Birthday Supreme! Just like the pizza, but I am 25!

This is what $25,000 would look like if these were $1000 bills instead of ones. I had to pop the 25 balloons that my parents blew up for my birthday breakfast surprise to get all the cash out. It was a great day, commemorating my birth.


Bob at work bought me cheetos. Rene bought me a cookie. Amy bought me the 20 questions game-rock and roll version. Diana bought me a design book. Drew and Megan bought me chocolate cake.
I wish all of you could have come!!!
After dancing and trying to stump the 20 questions games with Bright Eyes, Gustav Mahler and Reba McIntire, we went hot-tubbing at a hotel downtown. LOVE it!!!

maps interest me.

I do market and sales research. Basically I make spreadsheets with info for sales reps. One thing I have enjoyed is seeing names of cities that I didn't know existed. There are some really great names, it makes me want to visit these places, or just say their names, or just tell people I am from there. Here are some of my favorites:
1.Itasca, IL
2.Boca Raton, FL
3. King of Prussia, PA
4. Piscataway, NJ
5. Celebration, FL
I love being able to assign a memory to a dot on a map. You never know what a place looks like until you go there. Each city is distinct. Sandra Cisneros expressed this idea in her book "Caramelo" when she talked about her family's annual trip to Mexico. I love it. She says, "Not like on the Triple A atlas from orange to pink, but at a stoplight in a rippled heat and a dizzy gasoline stink, the United States ends all at once, a tangled shove of red lights from cars and trucks waiting their turn to get past the bridge. Miles and miles."
This weekend I saw Logan and got to know it a little better. Now it is more than just a dot on the map. That is another blog in and of itself, don't worry, soon.

The problem is money comes and goes...

At the rate I am going I will never be able to save enough money for grad school by this coming August. So I have decided that the only solution is to start playing Megabucks. yes! it was divine providence that I moved to Las Vegas.

U R A 10!

Happy Valentines Day! I love you all!
Fax me! Email my heart! Text me! Blog me!
Tonight is our ward temple night...for sealings. What a great coincidence! Since my friend and I didn't sign up for the ward valentine date (every year they do a little match making and assign you a date for the 14th of Feb. You can even make requests) we decided to go do sealings. This should be the best valentines day ever!

Dear Salt Lake City, I am really sorry to hear about what happened Monday night...

Rest in peace Trolley Square.

prolly this is my favorite picture of 2007.

I found this: two of my friends from elementary school jumping on the tramp in my backyard with my brother.
I love aaron's clothes, his checkered vans with knee-high socks and crazy shorts with matching pocket on the shirt. Then check out the girl on the left's boots. Any girl would wish she could own those now. We used to play hide-and-seek in my neighborhood. The best place to hide was in the corn-rows. Yum, look at all that corn in the background. Sometimes I wish I was still a kid. Childhood is so care-free, making faces at the camera, doing some chores so you can go swimming, playing monopoly for days on end, riding bikes to 7-11 and then riding home with no-hands so you can drink the slurpee and open the candy you bought, making home movies, playing recreational soccer, cheating at go-fish, getting in trouble for saying "butt-face" "stupid" and "shut-up"
I think that is why I liked "13 going on 30" so much. She recognizes her innocence lost. I wish we could all be innocent again and also tell more knock-knock jokes.

Life is not what I thought it was 48 hours ago.

My office is being remodeled this week. My boss kept saying, "tomorrow it will be done." But finally on Wednesday at about 3pm I figured the week was already over and I should just ask for Thurs and Fri off to go visit San Diego State University and talk to professors there about the grad program. I applied there this year so I wanted to check it out and I already had work off, I just needed to get into the car and drive. So with basic plans set up, I left about an hour later, hoping I could find a place to sleep and also hoping the ceramics professors wouldn't be on sabbatical.
I stayed at my sisters on Wed night in Long Beach. Then early Thurs I went to San Diego. I wandered around campus and felt so happy that I couldn't stop smiling. This is hard to admit, but I do miss being a student. I scheduled an appointment with one of the profs, then the other one gave me a little tour of the studio. They both seemed extremely nice and easy going and also I talked to some grads and undergrads. The program is awesome, the facilities are amazing and San Diego is beautiful.
I really wanted to go to the temple the next day, so luckily I found a place to stay there in San Diego. (muchas gracias a estefan) Then I drove home. wow. vamos a ver que pasa.

THIS is heaven on earth!!

I feel like life is always a lot different from what I think. Sometimes it takes a year to look back and recognize our growth, sometimes just a couple of days. Those moments are two-edged swords because on the one hand I love seeing the enlightenments I have had, but on the other hand I always wonder what my current blindness is.
So, moral is: I can't change the past and worrying about the future only makes me nauseous...I guess I have to live in the present with all its little surprises keeping me on my toes. Its a funny process: becoming who we are.
So, goal is: Do something crazy spontaneous today! It vales the pena. Thats spanglish for its worth the pain.

Things I really like on roadtrips...not necessarily in this order

1. rolling the windows down
2. sunflower seeds
3. looking at maps while driving
4. dr. pepper
5. making u-turns
6. npr
7. feeling independent
8. really loud music, I'm talking REALLY loud!
9. rest stops, those are great.
10. living out of a suitcase