Panic Time!

I have always wanted to be more feminine and beautiful, but there are some things making it really difficult for me:

1) I'm really lazy. 5 extra minutes of sleep or makeup? Sleep wins every time!

2) I have no fashion sense. I insist that I'm better at matching colors than my husband, but other than that, I just don't get it. The most attractive clothes I've owned have been picked out by my sister or husband. I wrote about this two years ago.

3) I'm REALLY cheap. Right now I have one pair of dress shoes. My mom thinks she bought them for me 3 years ago. I think it is in between 1 and 2 years ago. Either way, I've worn them nearly every day since, and they're trashed. Whoa! I just looked at the pictures in the link I referenced above, and I have the shoes on! So I guess I have had them at least two years. Sheesh.

4) Comfort is my paramount goal. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the look of high heels. But then I try them on, and I just can't do it. I cannot put myself through that torture. I browse at Zappo's and have saved pictures of the most gorgeous purple brushed leather heels on my computer, but I just can't get myself to actually suffer for beauty. You might have noticed that I had heels on in one of those pictures in the 2006 post. I would wear them to work and hobble in to the building. I would hang out at my desk all day and leave it only for emergencies (i.e., bathroom runs). Then I would have to pull myself up the stairs by the handrails. When I got home at night, I would take pictures of my poor red feet. For someone who has had 3 unmedicated childbirths (two of which were at home), I have a pretty low threshold for discomfort.

5) I rebel against societal expectations. Our culture's standard of beauty is so arbitrary. Here in the USA, it's sleek hair, makeup, a size 0 body, and high heels. In other cultures, it's lip plates, foot binding, or stretched necks. Who decides? I know that I have bought into our culture's idea of beauty. I'm trying to change that, but it's hard -- it's something ingrained into us from birth.

Wow, that was supposed to be a quick bullet-point list. Oops. Anyway, there was actually an entirely different point to this post. Namely, my sister is getting married the first weekend of November. Most of the time, I am fine with my bun/no-makeup/no-heels lifestyle, but I would like to look decent for the wedding (by US standards; no lip plates). My sister bought me a dress, and I actually think it will work OK. But what about the rest of the ensemble?! I need to figure out hair, makeup, and shoes.

Here is the dress, and yes, I don't know how to pose or smile:



It looks way different on the model (no surprise).

This dress is perfect for my um, chest area. I will not even get into my struggles with bras. But the fact that the pretty neckline thing on this dress covers it all up is FABULOUS. Someday I hope to find a good bra that fits. Probably not happening since I need a 30G (depending on how long since I've nursed the baby).

I have worn my hair in a bun probably 80-90% of the time since early 2006. I no longer own a straightening iron, curling iron, or hairspray. Since I'm not the bride, I don't need to worry about a glamour-intense hairdo, but I do want to look non-frumpy. I'm thinking that I'll do my hair in a half-up of some variety, with the remainder curled -- either my natural curls, or steam-rollers, or curling iron curls. Then a few wisps around my face will make it look awesome. Although now that I think of it, if I do that, I can guarantee that my baby will suck on/eat them, leaving them looking scraggly and nasty.

Here is a picture of me with no makeup:



When I was 14, I had my makeup professionally done. I think the colors complemented me well. I have never strayed from them in nearly 14 years of wearing makeup (I've worn it sporadically). As of yesterday, I had mascara, but that was it. The kids got into my eyeshadow, eyeliner, and lipstick and destroyed it. As I mentioned above, I cannot STAND spending money on stuff, especially something like makeup. I went for the high-quality stuff (haha) and bought a few things at WalMart today. I had two colors in mind for the lipstick -- nude and almost nude. I decided to be really bold and go for the 'almost nude'. Well, I tried it on at home, and it is Barbie doll pink! After a few minutes it brightened into a neon Barbie pink. In what galaxy is this 'nude'? $5 down the drain. I bought an eyebrow pencil, as my eyebrows are pretty much invisible. I think it might be OK. Maybe.

