Embrace The Shmultz

It happened. Oh, dear people of the land of buckets, a great thing has happened today. My dear best friend got married! It was beautiful. She was beautiful. And I, being the hopeless romantic that I am thought it was wonderful. I wanted to post a picture, but then I remembered that my dear friend CRH (who married The Texan) wants to stay anonymous, and will only post pictures that you can't see her face in... Then I found a good picture. I imagine that I will only be able to post it for a very short amount of time before she demands I take it off of the Internet... so here you go. Look fast, 'cause I don't think it will last.
(Dear CRH: In my defence, you really can't tell who it is... so you are still anonymous...)

I am also spending time with my great parents. They were in a play tonight, and my father was crazy nervous. He did a nice job (and L1-7, I taped it so you can watch). This is what he is doing as I blog:


I know it's blurry, but I didn't want to use my flash and wake him up. I have the cutest Dad! Oh, and just as a little in advance goodness... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! (tomorrow) I love you!

That Doesn't Surprise Me

Often, after people hear where I served my mission, they ask me what the people were like. This is a hard question to answer. They are unlike anyone that I grew up with. Good people, just ... different. Here is an example I found from reading BYU's 100 Hour board. (Side note, the 100 Hour Board is good for some laughs and can be quite interesting) The village in question is one I served in. Learning this fact probably should have surprised me, but ... it didn't.

Dear 100 Hour Board,

I was telling my friend about this town in New York that seceded from the Union in 1861, and then everyone forgot they seceded until World War II, and therefore did not rejoin the US until 1946. I found an article on Wikipedia, but my friend still doesn't believe me, because the internet isn't always reliable. Can you find a more credible reference? I've looked but haven't been able to find one yet. It's called Town Line, New York, and is near Buffalo.
Thanks.

-New Yorker

A: Dear New Yorker,

If you're a BYU Student, you can click through to the NY Times article here.

Otherwise, here's the citation:
STARS AND STRIPES REPLACE STARS AND BARS IN TOWN LINE. (1946, January 25). New York Times (1857-Current file), 28. Retrieved February 21, 2009, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2005) database. (Document ID: 93017517).

An excerpt from the caption:
"...residents of the village voted yesterday to return to the United States eighty-five years after the community's secession."

Love,
Waldorf and Sauron

At least now when I am asked about the people in my mission I have a good example.

You Need to Sort Out Your Priorities.

I have hit a new predicament. Well... maybe not new, it's happened before, but I find myself here again. I have too much to do. I don't know where to start. So instead, I do nothing. And at the same time I swear I'm not that busy. But I can't seem to get anything done. Maybe I should go see a Psychologist. I'm pretty sure the conversation would go something like this:

Psychologist: What seems to be the problem?
Me: I can't get anything done
P: Why?
M: I just have too much to do.
P: Like What?
M: .... Stuff....
P: .....
M: I just... well, I... and then... but if I don't... ARGH!!!
P: And how does that make you feel?
M: I'm going CRAZY!!!!!

At this point all words coming from my mouth would be a jumble of mess and I would talk with flailing hands, and then sit there and tell my friendly Psychologist that I am ready to cry.

Honestly, my life is good. I just ... I don't know. So there. Can I just say that I'm a crazy lady and hope that someday all of this will be figured out? I think the problem is I'm trying too hard to make everyone else happy, to do everything that they want me to do. At the same time, I have no idea what I am doing. I'm so worried about keeping all of them happy that I don't know what is going on with me. This results in a very discombobulated Paily and the progression of her developing TMJ. But don't you worry. That's going to be fixed someday soonish. I get to revisit my teen years and get braces. I am so lucky! I know, you're jealous.

Well, this isn't really warm fuzzy. But it had been a while since I had blogged, and I just felt the need to post. Aren't you glad? It's all going to work out. But until then, maybe I'll start wearing strange hats. Then I can be the crazy hat lady. That's the master plan! OH! Yes! Now I have it all figured out! Who knew crazy hats could be the answer? Thanks for helping me sort through this. :)

Ever Feel Like You're Five Again?

Here's a random moment of my life. Ok, this is me, the fact that I would blog about something random really shouldn't surprise you. Let's do this.

