Music Monday #10: I Lived

Once again, my bag is packed. This summer has been: land, wash, rinse, pack, repeat. Whether it is a week long trip, a destination two states away, or overnight at my sister's place, I'm always on the move. And honestly I'd  have it no other way. I stay in a place for a week and I'm itching to just ... Well, go.

Thanks a lot Grenada, I blame this for you too.

On my most recent visit with my sister, she introduced me to One Republic's newest album, Native. I can't say that I listened to them much other than those almost irritatingly catchy radio hits years and years ago. But after listening to this album, it was love at first listen. Some songs I didn't care for as much, but this one really caught my attention.

I lived -One Republic-

The first verse starts:

Hope when you take that jumpYou don't feel the fall

-Taking jumps is a scary thing that we all do in life. Sometimes it's more of a push than a voluntary jump, but the fall comes eventually and I love the idea that the fall doesn't have to feel painful.

Hope when the water rises, You built a wall. Hope when the crowd screams out, They're screaming your name.

-This line isn't the last of the verse, but man it gives me goosebumps. I just think of what an incredible feeling it would be to have people screaming your name. Not literally per se, but just to have a huge crowd of people rooting for you, being on your side. 

Hope if everybody runs, You choose to stay.

-In this huge scary thing called life, there are times when we need to run, and times when we need to stay, and often, times when we need to do the unpopular thing.

Hope that you fall in love, And it hurts so bad, The only way you can know, You give it all you have

-I like this song because there are many ways to listen, hear, and interpret the lyrics. Ross heard this bit and thought this part was strange. I like it. I know the feeling of loving so much it hurts inside. But it's one of those "jumps" in life. It's one of those jumps that requires a running start. The kind where you swing your arms to "give it all you have." 

And I hope that you don't suffer But take the pain. Hope when the moment comes, You'll say... I, I, II did it all. I, I, II did it all. I owned every second that this world could give, I saw so many places, the things that I did. Yeah with every broken bone, I swear I lived

-The chorus is incredible. With flying to a new place and seeing family I haven't seen in literally years, I'm so anxious. Not in a bad, stressed out way, but a happy way. A really excited and happy way. When I first heard this song I thought about all my summer plans. I have so much planned and it is all so exhilarating. It's all happening all at once. I want to see so many places. I want to own every second this world gives me. And at the end of this summer, this year, this day, this month, this life... I hope I can swear that I lived.

Hope that you spend your days, And they all add up.

-I think this is my sister's favorite line in the song. It's clever. I spend so many days -yes, whole days- being worthless. It amounts to days that are, well, meaningless. But recently my days have really been adding up. It's time I will never get back, and when I spend it in a way that adds to my happiness, it builds me up and makes me rich. 

And when that sun goes down, Hope you raise your cup. Oh, oh oh. I wish that I could witness All your joy And all your pain But until my moment comes I'll say [CHORUS]

This song gives me this crazy feeling of invincibility. Like maybe I will just spread my wings and fly myself to Kentucky tomorrow. I keep listening to it on repeat and thinking of how much I have to look forward to in life. How lucky I am. How much work I still have left to do. 

Week Wrap up #5: Vernal Adventures & More

This week I spent in the lovely, tiny city of Vernal, UT. My best friend Kelli always tends to live in the most desolate and out of the way places in Utah. But nothing could stop me from seeing her. Lucky for me she drove all the way out here just to pick me up. That's friendship. Driving 6+ hours in one day. 

Before we left for vernal we picked up some clothes for her husband and found some rather interesting finds whilst in the store.

Later we ate at a sketchy little cafe with notsogreat food because, I don't know, Kelli and I tend to get ourselves into sketchy situations. But before long we headed out to Vernal to begin our week.

There are not a lot of things to do in Vernal but it didn't matter because I had a blast hanging out with Kelli and laughing so hard my abs hurt. It is always great to have friends where you can just pick back up with no matter how long it has been. 

