the park!!

last wednesday me and mom took emery and evan to the park. i know she's been waiting for these, and i'm just now getting around to it. yep, i'm that busy.

emery

evan

now you may think that the pictures below are of evan trying to climb UP the slide, but you'd be wrong. this is what happens when he tries to go DOWN the slide by himself. if you look close, you can see his little fingers clinging to the metal for deal life. it was hilarious!

who says you only get new toys for christmas?

here's my new toy!! i went and bought a new tent today. it's just a little 2-man tent (or 1-woman, as the case may be) and really light. i got this one just in case i decide to go backpacking. lighter is better. this is the same view of the tent, one with the fly, the other without. and it fit just right in my living room, so for those of you who have been there, you know how big my tent is. now i just need to get a camp stove. . . i'm ready to play!!

montoya's bridge farm, continued

i'm pleased to announce that montoya's bridge farm is growing!! the number of bridges currently being constructed is now 5! it's like the just sprouted up out of the ground or something. maybe someday when i have a bit of time, i'll go for a little walk with my camera so that you all can be part of the excitement. . . don't lie to yourself, i know you're excited for this one.

mission story #17, or the mtc ducks

as i was driving to work today near sugarhouse park, i almost ran over a mallard. i turned the corner to see her waddling across the street. i thought it odd, until i saw she was chasing after a her man duck. it made me smile as i remembered that there was a pair of mallards that waddled around the mtc the whole time i was there. you'd see them pretty much everywhere, and they were always together. i forget if they had ducklings. i want to say no, but if i said yes, the picture in your mind would be so much cuter. anyway, the mallards always minded their own business and didn't seem to get mad, even when elder baucom chased after them like a mad man. they just ran away as fast as they could, probably wondering if there was any way they could get out of the mortgage on their current nest, in hopes of finding one with better neighbors.

awol

i really wish i could be. spring break doesn't count as spring break if you still have to go to work every day. i'm kinda grouchy about having to be back in school already. i'm even grouchier at the thought of how little i was able to accomplish during the break. i'm still super tired and want to go to bed right now, but still have a good 2 hours of homework time to put in before i turn in. the two big projects of the week are to write a rough draft of my term paper for my international political economy class (exact topic still undetermined) and to write a rough draft of my teaching philosophy (also still undetermined). it's going to be a great week. but at least my dinner made me happy tonight. black beans and rice and patacones (because i found a perfectly green plaintain at walmart today). aaah, comfort food.

kitchen gadget of the day

this is my favorite kitchen gadget today: the chip bag closer. it usually takes a month or more for me to eat a whole bag of chips, and thanks to this little gadget, it's like opening a new bag every time. and the nice thing about them is that they are not exclusively for chip bags. they also work well for frozen veggie bags or pasta bags or cereal bags or any other stale-prone item bags. way to go to whoever thought this one up.

on the way to work

today as i was driving to work, i saw a great sign. there's some construction being done on I-80 and they are replacing a bunch of the overpasses. rather than closing a city street for a month or more, they are building the bridges off site and then moving them into place. right now they are making 3 such bridges at the 13th east exit because there's some extra space there. today there was a new construction sign (the orange ones with the black lettering) that says "montoya's bridge farm." 1. who knew that bridges grew on farms? 2. that guy montoya has some sweet hook ups if he can get a sign like that. i want to know who he knows.

spring break

so i went all out on this one. i figured out how to make an actual slide show of my little trip to arches np rather than having to make a super long posts with a whole bunch of pictures. i went with my friend debbie willes from my ward, and it was so much fun. we are so much a like that it's almost scary. the good thing is that after 30 straight hours together, we still have stuff to talk about. anyway, we hiked delicate arch, and did a few other little hikes around the park, but decided to head home when the snow started falling. it's a good thing i got those windshield wipers fixed, because i needed them! i feel like i can go back to work this week and then be productive with my homework, etc, because i have a ton of it. my new dream is to one day have a real break from school and work at the same time and just spend a good chunk of time doing absolutely nothing important. unrealistic, yes. but a girl can still dream, can't she?

simple minds, simple pleasures

i found a dollar in the garden in front of my house. and then i went to the 7-eleven :)

i see you're available. . .

at work my friend andy got a promotion and a brand new cubicle right next to mine. as part of his promotion, he gets to see who's on the phone and who's available to take another phone call. so this morning, right as i hung up from a phone call he says through the wall, "so, lizzie, i see you're available. would you like me to give your number to some people?" and i said, "um, yeah. but be smart about it." nothing, of course, will come of it because andy is convinced that i'll end up married to one of my students. he asks me every week if i think any of them are cute. sure, they're cute. like, you were in middle school when i graduated from COLLEGE, cute. yeah, i'll pass on that one. . .