I have acquired a new and completely irrational fear. I have NO idea where this came from. Maybe something is wrong with my inner ear or something. Whatever the reason I am now scared of falling out of my bed. Let me explain to you how stupid this is. (I know, you're thinking "why explain? Yep, it's stupid.") The way my bed is currently placed, if I am laying/lying (I've never known which was right and I'm too lazy to check now) down on my back the head of my bed and the left side of my bed are against a wall. For some reason, any time I lay on my left side, so that my back is towards the rest of my bedroom, I have this fear of falling. It's like vertigo, but not. And just to see if I was really crazy, one night I turned so my head was at the foot of my bed, turned over onto my right side, and had the same sensation.

My bed is not tall. It's not on cinder blocks. It's not on anything except for it's short little bed frame that is only 6" off the ground. Then add the box springs and the mattress, and I am 2' off the ground max. And it's not like I have sharp knives on the floor next to my bed that could impale me if I happen to roll too far. Just a few books, and sometimes my computer. Nothing that could hurt me. I haven't been scared of falling out of bed since... well ever. I used to fall out of bed when I was a kid. I remember doing it at least once. It never bothered me, except I would get cold on the floor without a blanket. And I'll be honest, I don't sleep on the top bunk. That scares me, but at least then I'm a good 6 feet off the ground. That seems a little bit valid...ish.

Totally irrational. Like I said before, let's blame it on an inner ear problem or something.

I Have Mad Skills

Really. I know, you're all jealous. Let me tell you what I'm talking about this time.

I just fixed my jacket. This is my MTC jacket, that unfortunately I am way to attached to. It is also basically the only jacket I have right now that is even close to being warm enough. It got dirty, so I washed it. Then much to my dismay, when I went to get it out of the drier the zipper was broken! As hard as this is for me to admit... I was temped to cry. I know, it's just stupid jacket, but I really like it. I saved the pieces, and filching my sister's super glue, went to work. Now i had to be careful, cause if I used too much glue, it would be all over and then the zipper wouldn't zip. BUT if you use too little, it won't hold. It really was a precarious situation.

As I gathered all of the parts around me, I could hear the low drone of stringed instruments humming in anticipation. After hours of careful planning and sketching out my options... Ok, that's not true at all. But I fixed it! And the zipper still goes! And the parts are sticking together!

Of course I got super glue on my fingers. That's just something that goes with the territory. So what if I can't feel my fingers for the next 3 weeks as I wait for this extra skin to wear off. I have an MTC jacket!

That Tender Mercy is ONLY for Missionaries

I've moved a lot in my life. Not because my dad had some crazy job and uprooted the entire family every year to go pursue other cool things. But because I apparently turned 18, and this entirely dormant gene kicked into action turning me into a Nomad. In the past six years, I have moved five times. (That is counting going away to college in Aug and returning in April as one... so if you wanted to, you could say I have moved 10 times.... Yeah... let's say that, that makes my story sound so much better) I mean have moved 10 times!

During the middle of all of these moves, I decided to serve a mission. I packed my two largest suitcases, weighed them carefully (they were 49.9 lbs and 50.1 lbs respectively) and went to serve the people of New York. Then on the mission I moved another 4 and a half times. Just trust me on the half... that's another story. Once in NY, I didn't have to worry about keeping myself to 2 suitcases. I had a lot of stuff. But as long as my companion and I could fit it in our car on transfer day, I was allowed to... spread my wings a little bit. And spread I did. I've never been a light packer. It's like I have this crazy fear that the world will come to an end if I don't have my own little mini iron, a stapler, and some shout wipes when I go ... Next door to baby sit. Ok, it's not that bad.

I just realized, this is a lot of build up for a very simple purpose. Maybe I'm making up for lack of posts? Let's go with that idea.

Every time I moved on my mission, I would arrive at my destination and have everything I packed. I could find it all, I would unpack it, and life was great. I didn't realize this, because I just didn't stress about it. My stuff was always there.

BUT IN THE REAL WORLD... I lose EVERYTHING! It doesn't seem to matter what I do. I unpack and half of my life is gone. And it's not all just simple, $2 replace me items. I just don't understand. It's like I have some secret goblin who eats a little bit of everything that rides with me in my car. As I'm driving down the road, excited/nervous to start a new part of my life, he's just sitting back there eating to his heart's content. I can just hear him, with his little menacing giggle "Heh, heh, heh... she only thought she wanted these shoes... and her remote for her TV... and her mouse for her laptop... and her photo album... yeah!" *munch* *munch* *munch*

Apparently, all mission cars are equipped with anti-munchy-goblin repellent. This is a tender mercy of the Lord that I was so grateful on my mission. But apparently it is ONLY reserved for missionaries.

