Memory Lane

Well, since Katie and Mary have reminded me of the walk by, and then Maris did her blog about favorite childhood memories, I have decided that it is time to reminisce.
Freshman year we had a lot of good times. We were 6 strangers put together by chance, but stayed together by choice. (Ok, we didn't actually stay together as roommates- but we did stay friends.) One of the best things that we did freshman year, aside from pull down our pants in front of missionaries, was the walk by. I don't remember how it started or why we thought of doing it, so you who will remember will have to help me out on the details that I am foggy on. But it was a Sunday afternoon, and there was nothing else to do, so we thought we would start calling random numbers in the BYU directory and see who we found. We only called numbers that we knew were in boys dorms. I guess we wanted to see these guys without actually having to meet them, so we asked them to walk by our window. Our big kitchen window looked out onto one of the main roads, and there was a grassy spot by it, so it was pretty perfect. So we called probably half a dozen guys and scheduled them to walk by. And that's it, we just wanted them to walk by our window.
Some of them came prepared with songs and what not. I guess when we were done with them we called out the window and dismissed them. We sat with the lights out in our kitchen peeking through the blinds at those people who had showed up. One group was singing to us while the rest of our ward started walking by headed to ward prayer. So of course, the whole ward, even the bishopric knew that we were the home of the walk by.
Anyway, this does no justice. It's hard to tell a good story when your kids are distracting you.
So one more story for this time. This came junior year. We hung out all of the time with this one apartment of boys, and they were kind of our standing weekend plans. One day however, they decided that they wanted to take dates out. So they were all gone one night, leaving us high and dry. So we decided it was prank time. We got someone who worked in the office to let us into their apartment. We went to the laundry room and got some lost and found clothes and we stuffed them with newspaper and made people. They had blown up rubber gloves for hands, balloons with glued on yarn for hair. We then positioned them so that they were making out on the couches in the boys apartment. We had I think 2 couples. We put on some great disco make out music, and put up a bunch of decorations. I think we even had a disco ball up and streamers. We put up a sign that said welcome to the love shack. We were really hoping that the guys would bring their dates back to the apartment. I don't know if they ever did though.
We did get caught though. One of the guys did not go on the dates with them, and he came home while we were in his apartment decorating. He thought it was funny though, so he kept quiet for us. The guys of course knew that it was us that had done it and it was all fun and games. But that is certainly one Friday night out of my life that was not wasted.
So there are some memories. I figure that these blogs are an imprint in the world, and a pretty easy way to record what my life has been like. I always liked hearing the crazy things that my mom did while she was in college, because it reminds me that she did silly things that you would never do if you were not in college, just like I did. So maybe in the years to come (especially if I ever have a girl) I can share some of my favorite memories that will remind her that she has a legacy of doing stupid silly things while in college. So it's just a little diversion from the norm, but you get what you pay for.

Past projects

So it's project recap time. This first picrture is one of the valentines that I made for Nate's valentine party. We were having a little party for the kids in conjunction with one of their birthday's. The emails were flying around about celebrating V-Day, and putting out valentines for all the kids, and some of the other mom's were complaining a little bit. Well, it has long been the joke in my group that I am a bit of an over achiever. It started when one day when we were still a new group that I mentioned at night Nate only ate on one side, so I pumped the other side while he was eating. Well, they were all amazed at that, but the only reason I had said anything was because I had heard the idea from someone else at the group. So then they found out that I quilt, and they joked that I would quilt while I was nursing, and there soon became a long list of things that I did while nursing. (ps, I tried the quilting while nursing thing, just to see how it would work, and it doesn't.)
So here I am nursing again, and the jokes have started again. So Amy makes a comment that she is sure that I am going to make some quilted valentines while I am nursing. And that got me thinking, wouldn't it be hilarious if I actually showed up with quilted valentines? It wouldn't be so hard to do, just fold some fabric in half, I can quilt on my machine, and I even have a free motion foot, so I could do more than just straight lines. I cut some hearts out with my sizzix die cutter, and voila! Quilted valentines.

