New Hair

I've had several pictures taken of my new haircut that look way better than the last one I put up. So courtesy of Shana here are a few more pictures of the new hairdo.

No I did not go blonde, that's just Heidi's hair posing as mine.

Ruth-Ann and I eating our homemade dessert sushi

Playing with sparklers at Dave's wedding reception

Shana and I took some jumping pictures at the beach.

Dave's wedding reception (John tried to sneak into our picture)

Dance party in Heidi's car on the way to eating Pho at midnight

Beach hair

More beach fun

Time for a change

I can tell when it's time for me to get my hair cut (no the split ends don't even get me to cut it). It's time to get it cut when I just can't get myself to do anything with it anymore. Well I reached that point about a two weeks ago and started trying to find something to do with my hair and someone to do it. As luck would have it Kristen had just got her hair cut and she gave me the name of the person who does her hair. So instead of figuring out what I wanted to do I called and made an appointment before I could change my mind.
It had been a really long time since I had gone short and after weighing all the input everyone gave me I decided to chop it all off again. So here's a not so good picture of the short hair.


But I did get to donate my hair which was cool.

Weekend of Summer Magic

I decided to be rather random this weekend and head off to camp in the Angeles National Forest with a few friends. It was weird because I didn't really do any of the planning. Christy and Autumn were the masterminds behind it all. Martha and Lindsay picked me up Friday night and we headed up to the campground where Christy, Autumn and Phil had already set up camp. We got in just in the for dinner! Christy found some huge marshmallows, like 4x a big as regular ones which turned out to be quite a treat. She also found a rad roaster at the dollar store. It was supposed to be for fish, but we used it for toast, hot dogs, and buns. It was a wonderful invention. After a wonderful evening around the campfire we decided to turn in. It was a rather warm night and we didn't put the rain fly on because it was just too hot. Well during the night it started raining, but not hard, so we had to make some midnight adjustments. But thankfully Christy's tent was waterproof and we had a nice sleep. It was still raining when we woke up in the morning. But we got up and started building a fire and soon it stopped raining. After a delicious camping breakfast of salsa scrambled eggs we decided to go on a hike. Christy's sister, her husband and their little boy came up in the morning. We went on a great little hike and then decided to turn around when it became a little too strenuous for some shins. Christy, Martha, Lindsay and I went back to the camp and played some cards for a while. Then some people took a nap and I did some studying for the boards for a little while. I think my favorite part of the trip was that we didn't have a clock. I didn't know what time it was and didn't care because it just didn't matter. Martha made friends with a honey bee. It decided to crawl up her arm and wouldn't leave her alone. Then it crawled down her shirt. But thankfully it wasn't in the stinging mood. As soon as the bee was out of her shirt Martha went and hid in the tent to give him time to find a new love before coming out. We had a nice and relaxing afternoon and then just watched and sunset and ate dinner. It was another wonderful night of relaxing around the fire. It was much cooler Saturday night which was great because it was clear skys and we could see all the stars. Sunday morning we got up about 7:00, ate breakfast and then headed back down to the city so we could make it to church on time. This weekend was just what I needed after a rather stressful week. I think I need a weekend away in nature about once a month.

Adios escuela

It is with some mixed feelings that I formally end my education at USC. Friday was my last day of fieldwork and thus my last day as a USC student. It's amazing how quickly this time has gone by. It seems like just a couple of months ago I moved to LA without a clue what I was doing. These past two years have been good to me. Now I just wish the same for the next. Somehow I thought I would have more time once fieldwork was over, but considering that I'm still employed by USC for one more week, excess time has not materialized yet. Or maybe once I have taken my boards I will have extra time since I will no longer have to study for them. On second thought I'm hoping to find a job by the time I take the boards which will end up taking up lots of time. So I guess this wonder known as free time will continue to evade me.

Snippet from a "normal" week

As my fieldwork approaches an end (only 2 weeks left) it seems appropriate to give an example of what life has been like this summer for me. We'll take this last week for the example.

THURSDAY:
Get up, go walking, read scriptures, get ready for work. Spend the rest of the time I had left before I go to work studying for the Occupational Therapy boards I have to take in September. Catch the bus about noon and go to work. Work until about 6:30 with the cutest kids ever. They really are so much fun to work with. And the therapists I work with are amazing as well. Get home in time to grab my stuff and head off to the temple. I got there early which was good since there were probably about 100 people there to do baptisms. It's great to see the temple so busy. After a great time at the temple head over to Allana's to drop off some much needed cookies to her. Talks with Allana and McKenzie for a while until I convince myself it's time to go home and go to sleep.

