Hillcrest High School Class of 1999!

Life is complicated. We start thinking we know where we will end up but often find ourselves surprised by the twist and turns of the path before us. I have been pondering this lately with the impending arrival of my 10 year high school reunion next month. My first thoughts were, "10 years? Seriously? Where did the time go?" There are regrets especially when I realized that I have not kept in contact with a single person from that time of my life. Initially my reason for not keeping in contact was that I have ended up such a completely different person than I was, but guess what, so has everybody else! (In theory of course, 10 years should have something to show for itself right?) I don't think I truly knew who I was as a person until well into my twenties. Here are some realizations that I will need to remember next month.

Yes, the majority of the people I will be hoping to see are married and have children. I am not married and have no children. However, I am satisfied with my life right now. Do I want to be single for the rest of my life? No. But I value the experiences and lessons I have learned from this time of my life. Everything that I have learned in the last 10 years have made me, in my opinion, a better person. Those lessons and experiences would probably not have been the same had I been married.

I do not have a glamorous job. Some of the people from my graduating class are well known TV personalities, staffers for Presidents, engineers for Cirque du Soleil, musicians and lawyers. I don't have a job like that. But I do have the great opportunity of teaching children with special needs. It took me a while to find my niche, but from all the things that I have done, I have come to the realization that I enjoy and succeed the most when I have a job that allows me to help others.

My accomplishments over the last 10 years may not impress most, but here are some things I can be proud of:

• I have an awesome music collection. My Cd's are housed in 5 different cases of over 200+ and are separated into categories for easier navigation. I also have a spreadsheet that allows you to search by artist, genre, or year.
• I have become a pretty decent cook. I may not cook for many other than myself most of the time, but through one of my jobs I have become innovative and can not only make my own chocolate dessert syrup but also a pretty darn good meatloaf.
• I know a lot of seemingly useless and random facts, mostly about life from the 1930's, 40's and 50's. This comes from working with Alzheimer's and dementia patients for 4 years.
• I made a difference in finding a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. Not necessarily a measurable one, but for 15+ years I volunteered at their main Utah fundraiser and spent 4 of those years on their fund raising board, the last two as the Rest Stop Chair.
• I have written music. Mostly religious in nature, I am finally letting some people see it.

So. for my 10 year reunion I say, bring it on! Sure some of the old insecurities will arise, but I will just have to remember this list. Hillcrest High School class of 1999 classmates, see you in a little less than a month!

Six Days and Counting

I am super excited because in six days I will get to see my niece and nephew!! I have not seen them except in pictures and on Skype since Christmas 2007. It is hard that they live so far away. I wish I could go visit all the time. Aubree and Garrett have gotten so big and I just can't wait to see them!!





Oh, and I guess it's probably time to see my sister and brother-in-law too. ;)

Buffy vs. Edward

My sister pointed me to this link and I think it's pretty hysterical. I only hope that the next movie follows the pattern of the Harry Potter's in that they have gotten better the more they do. Twilight was..... eh. Could have been better.

The Bug List

Here is where the ranting comes in a little bit. Just a few of the things that are bugging me lately.

1. Neighbors who let their dogs poop on my lawn and don't clean it up. This led to a very nasty barefoot incident that I would rather not recount. I don't mind that our yard has become the common neighborhood property, we don't use it so someone should, just clean up after your dogs!
   
2. People I work with who blame their messes on rental groups. I know for a FACT that last Sunday night when a rental group left that my kitchen was pristine. I stopped in to take some meat out of the freezer for Monday morning. Monday morning when I got there at 6 a.m. the kitchen was a disaster!!! I was seriously ticked. Especially when the staff tried to blame it on the rental group.
   
3. A certain member of staff who is always telling me what I am doing wrong. Believe me when it's something obvious like food, I know when I mess something up. You don't need to come in the kitchen and tell me what I should have done.
4. Thursdays. I am not fond of Thursdays at the moment. It is the day when I get my food order for the next week in, which in and of itself is not a problem except that it is also the day that the campers have sack lunches. Between the hours of 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. I have to make 120 or more sack lunches AND put away a literal ton of perishable food. NOT FUN my friends.
5. The CD drive on my laptop. For some reason it has decided to stop burning discs. At work I live by music mixes made on my laptop. It still plays Cd's and DVD's but just doesn't feel like burning anything anymore. Bummer.
6. The ads for that new car the Cube. Not only does the car look weird to me, but that new song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs grates on my ears.
7. Excruciating pain. It really should go without saying right? But I have some weird shooting pain in my hip that is possibly from a pinched nerve since X-Rays have shown nothing. The problem is that I would love to take the muscle relaxants that were prescribed for me, but they adversely react with a medication that I have to take on a daily basis.
   
8. People with whom I share space that talk loudly on the phone until 3 or 4 in the morning and also insist on turning on and off their light during that time ensuring that I have a difficult time getting to sleep when I have to get up at 5 a.m.
9. Hot weather. You would think that after 28 years of living in a desert state that at some point I would adjust to high temperatures. Luckily this summer has been relatively cool. However now that the temperatures are on the rise I have the issue of also working in a kitchen where I am often running a convection oven, a conventional oven, a griddle and an industrial stove top. Sometimes all at once. Oh and did I mention gas powered? Needless to say it gets hot.
10. Good TV shows that get canceled. I have probably said something about this before but after investing myself in Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, and a few other shows they have been canceled.
    

Favorite Quotes

Intelligent people sometimes say very profound things. Sometimes profound statements come from unexpected sources.

"My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated nd more intelligent than college professors."
- Maya Angelou

"We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."
- Angelina Jolie

"A day without laughter is a day wasted."
- Charlie Chaplin

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."
- Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace

"I've been on so many blind dates, I should get a free dog."
- Wendy Liebman

"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter."
- James Earl Jones

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands-- and then eat just one of the pieces."
- Judith Viorst

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
- Aldous Huxley

Happy Independence Day! Let's Go to Canada!!

I was listening to NPR today and heard something interesting. For some reason Homeland Security felt the need to send out an alert to Fourth of July travelers to remind them to bring their passports when traveling to Canada, Mexico and the Carribean. Hooray! I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the independence of the United States from Great Britian than to travel..... to another country.