As promised...

As promised, here is the other ad that I enjoyed from the 18 Nov 1950 Colliers:

Verizon's commercials

Know how Verizon has these really clever commercials where the employees are all following the person using their phone? Because, you know, so many people are all working to make sure that your Verizoning experience is exactly what you hope it will be, and so much more?

Yeahhhh, it's actually not all that new of an idea. Check out this ad that I found while I was working today:

Gasp! It's been done!

600,000 Bell Telephone People were coming out of people's telephones even back in 1950, Helping to Get Things Done. Who knew?! Verizon, probably.

(This is from the 18 November 1950 issue of Collier's. Which is my new favorite magazine. I think I would have been good at the 1950's.)

I also found another AMAZING advert, but it was in color and was taking too long to email, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Jagged Edge Retreat

I've been meaning to blog about the Jagged Edge Retreat since there's really not much about it online.

My stylist is Cara, and I like her a lot.

The whole place is fantastic, actually. The salon is painted blue, and there are these giant trees all over. Each of the stations is made in basically the same style, but the wood and details about each of them are all different. It's totally a trendy place. I think most of the stylists have tattoos. They use Redken products.

I started going several months ago. I had Jess find a place online; I was actually thinking of a particular place downtown, but I couldn't remember what it was called. She found this one, and set my appointment for me, and I went. It ended up not being the place that I had wanted [thought I wanted?], but when I walked in, I immediately loved it. Although I had been planning on just getting a haircut, I knew that it would be a waste to leave without having them do color.

Back then, I had been doing my hair at home and it had gradually become more red than I wanted, and then I had kind of matched my natural color... kind of. My hair was growing out and you could see the part that was dyed and the part that wasn't, but I don't think people noticed unless they were looking closely. So I told Cara that I wanted something different, but I really didn't know what, and I showed her a couple magazine pictures of layered haircuts.

She suggested highlights to bring it all together. I said that was fine, but that I didn't want to look like a zebra. My first stylist back in California used to do my highlights, and I kind of felt stripey, especially looking back at pictures. Cara understood.

And that was the beginning of that. I liked Cara because she had so much personality! (She still does.) We chatted a bunch, and I was having guy problems back then and she was the one who sang "just gotta keep on keepin' on" which I still think about sometimes.

When I went back, she totally remembered me. She remembered where I worked, and my mission in Italy, and the guy problems, and everything. And she asked all about it, and we picked right up where we had left off. She has a little index card that she uses to keep track of the exact amounts of color she does each time so that she knows how to get the precise colors we do for me.

And that's how it is every time. We're friends. At the beginning we talk about what I want, and plan out my hair, and I always leave a couple hours later feeling like my hair is artwork. Right now we're doing blonde highlights and dark brown (...lowlights?), mixed in with my normal hair color and the caramel that we used to do. I think it looks smashing!

They also do extremely trendy hairstyles, like whoever you know who has amazing, amazing hair, except better.

It is kind of spendy, but for people who Googled this and just want to look awesome, it's totally worth it. And for everyone else, I wanted to share pictures, since the place is super random.

[Also, PS, they are usually busy-- I took the pictures at my last appointment, which was a late appointment, and I decided it would be nicer to avoid pictures of other people since I knew I was posting them on the interwebs. (Except at the front, because they were there and I wanted one of the front anyway.)]

Doga?

I just found something interesting on Craigslist. It's Doga, which is yoga for dogs.

...

I can't decide whether it sounds like a good idea, (like massages for infants, which do a lot of good things), or whether it just seems silly.

It says it's a class unlike anything else being offered. I think this is true. The description says:

"Doga is incredibly fun and benefits both you and your pup in a variety of ways. You will have the opportunity to bond and spend some peaceful, soothing, quality time with your pup, you will also learn the basics of canine massage, as well as putting calm behavior on cue - incredibly helpful if you have a dog that stresses or gets hyper. Dogs of any size may join this class, and NO prior Yoga experience is needed. The Yoga poses are simple & easy enough for even the newest beginner, but may also be modified for those yogi's with more experience."

Huh. No prior experience needed. (I wonder, are there dogs that do have prior experience?)

The part that I really love the most, though, is the picture on the ad!


It makes me giggle and also fascinates me.

If you want to know more their website is here, or you can see the ad on Craigslist here. If you decide to get a dog just so that you can try this, the hours and location of the class are also listed.

I wonder if they would let me bring Paley. Or if they have Catoga. Probably not.

