Towed

I can now officially check "ride in a tow truck" off my bucket list. Okay, it was never actually there, but if it were, I could cross it off. See that beauty to the left? That's a 1991 Chevy van. Woot! I currently work part time for a machine shop. I drive a van very similar to the one shown here a good portion of the time. A couple days ago when I was driving home after making all my deliveries, the van died....in the middle of the freeway. Here's how it went down. I was driving along (probably singing along with the radio) when I realized I was starting to slow down. The van is kind of loud and, as I mentioned, I was on the freeway, so I didn't notice the lack of noise coming from my engine. I did the first thing that came to my mind--pushed harder on the accelerator. Needless to say, that accomplished nothing. My second thought was, "Oh crap! I need to get to the shoulder." My second thought mayber should have been turn on your hazards... But it wasn't. The big issue with getting over to the shoulder was that I was rapidly slowing down while the rest of traffic wasn't. There were four lanes of traffic and I was in number three. I turned on my blinker, repeatedly said things like, "Please let me over," and squeezed through two lanes and onto the shoulder. Once I was safely out of the way of traffic, my thought was to turn on my hazards. I turned off the car and tried to start it again. Well, it didn't start, so I called up my boss and told him that I had bad news--the van had died. He arranged for a tow truck to come get me, and I sat in the van for a lengthy amount of time until he could get there. No worries though. I kept myself entertained. I texted some peeps, scribbled on scrap paper... I was actually pleasently surprised at how fast time went by. Besides, I had a great view from where I was trapped. It was something like this: For those of you who can't tell, that is in fact Seattle, which is quite a bit away from where I was heading. You can even make out a little space needle on the horizon! So things weren't all bad. I was trying to count my blessings at that moment, the biggest one being that no one got hurt. I made it safely to the side of the road, and help was on the way. I had finished all my deliveries, so there would be no impatient customers. When the tow truck came, the driver mentioned that I was lucky to break down where I did because I little ways back where I had been driving at one point there was no shoulder to pull off on. I hadn't even realized that little fact. I'm extremely grateful that things turned out so well. I'm grateful to my boss who sorted things out even called to check up on me (which is probably a good thing because I could have gone insane sitting there... traffic rushing by...). Things definitely could have been worse, and I'm so glad they weren't. I think that's enough adventure for one week :)

Adventure, I Hear You Calling Me

I'm taking a storytelling class this semester and I've been struggling to come up with a story that I can use. "There's nothing interesting to tell about my life," a common excuse but not exactly a true one. It's the same excuse I hear when people tell me they could never keep a blog: nothing happens in their life that is blog worthy. I beg to differ! For the past little while, I have felt that I really have nothing to share with the world. "Nothing out of the ordinary has happened," I reasoned with myself. Even so, life, everyday ordinary life is always full of adventures. They may be little adventures at that, but adventures all the same.

Today, my adventure started when I was walking across the parking lot towards campus. There's a fresh layer of snow outside and a hidden layer of ice underneath. I slipped and fell right in the middle of the parking lot. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened sooner... I was a little irritated with myself at first, but then I realized 1) I didn't break anything and 2) no one was around to see how ridiculous I looked flailing about as a came tumbling to the ground. So you see, even if these adventures are small things and perhaps not even good things for not all adventures are peachy keen all the time (in fact, most aren't) you can still take something from them. Learn something or maybe just have something to laugh at later on because we all need a good laugh now and then. So what did I learn from my first little adventure of the morning? Perhaps how to make bad things not seem so bad or maybe just gratitude. Plenty of people break bones around here because of the ice. I'm glad I wasn't one of them today.

Another recent adventure which turned out to be quite fun despite my hesitation to actually do it was making cookies whilst blindfolded. Okay, more like making the two guys I was with make the cookies while I sat back and laughed at them. I mean that in a loving way.

A couple weeks ago, my roommate Sara and I went on a double date with two guys who are ironically both named Matt. As part of this date, Sara insisted that we make the boys make cookies blindfolded. I didn't think it was a good idea, but they were both game. We were allowed to help a little, but not much. Sara kept getting after me for being too much help. What can I say? I felt bad for the poor guy. Though I suppose it builds character... They actually did pretty well. I was impressed. And we all had a lot of fun.

One of the Matts (Matt Z as a oppose to Matt A) wanted to put the cookies in the oven himself while still wearing his blindfold. Sara wasn't too fond of that idea, and she stole the cookies before Matt could stop her. It's probably a good thing too.

Well, the day is still young, and there are plenty adventures out there calling my name! In fact, the parking lot is probably waiting anxiously for me to go out there for my next class just so it can pull me down again. Rude.

May you find the adventure in your life because we all have stories to tell. So what's yours?

The First Post of 2010

I've tried like four times to write a blog post, I've failed every time. I mean, this post has to be monumental! It is my first post of the new year after all! Well, here are some of the awesome things (and perhaps a couple of the not so awesome things since those have contributed to my growth in a positive way) that happened within the past year.

• I got to spend a second semester with five amazing roommates!





• One of those roommates relapsed during the semester. It was her third time with leukemia. The blessing is that she is doing well, and she's been an inspiration! Love you tons, Linds!



• Both my brothers graduated! One from high school and one with his bachelors.



