Fear

13 November 2009, 9:58 am by Giggles
Categories: Random, Relationships

Today is Friday the 13th. Supposedly that means it’s a bad day. I know there is a lot of superstition about the number 13, but I’ve never quite figured out why it being on a Friday makes it worse. The interesting thing is, it’s not a universal. While in the United States they won’t label a 13th floor in a building (they go from the 12th to the 14th), the mission home in our mission was on the 13th floor. (Rumor is they got a deal on the place because the mission president at the time explained that 13 was an unlucky number for Americans.)

But I’m not superstitious. And I don’t have anything to fear right now. So I’m just going to treat this Friday the 13th as any other Friday. Except of course I get to attend the temple with my family and eat at my favorite restaurant and then get up and get married tomorrow. All of which is going to be great!

I’m slightly worried about freezing during the forecasted snow showers tomorrow afternoon when we’re supposed to be taking pictures, but that’s honestly the only thing I’m worried about right now (see previous post on how I’m not nervous about the wedding because there’s nothing to be worried about).

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Celebrating

12 November 2009, 11:13 pm by Giggles
Categories: Exercise, Family, Happy Things

Four years ago I talked three of my friends into taking a belly dance class with me. We had a lot of fun with it. I took two more classes after that from the same instructor before moving to Arizona.

Tonight two of those same friends and one other gave me a bridal shower. And I must say that it was the best bridal shower in the history of bridal showers. :woot:

Twelve of us got together, friends, family, future family, for a wonderful evening. There was a small quiz for all the guests to see who could answer the most questions right about Brett and I. And then some music started and in came my belly dance instructor! She did a wonderfully beautiful solo performance for us and then we all got up and she taught everyone some basics and we put them all together into a sequence. It was so much fun! 😀 Everyone at least tried, and everyone enjoyed it.

I think it should be decreed that more showers should involve belly dancing. Because really, what’s more appropriate for a bridal shower than women getting together and celebrating being women as they have for thousands of years?

(And if anyone took pictures, I’d love it if you could email them to me.)

Group shot from Lori Pay:
group

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Won’t you be my palindrome

11 November 2009, 11:11 am by Giggles
Categories: Random, Science & Tech

I love numbers. I think they are fascinating and elegant. Some of my favorite numbers are palindromes. A palindrome is anything that reads the same forward and backward. Words and phrases can be palindromes as well. I have a whole book of palindromes called, I Love Me Vol. I. But numbers are always my favorite.

Eleven is the first two digit number that is a palindrome. Today on my car we clapped for 82828 miles on the odometer. In 1991 my mom made up a song that we’d sing whenever we saw a palindrome on the digital clock. We sang it a good part of the year too. And then we got to do it again in 2002!

Numerical palindromes are just so symmetrical and beautiful. I love them.

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This post is brought to you by the number 40

10 November 2009, 10:40 pm by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things, Random

Sesame Street turns 40 today. I loved the show growing up. I had a stuffed Big Bird toy I can be seen carrying in a lot of photos. But even after I’d “grown” I still found a lot of things about it that I enjoyed. So in honor of this anniversary, I present to you my current ten favorite Sesame Street clips I’ve found on Hulu recently.

  1. Martians find the Earth
  2. B. B. King: The Letter B
  3. Kermit News on Six Dollar Man
  4. Rocks Number 12
  5. Plain White T’s Song
  6. Super Grover Taking a Bus
  7. Matt Lauer Interviews Cookie Monster
  8. School Pageant – Flower
  9. A’s Anatomy
  10. Jay Leno Prepares for a Ride

And really, I could go on and on.

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The tricks of the trade

9 November 2009, 11:16 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education

I love numbers. I think they can be a lot of fun. When I was learning how to multiply and then teaching others, I learned several different tricks to help you remember the multiplication facts or find out if a number was a multiple of another. My favorite ones involved the number nine.

If you had up the digits of any number and the sum is nine, then the original number is a multiple of nine. I have no idea how that works, but it does.

Also, if you are multiplying by nine, you have the answers right on your hands. Hold out both your hands and hold out your ten fingers. Then, if you are multiplying by say, three, you hold down the third finger from the left. That would leave two fingers up to the left of that finger and seven fingers up to the right of that finger. So for 9×3 you get 27. They’re even in place value order!

When you teach kids that trick it’s fun to then watch them casually use it during class. It’s something they’ll never forget.

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It has how many legs?

8 November 2009, 6:33 pm by Giggles
Categories: Random

I’ve recently realized that I have very definite opinions about legs. Specifically about the number of legs that are okay. In general, that means I only like things that have four appendages (arms and/or legs).

That means snakes with no legs – not liking. Insects with six legs – no thank you. Spiders with eight legs – that would be a no. And I’m not such a fan of fish either, but that’s more because they are slimy than they are creepy. I’ll get rid of spiders and insects if they are in my home. Snakes I don’t think I could but I haven’t had to try yet (*knock on wood*)

Everything else – birds with two legs & two wings are okay, animals with four legs are okay, people with two legs and two arms are okay (except for a few people who I wonder if they aren’t hiding some extra legs somewhere).

The exception would be mice and rats. I know they have four legs so technically they should be okay, but they really aren’t. They are icky. Lizards, oddly, don’t bother me the way mice do.

And of course moths are just evil and they fly drunk.

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But who’s counting?

7 November 2009, 11:01 am by Giggles
Categories: Questions, Random, Relationships

I spend too much time analyzing exactly what people say to me. It’s easy to do though since most of the time people speak without thinking and listen without hearing. Getting married brings out of a lot of that.

Last week I completely confused a man when I honestly answered his question if I was nervous about our wedding being so close. Honest answer – nope, not nervous. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. So I followed it up with, “what is there to be nervous about?”

He kindly and patiently explained to me that I should be nervous because I’m getting ready to make the life changing decision to be married to Brett and live with him for the rest of my life (Brett was sitting right next to me).42D

So I kindly explained to him that that wasn’t the case. I’d made that decision clear back when Brett asked me to marry him and I’d said yes and now we were just continuing on the path that decision led us. Nope. Not nervous.

Another one that I get is when people ask me how long till “the big day” and I tell them how many weeks or days it is till then. This isn’t just a wedding one though. As a teacher you get asked how many days there are left of school or how many days left of summer. Yet when you answer the question and tell the person how many days are left, they reply by rhetorically asking, “but who’s counting?”

Um, I’m counting. You’d think that would be obvious since I just answered the question. And you’d think they wouldn’t be surprised that I’d know since they obviously asked me expecting me to know. Yet that’s how that exchange always goes. And it’s fascinating in its illogical-ness to me.

It’s seven days, in case you were wondering. And yes, I am counting.

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