Shoes. Sigh. I'm going to have to wear heels of some sort. I hope I can find something nice with about 2" heels. If I get them now and wear them around the house, I think I might be able to stand them long enough to get pictures taken. If anyone knows of a place where I can get CHEAP dyeable shoes or clear shoes, let me know! By cheap, I mean $20 or less, dyed. Probably not happening, huh?

Has anyone made it this far? *chirp* *chirp* (That was the sound of crickets chirping. . . .)

Triceps brachii: lateral head

Note: If this post makes no sense, please forgive me. It is very, very late.

There are so many things I have wanted to write about over the past few months/years, but I never have time to write all of them. I've decided to just get started again and do what I can. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, or something like that. That said, the following post was not even a kernel of an idea in my mind until about 10 minutes ago. So all those other things I've been meaning to write about will have to wait.

A few minutes ago I was rubbing my arms because I was cold. I felt something firm and lumpy. After freaking out for a nanosecond, wondering what this unusual lump could be, I remembered -- oh yeah, I recently acquired a muscle. Yes, 'a' muscle. All the others are still just like limp spaghetti, but this one has decided to single itself out.

The muscle in question is the lateral head of the triceps brachii. It took several minutes of intense Googling to figure that out. I acquired it because of a Craigslist purchase. A few months ago I decided to start 'jogging'. I meant to start a blog about my 'jogging' adventure, but I never got started, and now I don't even remember what my motivation to 'jog' was. Anyway, I ended up buying a $30 jogging stroller off of Craigslist. It is pretty much a piece of crap, and I have to fight with it to keep it on the sidewalk/trail. Over the past few months I managed to develop a triceps muscle due to fighting with the stroller! Yay for 'jogging' with crappy strollers!

(The reason I put 'jogging' in quotes is because of my pace. On my last 'jog', my first after a 3-week hiatus, actual snails blew past me. Seriously. I was doing a 17-minute mile. 17 minutes, really. I didn't even know it was possible to 'jog' that slowly. I could easily walk faster.)

Am Fast!

96 words

Speed test

I didn't even cheat! The first 3-4 times I did this, I got 87 wpm. Then I got 94, then 93, then today I got 96 wpm.

If you wanted to though, you could cheat pretty easily:
8,451 words

Speed test

Holding On to You

When we left Houston, I regretted that I had not tried many of the thousands of restaurants in the area. However, I am grateful now, because I'd have probably found lots of good ones that I'd really be missing now.

There are several restaurants and foods that I am missing the most:
1) Texadelphia cheesesteaks, particularly the Mustard Blend sauce
2) Chipotle burritos (1450 calories each!)
3) Ninfa's and/or Don Carlos' queso and fajitas

None of these restaurants exist in Utah.

I have located two Utah restaurants that are known for their cheesesteaks*. One is in the Piper Down Irish pub in Salt Lake City, and the other is Philadelphia Sub Shop in Clearfield. I will most likely be disappointed if I try them, because I am craving Texadelphia's taste, and nothing else. I can also guarantee that neither will have Mustard Blend sauce, which is the most important part of a Texadelphia cheesesteak. I have found a couple sources on the internet claiming that the ingredients for the sauce are mayonnaise, yellow mustard, Gulden's spicy mustard, Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce, honey, and water. I'm going to experiment with the mustard blend sauce and then maybe I'll take some with me to the cheesesteak place in Clearfield someday. I knew before I left Houston that I needed to buy at least two jars of Mustard Blend from Texadelphia, but I forgot about it :-P If my experiment doesn't work out, I'll order some or have my Houston co-workers send me some.
* I understand that places like Subway and Quizno's have cheesesteaks, but they seem to have pretty consistent bad reviews.

I've tried New York Burrito, which seemed to be similar to Chipotle, but it wasn't even close. The basic idea was the same, but the burritos were small, and the ingredients were tasteless. The guacamole tasted like it was made from a powder.

