I thought I had appendicitis

My lower right abdomen has been pretty tender the past couple of days and I was talking to some friends about it and they thought it might be the beginnings of appendicitis. All I knew about appendicitis is that you have to have your appendix removed.

What does your appendix do anyways?

But if it's such a big deal that you have to have something removed, I figured I'd look up on it. So I did. On Wickapedia. And it basically said if you ignore it, your appendix explodes and the poison it releases kills you. "So," I thought to myself, "this might be one of those times where a call to the health center could be beneficial." I finally got myself talking to a nurse and she said that what I was describing could be appendicitis but it might not be, but that it's always better to be safe than dead. I agreed. So over to the urgent care of the student heath center I went, with Jacey, for moral support. The doctor decided, after some poking around, that I should go to the lab and take a urine test and a blood test, neither of which I have ever done before, so that was pretty exciting. When the blood extractor guy found out I had never had blood taken before, he leaned back and told the lab receptionist lady, "hey we have a virgin here!" ah... BYU jokes, they're always so clever. Anyways, since I had never had it done before, he was explaining everything and had me feel my "rippling veins," (always a good sign when you know they won't have to go searching) and then I sat and watched as he sucked it all out. I really can't understand why that's so hard for some people, but there you have it. At least I know I don't have a phobia of needles or my own blood. Then Jacey and I went back to the urgent care waiting room and about half an hour later the doctor called me back in. He sat explaining what I didn't have for about 10 minutes and then took another 15 on what I did have which is some other kind of -itis. He prescribed some kind of anti-inflammatory that I should take with food and where I can't lay down for half an hour afterwards.

So we were there for about 2 1/2 hours... I missed my volleyball class, which stinks. That's one of the few classes I actually enjoy going to... psh. Whatever. But at least I'm not going to die from the poison of a ruptured appendix. That's always a good thing.

I love Christmas time

Can I just say this is the happiest season of the year... But before I get into it, I have this theory going... When Heavenly Father saw what Provo was going to look like at the end of winter semester, he knew the poor college students would need something, ANYTHING, to look forward to in order to avoid the inevitable death following (or proceeding, or during, depending on the results of) finals. Now, I know that Christmas has been celebrated on Christmas for a long time... maybe like 2000 years or so, but I think the "season" of joyfullness is incorporated for the sake of Provo people's sanity.

So I've decided that I'm going to list my favorite things, because if I list them, it's easier to remember to be grateful for them, right? And what better place to make lists than on a trusty blog.

1) I love that I've spent the entire weekend cutting out paper snowflakes. And then we framed them in our living room.






2) I love that I found THE perfect gift for my S.I.L. Liz for a VERY reasonable price at Big Lots that goes along with the 3 other things I had going for her. I'm so excited to hear about her reaction. I'm kind of sad she and my brother won't be at our house with the rest of the family, but her brother is getting married, (maybe?) and will be spending time with her side. Also, that's another thing; drawing names for Christmas presents is a whole lot less fun. Andrea (my oldest sister) and I were talking about it, and we both love giving gifts that we think people would like, but it's just not practical with so many people and so many of us being students. (aka, really poor) But still! I really think Liz will like what I've gotten for her.

3)Christmas music is my favorite!! I don't think anything can bring the spirit or make me as happy as music can. And my roommates are the same way... there is ALWAYS music playing in our apartment, often coming from all 3 bedrooms. And we all love singing. The ward music...person(?) asked our apartment to prepare a musical number for the ward Christmas program. We're going to be singing a song called "If this child were born today" which is an arrangement with "The first noel" and "away in a manger" incorporated in it. Hannah and Natalie are singing the soprano part, Jacey and Sarah alto, Casey tenor but an octave up, and Me bass an octave up. oh man, it's awesome.

4)I love that even though it's freezing outside, people are so warm and friendly. Everyone is more open and cheerful during the Christmas season. Our parking lot is completely in the shade of our building and when it snowed on saturday, it didn't have a chance to melt before it froze into a solid slat of ice. I've gotten my car stuck while attempting to back into my spot twice, and both times, someone was there and helped push my car while I backed it in. How nice is that? And how often would someone just walk on past on any other freezing cold day after Christmas?
A view of our parking lot from our front window.


5)I love that I can drink hot chocolate whenever and however often I want. And it doesn't matter if I put on a couple pounds because I'm bundled up in about a thousand layers of clothes anyways. :)

6) I love that there are decorations up everywhere. People string up lights and wreathes and Christmas trees are all over the place. I can't even begin to tell you how many snowmen I've counted. It just makes me happy...

well I have to be off to my mission prep class now, it starts in 15 minutes. I hope you all love Christmas as much as I do though... I'd be sad for you if you didn't.

late at night...

