talked with her one-on-one in months and it felt soooo gooood to catch up a little. I love you!

Later that week, I invited her and some more of my favorite people* to join me for dinner at Brio Tuscan Grille (a place I tried when I could only eat meat and salad and wanted to return to when my diet restrictions were eased -- a good idea, it turns out) and The 39 Steps in West Jordan. Dinner was delicious, and the play was delightful. We were surprised when Larissa and our server realized they had done a play together several years ago, and then he went out of his way to make sure we were all well taken care of, including gifting me a certificate for a future visit. We were late to the play, but we were able to catch on fairly quickly, I think.

Ann, Jamie, me, Nichole, and Larissa at Brio.
The lamb chops and the sweet potato risotto are delish.

I had to get a photo showing how we'd unintentionally dressed to match.
Nichole's shoes were pink, tying into my pink shirt. Great minds think alike.

The last official birthday celebration was dinner at The Garden with a group of dear ladies I did theater with as a teenager. I am thrilled that we've reconnected, and that they were free do laugh and eat and talk and talk and talk.

Lifelong friends Katie, Suzanne, Laura, Theresa, and Suzanne

Suzanne brought her tiny baby and let me hold him for as long as I wanted.
Such a sweet, kissable, huggable little boy. Thank you, Zanny!

He got fussy, so I got fussy.
Solidarity forever!

We decided to get one of every dessert and share.
Best decision so far this year.
I especially recommend the creme brulé.

A view from the restaurant. Nice shot, Theresa!

Pretty great, right? Who is this lucky? It wasn't even a milestone birthday! I am grateful to everyone who took the time to send texts, post on my wall on Facebook, choose a thoughtful gift, and/or spend some time with me this year. I am a blessed woman. With friends and family like you, there's no way this year can be anything less than wonderful!


*On several occasions recently, people have commented that I seem to have a lot of close girl friends. I didn't realize until then that this was an odd thing. I'm a single lady, and I have a LOT of interests that I like to share with cool people. Hooray for female friends, and hooray for excuses to see them as often as possible!