"I will eat all of your cool stuff!"

The Glory of Unlimited

Well... It's been a while. I'll see what I can do to fix that. It's just, really, my life is kind of boring. I enjoy it, but most occurrences are things that no one else would care about. For example... I was at church for 10 hours yesterday. Are you excited? No? Hmm... sorry about that.

It may not really get better, but I had a funny moment today, and thought I would share, seeing as it has been over two weeks.

I'm on a family plan for my cell phone. We have unlimited texting. Today I discovered that this is a very good thing. Apparently, last month, I sent, and received 897 texts. I'm sure that many of you have sent more, or know someone who sends more, but that is a TON for me.

So I would like to take a minute and thank all of you for texting me. Thank you for helping me achieve this momentous occasion. Just to be cool, let's see if I can get over 1000 this month. Good idea?

Does She Have a Mute Button?

I'm in a choir. It's pretty big. Not big as in, we are super famous and everyone wants to be us. More big as in, there are a lot of warm bodies singing. Sunday we have a concert, and one of the songs we are singing has a solo. Tonight, right after rehearsal, they were holding auditions for said solo. I'm in this choir with L5 and we were debating on auditioning or not. Let's be honest, I really wanted to audition, but I'm a total chicken. But I told her if she did it, I would. I spent the entire 90 minute rehearsal prepping myself for the audition. Little internal pep talks and all that. Then L5 remembered an important fact: we may not be at the concert. Our parents are getting set apart for their next mission that night, and we don't know what time that is going to be at. Right at the end of rehearsal, L5 decided we shouldn't audition, so we got ready to go home. But we needed to tell our director that we may not be at the concert. We stop to tell him and he tells us to audition anyway. As soon as L5 said we weren't auditioning, all of my pep talks were thrown out the window. WHAT? You want me to do what? Now? No prepping? AHHHH!

We sit, and wait our turn, and I'm going to go first. Lots of people are going, and they sound good and I'm just sitting there and my throat is getting drier and drier, and I'm totally freaking out, and I keep eying the door, but my turn is getting closer and closer. I notice that the podium is not down as far as it goes. Only being 5'2", I decide that I will lower the podium the rest of the way and go. As I walk towards the podium, I reach down to move it... and it doesn't move. It's as low as it goes. That means I'm going to look like a 5 year old with my hands up to my chest standing on my tip-toes to see over the podium. This is where the normal freak out Paily comes out. This is what happens: Everyone looks at me funny cause I tried to move the podium. So I have to explain it. Then I see a little stool for the short kids, and I ask if I can use it. At this point I am talking as quickly as possible and not breathing, and my mouth is as dry as if I had been sucking on saltine crackers for the last 3 hours. A nice guy gets the stool for me, and I'm giggling cause I'm nervous. I stand up on my little stool and explain my shortness again, and say my name. One man asks for clarification on my last name and I say it again. Then I go off on how it's Danish... or is it Swedish... Well it used to be this, but then it got changed, but this is how you spell it, cause my great-great grandfather (insert a few more greats) was from one place and I should have just pulled out my 4 generation pedigree chart. Do they care? Nope. Not really. Then I'm sure to inform them that I'm cute... cause that has to do with anything.... I sang. It was fun. I made some people smile. There is no way in anything that I will get it. I feel good about that option. But really... Why do I talk so much, so fast. These are nice men. They were just smiling and laughing. If I were them, I would have been searching for that crazy girl's mute button. Seriously.

So that's my story. I totally freaked out. Ha ha. I'm sure I'll laugh more about it later. But for any of you that know me, just picture me in standard freak out stage. Yep. It was pretty cool. Someday maybe you can be as cool, calm and collected as I am. Keep trying. You'll get there. :P

(You will notice this is run on and crazy. I'm not editing it to make it different. It will give you a hint of how I really felt. Scary, eh?)

And, also, on a completely unrelated note... If you have a headache, and go for a ride in my car, I have 16 ibuprofen floating around. Just let me know how many you use so I can know what I have left. :)