Birthday Goodies

So my very first birthday ever may not have been that fun of an experience, as you may be able to imagine.  But all of them since then have been pretty sweet.  They include unnecessary but much appreciated gifts and distractions that help to ease the pain of growing old.  My birthday was about a month ago, but up until recently, I have continued to receive lovely birthday benefits from lovely people.  I guess the older you get, the more and longer people need to distract you.  Mission accomplished!

 On my actual birthday, I went over to Kira and Austin’s and, together with the Perrys, we made a delicious birthday cake.  I have been liking Red Velvet cake a lot lately, so my first inclination was to make that.  But when I thought about it, I didn’t really want red.  So we made a Green Velvet Cake.  It’s the same—but green! We followed an online recipe, but for some reason after the cake had been baked, it formed all these weird pores. It ended up looking look a giant moldy sponge. 

 

We continued anyway and started making the frosting.  While we were doing so, Austin thought it would be a good idea to put a banana in the frosting to make banana flavored frosting.  Since I had forgotten to bring butter, it was super sugary to begin with.  So we tried it.  The frosting ended up looking like the stuff you soak bread in when you’re making French Toast.  Either that or clotted mucus.

 

And the overall finished product looked thusly:

 Despite the look, it actually tasted quite good.  That was just a bonus, though, as I wouldn’t have wanted/expected the whole process to go any differently.  :)  Exhibition A of why I love my friends.

Exhibition B came a few weeks later.  All throughout my birthday week, my ex-roommate Mark had been asking me what I was going to do for my birthday.  It was kind of a hectic week, seeing as how classes were starting and most people were getting moved in, etc.  I had toyed with the idea of getting a group of people together just to chill and whatnot, but I’ve never been big on throwing birthday parties for myself.  So I didn’t.  Deal with it.  A week or so after my birthday, Mark called me up and he said that since I didn’t do anything, he wanted to invite me over for a special birthday dinner with him and his wife.  I thought this was very sweet of little Marky, so I agreed.  The day arrived and when I showed up, Mark had invited over a select group of my closest friends to surprise me.  I seriously had no idea.  I am a dumb-dumb.  But I prefer it that way.  It was awesome to see most of my favorite people together and  I very much enjoyed it and Mark got me fuzzy bunny slippers.  He knows me so well.

Ah birthday adventures.   Anyways.  Here is a montage of my birthday lute.  I made out with a pretty sweet haul, wouldn’t you agree?  

                                                                                                          

Night of the Hunter

Are you prepared for the night of the hunter?!

Well ready or not, it already passed.  So I suppose you were ready enough if you didn’t get hunted to death.  Congrats.  

Though it may evoke images of horror and intrigue, Night of the Hunter’s probably not as exciting as it sounds.  Alas, it is but another name (though a very cool one) for the night of the Autumnal Equinox each year.  This is significant because…

It marks the beginning of fall!

I highly enjoy fall.  It is one of my favorite seasons—definitely in my top four.  And fall has officially fell!  Apart from just being astronomically fall, the fallen signs are beginning to show all around.  I shall now take you through the telltale signs of falling and why I love them so:

1. The feeling of it.  The air gets this crispness to it that I just love walking and breathing in.  It’s crisp and yummy;  just like a yummy crisp. This also facilitates the wearing of fun fall fashions, but it's not fully freeze-your-face-off freezing for the foreseeable future.
2. I get hot flashes while I’m walking across campus.  Yes it's that part of the year where while you're in the sun, it's nice and toasty.  But the minute it goes down or is blocked, it's pee-your-pants cold.  Over by the staired entrance to the Eyring Science Center, where I walk several times a day, there are many trees which line the sidewalk.  When the angles and science and stuff are just right, the sun shines through the leaves in patches.  This is essentially like that lava game you play as a kid, but with actual consequences if you hit the lava spots.  When you walk into the patches of sun, it's actually quite hot.  But when you step into the shade of the trees, it's cooler than being cool.  This process repeats over and over again until your skin fries off and you can walk the rest of the way home.  Much like real hot flashes.
3. I’m feeling fine n fancy fresh (related to hot flashes?).
4. The look of it.  When everything starts changing colors and there are leaves on the ground… I just wish it lasted longer.  This is the time of year Y-Mountain gets a sweet new look.  It’s also gorgeous if you head up Provo Canyon.  Especially Alpine Loop.  Last year, some friends and I went up and did some photo shoots amidst the changing leaves and I expect to do it again this year (hint hint, friends).
5. Plans are in full throttle for my Halloween costume.  I love planning/making Halloween costumes.  Cool, huh?
6. The baseball of it.  The playoffs appear to be shaping up to be amazing this year, so I likely won’t be seen or heard from until the end of October, at which time my life will be over 4 the next 4 months.  If only the Mariners could make it.  Or even come close.  But I digress…