free is better than not free

so i checked my mailbox at school to find my long-awaited letter telling me how awesome the department thinks i am and how they would love nothing more than to give me lots and lots of money. yes, it was none other than my award letter for next year's teaching assistantship. hooray for me!! another year of free school!! and i'm getting a raise, too. 10% to be exact. this year i got free tuition and a $10,000 stipend. next year i get free tuition and an $11,000 stipend. that's like $25 more every week. they love me, what can i say?

thoughts on wyoming

• loaf-n-jug. i think it's a funny name for a convenience store, even if it is very descriptive. it just sounds a little off, i think.
• drive-thru liquor stores. i know they don't serve open beverages, but it's really just begging for trouble.
• along the lines of the liquor stores, the liquor store-pharmacy combo is especially ironic. just think about it.
• more thoughts on convenience stores. i stopped at the flying-j in evanston to get a drink and some cheeto puffs. problem #1-no mint tea. problem #2-no cheeto puffs. but i could have purchased any number of items that would appeal strongly to professional truckers, such as motivational books on cd, big gaudy fake rings that look like class rings, and any other number of western paraphenalia that can only be found in a quasi-truck stop. so in my opinion, the flying-j is more of an inconvenience store, not quite to the degree of gary larson, but close.
• across from the flying-j there's a little porn shop that advertizes the following: magazines, videos, novelties, arcade. what kind of arcade is it?! i probably shouldn't even ask. and then the sign says it's an adult shoppe. yes, that's how they spell it, as if that somehow makes it less sleazy if they add the extra "pe".

i realize that this whole thing has been about stores. convenience, liquor, adult. i guess that's my entire impression of wyoming between the border and exit 91.

spring fever

it's officially almost spring, and it even almost feels like it sometimes. this is what i like about spring

• how 40 degree weather no longer warrants a coat
• first car wash that doesn't freeze your doors shut
• crocuses peeking through the snow.
• spring break (even if i still have to work every day)
• getting really great parking spots at school because more people are walking
• the urge to go hiking, camping, be outdoors in general
• cadbury creme eggs
• daylight savings (mixed feelings here really. this year's okay. i have 1:00 church)

my list was much longer and better earlier, but i'm now sitting in my basement and it's gone now.

mission story # 2668

i think it's about time for another mission story. it's been a while. i don't know why i was thinking about this the other day, but it always makes me laugh. so at all of the churches in ecuador, they are surrounded by big fences with padlocked gates. my companion and i (it was hna moss at the time) were at the church waiting for something. we were inside the gate with the ward mission leader and some other people. we may have been there for a baptism interview or something, but i forget. anyway, we locked the gate behind us. the zone leader elder dannelley was on splits with elder molyneux (we were in the mtc together). the other zone leader had the keys to the church, so they couldn't get in. no one moved immediately to let them in, and louise just looked at them and said, "foolish, foolish virgins." to which elder molyneux, age 24, replied, "how do you know?" and we were just trying to make a simple scriptural reference. i couldn't really laugh at the moment because there's no telling how honest he was being, but now i laugh every time i think about it. hope i didn't butcher it too much. maybe it was just a you-had-to-be-there moment.

retail therapy

one might ask why i could possibly need another pair of heels when i already had this many


the answer to that question is that i didn't have a pair of these before

that's right, yellow shoes. and not just yellow shoes, but patent yellow shoes. they were so so cute that they demanded to come home with me, even though i could think of nothing off the top of my head that i could wear them with. irrelevant. i've figured it out. wore them to church today. so sometime in the middle of sacrament meeting i got a little note from a girl sitting a few seats down on my row. i couldn't even tell you her name, but she is an architect and always looks super super cute. this is what the note said, "cute CUTE yellow shoes! don't forget to thank Heavenly Father for giving you amazing taste! :) Have a good day!" and how could i not after a note like that? it almost goes without saying that i love my ward a lot.

i, of course, couldn't let the yellow shoes come home all alone. it can be lonely being the only new pair of shoes in the closet. so i found this cute pair of chuck taylors on the clearance rack. only $20, i might add. (i'm not telling how much the other ones cost. i will just say that sometimes it's good to be single and not have to account for my purchases to anyone but me. i will say that i got all of the shoes at DSW, which has everything on sale all of the time.)

and finally, the shoes that i actually intended to buy. a nice pair of not too casual, not too dressy black shoes. kenneth cole reaction. super comfy shoes. the last pair of heels from the first picture are also kenneth cole reaction. they are by far the most comfy heels i've ever worn. kudos to kenneth cole.

this round of retail therapy has, unfortunately, delayed my next planned purchase (tent and camp stove) for a week or two, but kirkhams doesn't get their spring/summer stock for a few more weeks anyway, so i'm totally good.