slacker

yeah, i know i've been slacking on the whole blogging thing the last little while, but i'm on vacation. give me a break.

when i'm hanging out with people like this, why would i want to spend my time blogging?

in case the pictures don't give it away, we left lovely cold utah and came to lovely warm california and spent a great new years with cousins, siblings, and friends. i didn't get any of the pictures we took of tommy's whole family together (they're all on the family computer in ogden) but they had all nine kids together for a few short days over the christmas break, and it was a blast.

we love our families. but it will also be good to go home to north carolina on friday and get back to real life, real schedules, and real stress (maybe).

but i'll keep slacking on real blogging until after we get back.

utah

going to utah for us = constant visiting with family and friends. we've already gotten to see so many people and we're still here for a whole 'nother week. yes!

g and g myres

my three favorite nephews: asher, leif, and joel. they love me.

sarah and alec.

jake! the first time seeing him since his mission... and playing rook with grandpa murphy.

friends, forever.

alec and kev, dance partay.

yaya's birthday!

tommy and asher in a wrestling match.

and sending jolysa off into the mtc, with g and g murphy and jenica.

we've also seen a few other cousins in a lot of other places where we didn't take pictures, gone to two weddings (and didn't take any pictures), and spent a lot of time with the leininger clan. yeah for month-long vacations!

i laughed a LOT.

it's funny cuz you hate that it's true.

finals.

so for a while, when i was applying to grad school, i felt a little bit bad that i wasn't applying for a phd. a few professors mentioned it to me/tried to convince me to do it, and my die-hard habits of always trying to be the best in everything caught up with me. in the back of my mind, i wished i had the guts to apply for a phd and felt like i was taking the "easy" way out for just doing a master's.

but oh, my, gosh.

i am SO GLAD i did not succumb to that crazy idea. i did not foresee how sick of school i would be at this time and how little i care about it.

also, for this reason. watch, be depressed, and laugh out loud:



the best thing about a master's is that it's 1/4 of the way done now. only three more semesters to go, and then i'll never have to bs my way through eighteen pages of paper again.

the other best thing about a master's is that we have a month off for christmas. see you later, NC.

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas...

with our last week of sunbeams before we leave (oh, we will miss our class next year)...

going to handel's messiah in the duke chapel with a few friends from our ward...

snow (and weather in the thirties)...

cookie decorating contests and the most scrumptious copycat rocky mountain chocolate factory caramel apples i have EVER had with devin and cathy (on the same night. we're only a few pounds heavier.)...

and of course, the stress of final papers and projects! nothing says christmas like a few all-nighters and the ever-present fear of failing your final! but only three days until we leave . . . cross your fingers that we survive until then.

10:12 forever

i realized that i've never blogged about 10:12. most of you probably don't even KNOW what 10:12 IS! how could i even let that happen? needless to say, i am going to correct that gigantic oversight. now.

warning: reading the following blog post will strike you with the 10:12 curse for the rest of your life. i am not kidding. read at your own risk.

10:12 is my birthday time, people. no, i don't mean that's the time of day i was born; i have no idea what time that was. i mean that my birthday is october 12, or 10/12, which easily translates to 10:12 on the clock. luckily, since we don't use military time in the u.s., this means that 10:12 happens twice a day.

while i was in high school, i noticed that i saw 10:12 a lot. like, more often than other times. i know this is probably not true, and it's just because i've put a value on 10:12 so i notice it when i see it, but really, IT IS TRUE. it's usually accidental, too--i'll just glance up at the clock and it will be 10:12. i mean, how likely is that? (what are the statistics on that, tommy?)

the few people i've let in on the 10:12 curse have become cursed with it too. tommy just texted me this morning saying that he got to school at exactly 10:12 and keeps camille on speed dial so he can text her every time he sees it. sarah sends me threats via text message whenever she sees it. dallin started a blog about 1012 because it happens all. the. time. (not that the blog is very thoroughly updated, but it shows how significant 1012 is.)

in the past six or seven years, 10:12 has morphed into being more than a time. even though i still see it every other time i look at the clock (or so it seems), it also shows up in . . . all other places of life. october 12 is mentioned in animal farm and 10:12 in angels and demons. (not to mention the fact that october 11 is the twins' birthday in the parent trap. but that's not exactly related.) there's a room in the jkb at byu that's numbered: 1012. there's an apartment here at our apartment complex that's number: 1012. here's a few other examples:

a metro stop in spain. named after 1012.

in washington d.c.

the word count on a paper i was writing in the spring. (yeah, i took a screen shot and sent it to tommy. just so he didn't miss out.)

october 12 IS the day that christopher columbus discovered america (look it up), so maybe that's something to do with it? i'm not saying i understand it. you have to just give yourself up to the power of 1012, or you'll go crazy.

but beware: now that you know about 10:12, you'll probably start seeing it every day (twice a day) too.

a realization

i realized something the other day. it is hugely exciting, let me tell YOU:

i've been wearing the same three pairs of exercise shorts for the last 8-12 years.

seriously. one of them has a stain on them from an activity days activity that i went to when i was 10 or 11 years old. we were doing puff paints on something and i got some purple paint on my shorts--and it's still there today. and i still wear them. the other two are from no later than middle school.

and the best part is: all three of them were free originally. i got all of them from various soccer teams.

and on that same note, i haven't bought a new sports bra since my senior year of high school. and i've exercised 3-6 days a week pretty regularly for the last 5 years too.

two things about this:

1. how the heck do i fit into shorts that i wore half my life ago? (a testament to elastic waistbands, i suppose)

2. i REALLY should buy some new exercise clothes.

okay, back to writing that final paper.