These are some of my all time favorite pictures. Well, out of the ones I have saved to my computer. They aren't really necessarily great pictures, but they remind me of really good times...

picture update

I don't have a ton to update on right now. College life is stressful as usual, but that's how things go during mid-terms, right? But I think I can safely say I have the best 5 roommates anyone could possibly ask for. I am so grateful for them and their willingness to do anything they can for me, even when I don't ask.


I'm also really excited to be going home tomorrow! I should get there around dinner time; mom said she'd have my sheets nicely washed for me. Isn't she the greatest?! She knows how much I love my bedroom, especially my bed. It's been the longest time since I've been able to stay in it though because Nate and Liz stayed there over the summer and before that, they were there for Christmas as well. I don't mind giving it up, I love spending time with my family more than anything, so it's well worth it, but it's been a while. I am... SO... excited.
And she said she'd hold off the pedicure til I got there. HA! I'm pretty excited for that.

Anyways, because I haven't posted in 17 years, I figured I'd add a few from my life recently. The first set is from a recent FHE. The first counselor in our bishopric is a photographer, so we had a really really fun photoshoot at his house!
This is the whole family (minus Hannah)


A few favorites...






And last weekend, Hayley and Bo came to visit. We had a really fun night! We used the tickets we won at the Nickel Arcade to buy Mike some toys. I'll be sending him that package ASAP.






So that's it for now. It's pretty late and I DO have to go to one more class tomorrow morning before coming home. I bet there isn't a single one of you out there who envy that.

so I got bored.

So... this is basically the week of unending joylessness. 3 midterms and a paper. But I did have time to check out blogs... because I definitely don't have time to write my own. And this is what I found. I've been to this site before and when I took the Celebrity look alike test I found out that I look pretty asian. Or at least I look like a lot of asian celebrities. Others too. But it was a while ago, maybe I'll have to re-do it and blog up the results. Anyways, here's my "looking like my parents-ness."



It's late, and I'm planning to wake up at 6:30, so please pardon my lack of incoherent verbalige.

halloween (I added more)

just thought I'd update with some pictures of me and my roommates during our ward trick or treating... Hannah was busy with homework, so she didn't participate.


Casey, Me, Sarah, Jacey, Natalie


our apartment door setting... Jacey, Sarah, Natalie, Me, Casey Jo


Natlie has some cool settings on her computer. This is us looking in the bathroom mirror after realizing just how creepy we looked.


Me, Jacey and Sarah. Casey Jo and Natalie ran the booth and we glared at passers by.


Here's a fun one.

last week.

So, I've been pretty busy without getting a whole lot done this past week. I'm really not a fan of that. I'd like to feel like when I'm constantly doing something that I'm getting things accomplished, but I guess that's how the pages fall sometimes.
I got a letter from Cj Huntsman on Thursday. finally. I wrote him over a month ago, so I thought maybe he had died or something. No, I understand that missionaries are very busy, and I'm just a random friend who won't be getting a very high priority, but still. AND! his companion is Scott Christensen who is a friend of mine from my BYU ward last year, so they had both stuck a letter in the envelope. What are the chances of that actually happening? Especially because they have been out close to the same amount of time. Scott has maybe been out 2 or 3 months longer, but that's it. Weird.
I had work last night. Coed Volleyball. I wrote my cousin Colton back who is serving in the Talahassee Florida Mission and then started writing Cj back... all while at work. It helps the time to pass by faster. Also, there were a ton of halloween parties going on, and people would show up to the games late, like entire teams would show up late, and expect me to undo their forfeit. I really don't like it when people do that.

k, you know what, this blog is getting really boring. still. so I think I'm just going to post it. call it good.

Except that today was really productive and I did get things done. I woke up and did the dishes, then I cleaned the bathroom, then I ate breakfast (brunch?) then I showered, got my hair cut, and picked up Natalie from the airport. Good day eh?

8 things

Stacy "tagged" me (or rather, everyone in her link list) so I get to write 8 weird or interesting facts about myself that everyone might not know. Basically because I am bored. And it is Sunday afternoon. And I am full, seeing as I just ate dinner. And I'm soon going to be eating dessert. And I don't want to do anything productive. And I'm getting help from my roommates because I'm not really on top of things myself today.

1)I analyze people. I'm pretty perceptive. I like to know as much about people's personalities as is possible. I like to know how I can/should act around them. And it bothers me when I can't find out what's bothering them. Some people shy away from conflict, and I'm all about avoiding it when I can, but if the conflict already exists, I can't resist investigating the problem and talking about it so it will be fixed. Unless there will be a greater conflict by nosing about. Then I suffer alone... in utter agony... right.

2)I unconsciously pucker my lips when watching kissing scenes in movies. yeah, I know.

3)I am the queen (THE QUEEN) belcher. oh yes. You wouldn't believe it, but it's true.

4)I sometimes pray in a hispanic accent.

5)I broke my bedroom door. (here in my apartment) Pulled it right off the hinges. And not out of rage... out of shear strength...

6)I play spider solitaire while waiting for pages to upload on my computer. always. and I generally end up playing more solitaire than getting anything done.