I tried the fajitas at Bajio Mexican Grill. They were OK, but they weren't anything like Ninfa's/Don Carlos. Ninfa's/Don Carlos fajitas are simple Tex-Mex fajitas - flour tortillas, steak or chicken, onions/peppers, pico de gallo, guacamole, and sour cream, with beans and rice on the side. Everything is fresh (the key) and flavorful, but none of the flavors are overwhelming. Bajio Grill's fajitas had a bunch of strong flavors all competing for attention, which made everything kind of gross.

The final thing I need is queso. I have found a bunch of different recipes for queso, so I'm sure I'll find one that is satisfying. I used to melt Velveeta and add canned jalapenos and thin it with milk, and that worked all right. However, I want to find something that uses real cheese instead of Velveeta.

You'd Better Run!

Have you ever wondered why it's so difficult to get across the street before the "WALK" signal changes to "DON'T WALK"? Well, check out this excerpt from a nationally-recognized traffic manual:

"An average walking speed of 40-ft/s is appropriate for typical groups of pedestrians. . . .At signalized intersections pedestrian crossings must be assigned an amount of effective green time based on average walking speed."

Now, a speed of 40 feet per second is approximately equivalent to 27.3 miles per hour. Do you run across the street at 27 mph? I didn't think so!

OK, OK, it's an error. It's supposed to say 4 feet per second, and the error has been noted by the publisher. But next time I see a fast signal, I'm going to wonder. . .

Crazy!

Hmm, the second NaBloPoMo was over, I quit posting. It appears that I am motivated by external forces. Anyway.

So I was reading through some old journals last night. I have come to the conclusion that I was insane when I was a teenager, although I suppose that is a common characteristic of all teenagers. Maybe I'll post some interesting excerpts later, although maybe I won't, because it's fine to embarrass myself in front of strangers, but some of my family & real-life friends read this!

One highlight was some of the quotes from my mom in regards to my relationships. When I was 15 - "your reputation is shot" because 3 guy friends drove me around after a piano recital (taking equipment home, picking up stuff, taking people home). "You're throwing all your standards away" - because I went on more than 2 dates in a row with my boyfriend. The horror! Although, I guess my mom was right - my self-imposed standard (also a strong guideline from my church) was no steady dating before the boy goes on his mission. So by going on many dates in a row, and not dating others, I was in fact breaking my standards. But it still sounds so much more dramatic coming from your mom during an hours-long lecture!

Last Day!

Today is the last day of Nablopomo! I made it!



I was pretty much out of things to say, but I finally thought of something. Did you know I'm growing my hair out? My hair has been almost to waist length (when blow-dried straight) before. I really liked how it looked when it was short (not in the next picture, but the one after that), but only on the good days! If you have a bad hair day with short hair, too bad! If you're not working in a "professional" environment, you could use a bandanna or something, but if you are - too bad for you! There are many other reasons I want long hair.

Here's a picture from October 2003:


I was pregnant with Collin here. After this I grew it past my shoulders, and then had a dramatic chop. If I'm not mistaken, I was trying to copy Kerflop's old hairstyle. I neglected to remember that her hair is straight and mine is super-curly. Anyway. I maintained it somewhere close to the length in the next picture for quite a while.

So here's how I started out November 2005:


This is a pretty good hair day. Due to the tightness of the curl, I must have either used a lot of gel, or only diffused it a tiny bit and let it air dry the rest of the way. Remembering how much I liked it at this length, I'm wondering if I made a mistake by growing it. But not really.

Here I am now (I will spare you the hundreds of interim pictures):


This was an experiment. I got out of the shower and let it dry without touching it AT ALL.