Garden 2.0.09

Even though a week ago it was still snowing here, when I went grocery shopping at Smithy's last Saturday they totally indulged my desire to pretend it's spring by having a Start Your Garden Indoors! display.

They had seeds for everything, and those little peat moss things (or fake peat moss since using real peat moss is Bad for the environment) that expand so that you can start seeds indoors. In all sizes! I could start a few seeds, or a lot of seeds, or a ton of seeds. Of anything.

And even though I do know it's not really spring yet, I totally bit. I bought it ALL! Well. A lot of it, anyway. I won't need more seeds for a long, long time.

I knew I wanted to start growing fresh herbs for my kitchen (I think this was even on my 101 list), so I got the Kitchen Herbs kit, which came with six little pots and seeds for Basil (mmmm), Chives, and Parsley.

And then I chose the seed growing kit that had 72 cells (instead of one with 50 something or 30 something.) And I chose seeds. I'm growing: cilantro (which is also coriander. Who knew?), rosemary, mint, oregano, thyme, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, cantaloupe, arugula, celery, peppers, and mixed lettuces.

Here are some of the lessons that I learned from my garden last year:

- Buy little plants instead of using seeds, especially for tomatoes and strawberries. Otherwise, it takes all season for them to grow to be big enough to give fruit and then there isn't enough time for them to grow things before fall.

- Don't plant anything outside until after it's done snowing.

- The little pods that are not just dirt (so that you can plant them in the tiny pot they grow in) are cool, but they make me feel concern for the roots that aren't strong enough to break through.

- Even though seeds are tiny, you don't have to plant a whole lot for them to grow.*

- Thinning a garden is not fun, because you have to take little plants (!) that worked so hard to grow from being teeny tiny seeds (!) that are totally viable (!) and just throw them away (!)

- Science has a lot figured out, but God has even more figured out.

- Plants need sufficient light to grow. If the package says it needs direct sunlight, partial sunlight for a few hours isn't going to cut it.**

Anyhow, I got the stuff, and I planted it. I planted the little kitchen garden first, and then I planted the other stuff. I came up with a plan so that things would stay organized:

I used my label machine to make little labels for some of the things on the sides so that I would remember what was where on the actual thing.

And then I put it up on the plant shelf in my kitchen window and left it.

AND THEY GREW!

I planted this stuff one week ago, and here are pictures from today:

I still need to figure out who had the garden in front of our house last year. We have a triangular space about 1o' x 15?' that someone used for gardening last summer. If it was the girl who used to live where I am now*** then it's my garden now. If not, I may have to fight someone for it, I mean share nicely. In either case, I plan to get a bunch of pots for outside since Krista's garden thrived last year, and hers was in pots, and mine didn't and wasn't.

* But that didn't keep me from planting several lettuce seeds in each cell. Because they're just so tiny. Annnnd, now they're all growing. Of course.

** Hooray! I have great sunlight at this house.

*** Likely, since she had a ton of plants in this apartment--hanging, on shelves, in pots outside.

First Morsbag Complete!

I just finished my first Morsbag!

(This is a project that I have on my list of 101 things in 1001 days; I want to make 250 of them.)

I am so proud of myself.

It came out absolutely darling. If I were not already converted to bringing my own reusable grocery bags, this would totally win me over. Because why would you want to use nasty cheap plastic bags which kill animals if you could use a lovely (almost designer!) reusable bag also for free? Salt Lake is going to love morsbags.

It's pretty big, too. In the picture the label looks like it's 3" wide or something and the bag isn't so big...the label is actually about the length of a dollar bill.

The seams are all way reinforced, too, so these will be pretty sturdy bags.

Hm. This is a way fun project. I have stuff cut out to sew 14 more. (But not tonight! I need to go to bed!)

Tomorrow I'm going to donate platelets for the first time since I moved up to Utah. I've done a few other things from my list. And I need to blog about my garden, too. I've been doing a lot of stuff lately.

101 in 1001

One of Jessica's friends started doing this thing where you come up with 101 things you want to accomplish, and you try to do them in 1001 days.

Jess told us about it, and now all of the girls in our family are doing it together. We have a Google Docs document for it, and we've spent the past couple weeks coming up with our lists together so that we would be ready for 1 March, which was the day that we decided we wanted to start.

For more info about the project, you can visit this site, Day Zero, which gives some guidelines for setting goals (you know, specific, measurable, etc.), and links to a bunch of other people's lists.