• I got to go to Europe! More specifically Ireland, England, Wales, and France. Thank you school programs that make things like that possible.






• I got to meet my new cousin, Ian.






• I got my old job back at Jansport. I like to complain about that, but really it was a great blessing to have work.



• I got to go to the Strawberry Festival with Megan. I can't even believe how fun that is!






• I saw David Archeletta and Demi Lovato in concert.






• I got to be a part of a bunch of photo shoots. So much fun!

• I started a new semester at BYU Idaho where I learned a lot (and not just about my school subjects but about myself as well)



• I drove a four wheeler for the first time...so what if it ended up in a lake?



• I had some success with my writing (Huzzah!)



• I got to meet a bunch of awesome people and I got to see some old friends.
  

That makes the year seem so short! But really, so much more has happened in that time. There were some rough spots in 2009 as there will be in every year, but there were some really good times too. And you know, I'm learning to be grateful for those trials. They help shape who we are and can actually really benefit us in the long run. Strange, huh?

There's a lot of expectations for 2010 (or at least a few really big expectations!). I'm going to try and submit some of my short stories to be published 1. because I have to for a class and 2. I was actually planning on trying anyway. I may not actually be successful, but that's okay. I've got to try at least.

I'm graduating this semester. Come April I will officially have my Bachelors in English. It's very exciting and sometimes disconcerting. But I have a good feeling about the future. I'm going to start putting portfolios and resumes together. Plus I will be applying for an internship soon, so hopefully that will work out. I'm going to find something. I'm confident of that.

Um, and I'm going to Disneyland in April. That's probably the greatest expectation of all!

Well, I guess I just narrowed down the year into three expectations... I'm sure I could think of more if I really tried. Oh yes. My New Year's resolution is to inherit a chocolate factory. I'll let you know how that goes :)

Some Guy Named Matt

My roommate showed me this today and I thought it was awesome, so I'm sharing. If I understand correctly, this guy was actually paid to go around the world and randomly dance! I don't think you're necessarily supposed to take something from it, but I did. Take a look at the video, and then I'll tell you what I thought.






I was touched by all these different people all around the world just randomly dancing! To me it showed how all of us are people. That sounds dumb, but I hope you understand what I mean. We are all precious. I have a belief in God, a God who loves us all. I believe that we are all his children, and as I watched this video, I thought of that. You don't have to get the same thing out of it, but there you go. Just a thought. If nothing else, there was just something beautiful about seeing all these different places in the world with all its native peoples. I hope you enjoyed the video!

So Scared I thought I'd Wet Myself

This post is dedicated to Megan. She just wrote a post about our discovery of the Tower of Terror at California Adventure in August 2008. The above picture is the second time we went on (she said she couldn't find it so I decided to put it in my post). To see the first time, look here.

The first time, Megan and I went with our brother, Josh, and our cousin, Michael. They were determined to keep straight faces for the photo, which they accompished. Megan and I on the other hand, were screaming for our lives! Before we went on, I thought it wasn't going to be a big deal. I thought, "It's just a few drops. How bad can it be?" Well, the ride is Twilight Zone themed and you watch the story behind the haunted elevator and how you are going to relive the experience that made it haunted. You see the ghostly figures of the people who died tragically when the elevator fell. Michael was sitting next to me, and he said, "We will start falling right after you see the images of the people fall." I was still thinking it wouldn't be a big deal, but I was starting to get a little nervous. As the images of the people seemed to get smaller and farther away, Michael said, "Okay, we are going to drop....now." As soon as he finished talking, we began the first drop, and I began screaming like there was no tomorrow!

It was horrifying! A lot worse than I'd expected. I suppose you could also say it's exilerating. The second time Megan and I went, we went with our dad. He made fun of us the whole time we were waiting in line because we were freaking out...a lot! I think he understood why once we started that first drop!! Since I knew where the camera was this time, I smiled for the picture and then immediately resumed screaming.

What I love about the picture is that the shadows make it look like Dad had two giant sweat marks! Haha He was so scared!

Will I do it again? Maybe...but I'll probably whine whilst waiting in line even more than before.

Letterboxing: My Latest Adventure

For one of my English classes I have to write an article about making your own fun in Rexburg. I was inspired by Laura, and decided to discover the joy that is letterboxing. I looked it up on letterboxing.com and found one right here on campus!

It's near here!! Go find it!

Letterboxing is kind of like geocache. People make homemade rubber stamps and hide them. You then go and find said stamp based on the clues they give you. Once you find it, you get to use their stamp to add to your own little book and then you stamp their book and you can leave your name, etc. Make sure you are curtious, and hide the box back where you found it (the stamps are usually in some sort of food storage container).

I made my roommate, Talia, and my friend, Breanna, go with me to share in my adventure. We semi-cheated as we don't have our own stamps (I'm going to get one though!! Huzzah!). So instead of stamping the book, we drew pictures that we thought represented us.

You'd think I'd draw a book or something, but no. I most definitely drew the triforce.

We found a little bionicle man inside as well, so we took some pictures with him. It was all very exciting.

Here is a picture of the stamp that was there. You know you want to start a new hobby and go find it for yourself :) Maybe is sounds kind of weird and maybe even dull, but I assure you, it is quite fun!! Go have yourself an adventure! You never know what good times you'll have along the way!

Good luck with all of your adventures!!