I don't like the crunchiness of the aloe vera gel I have been using, so I wanted to see if it was possible for my hair to look decent with no product. As you can see, it looked fairly decent, in terms of not poofing out all over the place, but this picture was taken before it had been touched by human hands. It was a little "stiff" at the hairline, so I wanted to soften it up a bit. As soon as I touched it we were back to the poofiness. But this gives you a good idea of the length.

If I had done anything to speed the drying along (blotting with towel, drying in towel, finger combing), it would look a little longer because the curls would have stretched a bit.

It's going to take me pretty much forever to get to waist length! I have an average growth rate (1/2-inch per month), but a lot of the length is taken up by curl. Measuring from the hairline, over the top of the head, and down to the tips, my hair is 20.5" stretched out (dry) and 16" un-stretched (dry). I'm going for ultra-long hair, which means I can't abuse it any more by blow-frying it straight, or worse, flat ironing it. I may blowfry it on cool/low heat once every few months just to see how long it is straight, but I'm not sure if it's worth the damage I might get from the brush :-P

Engineer in training

I discovered today that I am officially an EIT (engineer-in-training). The requirements to become an EIT are to graduate from an accredited engineering program (which I did in 2003) and pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam. The FE is an 8-hour exam testing you on all the classes you should have taken in your college program. Most students take the FE while they're still in school because it's much easier that way. I started to sign up for the test while I was in school, but then I thought "I'm never going to work! I'm just going to be a stay-at-home-mom! Why spend $150 and waste 8 hours of my life?" So I didn't take it. Life changed, and I am working. I finally got around to taking the FE last April, and in June, I found out that I passed. I took it with four other people from my company, and I really want to compare scores with one of them. I'm really competitive about academic stuff :-)

We moved from Texas to Utah soon after that, and I still haven't sent in the forms to become licensed in Texas. Today I decided to find out how I could register in Utah. I couldn't find anything on the State website, and my coworkers confirmed that there is no EIT registration process in Utah. Basically, once you've graduated and passed the FE, you can start calling yourself an EIT. So, in Utah I'm now 'officially' an EIT. Yay, me! I've filled out my papers for Texas (again), so if I ever get around to sending them off, I'll be an EIT in Texas too!

Bring It On

Most years, it takes me a couple of months (or more) to remember to write the new year. But recently I've had the opposite problem. For some reason, I keep writing '2007' instead of '2006'. So bring 2007 on - I'm ready this time! Although I'm sure that as soon as January 1st hits, I'll be back to writing 2006 or 2005 or something.

High School Memories

A few weeks ago I suddenly had a memory from high school:

From the time I turned 16, I drove to school with my sister most mornings. It was always dark on the way, especially during the winter. My high school (Northridge) was in Layton, UT. As we drove east on Highway 193, we could look out across the valley and see the Bountiful temple, shining like a brilliant jewel. The temple was approximately 17 miles away as the crow flies, but it is a huge, brightly lit, white building located up on the hillside, so it's easy to see for miles around. On those dark winter mornings, when I was so exhausted and the world seemed so cold, it was so comforting to look out and see the temple. I watched for it every morning and felt like the day was just a little bit better after I'd seen it.

Here's a picture of the Bountiful temple. Here are some more. From ground level to the top of the spire, the temple is 175 feet tall. The total floor area is 104,000 square feet (on several floors). At night it has powerful lights shining on it, and it just looks so beautiful. Incidentally, BigDaddy and I were married in this temple.

Lest you think my high school days were filled with spiritual visions of jeweled temples, here are some pictures of me as a Senior:



No, I wasn't trying to get some "tongue action". I wish I could still wear shirts like this. My 'chest' size sort of got out of control when I was pregnant and nursing babies, so button-up shirts weren't quite realistic. Now that I'm more proportional again, I'm still nursing, so they still wouldn't work so well. It's a lot easier to be discreet with a stretchy shirt.



This picture was taken on yearbook signing day. I know, because my name cards, pictures, and animal footprint stickers are there on the table. However, I don't think this method of eating was a "let's get crazy on the last day of school" type of thing. This was probably a typical way of eating for me. Maybe this explains why I didn't get asked out as much as I thought I should.

