My favorite subject

Thurm & I spent Friday night and Saturday morning with two couples from our ward at a cabin in Kamus. When we first moved into the ward last October, these same people creepily surrounded us in Sunday school and invited us to said cabin. I have to admit I was scared they were going to take us up in the woods and make us join their cult. It never worked out for us to go to the cabin till this weekend. And thankfully, there were no rituals, and we had a fun time. One of the husbands, Tom, was a riot. The type of guy that has a story for everything and lives to entertain. I've decided that every good group has to have one of these people. In a matter of 8 hours every controversial subject you can think of was discussed. Its always so interesting getting to know people on a deeper level than just the polite "how do you do's" at church. I felt like both couples had laid out alot of their dirty laundry. I know they expected the same of Thurm & I, but we are both much more private than that. It was one of the cases where I thought one of the women had a perfect life and came from a rich, religious family, but that wasn't the case. Her family had tons of heartache and problems. It made me thankful for Thurm's and my family. We aren't perfect, but basically everyone is living a good life. On our drive home I asked Thurm if he thought everyone liked us and his reply was "people like them always love people like us." Meaning, people who like to entertain need to have people like us to laugh and their jokes. Lesson re-learned: I'm a fairly negative person and I always think people are so shallow, but then I get to know them and I remember that I really love people. And that everyone has something interesting about them or something to add to my life.
Other Weekend Activities: Thurm's cousin's reception, I ate about 20 chocolate covered strawberries : ) mmmm. My brother, Wade and family have moved to SLC! (I'm going to show them a good time to try and convince them that SLC is great if you can just get past the overwhelming Mormon culture.) Went to a ward picnic in the park. Thurm won the pie eating contest. We together won the 3-legged race. Went swimming, watched Apocalypto, read, laid on the grass in the shade, played Bocce. Great weekend.

Thurm & I had a fun day yesterday. We decided to go to the Arts Festival downtown after work. We first ate at Tony Caputto's for dinner, an Italian deli named after the owner. Tony served me my trio salad : ) If you have the chance, get the "Caputto" sandwich....mmm... good stuff.
Then we went to Library Square where the Festival was taking place. We stopped inside the library to use the restroom and saw they had a Salt Lake film festival going on. So we watched 82 minutes of 10 short films. The one we both voted for was a documentary about how our military censors the media. The guy who directed it was a soldier in Iraq. His job was to shoot film and give stories to the US media. But he was ordered to tell "happy" stories or at least stories that shed good light on the US. It wasn't surprising or shocking...we know that our media is censored and biased. But it was great that someone who was there and apart of it wanted people to know what was going on.
There was one other short that was really interesting too. A high-school girl who found out her step-mom was a meth addict decided to make a documentary. She was surprised to find out that Utah is #3 in the nation for meth users (isn't Wyoming #1?). And even more surprising is that its more common with women. She interviewed recovering female addicts and found out some of the reasons women liked meth so much in the beginning. They lost weight, some 20 lbs in the first week. They had tons of energy to clean the house, make dinner for the family, run errands, etc. But obviously after awhile, they didn't care about the clean house, making dinner, taking care of their kids... all they cared about was getting their next hit. And eventually it ruined their lives.
After we watched the shorts we went to the Art Festival. The most entertaining part of the evening was a fashion show. And people watching of course. Community events tend to bring out the most colorful people.
Tonight we are going to Kamus to a cabin with three couples from our ward. We have to make couple friends now : ( Tomorrow we are attending Thurm's cousin, Lexi's, reception. After that we are helping my brother, Wade, unload his u-haul. He is moving to SLC for a year for an internship at the U. And Saturday night is a ward BBQ at the neighborhood park. Busy weekend. And somewhere in all that I need to prepare for my primary choir and wash our sink full of dishes. All this and we don't even have kids yet.

The $800 Haircut

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/HomeMortgageSavings/haircut.aspx

At least I didn't spend $800 for a haircut!!!

I just paid $85 for a haircut. That is insane and yet I paid it willingly because I knew I was going to get a great cut. I rationalize this because in the last 2 years I've had long hair and have only cut it a few times. And I never paid over $35 for a haircut. So really I've been saving money. My hair is very short now. Its technically a bob. But its a very cute bob. I'll have to post before and after pictures.