7)I'm in love with all of my roommates. Seriously. We never fight. Does that ever happen in real life? not very often... not very often.

8)I value people. Actual people. Not what they can do for me, not how I can make them like me, but them.

what I got from him.

This is the response I got to the very short email I sent him (about as long as his). It's not much, but it's what I got.

yeah the actual physical writing was kind of missed this past week by
both of us. i don't want to make excuses, but i usually wait for your
letter and write back to respond. but again, no excuses, i'm sorry.
i'm in the process of making another tape. it's longer, so i should have
it finished in a little less than a week. i got your pictures of the
baby too. cute. both of you. i saw your blog pictures. dang.
just... wow. anyways, i gots to go write my family.
i miss and love you too. bye.

I wrote the short email wednesday just before I knew he was going to be checking his email. I told him I was in the middle of writing him a letter and that he'd get it soon (er or later).

Turns out he's checked out my blog... don't know how much time he spent on it, but in my letter, I kind of lectured him on not checking my blog, especially because I could write semi-distracting things on here that I wasn't writing to him on purpose, or post semi-distracting pictures... hopefully he'll avoid that from now on. I mean, look what he said about the pictures. I feel like satan, dang it.

mission prep "celebration"

So, I have mission prep once a week on Monday nights from 5-6:40 pm. Last week, Brother Bott (such a great professor, knows EVERYTHING, but in a different way than Brother Millet, my new testament professor, who also, knows EVERYTHING) gave us our first take home test aka "celebration". He likes to try and make us think it's gonna be this really great fun thing. It's not so much. It is now 1:37 am Monday morning and I'm just settling in to start it. Why am I blogging? you might ask. Because. This is just like me. I have had an entire week to spend researching the answers to this OPEN BOOK TAKE HOME test, and I haven't even started until the wee morning hours of the day that it's due. I was considering not going to any of my classes tomorrow, but that's just a bad habit waiting to happen. I'm trying to make some sort of a turning point in my education techniques... well at least in some aspects of it. Like going to every single class. I still find it a little difficult, knowing that I don't HAVE to be there, to actually motivate myself to go. I've been doing pretty good recently. Haven't missed any in the last two weeks or so. I think...

Church today was SO wonderful. I really needed it. Conference was wonderful last week, don't get me wrong, I really soaked in all of the talks and felt so enlightened. I think I missed the sacrament though. I think I got into the habit of taking it for granted and then when I didn't get it one week things kind of crashed... huh... Jacey, one of my roommates spoke in Sacrament; all of the talks were on the Atonement, (one of the most difficult topics to speak on, in my opinion) but she did wonderfully. She was up until the wee hours of this morning writing it, and all her hard work paid off. One of the speakers was out of town which left Bishop Lundberg to talk for a while. It was a really good meeting, very inspiring and uplifting and motivational...

I've been called to be an enrichment specialist. We had our first meeting today after church. Basically since we're doing quarterly enrichments now, we, as a committee of specialists, get to plan smaller scale activities that groups who are interested can participate in. A couple weeks ago, we sent around a clipboard for ideas on what these activities could be, and a lot of girls were interested in a spa/relaxation night. Heh, guess that's were I come in. At the meeting, I suggested that since I was a MaryKay consultant and that I just happened to have all the necessary supplies ready anyways that I could be in charge of that sort of thing. So, next sunday, I'll be sending around another fun little clipboard asking girls who are interested for the phone #'s and free times etc. It should be fun. All of the girls I've talked to so far are pretty psyched about it. yay.

I had dinner at Andrea's house today. brook was dressed pretty cute-ily. Yes I made that up. So we took a picture.



Mom's been there all last week and will continue to be there this week helping out with Karalee Jo and whatnot. Andrea told me yesterday to come and do my laundry there, which we got started before the game, but not done. So when I went over today, my mom had finished all of my laundry and folded it nicely for me... wasn't that nice of her? She's pretty great. And then she sent me home with left-overs. I was in charge of changing Karalee Jo's diaper after she ate... let's just say that was an experience and a half. And it's not like I've never changed a diaper before. Hello, I was a young woman once and babysat for everyone and their mother in the ward. But I'd never experienced THAT before. oh my gosh. Mom had to take over it was so ridiculous. and continuous. and goo.

Then, when I got home, we decided to create Harriet; a lovely addition to our apartment that freaks us all out when we see her out of the corner of our eyes.



She has acquired a skirt and boots since this picture was taken. It's pretty hilarious. My mom got me her head; it's a candy bowl for halloween, but of course the candy was gone within a few hours of it being noticed. so we decided to make her useful in another way; to creep people out. However, it mostly just creeps us out. so there you have it.

Also, fun little work story from last week. I was supervising soccer and we had no score cards in the binder like we ALWAYS do... so I had to improvise.




K. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started on that Mission prep take home test. It should be fun, right?

ha! get this.

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good times.

and the pictures...