Olympics 2012!!!

28 July 2012, 7:36 am by Giggles
Categories: Olympics

It’s the Olympics!!

I love the Olympics. I can never get enough. And this year, for the very first time, I have cable to watch them with. There are three stations that will be carrying it. And one of them will be doing 16 hours live! I can watch the Olympics starting at 1am and watch live for 15-16 hours each day. That’s a lot of Olympics!

The Opening Ceremonies were wonderful last night. These are my thoughts as we watched.

I have an affinity for Britain owing to my Anglo-Saxon heritage. I loved the history aspect of the program, the pastoral start with real grass moving to the industrial revolution.

The Queen’s participation and arrival.

The children’s literature with Voldemort and J.K. Rowling. And real doctors and nurses.

The performance of “Chariots of Fire” made me all misty, that is until it made me laugh.

I really liked all the drums.

I like the flag bearers wearing native dress. The Netherlands had tulips on their jackets. The colored Solomon Island goatee. What are those children carrying? Must have missed that explanation when we were out watching the monsoon storm.

Watching beach volleyball in 2008, one of the commentators made reference to the Paleozoic era, because clearly they played beach volleyball back then. I can’t wait to see what weird things come out of the commentators’ mouths this time. Maybe Amanda and I can even sit on the same couch and watch the Olympics together that way this year.

Brett thinks the controversy around the US outfits would be avoided if we went back to having the Olympics in the nude (as he thought they were going to be two years ago). Brett wants to see the Queen cheering wildly and her well set hair going everywhere.

Speculation about the pace of the parade of nations because the Queen is old and needs to go to bed.

Doves riding bicycles.

I LOVE the look from inside the cauldron looking up. And I REALLY like the generations bridging aspect of the cauldron lighting.

12 Shared thoughts

PhD Problems

27 July 2012, 10:11 am by Giggles
Categories: Education

Last week I got sick. Killer cold that literally came out of nowhere (went to bed fine one night, woke up congested, ear ache, fever, the next morning). It knocked me flat. And because I am who I am, the nasal congestion was accompanied by frequent, heavy nosebleeds. It’s something else when you’re afraid of the nose on your face. Brett told me I should face my fears and confront them head on. A week later I was still just barely getting over it. I’d even given it to Brett and he’s been miserable as well. It’s nice of him to try to take it off my hands like that.

Through  the fog of congestion I realized that my level of cognitive functioning had a direct negative relationship to the amount of cranial mucus I was experiencing, ie., the more mucus the harder it was to have a deep thought. And since in my decreased cognitive state I was still able to come up with a statistical explanation for said cognitive state, I decided maybe I’ve been spending too much time with research.

While I was dealing with all of that, five of the books I have checked out for my research came due, so I renewed them till January.

Two days later I was working on one of my revisions, and one article I was reading mentioned a book chapter that seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I looked up the book at the university library and was a little upset to realize some idiot had it checked out till January. I need that book now! I had a few options.

I could recall the book, in which case the idiot would have a week to return it so I could pick it up. But the idiot probably needs the book as much as I do, I hate it when people recall books I’ve checked out, and I could really use the book before that week is up.

My second option was to request the library find a photocopy of the chapter I want (and they could get it from another library that has the book on the shelf) and have them email it to me. I’ve done that in the past, it only takes a day or two and works great.

In order to make the document request the instructions told me to go to my account and find the link to make requests there. I went to my account, but couldn’t find a place to make document requests. While I was looking at that page though, one of the entries for books I had checked out caught my eye.

Turns out I’m the idiot who’s got the book checked out till January, it’s sitting in my stack by the TV, and it’s one of the ones I renewed just two days prior.

We’re going to blame that one on the decreased cognitive functioning due to increased cranial mucus too.

3 Shared thoughts

One year older and wiser too

26 July 2012, 12:07 pm by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things, Life

I had a birthday this week (hence the rather narcissistic banner on the blog the last week or so). Brett and I turned it into a six day weekend. I can’t think of any other holiday that gets that long of a weekend.

Photos from the multi-day celebration and corresponding adventure in New Mexico will be forthcoming.

It was an amazing birthday and I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.

I got cards, emails, and phone calls (including the best rendition of “Happy Birthday” from an almost 4 year-old I’ve ever heard) from family and friends. I am definitely loved.

These two emails made me laugh though, the first from the red cross and the second from our dentist:

And if you were logged in as me, Google had a Doodle for my birthday too.

Que vida boa. Life is good.

3 Shared thoughts

Refreshments will be served

18 July 2012, 1:42 pm by Giggles
Categories: Food, Gospel

There is a mistaken notion going around that I don’t eat dessert. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just don’t eat dessert all the time.

I was setting some goals for myself at the beginning of 2011. Along the lines of health goals, I wanted to make sure I took a vitamin every day, I wanted to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and I had some exercise goals. And I decided I would limit myself to an average of 1.5 desserts a week. That meant no more than 78 desserts in the year. I reasoned that I didn’t seem to eat dessert all that often and meeting that goal would be no problem at all. We have dessert at home on occasion, but nothing to excess.

Side story that’s related:
When I arrived in Brasil I was introduced to the most decadent of desserts – pudim de leche. I think it’s also called flan elsewhere. I thought it was what heaven must taste like. I politely snarfed it up every time it was served to me. Then about halfway through my mission I realized there was good pudim de leche, and there was pudim de leche that was not so good. I started to discern between what I really wanted – the good stuff, and what just had the appearance of what I wanted. And I stopped eating so much of it because I held out for the good stuff.