Friday night Thurm & I drove an hour & a half to Mirror Lake which is in the Uintahs past Kamus. We found a great spot to camp away from everyone else near a meadow. It was really beautiful, other than the SWARMS of mosquitos. However, my brilliant husband figured out that if you burn tree sap it works as a mosquito repellant! I always think I love camping until about 4am when I’m freezing and sore from the hard ground. The next morning we walked around Mirror Lake and sang “Touch Me” by The Doors.
I also finally finished Jane Eyre. I loved it! We rented the A&E version of it and watched it on Sunday. I didn't really like the actor who played Mr. Rochester, but thought they did a pretty good job of following the book. I've started reading "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood. I read her book "The Handmaid's Tale" and have put it on my top 10 favorite books. "Cat's Eye", however, is not going to make the cut. I do like her writing style, I'm just not as in-love with this book.

High Expectations

I read an article today about how kids are delusional about money. They did a poll and most kids think they will earn six figure incomes. Here is the reality:

Median earnings of men who worked full time, year round in 2005, the latest year for which Census Bureau statistics are available, was $41,386.

Women working full time made a median $31,858.

Fewer than 5% of the U.S. population makes more than $100,000, according to the bureau. Only one household out of six report a six-figure income, according to the Federal Reserve's 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances.

Last night I woke up because Thurm was making sounds, sort of groans, in his sleep. I was afraid he was having a bad dream, so I woke him up. Turns out he was having a dream about Ben, his brother. They were in the basement of their parent’s house and there was a table with six hard boiled eggs the size of watermelons. Thurm turned around for a minute and when he turned back Ben had eaten all the eggs and was running up the stairs. So the sounds Thurm was making in his sleep was disbelief. For some reason this dream struck me as hilarious and I laughed uncontrollably for about five minutes. It was the kind of laughter that I couldn’t have stopped if my life depended on it. It was like I was drunk. Good thing Thurm isn’t cranky at four in the morning, he just laughed with me.

Late to Work

This morning I woke up a few minutes before my cell phone alarm usually goes off. When it didn’t go off I went to look for my phone and purse and came to the realization that I left it in the car last night that Thurm took to work an hour earlier. My purse had all my money, my phone, and my keys. My first thought was to get a taxi to take to work… oh wait, no money, no phone to call one. So I walked over the Sinclair and tried to use a pay phone (it was out of order) but ended up using their store phone. (Side Note: I was a little intimidated to use a pay phone. I’ve only used one few times in my life and they were mostly in a foreign country, which is a nightmare to try and figure out. I don’t think I’ve ever made a call from a pay phone successfully by myself). Anyway, I called work and told them I’d try to find a way to get to work, but don’t expect me in unless they heard back from me. I called Thurm who had the brilliant idea of riding the bus. I looked it up on the internet (thank goodness for the world wide web) and found a route that would take me 1 hour 45 mins (if all ran smoothly) and 3 bus changes. How is it possible that people use public transportation every day of their lives? Running one errand would take up your whole night! I found $3.00 in change lying around the house, which was enough to make it to work and back on the bus. Luckily, a co-worker, who I had emailed about not coming into work today, offered to come pick me and took me to work. With no traffic it only took up a half-hour out of her day, but I still felt bad and like a total space cadet.

The point of this story is I felt completely lost without my phone and a car. I am so used to being completely independent and never needing to rely on anyone or anything but myself, that I didn’t know what to do besides stay at home for the rest of the day. I don’t have any phone numbers memorized because they are just programmed into my phone. I wouldn’t even know who to call because Thurm and I have been living in marriage bliss for the last 6 months and haven’t made any friends in the neighborhood. And what friends I do have in SLC I haven’t kept in touch with because again “marriage bliss.” I always use a debit card, so I don’t keep cash lying around the house. Whine, whine, whine. I realize that this all sounds so “American Middle Class.” And I have lived without a phone and a car before and I’ve done just fine. It just really through me for a loop this morning. It made me very grateful for the conveniences I have. And I have made a vow to use public transportation to run an errand, make a list of phone numbers to keep at my house and at work, and to keep a $20 bill in my underwear drawer.

Working For The Weekend - Loverboy
Everyone's watching, to see what you will doEveryone's looking at you, ohEveryone's wondering, will you come out tonightEveryone's trying to get it right, get it rightEverybody's working for the weekendEverybody wants a little romanceEverybody's goin' off the deep endEverybody needs a second chance, ohYou want a piece of my heartYou better start from startYou wanna be in the showCome on baby lets goEveryone's looking to see if it was youEveryone wants you to come throughEveryone's hoping it'll all work outEveryone's waiting they're holding outEverybody's working for the weekendEverybody wants a little romanceEverybody's goin' off the deep endEverybody needs a second chance, ohYou want a piece of my heartYou better start from startYou wanna be in the showCome on baby lets go(quick break)You want a piece of my heartYou better start from startYou wanna be in the showCome on baby lets goYou want a piece of my heartYou better start from startYou wanna be in the showCome on baby lets go