Totally Awesome Website

I was doing a little Googling and ran across this old website of mine from 1999: http://members.fortunecity.com/akite47. I hesitated before sharing this, because it has a lot of personal information, but it's too funny!

No, I don't have a black dot on my nose like in that picture :-D

I have no recollection of making this website. All the personal links on the site refer to my site at BYU's engineering department, not Fortunecity. For that reason, I am thinking that I uploaded my site to Fortunecity as a backup for the engineering website.

Here are some of the correct links (the others are obsolete):

Tragic Chia Pet Deaths - LOL! I must have forgotten to water my Chia pets!
Contact Me! - At the time, I thought I was so hot and cool that everyone would want to ask me out, so I made sure to provide plenty of contact options :-)
My Favorite Music Groups and Other Music Info - At one time, I did have every Monkees episode on VHS. It was the first major purchase I had ever made. I bought a set with a damaged box, so it only cost me ~$250, instead of $400. I later sold it. You'll also notice a link to Napster on this page. Living on campus with T1 internet connections allowed us to download a song in ~1 second. This was just when Napster was starting to be seen as illegal. The year after this, my roommate and I deleted all our Napster songs in an effort to be honest. However, I kept 11 country songs on my computer!

I tried to log in to Fortunecity to see if I could remove the site (it's absolutely hideous, especially with 6 inches of ads on top of the page) or at least fix the broken links, but I can't remember my password from 1999. I tried the names of all the boys I dated, all the typical passwords I used at the time, but I got nowhere. I did remember the email address I used to sign up with, so I entered that, and Fortunecity sent my name/password to the email address I provided. Unfortunately it's been obsolete since ~2004!

Extreme Fashion

I freely acknowledge my lack of fashion sense. I would classify my style as somewhere between "80-year old librarian" and "90-year old grandma". I'd like to improve to at least "60-year old hippie". I've documented the carnage with poor photography* over the past few weeks:

The Pants of Extreme Shortness and Ill-Fittingness

I usually wear these with Sketchers lace-up shoes. At least I had the presence of mind to wear them with different shoes this time.

The Most Decent Outfit I Own

I got this skirt at Old Navy in approximately 1998. It was looser then :-)

Knit T-Shirt with Dress Pants

This might look OK if I tailored the shirt a bit. But then I won't be able to wear it if I get pregnant! (by which I mean this shirt looks like a maternity shirt). These are the highest heels I've had since 1999. They kill my feet. I have to take them off when I sit down.

Grandma Sweater with Biker Boots

These are my Jedi boots. I don't know what possessed me to wear them with this dress. I wear this sweater nearly every day - whenever I get cold at work. When I worked in Houston, my office was like a freezer, so I literally wore it EVERY single day. EXTREME fashion, I'm telling you!

Hand-Me-Downs

My sister gave me these Victoria's Secret jeans several years ago. They were also MUCH looser then! You can tell they are old because they are not super-low-rise. I got this shirt from the D.I. (thrift store). I neglected to try it on first, or else I would have realized it was too tight for my super-conservative modesty standards. Yes, I know I'm weird. I won't wear this out of the house unless it's under another t-shirt.

Normal Dress

This dress isn't too bad. I have another one just like it but it's blue/white and has buttons all the way down the front. I stole both from my sister. She doesn't know I have them yet. I wear each one once a week because they are rayon so they don't fade and don't wrinkle. I like dresses, and even more, I like dresses that require no ironing or complicated care.

Evening Wear

I really did wear this outfit outside the house, but not to work. For work I had on a white t-shirt and black shoes. I switched shirts after I got home so the kids wouldn't stain the white shirt. I got these sandals before Crocs got popular. They're made out of the Croc foam and are pretty comfy. My sister gave me this skirt before I left for college in 1999.

*My camera is pretty decent if it has enough light.