Since we started on 1 March, we're working to complete our lists by 27 November 2011.

We divided our lists into categories, so that it would be easier for us to compare and do goals together, and to make it easier to balance our goals.

Everyone else chose 25 of their goals to work on in the next 250 days, but I didn't. Usually people edit their lists as they go; my sisters are changing the color of their items when they're in progress, and crossing them out when they're completed. On my blog I'll probably just blog about the things that I do complete, and maybe post updated lists a couple times.

Some people online put a lot of crazy stuff on their lists; visiting Africa, buying lots of expensive things, etc. I know that for about half of my 1001 days I'm going to be finishing my undergrad, and then for another year of it I'll most likely be doing my first year of law school. So I tried to be realistic about the things that I chose as goals. I think it will be a good 1001 days.

Here is my list:

Creativity & Projects

1. Finish quilt started with Grandma.

2. Make mission albums (3?)

3. Make NYC/DC/Boston album

4. Make pepper jack cheese.

5. Make mozzarella.

6. Learn to dye yarn.

7. Knit 12 pairs of socks. (0/12)

8. Spin enough yarn to knit a blanket, or make progress towards knitting a blanket from yarn I've spun.

9. Build a nice personal website.

10. Choose music I like, and sync my computer and phone.

11. Make my blog into books.

12. Can fresh fruit at least once.

13. Sew two Amy Butler Weekender bags. (0/2)

14. Sew an Amy Butler Sophia bag

15. Make an Amy Butler puzzle quilt

16. Blog at least twice a week for three months. (0/24)

17. Order moo cards.

Education & Learning

18. Review my Italian grammar book, completing all assignments.

19. Read Harry Potter in Italian.

20. Read Postmortem in Italian.

21. Graduate from college.

22. Take the LSAT. (?/180)

23. Apply for law school. (?/?)

24. Read 25 books outside of school reading. (0/25)

25. Take the Photoshop, etc, workshops on campus.

26. Take a carpentry class and make something.

27. Watch the AFI top 100 movies. (0/100)

28. Check into the Honors program at the U, and see how many more classes I would need. If possible to graduate on time, include these classes in my schedule.

29. Take a painting class for at least a month.

Environment & Outdoors

30. Find 100 caches. (0/100)

31. Place 15 caches. (0/15)

32. Sew 250 morsbags. (0/250)

33. Go camping at least once per year.

34. Go on 10 bike rides. (0/10)

35. Learn to cook 3 things in my Dutch oven. (0/3)

36. Switch to earth friendly cleaning products.

37. Pre-measure laundry detergent into snack bags or little containers so that I don't have to take the whole thing.

Family & Friends

38. Write to G&G 1x/month

39. Send real birthday cards/personal messages.

40. Send at least fun 3 letters to the boys. (0/3)

41. Read a satisfactory number of Mom's recommended reading.

Health, Fitness, & Appearance

42. Lose 25 lbs. (0/25)

43. Run 10 5Ks. (0/10)

44. Run a 1/2 marathon (April 2009!)

45. Run a full marathon (October 2009!)

46. Keep a running diary or training log for one month (0/31)

47. Do a sprint triathlon.

48. Learn to walk comfortably in heels. If such a thing is possible.

49. Buy five pairs of shoes. (0/5)

50. Donate an old item of clothing from my closet every time I get a new one until my closet only contains things that I actually wear.

