A day in the life

My occupation as a loose change collector seems to be much more lucrative in Flordia. Between the kids asking me to "hold [their] monies" and Mom's car, I've made almost a dollar in profits.

BYU's web page caught me off guard. All my life I've wondered why they would call a flag "half-mass" when something bad happens. After all, I was taught that mass is constant. On BYU's web page, I read the phrase "half staff," a presumed alternative. I decided to casually discuss this with my parents. "how long do they keep the flag at half mass? ...Why do they call it that anyway?" They explained to me that the flag pole is called a staff and then decided they didn't understand what I meant.

A shirt made me laugh so much I almost bought it. It had a repetitious pattern like the style is. I guess I didn't realize how popularized skulls have become since I left for Provo. This shirt had Mickey heads and skulls.

It's a lucious mix of words and tricks

Recently I've had lots of good things to blog about - plenty of interesting experiences and the like - but I haven't had much time. Saturday was finally a chill day, so what did I do? I stole Mom's wordsearch book and Ben's pen and went to work. Some of those wordsearches were pretty tricky, too. One theme was words that have "um" in them. That one was a bummer - no pun intended. I'm in the middle of a pretty cool puzzle (one with each word having a single bend in it), and my niece and nephew start calling me to come upstairs. I know they're up to no go for a few reasons. They were previously wound up before banished to the upstairs, they were giggling and said they had something to show me, and they're Rachel and William. I politely yelled back that I would come upstairs when I finished my bendy wordsearch, but knew they wouldn't be that patient. Either the surprise would come to me, or it would fizzle out. That was the plan until my sister gave me a stunning visual of my suitcase's contents strewn about the upper level of our condo. Then I yelled that I was coming and that they better not be playing with my stuff. I heard much more giggling and some running about. When I turned the corner, I was greeted warmly with several smacks from pillows. I was amazed at how long pillows are these days because although my niece is about half my height, I'm pretty sure she hit whacked me in the head a few times.
Of course, the story doesn't end with the poor aunt brutally beaten by her own kin. I tried peacefully taking their pillows, but they kept getting more, and more and more, until suddenly I had quite a stack to rest on. William thought this meant he could jump on me, but I soon corrected him with several martial arts like maneuvers. A simple Judo flip (of course followed by laughter) and I had him in my grips. It took him a while to realize he was stuck, but after he did, I performed the flying panda, which he found equally amusing.
All in all, I agreed to eat a raisin if they would clean up their mess, and, thankfully (in one way), they didn't.

How to Disappear Completely

Ingredients:
Backpack
Water
Chapstick
Cellphone
Notebook
Pen
Book
Long walk

Directions:
Silence the cellphone. Place the water, chapstick, cellphone, notebook, pen, and book in the interior of the backpack. Take the long walk and continue at a pleasant pace until desired amount of solitude and comfort is found. Garnish with contents of backpack.

If I had more time.

Can I exfoliate? My skin exfoliates and my skin is part of me, so can't I exfoliate? My arm bruises; therefore I bruise.
Anyway, my loofah is very soft; I don't think I exfoliate enough.

Where are the hats?

My favorite thing about leaving Utah has been trying new things. There's a handful of normal kid things I kind of missed.
Pumpkin pie
Buying clothes with friends
Working out
Running
Doing laundry
Going to the movies
...Just to name a few.
Eating donuts is another one of them. I had this thing where I said I didn't like something, and nobody really refuted it. A lot of times I had just never tried it, but I didn't tell people that. Recently we made a trip to Krispy Kreme. I had never been inside a Krispy Kreme. We were offered three classic donuts for free from the bakery. My stomach cringed as it normally did when I think about eating donuts, but I felt the social pressure and decided to eat it anyway. And you know what?...It was good. I asked Ruthie if I could pay her back in creamery money and she agreed to buy me a raspberry filled and an apple filled. I saved them for morning.

I thought they would be safe, but somewhere in the three hours I slept, somebody ate my apple-filled.
I left my hat, the only remaining memento of this occasion, at Ruthie's.