This one is a placemat that I made for my mom for her birthday. I got the idea from my friend Jana, who makes cute placemats, and I looked at them and thought, I could do that. Plus, each week when I go to my mom's house she has out these old woven placemats that are coming apart at the corners, so I figure she could use some new ones. When we celebrated her birthday I didn't have them all done. I had just decided to make them earlier that week, so by the time Saturday rolled around I was finishing binding the first one that morning. So she opened it up, and it was ONE placemat, and of course what do you do with only one? But I promised her that more would come.

Also, that morning I had wrapped the gift, and Nate saw it on the table, and he of course wanted to open it because it wants to open all gifts. I went to take the wrapping paper upstairs, and I thought, if I leave that on the table, he will probably open it, but I still left it on the table. Sure enough, as I was feeding Graham a few minutes later, I start to hear a rip rip from the other room. I just taped it back together and gave it to mom anyway. I figured it gave it character.

I've been tagged

Ok, for the first time in my blogging history I have been tagged. It's a reading thing. It's a good thing I read.
Here are the instructions:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3.Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next five sentences.
5. Tag five people

The last book that I read was Harry Potter #7, and that was pretty close.
Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at one another.
"A surprise apparently! You were not aware then that Dumbledore had left you anything?"
"A-all of us?" said Ron. "Me and Hermione too?"

As for who I tag, I don't know about 5, but I do tag Jana, cause she always has some sort of fun book that she is reading.
Plus, she introduced me to a very funny blog today: stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com
Check it out. It's hilarious. it's free, so you get more than you pay for.

More on my neighbors

Ok, so one of my favorite past times is to watch out my dining room window. Not much really goes on out there. I do look out onto the parking lot of the naughty kids school, and a week or so ago an am-blance came to the school and I wondered if someone had smuggled in like a shiv or something.
My neighbors also are unusually active for it being the middle of the day, and there are always people coming and going. These are the ones that I'm pretty sure do drugs in their shed, yet must be ok people due to the decorations that sometimes appear at their front door.
So today I was watching out my window and these two skinny white kids show up. It seemed like they were expected, but they seemed awfully out of place. They were wearing pseudo-suits, and carying books. They seriously looked like impostor missionaries. Anyway, as they show up and were trying to get in the door I had a movie moment. It was one of those moments where you want to scream to the screen- Don't go in there! They did go in (and I have to say, they kind of looked surprised that they got in.) and I suppose they are ok. I never saw them exit, but it's more of a hobby than a full time job, so I wasn't really paying that much attention to watch for them to leave.
Anyway, it all just felt a little Rear Window-ish. But now it's time to go and put the crazy one to bed, so it's a little scary today, but you get what you pay for.

Happy Shrove Tuesday

Well, I am not Catholic, but I sure do love it when Shrove Tuesday comes along. Today was a little bittersweet. I love to have donuts on this festive holiday, but today I was reminded of a very sad even that happened a year ago this month.
Jesse and I were planning on going to his parents house that day, and we were leaving town sometime mid-afternoon, and we saw a large plume of dark smoke from down the street. It was such that we knew at once that a large building was on fire, and it looked like it was coming from this little shopping center that had several stores that we had gone to. As we were leaving town we commented that we hoped that it was not that particular shopping center.
That night on the news we saw that it was indeed the shopping center down the street from us. It was the place where we went to Quizno's and most importantly, it was the place that we went to Dunkin' Donuts.
The Dunkin' Donuts had burned down.
It was the saddest day ever.
And so here I was today, faced with the desire to obtain some Dunkin' Donuts, and instead of going 1/4 mile down the road (I can see the empty burned out shell of the shopping center from our new house.) I had to go half-way through town to get some. It wasn't so much the drive that was bad, it was just the sorrow of losing something like a good friend that got to me.
So there you have it, a bittersweet day for us. We are excited for the day that they rebuild the shopping center. It has been almost a year, and it is still just a frame. Oh well, I guess I'll survive until then, and it's probably nice not to have the temptation that close. So that's it, it's not the key to universal happiness but you get what you pay for.