51. Spend a weekend preparing at least 4 meals to freeze- at least 6 times. (0/6)

52. Learn to do eye makeup. (MAC class? book? Lots of practice?)

53. Wear eye makeup every day for 1 month. (0/31)

54. Take a swimming class.

55. Have my eyebrows done professionally.

56. Laser surgery.

57. Buy a hat.

58. Do a beginner's snowboarding class.

59. Plan meals for one month. (0/31)

60. Try all of the meals from the Nordstrom Friends & Family Cookbook that I've been meaning to try and haven't. (0/78)

61. Attend 10 yoga classes. (0/10)

62. Start an herb garden for my kitchen.

63. Make an exercise playlist and put it on my little iPod.

64. Buy a pasta roller and make pasta from scratch.

House & Home

65. Paint my bedroom.

66. Paint my bathroom.

67. Paint my kitchen.

68. Acquire and learn 10 new games. (Including Rook.) (0/10)

69. Buy a wii.

70. Buy wii fit.

71. Buy Rockband.

72. Organize my papers into files.

73. Destroy papers that I don't need.

74. Cross stitch or embroider either a Jesus picture or a picture of a temple.

75. Build a bookshelf.

76. Learn to cook Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan

77. Organize my kitchen cupboards with plastic containers.

78. Paint my living room.

Money, Finances, & Work

79. Make a budget.

80. Save change.

Responsibility & Good Things

81. Buy a harness, leash, and stake so that Paley can do homework outside with me.

82. Make a sincere effort to not gossip for one month. (0/31)

83. Volunteer 100 hours. (0/100)

84. Oh, also, Red Cross certification class thing.

85. Upgrade my ham license to general class.

86. Find my place in Salt Lake to donate platelets and go at least 5 times. (0/5)

87. Organize and reduce e-mail so that there are 50 e-mails or fewer in my inbox and keep it that way for at least 4 months. (progress)

88. Finish Paley's shots.

89. File 2008 taxes by March 15.

Spirituality

90. Read every Ensign cover to cover for 12 months. (0/12)

91. Attend the temple 30 times. (0/30)

91b. Get married one of those times. (HA. Just kidding.)

92. Read my church books that I have and have not finished. (0/4?)

93. Read the Liahona cover to cover for one year. (0/12)

94. Determine genealogy goal and accomplish it.

95. Finish reading the Old Testament. (I'm to Proverbs.)

96. Graduate from Institute.

Travel & Places to Go

97. Do iFly.

98. Renew passport when it expires (June 2010.)

99. Attend the Rome temple dedication, if I can. If not, visit Italy.

100. See 5 plays. (0/5)

101. Take a trip with friends.

Personalized fonts! For FREE!

A long time ago, on one of my flights, I found a page inside the SkyMall catalog that would let you order a personalized font. I thought it sounded amazing!

It was a cardstock insert, and on both sides of the page it had little cells in light blue. They had guidelines, so that you knew how tall the letters should be and where the baseline would be, kind of like when you're learning to write, except more technical.

I. Wanted. One.

All you had to do was fill out the paper, and send it in with like, $300, and they would send you a disk with your font on it.

This amazed me.

I tore out the paper, and practiced my writing so that if I somehow stumbled upon lots of money I would be prepared to send my page in and get my font.

But $300 was a lot of money. Even more than the $84 ($82?) that an American Girls Collection doll that I couldn't afford either. Much more.

So I never got my very own, personalized font. Even though my little letters were written out perfectly, and I didn't go outside of any of the lines or ignore the baseline. I sure coveted that font though, the same way I wanted a "Welcome to (my longitude) (my latitude)" doormat that I saw in the SkyMall magazine a few flights ago. Okay, I actually wanted the font even more than that.

Imagine my surprise and excitement when Olympus shared Bismark's link to Yourfonts.com, which is a site that creates personalized fonts for FREE.

WAAAHOOO!!!

I printed out the pages with the little cells, and even though only the first page is required, I filled out both pages, so that I would have the extra letters with accents and stuff.

And then I carried them around in my notebook for a few weeks because I don't have a scanner. And I use scanners every day at work, but I just really didn't think about it. We've been busy.

But today, I finally took the time to nab a scanner in the computer lab, and I uploaded my pages that I wrote so carefully, and in about a minute I had my very own personalized font.

Holy smokes! It's as good as I had always hoped it would be. For like, years.

My only trouble now is, what do I do with it?

I can't decide.

I suppose I'll probably use it on posters. I could use it to write people letters. But when I send real letters, I kind of like to really write them. Because there's just something nice about real, handwritten letters that are not just typed letters that look handwritten.

I'm really excited with how it came out, though. The letters nestle all together just like real writing, and not with all the extra space around them like when I actually wrote them. Typing actually does look pretty much like my actual writing, aside from the fact that my real writing has variation. For example, sometimes my "e" are round, and sometimes they're sharp (like this font). I'll use both in the same sentence sometimes. I think maybe it has something to do with what letters it's next to...but I digress...