Regress!:  I love fall!

Best & Wordst

I like words.  Is that weirds?  No.  NO it's not. 

I think a lot about words.  I'm very particular in my wording.  This helps me in some things, such as the following:  a.)  Translation, b.)  Self-Expression, c.)  Deception.  It hurts me in other things:  a.)  Translation,  b.)  Self-Expression, c.)  Being Normal.   Either way, I still like words.  We just need to work on some things is all.

I was recently on dictionary.com (don't judge me) and I found a couple of articles I found to be entertaining.  In the first, dictionary.com (or DDC to those familiar with the site) shared what some experts had found to be the most beautifully sounding words in the English language.  It was interesting, as there were some there that I probably wouldn't have thought of.  In addition to that, people left comments at the bottom as to what they thought were the most beautiful words.  This, however, also spawned a discussion as to what were the grossest sounding words in all of English-dom.  So DDC came out with a second installment sharing some of the most mentioned grossy words, which spawned an even more heated discussion about gross words.  This made me laugh because there are some pretty dang gross sounding English words, and my friends and I had actually talked about this on several occasions growing up, and, what is more, I based my very first blog post on the very topic.  We have come full circle my friends.  Anyways.  Enjoy!

PS:  There may or may not be a few unpropitious/inimical/discommodious words on the list, just so you know.  Nothing too bad.  But if you think of them for their phonetic value instead of their actual meaning, it will protect you.  I promise.

http://hotword.dictionary.com/beautiful-sounding/

http://hotword.dictionary.com/gross-sounding/comment-page-71/#comment-50591

Truth

Today I finished reading The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. 

I simply wanted to say that I know that it is a true book, that it is the word of God.  I know that its origins are divine, as were the means through which it has come to us in these times.  In it is found the Gospel of Jesus Christ, redacted in its original and pure simplicity.  As we bring ourselves to read the words therein—which are indeed the words of Christ—with openness, we will feel the power of the source from whence the book came.  As we bring ourselves to live the teachings found therein, we allow that same power to change us for the better and to strengthen us perpetually.

Mark Twain said, “Truth is the most valuable thing we have.  Let us economize it.”  Therefore, a truth earned and invested is worth a fortune to the proprietor.  The one biggest action we must take to be able to receive truth is to open our hearts and minds so as to be able to receive it.  Truth is not something we force or reason into our consciousness whenever we so desire.  Rather it is something that will enter once we have adequately prepared a place and environment for it.  Then, any search we may go on will become that much more bounteous as all that we find will have a sure place to take root and to grow. 

If you have not read the Book of Mormon, I invite you to do so.  If you have but it has been a while, I encourage you to start again.  If you have and do, keep it up!  The results mentioned above are real, but are contingent upon what we put into the process.

I share my witness of that fact. 

Science!

Since the school has gotten started, I've had lots of reading I've had to do.  Over the last week or so, this amount has enlarged, seeing as how I didn't have most of my books until about a week into the semester, and now the assignments just keep piling up.  It's starting to appear a bit daunting.

...but instead of catch up on that reading, the last few days have been dedicated to the internet!  All hail Al Gore.  Yesterday, I found an article that piqued my interest.  That article had a link to another article that double piqued my interest.  That article had a link to a bunch of other articles and gone was my day.  But these were actually educational endeavors—about science!  Therefore my brain was not drained, but instead strained and gained.

Here are a few of the articles I read if n you have time or interest:

• A planet was discovered that orbits two suns: Learn!

• What plant life might be like on a world with two suns, possibly having black leaves: Learn!

• This insanely high-tech new tank they just came out with:  Learn!