One of the funny moments o the week was our grave disappointment with this "Mini melts" machine at Walmart. For some delusional reason we thought it would be a little more exciting than just some suction hose grabbing a container out of a cooler.

Thursday - and please don't ask me why it took so long, we finally made it to this little food place called Lip Smackin' D's. Their newest menu item is funnel cake fries! Yes, they were amazing. They have smoothies and snow cones and cotton candy and pretty much any kind of food that graces the Candyland board of my dreams. A main attraction are the mini donuts. We ordered a few different kinds. Pictured below are key lime pie donuts, and samoas donuts.

Kelli has the most adorable dogs. I hate to play favorites, but Loki is pretty cute. He looks like a little feral wolf dog and has little leopard spots too. When he gets tired his ears get droopy. I love that he choose me to be his cuddle buddy!

No time is complete with Kelli without some tea time! Oh delicious sleepy bed time tea time. Mmm.

It was an absolutely fantastic time in Vernal. I thought coming back on a Friday night would just about wrap up my week, but I was oh so wrong. Carnies, ballgames, my sister coming back from Africa!, and it wouldn't be complete without....

My sister is a big soccer fan. She legitimately follows soccer throughout the year so the World Cup is a big deal for her. We made some pizza and watch the fame projected on her wall.

Have I mentioned lately that I love being close to family and friends? 

Take Me Out To the Ballgame

Friday night I decided I should exercise my Pass of All Passes and go to a ballgame. Being the rebel I am, I rooted for the away team. I mean, its the Ogden RAPTORS for goodness sake.

Ross's "vintage" hat from when he was little. I don't think it gets much cooler than that. 

Don't be surprised when I say I don't care too much for baseball. It's probably true that it's the one sport that I am closest to understanding, but you know what else I understand? Ballpark food. Greasy, half warm, half cold ballpark food. Mmm. Yessir I'm an American after all. 

That is one excited kid with a bratwurst on a pretzel bun.

Please note Rissa's bipartisan approach to the game. The Orem Owlz are red and are a feeder team for the Anaheim Angels. The Ogden Raptors are blue and a feeder team for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gotta represent LA!

I'm the luckiest girl in the world to finally be living close to the best roommate ever.

It was a very beautiful night, nice fluffy clouds as the sun set. The Orem Owlz lead at first, but then the Raptors totally dominated and smashed them. 

Rissa and I bowed out early, however. So we were unable to see the beautiful defeat, but instead we were able to see a beautiful human being! My sister flew in from Ghana where she was doing an internship for the past several weeks. I take full credit for the creativity of the ginormous 'Murican flag cookie with about a half inch of frosting. 

After hours and hours of flying you can tell Cass is so excited for the cookie!!

SISTERS are the BEST!!! Watch out Utah, 3 Widdi crazies at once, in one place. 

Plesant Grove Carnie Days

Call me the whitest kid on the block, but I love me some carnies. Growing up, going to the fair was a pretty big deal. We could never afford to actually go or get ride tickets, but my sisters and I would occasionally preform at the annual event and therefore get in for free (there ya go, I was workin' the system from an early age). The depth and breadth of the fair always baffled me. The bright lights and smell of kettle corn, the "World's Smallest Horse" that my mom would never give me $2 to see, the stuffed Tweety Bird bigger than me. It was all so untouchable and awe-inspiring.

There is something spooky and unsafe about those pack-n-go carnivals. Maybe its the element of danger that I am drawn to, maybe just that childhood yearning to die on a moving heap of steel ride the Ferris Wheel. Either way, after dinner I had rich cheesecake sugar pumping through my veins so Ross and I went to check out the Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days carnival. After my years of associating with Utahans I heard to many good things about festival, I needed to sort out fact from fiction.



I've found that as an adult, new things inspire awe. Instead of gazing up at the magical carnival lights aglow in the fresh summer evening air, I stared at the dozen+ rides crammed into this tiny city park. That is awe-inspiring folks. I'm still kind scratching my head at it all.