I highly recommend YourFonts.com because:
1. It is kind of a novelty.
2. You don't have to be a fancy technical person to use it.
3. It does not cost $300.
4. You don't have to wait until you get your hands on a copy of SkyMall to do it.
5. You can pretend you've written out your homework or essay by hand, and actually type it.
6. You can write letters that have a personal touch, even though they're typed. (Note: If you type because your handwriting is illegible, this will evoke in others a sense of irony, because your writing will still be typed, and also still be illegible.)
7. You can send postcards to clients that seem like they're personalized but are not.
8. You can address your wedding invitations by hand without actually doing anything by hand.
9. If you trick your friend into filling out all of the cells, you can write your friend letters from himself.
10. They even have a fancy schmantzy extra high resolution option in case you just can't get enough of your own handwriting.
11. You can write letters to companies that appear to be personal but are not.
12. Times New Roman, Schmimes New Roman. Who needs it?!
13. Um. Actually. I think those are all of the reasons that I've got for now.

FUN!

OH! 13. It says on the site that you can use your font to personalize your digital scrapbook pages. This is actually a really good idea. I will probably do this.

I'm going to make more. I'm going to make a handwriting one, and I don't know what other fonts, but this is just too fantastic for me to stop with one!

My New Favorite Movie: Witness for the Prosecution

I've been going through a list of several classic law movies.

Today I watched Witness for the Prosecution, which is from 1957, and was in black and white.

I loved it!

Basically, it's the story of a lawyer (Sir Wilfrid) who had some heart problem and is not supposed to stress himself, but then defends a guy accused of committing murder.  And then there's this huge surprise, which is that his wife testifies against him.  I think that's probably about as much as the cover would say.

There are six parts that I just really loved (enough to take note of), in addition to many other amusing parts.

1.  At the very beginning, Sir Wilfrid is coming home to like, his law building (downstairs) and house (upstairs), and he has this way uptight nurse who is coming home with him.

She's chattering in the car and says, "Shall we roll up the window, Sir Wilfrid?"

And he says, "Just roll up your mouth, you talk too much. If I'd known how much you talk I'd never have come out of my coma."

2.  They've had a stair lift installed while he was in hospital, and he plays with it, riding up and down.  I didn't even know stair lifts existed in the 50's!

3.  The nurse keeps trying to get him to go upstairs and rest, and he's started talking to these men about the case that he is definitely not supposed to take, and at one point, the nurse calls from the top of the stairs, "Sir Wilfrid!  You're dawdling again!"  And then she claps at him!  Love. It.

4.  There's this part where the guy accused of murder is explaining how he knew the lady he was accused of murdering, and he's talking about how they became friends, and about the first time he visited her home.  And the lady had a collection of African masks and stuff, and they're from when the lady and her belated husband had lived in Africa.  And the lady talks about this one mask that was a witch doctor mask.  

Lady:  "Hubert and I collected all these things when we lived in Africa.  Hubert was my husband."

Accused guy:  "Well, now, there's a loveable chap."  (And he points at this wild mask.)

Lady:  "That's the mask of the witch doctor.  He wore it when he pulled our servants' teeth.  So Hubert used to call him a witch dentist.  Hubert was so witty."

A witch dentist!  That kills me. I would have liked Hubert, I think.  Almost as much as Sir Wilfrid.

5.  They've told Sir Wilfrid that he can take this case only if he promises to go somewhere relaxing like the Bahamas or something right after the case, like so that he can't keep doing stressful work.  And at one point they're bothering him about vacation stuff, and Wilfrid snaps at his nurse, "Shut up.  You just want to see me in those nasty shorts."  (Bermuda shorts that they've ordered him.)  This maybe doesn't sound very funny, but it is quite funny coming from an old English guy who wears one of those powdered wigs and a monocle.

6.  Okay, this last part isn't really a movie quote.  It's an announcement that comes on as the credits are starting at the end.  It announces, "The management of this theater suggests that for the greater entertainment of your friends who have not yet seen the picture you will not divulge to anyone the secret of the ending of Witness for the Prosecution."  Gasp!  An official announcement telling every viewer not to spoil the ending for other people?!  Amazing.

So.  I won't tell you how things all end (because I care about your greater entertainment), but this is definitely a movie to see if you haven't seen it yet.

T-Mobile Text Scam! Revealed on the train!

I got a text today, at 6:24pm, from 5000 that read:

"ApplicationCenter / This is an automated message from Transwest Credit Union.Your ATM card has been suspended.To reactivate call urgent at 1-888-400-6825."

I thought it was a little weird that it came from 5000, since usually texts not from phone numbers are from T-Mobile, acknowledging payment or whatever.

Still, I only have 2 ATM cards.  My main bank is Key Bank, and they are fantastic.  But they really have no reason to suspend my account.  And if they were thinking about it, they would call me first.  I got a call from them when I was back east last year, because I was using my debit card far from Utah and they wanted to make sure I knew about it.  So I let them know I was on vacation and they put a note in my account.

