Fun In The Yard

While Nate and Liv have been raking leaves I have been trying to clean up my park strip flower bed. Some of the plants are still looking good, so I only filled up two big garbage bags this week. After I cleaned up the bed as much as I could I decided to plant the bulbs that grandma gave me a few weeks ago. As I was walking past my gas meter on my way to the garage I noticed an odor that smelled like when you turn the gas on to a stove burner but don't light the pilot light. I called Questar and about 30 minutes later I had a technician replacing my gas meter while I planted the bulbs. This is the third time that I have smelled a gas leak since I have moved into my home. Luckily I seem to have a pretty good nose for it, and now I have a nice shiny new gas meter.

An Inappropriate Gift

In my opinion the only thing worse than a weiner dog is a slutty-looking weiner dog, and yet the Barnes family managed to find one on a birthday card. I do not approve.

While I do not approve of the subject matter in the picture below, I do enjoy this promising young artist. The picture would have been better if the subject matter had been, say, a majestic boxer.

Thanks for freaking me out with weiner dogs on my birthday!

This is Great

One of my big pet peeves about Single Guy across the street is that he does absolutely nothing to take care of his house or yard. Last year me and several of my neighbors called the city when his "lawn" got to be about waist high, and at that point he finally started mowing it. One summer a group of girls rented the house next door to him, and they came over several times to mow his lawn and spray it for weeds. In the spring it is a field of thousands of dandelions, and in the fall his three horse chestnut trees make a spectacular mess on the sidewalk, which at some point the local boy scouts or young men's class usually comes and cleans up. The other morning while I was getting ready to leave for work I noticed my neighbor Barbara, who is in her mid to late 70's out there sweeping the sidewalk at Single Guy's house. It wouldn't be so bad if the guy were elderly or handicapped, but he is somewhere around my age and he appears to be perfectly healthy. He is apparently just so lazy that he lets his neighbors clean up his yard.

Happy Early Birthday To Me!

Thanks to my mom I can now play DanceDance Revolution to my hearts content. Here is a photo of my mom playing the game when she came for a visit last night. I enjoyed the game for more than an hour tonight, and I am hoping that if I can play on it for about an hour every day I can get into some kind of shape.

Thanks for the birthday present, Mom!

Randomness

I have been tagged by Alyssa, so here goes.

1. I think that my internal thermostat is set at a different point than most other people. I am always warm. I have always hated to wear a coat, even as a small child. I was too warm.

2. I am an incredibly light sleeper. I can't have any light or noise when I am sleeping. When Stephanie lived with me I had to wear ear plugs to bed, and sometimes I have even worn earplugs when I am alone in the house because the sound of the furnace or air conditioner turning on will wake me up.

3. I have an unreasonable fear of my home being damaged by water. Possibly because at my old house the swamp cooler used to leak.

4. I don't like chick flicks. I would rather have a root canal.

5. Stephanie, Ava, and my mom all claim that they have seen ghosts in my house. I have not seen them, and they are welcome to dwell here as long as I don't have to see or hear them.

6. This is related to number 5. I have never seen ghosts in my house, but the scent of bacon and/or maple syrup sometimes moves through my house. I like to think that this might be my dad since he was very fond of bacon and maple syrup.

7. I live 4 blocks away from the cemetary and I enjoy walking though it after dark.

Relief Soceity Retreat

We had our annual Relief Society Retreat last night. I am on the planning comittee and some of you will remember my griping and moaning about the experience last year. We had meetings on almost a weekly basis for 5 months fighting over what to eat, how to decorate, what kind of activities to have, what the theme should be, and anything else that could be fought over. Our ward had two Relief Societies each with about ten members on the committee so we could never come to a consensus on anything. I was all about doing things as quickly, cheaply, and easily as possible, but my vote apparently didn't count. The retreat was held at a cabin at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon. The cabin is huge and beautiful, but it was a really tight fit for the 150 people who showed up. Dinner was absolute chaos and we worked feverishly all night to feed everyone and get the place cleaned up.

This year we had only one meeting, which was fabulous. We now have 3 Relief Societies and basically the presidents got together and planned the whole evening themselves. We were asked to be at the cabin as early as possible to help with set-up and preparation. I chose not to take the day off work and I got up there at 5 p.m. I'm not sure why things were so much easier this year, but everything was done by the time I got there. I asked if there was anything I could do and I was told that I could dump a couple of bags of salad into 2 big salad bowls which took me about one minute to do. Then I made my way over to a corner where two teachers from Davis were sitting in the comfy chairs and we chatted for about 2 hours until dinner started. One of the teachers was freaking out that she had to administer the ACT test this morning and she couldn't find anyone to help her with it. Apparently 2 adults are required to be in the room during testing, so I volunteered.

After dinner and a very short speaker the gathering broke up. I helped with clean up for a few minutes but I felt like I was just in the way. I figured since I spent hours washing dishes last year someone else could do it this year, and I was out of there by 9. This morning I headed over to the high school and got paid $75 to read a book for 4 hours while the students took the test. My only assignment was to gather up and count the 29 booklet when the test concluded, so all in all it hasn't been a bad weekend.

This is a picture of the cabin. It is more impressive from the other side, but it is almost completely obscured by trees. It is probably almost as big as the Heritage, but it only has one big gathering room and more bedrooms. Unlike the Heritage it is absolutely gorgeous. The owners are also the owners of Modern Display, so it is beautifully decorated.

PlayStation2

I have been wanting to find a PlayStation, but as you all know that I am so cheap I had not found one that was inexpensive enough for me to justify the purchase.

Denise was kind enough to give me an old PlayStation that her ex-roommate left behind. Unfortunately it was the PlayStation only - no power cord, no connecters, no joystick - nothing. Luckily for me Colton had an old joystick that he was willing to part with, and after searching a few different stores I was able to find a power cord and the connecter cords. The connecter cords didn't have a price tag, so the guy at Game Stop sold them to me for $1.99. I was thrilled with that price since my three options at Wal-Mart ranged in price from $19.99 to $39.99. So for a mere $7.99 I now have a working PlayStation. The only game that I currently have is The Chronicles of Narnia which Steph gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I had never played it because I was too addicted to X-Men, but I broke it out tonight. It is okay, but I'm still going to need to buy X-Men. I also want to get DanceDance Revolution, since I am justifying having a PlayStation by telling myself that I am going to work out on it regularly. I need to find a dance mat and a memory card so I can save my games, and then I will be all set.

Don't bother me, I'm gaming!