FRIDAY:
Wake up about 7:00, make sure car is moved to Josh and Jeff's garage so I don't get a parking ticket for street cleaning. Get ready and leave for work at the clinic so I can be there in time to plan for our Friday Summer Camp from 10-1. Continue working until about 6:30 with enough time to snatch lunch bites between patients. Come home, meet Shana, grab dinner and take her to the airport. Come home and decompress on the couch before I attempt to go to sleep.

SATURDAY:
Wake up early enough that I can go walking and not roast to death in the heat, before 8:00. Shower and take off for Orange County to go to Mike and Laurel's house for Jeremy's 2nd birthday party. Spend several hours there catching up with the family and eating way too much food. Plus partaking of a cake made in the shape of a tractor. Laurel does amazing things with cake. About 3:30 decide I'd better come home and get caught in traffic on the 405 because there is a brush fire right off the freeway near Long Beach. By 5:00 make it home. Start getting ready for the film festival ward activity with Santa Monica ward. Michelle calls to say that they need help getting everything ready so it will be done by the time everyone gets there. Quickly finish getting ready and head to the church. Help put up a film strip representing the movie Vertigo and then partake of the 18 wonderful films that were made by members of our wards. It was a wonderful activity. After it was over I jumped in the car and went to the store to buy food for the birthday dinner that was happening the next day.

SUNDAY:
Wake up, write Thomas his weekly e-mail, read the lessons for church, get ready for church, make cake for the birthday dinner, head to church. Wait for 15 minutes until they let us in to ward council. After ward council have our fellowshipping committee meeting in the hallway since there are no empty rooms in the church at that time. Then it was finally time for church. Found out we had a new committee member!!! Hurray for that. After church it was time to put the cakes out for munch and mingle. I took off a little early to head home in time to grab the food fo the birthday dinner and head to the bishop's house to make dinner before all the birthday people got there. The rest of the committe caught up with me after munch and mingle was cleaned up. We had a great birthday dinner at the bishop's house for the July birthdays. Seriously, people don't know what they're missing out on when they don't come on their birthday month. About 9:00 I made it home. Ahhhh relaxation.

MONDAY:
Leave by 7:00 so I can get to work at USC by 7:30 so I can leave work by 3:30. Since my clinic isn't open on Mondays I decided to keep working at USC through the summer. Can't have a day off in the week. Wouldn't know what to do with that. Plus a little money coming in is good. Didn't actually leave work until 3:45 so I had to race home and fight traffic but got here at 4:25. Run in and throw on a dress to be ready when Eric picked me up at 4:30 to go to Chelsea and Jonathan's wedding reception. The reception was so much fun. My friend Chelsea from BYU married Jonathan, my friend Eric from LA's little brother. I had a great time seeing Chelsea and meeting Eric's family too. Everyone was so nice. It was one of those receptions where you could just tell everyone was happy. It made me feel like this is what marriage is supposed to be like. A great night. We got home about 11:00, just in time to go to sleep.

TUESDAY:
Wake up early enough to get to work by 9:30. Work until 6:45 and then worry that I'm not gonna get home in time for knitting group. Get home at 7:15 and still have 15 minutes to eat dinner before people start getting here for knitting group. Had a great time with Emily, Allana and Whitney crocheting and knitting away for an hour or so. It was actually relaxing! Try to get ready for bed early enough to catch up on my journal before catching some restless sleep due to the current temperature increase this week.

WEDNESDAY:
Somehow the middle of the week tends to be the most relaxing. I didn't have to work until 2:00 and spent the morning exercising, reading, studying, talking to mom and looking for jobs. Somehow looking for jobs takes up way too much time. Can't wait until that is over. Went to work and had a really short day which was nice. Made it home with all the good intentions of studying for the boards. Ended up making dinner (yay!) and then spending way too long signing up to take the boards and figure out my timeline for the next few months until I will hopefully, fingers crossed, be working as a registered and licensed occupational therapist! After that it was too late to start studying for the boards, so I opened up a little family history and tried to piece together several files that needed merging. And thanks to Allana's help I think I figured out how to do it. Amanda and I caught up for a couple of minutes before deciding it was bed time.

Phew! What a week. And I wonder how I ever fit school into this schedule? I've come to the conclusion that life just fills up whatever time you have so plan accordingly...there will never be spare time.