• This site is an atlas of cool/unique places/sites/sights all over the world:  Learn!

• So I guess this 'nearby' (astronomically) star is set to explode 'soon' (astronomically) and apparently it would be bright enough to affect lighting here on the earth for several months.  How cool would that be?: Learn!

• A planet was discovered that's 5 times the size of the earth and essentially made of diamond: Learn!

• A planet that rains rocks: Learn!

• And if you're in the mood to have your brain melted, what some scientists consider to be the Top 10 Strangest Things in Space:  Melt Your Brain!

I hope you have enjoyed my geek out.  I found this stuff fascinating.  Yeah science!

And there our hands met...

So today I had one of those life-changing romance movie moments that everyone dreams of having.  You know:  the one where you are walking up to a door and you reach forward to grab the handle and to your surprise there is already a hand there?  Where you giggle and bashfully glance up into their eyes, love comes swiftly at first sight and from there on out you are swept off your feet and live happily ever after?

Oh.  Except mine was with a dude.  There will be no bashful giggling and he'd better leave my feet very much on the ground or corrective action will be taken.

I would allow him to buy me lunch, however.

911

I've heard people say that you will always remember where you were and what you were doing when you found out about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  I do.  I had just gotten home from my paper route and was on my way downstairs to get ready for school when my mom stopped me and informed me that the first plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.  I found it interesting, but didn't really know what was happening at the time.  Later on that day, in my Social Studies class, we spent the entire hour watching the news.  By then the second plane had crashed into the other Twin Tower.  I still don't think I really knew what was going on.  It was a lot for someone my age to take in, and likely too much for me to truly comprehend.

I was thinking about it today and I am so grateful to live in this country.  Our nation boasts a freedom that billions of people can only dream of.  Literally.  It is something to hold to and cherish.  When that freedom was challenged on this day 10 years ago, this country banded together and became, in many ways, stronger than it was before.  It made me think of the old adage, "United We Stand; Divided We Fall."  This is a true principle.  But what is it that we stand united for?  And what divisions might cause us to fall?  I would imagine that it would be in the cause of liberty and justice—true freedom—that we stand united.  But what is it that truly makes us free?  

This country was built on principles of integrity and prosperity.  If we continue to live true to those ideals, it is a foundation that will carry us to the prosperity we seek and have enjoyed in times past.  On a similar note, I would imagine that failure to adhere to the same would be the divisions which would cause us to fall:  the dissent of our integrity.  The terrorist attacks were a severely solemn and horrendous occasion, but from the rubble, we rose as a nation and responded in a positive light.  As we came together to lift one another, I think, if only but for a time, we were able to look outside so many fickle pursuits and remember what got us this far in the first place, and what is truly important.

Let us remember the lives that were lost that day, and let that memory lead us to honor them and the country we love by perpetuating the strength that we found that day.  We don't need tragedy to strike to call us to action; we shouldn't need catastrophe to remember.  We have plenty of motivation all around us constantly.  If we can see an end to the things worth fighting and sacrificing for, maybe we need to open our eyes a little wider.  That all of us allow ourselves to be able to do these things is my hope and my prayer.

God Bless America.

Ginger Head Man

I was recently informed that this weekend is the weekend of the annual Red Head Day festival in the Netherlands.  A few thoughts I had:  First off, how the heck did I not know about this sooner?  Second off, the Netherlands just became my favorite lands.  Third off:  I totally have a red head!!!

Red Head Day is a festival that they throw every summer where people with naturally red hair get together to appreciate redheadedness.  The festival spans two days in the first weekend of September, obviously because there's too much about redheads to appreciate in only one day.  They have lectures, demonstrations, etc. that are focused towards the redheaded audience, and also have art displays which focus on the usage of the color red.

I need to take part in this festival.  I think this is duh.  It is a little late for me to make the trek to be with my kindred this year, though.  So I'm letting you all know via this here blog that, starting now, I will be accepting donations to sponsor my flight over to the Netherlands next year to attend this festival.  As a thank you for your donation, you will receive happy fuzzy feelings, some lovin' from yours truly and possibly a free t-shirt.  Just get in contact with me and we'll work something out.

Ruadh gu brath!