Half way through 2011 I got called as the Young Women President and I was at mutual every week and firesides once a month. And at nearly every single one of those activities refreshments were served.

Let’s just say that for the first 33 years of my life I was eating dessert like I ate pudim de leche at the beginning of my mission. If it was placed in front of me I thought I was the luckiest person in the world and ate as much as I politely could.

Pretty soon my dessert count for 2011 was out of control. I reigned it in at the end but still ended up over the limit I set at the beginning of the year (darn holidays with their yummy pies!).

So this year I’m using a bit of discernment. I kept the same goal of no more than an average of 1.5 desserts a week. But this time I’m holding out for the good stuff. Krispy Kremes after attending the temple – yes. Oreos after mutual – no.

I don’t have to eat refreshments just because they are provided. I’d rather save my dessert points for the really good stuff, like cinnamon rolls or mint ice cream with chocolate syrup.

And it’s gotten real easy to walk away from the refreshments after activities, which is why there are certain people who think I don’t eat dessert.

On a related note though – why do refreshments always have to be desserts? A good fruit tray with some yogurt dip and cold lemonade would be perfect (and count for my daily fresh fruits and vegetables).

6 Shared thoughts

Today I… (12 July 2012)

12 July 2012, 7:45 pm by Giggles
Categories: Life

Today I:

  • Accidentally cleaned the garage
  • Accidentally washed my car
  • Accidentally detailed the inside of my car
  • Vacuumed the inside of my car (that’s all I was going to do when the others just kind of happened)
  • Reinforced my reflective sun shade for my windshield
  • Made it rain (see above – “washed my car”)
  • Talked to my mom on the phone
  • Walked around the neighborhood while on the phone with my mom …
  • and then with my husband when we went to check the mail (it was perfect evening walking weather after the rain)
  • Reached 50,000 hits on missgiggles.com!

And now I’m going to turn off the computer, make stir fry for dinner, and get some much needed reading done.

Good night everybody!

2 Shared thoughts

Itchy fingers

11 July 2012, 2:50 pm by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech

:computer: Monday I turned off my computer at 7pm. I’d been noticing for a while that I can always find something new to do on the internet to keep me up at night. And I’d been a little disconcerted about how much time my lap top spent on my lap when I was sitting on the couch with Brett in the evening.

So I turned it off.

And then I had time to soak my feet, read a book, and do some yoga before we went to bed at a pretty decent hour.

Success.

Last night I had a meeting from 7-9pm. I printed off the agenda and then turned off my computer at 6:30pm. Because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put off certain computer things until late at night, I even made significant progress on them before I shut off my computer.

When I got home from my meeting I told Brett it was nice to not have that distraction sitting on my desk calling to me. He laughed and asked if I wasn’t itching to go over and turn it on though. And I said, “YES! Which is why I know I need to leave it off.”

I could think of several things I could be doing online, checking things, updating things, looking up things, pretending to do productive things.

But I left it off. And guess what? All of that was still available when I got up this morning. And I had time to sort the laundry last night before bed.

I’m going to try turning it off again this evening. Eventually that itchy feeling should go away, right?

Story People: Enough Time

3 Shared thoughts

Good Works & Integrity

6 July 2012, 7:56 am by Giggles
Categories: Gospel

Earlier this week I wrote about five of the projects I’ve finished, working on, or planning, for personal progress. There are eight values. The project for Virtue is to Read the Book of Mormon. So there’s six planned. But I could not think of anything I was really interested in doing for Good Works and Integrity.

Sitting out on our back porch during a monsoon breeze that didn’t look like it was going to be bringing any rain to our yard meaning I probably needed to get up and water the grass that a lizard was climbing through, I figured out what my last two projects would be.

Many of the ideas for Good Works involve service to others. This past Monday, Family Search set a goal to index more than 5 million names. They simply asked everyone to do a little more than they already did. Since I had never done any, that seemed like a good day to start. I did one batch of 40 names, 40 individuals living in Texas in 1940. Forty individuals that can now be found by their descendants through the computer. I helped their families find them. So for Good Works I’m going to do more indexing. I just need to decide on a definitive goal so I’ll know when I’ve reached it.

One of the suggestions for Integrity is to make a modest piece of clothing. Which for me isn’t a stretch. And these projects are supposed to stretch you. It rarely takes me ten hours to sew an item of clothing. So that wouldn’t be a good goal for me.

Integrity is being your true self. Ever since elementary school I have wanted to write a book. I always thought it would be a fiction book, probably because those were the types of books I read back then. But lately that just hasn’t seemed like the type of book I would write. And I couldn’t think of anything non-fiction-ish that I could write about that people would want to read. My dissertation is non-fiction, but again, who’s going to want to read that?

Recently I’ve had another idea floating around in my head though. And it lines up with Integrity. I’m going to write a memoir. I’ve had some experiences that I believe if shared with others would help others. And even if nobody else reads it, writing it down, putting the truth of those experiences in one place, will be true to myself and help me.

Of course I’ll be writing my dissertation first. But these experiences that are bouncing around in my head feel good knowing there will eventually be a place for them to bounce to.

4 Shared thoughts