Frat House 4th of July

I decided to branch out this year and try something new for 4th of July. I always have fun at Carol and Brads with the family BBQ and fireworks in the street. This year Shana and I decided to make a trip down to Huntington Beach to stay with Heidi for the weekend. She warned us that we needed to get there at least the night before in order to find a parking spot anywhere near her place which is conveniently located a few blocks from the beach. So neither of us had to work on Friday but due to extraneous circumstances we didn't head down to HB until about 5:00. Yeah the traffic was bad and we didn't really know where we were going and went several exits past where we were supposed to get off, but it didn't take us all that long. I guess everyone had exited LA the night before when we were stuck in traffic for an hour going from Olympic and 14th to Shana's house after playing tennis.

We get to Heidi's house and end up parking a couple of blocks away. As we were carrying our stuff in we were trying to remember what number Heidi lived in. When we passed what turned out to be Heidi's neighbor she said "it's the next one down" like she had been directing traffic there all day. That should have been an omen for the rest of the weekend. Heidi's entryway was strewn with bags, clothing, and other weekend accessories. We decided to grab some dinner before heading to an open mic night on someone's front lawn a couple of blocks away. So we, along with half the city, went to Chronic Taco and got some food. Ryan met up with us there and then we headed to the open mic night. It was an enjoyable time of people watching and listening to the guy behind us shamelessly flirting with Heidi just waiting for him to get her number. Don't worry, he did. Ahh the OC party scene. After we'd had enough of that we headed back to Heidi's place and wanted to go in the hot tub, but sadly it was 86 degrees. Not nearly hot enough and only warming up at a rate of 1-2 degrees an hour. The frat house look was becoming complete by the time we got back there that night. There were air mattresses in the living room, extra blankets and pillows strewn all over the house. We found out the next day that a grand total os 33 people were staying in her house that weekend. Our air mattress barely fit between Heidi's bed and the bathroom door in Heidi's room. But I guess it could have been worse, we could have been sleeping in the bedroom next door with something like 8 people in it. I think that half the state of Arizona and Utah were staying there that night, or at least visiting.

Saturday morning we got up and put our beach stuff on and headed to Main Street for the 4th of July parade. It was a lot of fun and I only managed to get my feet sunburned at this time (not so luck in the latter part of the day). Some guys in Heidi's ward have a house on Main and so all the young single adults in the state of California were watching the parade from their house. It felt like we were part of the parade because there were probably 20 people sitting on the roof of the house and every time a new float/group went by in the parade inevitably one person would start jabbing another person and pointing to the roof. The people in the parade were taking pictures of us! After about 2 hours of parade we decided to hit the beach. We walked down there and layed out for a while. Shana and Ryan decided to go meet up with some other people but Heidi and I just stayed on the beach for about 3.5 hours. I thought that I had put a sufficient amount of sunscreen on, but somehow the top 3-4 inches of the back of my thigh region was insufficiently lathered. By about 3:00 the wind had kicked up and we were all freezing. So we decided to head back up to Heidi's and hit the hot tub. Let me tell you, sunburned legs in a hot tub, not a good mix. After hot tubbing for a while and getting cleaned up we headed out for some dinner before watching the fireworks from the beach. We ended up just getting Jamba Juice because the lines were too long everywhere else. The fireworks were great. Sadly I didn't bring my camera with me because the shutter is stuck open and I didn't want to get sand in it and destroy it permanently. So my blog posts may include fewer pictures from now on, or I just might not post as often. Oops. Heidi had made the mistake of wearing very cute, but incredibly uncomfortable shoes and had a large blister forming on her foot. We were all tired and decided to skip out on the dance party of the century later that evening and just crash in Heidi's room. It was nice and relaxing.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early so I could get back to LA and make enough pasta, potato, and green salad to feed the ward since it was break the fast and very few people had signed up. So I cooked for about 3 hours and then got in the shower 30 minutes before I was supposed to be at church. Somehow I still made it on time and in a dress. Mad skills I tell you. By the time church was over I decided I needed a vacation from my vacation. But it was great weekend. It made me appreciate that I don't live with 7 other girls or have 32 other people staying at my house at any random time or have to keep my bedroom door locked for fear that my belonging will go missing. Heck I don't even think my bedroom door has a lock, never looked.

Chivalry

I know it's been almost a month since I've posted on here and I promise there's stuff I could write, but time to write has been lacking lately. But I had some thoughts while on the bus on the way home from work today (it's actually a good place to think). I got on the bus and it was rather crowded as it usually is at 5:00ish any day. This nice guy probably about 19-20 was sitting down and as I stood next to him he looked up and asked if I wanted his seat. My first reaction was to say no don't worry about it. But then I accepted. I've decided that at times we think chivalry is dead because we as women don't allow it. But really I'm not less of a person because I decided to sit down in a seat that was offered, or let my friend open the door for me or anything else like that. So I learned my lesson that I need to allow myself to accept the niceties other people offer to me.