Since I've Been Away...

• I've realized I can't not read my blogs. It's bad. I'm addicted. But I didn't write! And I didn't Facebook! So that's something, right?
• Heath Ledger passed away, as I'm sure you all know. Not too saddened, but I recall many a day spent mooning over his handsome visage in high school.
  
• Gordon B. Hinckley passed away. He was the prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I don't really remember a time when he wasn't the prophet. I remember vaguely when President Hunter, the one before him, passed away, but really I just remember that it was in the newspaper and I thought it was cool that the Church was in the paper. I'm not sad really. He was a wonderful man, and I will miss him, his sense of humor and his obvious love, but he was 97, and his wife passed away a few years back, and he has missed her. They are together now, and I think he is happy. I also know that the Church will go on and that the next prophet will be just as wonderful and inspired as President Hinckley was.
• I had my 22nd birthday on Monday. I spent it quietly. Sunday evening my roommate made a cake, and several of our neighbors and friends came over. They sang, I blew out all the candles (in one breath, so my wish will come true), and we all ate cake and talked and laughed (I'll try to post pictures and a video from our shindig eventually...they aren't on my camera). My actual birthday was spent at work and class and studying. We had our "family night", where we played Mafia and they killed me! Just because it was my birthday and I looked suspicious. And I was a townsperson! :)
• It has snowed and snowed and snowed. And then the wind blew 60mph, and then it snowed some more. And then, just to mix things up, it snowed sideways because the wind was blowing 60mph. We also had a weekend of beautiful weather, especially Saturday, when it was like 30 degrees and sunny! It was a-mazing.
  

See you in a week!

I think I might be taking a little break from most of the internet for a few days. By that I mean that I will be checking my email since my professors and employers contact me through that medium, and I will be doing research as required for my classes and work. I will not be writing on this blog (although I have an assignment due to a class blog this week so I will post there), or reading blogs, or Facebooking, or surfing Flickr and EBay, or doing any other extraneous clicking and dilly-dallying. The goal is to stay off until my birthday, a week from today, and hopefully I can hack it. Pretty pathetic, but such is my life. I noticed how much time I spend on the internet, and how much of that time is spent doing more or less useless stuff and how much of that time could be spent studying, writing, catching up with my scrapbooking, learning to like my roommates, walking, cooking, taking pictures, reading for pleasure, and doing all the other things that I enjoy and/or should be doing but don't because of my many hours on the internet.

Anne's Senior Pictures

Isn't she all grownup? Unfortunately, the snow was flying, but there wasn't enough on the ground to look pretty. She also didn't want to wear warm wintery clothes, opting for cute instead. Choosing fashion for comfort...I think she might be my sister after all (besides the fact we look so much alike). She kept making funny faces and Winnemucca, NV in the winter is not the most photogenic area.

I also keep noticing how I chopped off the top of her head in half of these. Crap. And that dang wind!

Feeling Blue and Nostalgic

One of my best friends from high school, Andrea, is getting married in about half an hour, and I'm not there. I feel terrible. I was supposed to be there, but on Thursday my sister borrowed my car while I was in my night class and wrecked it, slid on the ice and rear ended an SUV. She's fine, her boyfriend is fine, there's no damage to the other car, but mine is damaged bad enough that it's not worth fixing my '92 Ford Escort, my car, that I bought with my own money. The radiator and power steering column are both broken, and the frame is bent, as well as the hood crumpled and the lights broken. I spent Thursday night and yesterday morning desperately trying to find a ride, any ride, to Provo, but I couldn't find one. Now, not only am I car-less for an unspecified amount of time, I am missing the most important day in the life of one of the people most important to me.

I don't remember meeting Andrea. I guess I've always known her, but I know that I haven't really. We did the annual Fourth of July program together, every year from kindergarten to fifth or sixth grade, and helped out every year thereafter; teaching dances, sewing spangles on costumes, applying pounds of makeup to small children, playing in the band (Andrea, not me), etc. We became friends in sixth grade, when we started middle school. We were in most of the same classes, together with the girls that would form the core of our group for basically the rest of school. We all had our ups and downs, but we all stayed close, at least until Andrea moved away to Indiana, the summer between our sophomore and junior years, the summer we thought I was moving. I always felt closer to Andrea to many of our other friends, maybe because we were the only Mormons in the group, maybe because I knew I could trust her implicitly. After Andrea moved, we kind of kept contact, with occasional phone calls and emails. Her family moved back the summer my family finally did move away, the summer of 2004, right after we graduated from high school. Now we attend college about four hours apart, and we manage to get together every time I make it down there to visit friends and my relatives. Every time we talk, whether in person or on the phone, it feels like we talked yesterday, not weeks ago. Of course, it helps now that both of us blog and use Facebook to stay caught up. I can turn to her when I need a friend, someone to talk to. I know things are going to change when she says I do, but I hope we can still be friends, still talk and laugh together, and I hope I have the opportunity to meet the man who will be her husband in less than an hour.

I know Andrea reads this, and I want to say, Andrea, I love you, and I'm so sad I can't be there with you on your special day. You are a wonderful friend, and a beautiful person inside and out. And if Trevor ever hurts you in any way, he better watch his back, because your friends will be after him.

Quick Update

Well, I'm back at school, classes start today. It's very snowy and obviously cold, and the roads are a huge mess (thank you, city of Rexburg). I'm going to Utah this weekend for Andrea and Trevor's wedding (so excited and happy for them!), hoping to see friends who I haven't seen in far too long.

 

Umm, yeah, I think that's basically all, my life isn't too exciting right now, but hopefully things will pick up.

 

Oh yeah, three new roommates, and let's just say it's going to be a very interesting semester...

Who are you?

Per the results of my poll over to the left, 78% of the people who read this don't know me in real life. Some of you are probably friends of friends, but some of you are bound to be strangers! So comment, all of you, I want to get to know you and hear what you've got to say!

 

20% of my readers (this doesn't quite add up to 100%, but whatever) know me; 10% for less than three years, and ten percent for three to ten years. Hi friends! :)

 

A real post detailing New Years Celebrations will follow shortly...hope yours was great!