My other ATM card is for WaMu (now Chase.)  I opened an account with them because I wanted a savings account with them (they promised an unheard of interest rate for a regular savings account), and they said I needed a free checking account to start a savings account.  But that account has like $5 in it, so it's nothing to worry about.

And anyway, neither of those banks are Trans-whatever, so I didn't worry about it.  I figured it was a scam and forgot all about it.  That was at 6:24pm today.

Just now I got off of TRAX, where we had an amazing conversation.

TRAX was packed.  People had been waiting at the transfer stop for like 30 minutes, and finally a University train came.  "What are you guys all coming from?" I asked one of the guys near me, and he told me they were coming from a Jazz game.  And then he started talking to his friend.  

He said he'd signed up and they gave him a $20 gift card.  He used it to buy a hat.  He still had to pay $15 towards the hat, but that was what he had used it for, anyway.  And then he got this text.  He read off a free number, and his friend tried to call it, on speakerphone.  "ALL CIRCUITS ARE BUSY" the line said, and it disconnected.

"It's probably because I'm not calling from your phone," the friend said.

"Oh.  Yeah," the guy realized.  "Well, when I called earlier, the first thing it asked me for was my credit card number, and I was like oh, no, you are not getting that, and I hung up."

And then he said something about Transwest.

"Hey!  Wait!  I got that too," I told him. 

"You did?  You got the text too?"

"Yeah!" I remembered, and I pulled my phone out to bring up the message.

"It said your ATM card was suspended?" he confirmed.

"Yeah!" I said.

"I got that too," another girl near us announced.

And it became a whole conversation among the eight people seated across from each other and me standing in the aisle near them.

"Did you all sign up at the Transwest booth too??" the guy asked us.

"Huh?  No.  I wasn't even at the game."  The other girl shook her head.

"I am so relieved.  I signed up at the Transwest booth at the game... you know how they'll give you things if you sign up for a credit card...  Well, they gave me a $20 gift card, and I got this hat that I'm wearing."  He lifted the bill a bit, to show us.  "And then all of the sudden I got this text during the game!"

The other girl nodded.  I didn't, because I don't sign up for credit cards to get free stuff.  Ever.

"I never sign up for anything," I said.  (I don't.)

"I always sign up for those.  You know, you get a blanket at the U games.  Or one time!  One time I signed up for a credit card to get a free pizza," he continued.

We all kind of laughed.

"What time did you guys get the message?"  I asked.

"8:30," the guy said.  "I couldn't even pay attention to the game after that.  I was so worried!  My buddy asked me the score, and I was like [he made a blank face, staring off]"

"6:30," the other girl said.

"I got mine at 6:24."

And then we kind of talked about how it came from 5000, which seemed like an official number.  And we talked about how I never put my phone number on anything, and I don't have Transwest, so it's definitely a scam.  

But the fact remained that although three of us had gotten us, several people around us had not.

"Do you guys have T-Mobile?  Is this a T-Mobile thing?" I asked them.

"I have T-Mobile," the girl said.

"I have T-Mobile too," the guy said, holding his phone up.

"I have Verizon and I didn't get it," another girl near us said, "It must be a T-Mobile thing."  

"Mine is Verizon too, and I didn't get it either," another guy said.  And that settled things.

"You guys, I was so worried!  I'm so glad you guys got it too!  I was like, I signed up for a credit card and now I have a time share!"

The guys who were originally talking about it got off at the next stop.  The rest of us kept talking about it for a few more stops.  We talked about how crazy it was that they could hack the customer list, or whatever happened.  We talked about how this couple got a call years after they were married, where someone told them they had won a vacation, and they said there was no catch, but they wanted to know if he was 25.  He wasn't.  So they wanted his parents' phone number.  And he said no.  He was like, "I'm 23, and you want to talk to my parents?  Why?"

It was a pretty funny conversation.

And then we all got off the train a couple stops later.  "Have a good one!" the guy said to me as I was getting off.  

"I dunno," I said seriously.  "I hear my debit card has been suspended..."

And our half of the train chuckled.

[N.B. Photo lovingly stolen from here, because I thought it was fantastic.]

Presidents' Day

The other project that I did at Jessica's house was:

A trial run of Presidents' Day cookies!