The whole park was crammed full, and I am beginning to wonder if I will ever get used to so many people in one place at one time. Thanks Grenada.

One of the famed things I HAD to do at Strawberry Days was to try out the strawberries and cream. Okay, that's do-able.

Or, so I thought.

On the way out I saw the line for the infamous strawberries and cream.



Excuse me?! You cannot even see the end of the line before the switchback. And I swear as quickly as those strawberries and cream truck employees were crankin' 'em out, the line was not even moving. We would have been in line for probably at least 40 minutes.

So please, Utahans, anyone, can you tell me what is so magical about the fabled strawberries and cream that would compel me to wait in line that long? Is it for the experience? Tradition? A secret ingredient of crack cocaine?

Nickelcade Shennanigans

My fun week in Vernal is finally, sadly, drawing to a close. But I couldn't let the day slip by so we did what we could to end the week long visit with a bang.

Friday morning we stopped by Lip Smackin' D's, again. And everything was still amazing. Including the world's largest soft pretzel with amazing nacho cheese. This is only half of it, I split it with Kelli.

 

 

Also, Kelli had wanted to stop at this roadside jerky stand we passed coming to Vernal. She said that it changes location, so it wasn't a sure thing it would be there, but we kept out eyes peeled. Luckily it was, and I hate to sound like a wimp but I'm kinda glad Larry was there with us.

 

When we pulled up the owner came out of his home?/ RV and talked to us as we made out selection. I snuck of photo of this dude and I was holding my phone at about waist level. Please note where his eyes are settled.

 

 

I guess it's a little difficult to tell in this photo but let me give you a clue, they are a little too high to be looking at my phone, and a little to low to be looking at my face.

 

I bought some buffalo jerky and then we were on our way.

 

 

Kelli had scoped out a Nickelcade for us to check out and although I was pretty skeptical, it was really fun! We had a goal to get enough tickets for friendship rings. You know, in true fourth grade girl fashion.

 

 

We learned an important lesson that day: Kelli needs Whack-A-Mole in her life. It's her new therapist. She visited a couple times, and felt very relaxed at the end of the experience.

Kelli and I were pleasantly surprised to see that, after our tickets were cashed in, our friendship rings were about a third of the price we originally anticipated!! But then that left us with a bunch of leftover tickets and we were really grasping at straws to find things we wanted. Haha.

 

 

After the Nickelcade we killed some time at Crate & Barrel, and Larry surprised Kelli (and me too!) with some LUSH products. Smart man. Very, very smart man.

 

Then we were able to steal Ross away from studying in time to have delicious dinner before Kelli and Larry had to head back. I've only ever eaten at Cheesecake factory once before. That was compliments of my friend Brigette and I was so excited about the cheescake I shared an appetizer then used the rest of the gift card for cheescakes.

 

 The food was absolutely amazing. No wonder it is on about a hundred "What Not to Order (because its so fattening)" lists world wide. We all got different dishes and they were all amazing.

 

I'm sad to say goodbye to Kelli and Larry. I can only hope I will see them again this summer

but in the meantime I will cushion this blow on a lovely pile of left-over cheescake.

 

Week Wrap Up #4: Just Hangin Around

Here I am back blogging like I do. I've been back in Utah for a week and I already have the itch to get going. Today I head out to Vernal with my friend Kelli.

Looking back on this week I can't recall anything too fantastic. Pretty normal, stranded with no car and no money.

#1 Since being back in the States I love just walking around in stores. Any stores, even grocery stores. I just wander down the aisles in amazement. I saw my brother post a picture to Instagram about some magic called ...... Dr. Pepper. I'm not a big soda drinker, but I do love my Dr. Pepper. I decided I needed to find this magic right away. And find I did. Thank you very much Maceys. I have to admit, it's pretty good.

#2 I found these beauts on a {separate} trip to the store and I want to let it be known that it is perfectly acceptable to buy these for my birthday this year.

#3 My brother's birthday is this week and I decided to make him a superhero ice cream cake with a city skyline. I bought some fancy cake decorating tools and made a batch of the Pinterest famed marshmallow fondant. It turned out fantastic. Tastes way better than normal fondant and was easy to do. I learned an important lesson today. Or rather, something to add to my mother's list of "Sometimes the Extra Money is Worth It" list: Expensive food coloring/ gel. I thought for sure my hands would be stained after squishing, molding, folding, and kneading the black dyed fondant, but to my absolute glee, it washed right off. Miracle of miracles!

#4 Thursday evening I saw the most beautiful moon. I think I saw an article about it that gave this particular moon a special name. Of course the picture does not do it justice. It was so large and I could see the texture on the surface of the golden glowing moon.

#5 This week brought a couple gloomy and rainy days, which made me a little melancholy. But I was able to catch up on some crocheting and Community so it wasn't too bad.

#6 After watching the X-Men: Days of Future Past on Monday I asked Teo if I could borrow his X-Men movie collection. Friday I finally got around to a mini movie marathon. Yes, it was as perfect as it appears.

#7 I had a bad day this week. Just the feeling of a caged bird and I'm getting sick of life being Grenada Pt. II. But at least I was able to acknowledge my bad mood and move on.

#8 Friday night I finally got to hang out with my awesome nieces. I've been out of town when they were here before. It blows my mind how much older they are, turns out the world kept turning while I was in Grenada. :/ 

I had a ton of fun hanging out with her, talking, singing to Katy Perry, doing nails, and playing at the park with the family.

#9 My beautiful, kind little niece has taken to decorating this tortured doll with nail polish, duct tape, and sharpies.

Seeing my creeped out response only motivated her to "decorate" it more. She'll sit in her room perfecting the doll's latest look, then come out, wave it in my face and say in the creepiest little kid voice ever, "My name's Chuckie, wanna play?" I think I need to talk to this girl's parents...

Late Saturday night Ross and I returned to see this creeeepy doll glowing in the dim light. Pretty much the scariest thing of my life. What a way to end your week. Thanks kiddo.

QW #21: Super Powers

I spent the last two nights staying up ridiculously late reading a comic Teo let me borrow, Final Crisis. It's pretty intense, and knowing I am not equipped to write a review for it, I am not even going to attempt.

 

 

Teo told me that it was a must read. Especially before I started the next Flash Comics. Here are some of my favorite moments from Final Crisis.

 

 

First Frame: Super girl (Cass) with Streaks (Synge). Cass asking Synge to not pee in the laundry basket (again) while she is gone saving the world. Sheesh Streaks/Synge!

 

Second Frame: Flash Family.... isn't it about time?! Flashes know that when the entire multiverse is avalanching into oblivion, family comes first. Keep it solid!

 

Last Frame: Black Lightning says, " ... formal education enriches and provides a tried-and-tested framework to help us get the most out of those (street/ real life) experiences." It really bugs me when people try to say that comics are worthless and just violent garbage. They are so much more than that.

 

 

This brings me to the quote I chose for "QW" today.

 

 

"We're not about the names people call us, we're about what we do, don't you think? You have powers, use them for what you know is right and leave the labels to history and the media."

-Black Lightning

 

To me, this encapsulates so much about being super. Sometimes I get wrapped up in the adjectives people use to describe me. I feel I need to prove to them, to the world, that I am NOT that. That I am so different from what they think and say. But what is truly important is what I do.

 

Not all of us have heat vision, not all of us have super strength, nor can many of us run lightning fast, but we all have "powers" so to speak. I'm constantly reminded of what amazing people grace my life. Normal people, with super powers; super kindness, super attentiveness, super flexibility, super perception, super understanding, super acceptance. Whether they know it or not, they are listening to Black Lightning and use them for what they know is right. Not for glory, not for laud, not for titles and fame, just to make this world a better place for everyone in it.