I decided that this year I wanted to celebrate either Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Presidents' Day by making cookies shaped like them.  I found a cooking store online that sold cookie cutters shaped like almost everything, and since I developed this interest too soon to bring it to fruition in time for MLKJ day, I ordered cookie cutters of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  

While I was in California for Christmas, I found my favorite sugar cookie recipe that I used to use when I made cookies a lot, back during my first couple years of college.  I was way excited to find the recipe; I hoped that it would turn out right here, but I knew it might not--my recipe for chocolate chip cookies is awful in Utah, despite being amazing in California.  

So at Jessica's, we made the sugar cookies and tried decorating them to see how I would want to go about it all when it was time to actually send them.

The recipe worked fine.  Jessica wanted us to have a bake-off because she has a sugar cookie that tops any sugar cookie recipe, and I agreed.  Buuuut, then it turned out she didn't actually have almond extract, and nobody was going to the store at 11pm.  So my recipe won.  (Victory by default!)

We let the dough chill overnight, and we ran our 4K or 5K or 6K the next morning, and then later in the day we invited Erin over to actually cut and frost the cookies with us.

We had fun.  On our first Lincoln that we painted, someone thought we should paint some neck between his beard and his coat.  That came out pretty awesome.  We referred to that Abe Lincoln cookie as our lumberjack Abe after that; that's what he looked like.

So we made a bunch of cookies.

When I made them to actually send to friends, I did not give Lincoln a neck.  And I made Washington's hair bigger, because I thought it looked better that way.

So.  That was our other fun project.  I love random holidays!

Grocery Confusion

I have groceries delivered with Winder Farms.

It's been a good thing:

I get milk in glass bottles, and it is amazing.

I get fresh orange juice, and it tastes

 like

 someone went into the kitchen and squeezed oranges for me.  It's really good.

I usually get a loaf of Paradise bakery bread.

I sometimes get bagels, fresh fruit, or cheese.

And despite having no car, I carry nothing!

It's more expensive than the grocery store (unless I were buying deluxe brands of everything, which I don't), so I don't usually get eggs with them, or vegetables, or most other things.  But by getting the basic stuff through them, I go to the grocery store far less often, and make fewer impulse purchases.

So it works out great.

WELL.

I started getting Winder Farms delivered back in November.  And every Sunday night I put my silver cooler on my porch, and every Monday morning I would bring my cooler (full of food) back inside.  And then one fine January morning, my cooler cloned itself.  I went outside, and instead of my cooler sitting by itself, there was another identical cooler right next to it.  I quickly realized that one of my neighbors must have started getting Winder Farms.

I checked the contents of the coolers so that I took mine and left the other person's. I wondered if the cooler belonged to my next door neighbor, or just someone in our house.  (Our house is divided into four apartments, which are not connected.  If you open the front door, you are in an entryway, one door is on the left, and one door is on the right.  The other two apartments have separate entries on the side of the house (still facing the street) and in the back of the house.)  

I skipped deliveries for a couple weeks, I forget why.

And then last week, I put my cooler out on the porch again.  I was up writing a paper, so I heard when they came to deliver it at about 2am.  They opened the box and closed it.  A couple minutes later it shifted.  I was excited because last week I ordered bagels, and I thought a bagel would be nice for a break during my paper-writing.

I went outside about ten minutes later and my cooler was gone.  Huh?  I didn't think they usually took coolers with them.  

Next to the house, there were two keep-things-cold aluminum bags, which they provide if you forget to leave your cooler out.  The bags had a lot more stuff than I had ordered.  When I looked closer, I realized that there was an invoice with them.  Aha.  The Emily who lives next door to me was getting the other deliveries.  And this was her stuff.

I decided that I would check later in the morning, in case they had taken my cooler and were bringing it back.

Later, the other Emily's stuff was still there, and my cooler was still gone.

Disappointing!

I called Winder Farms to ask about my missing cooler and groceries.  I told them what had happened, and that I had gone out ten minutes after the delivery and it was gone.  

"We never take your cooler after it has been delivered," she said.  "It must have been stolen."

In ten minutes!  I explained that my neighbor and I both get deliveries, and told her I was a little concerned that there might be some confusion.  She checked and discovered that yes, my neighbor had recently started receiving deliveries.

She told me that they would re-deliver my order at no additional cost to me, and that they would pay half the cost of the replacement cooler and I would be responsible for the other half of that cost.  Sigh.  I didn't want to buy another cooler.  Oh well.  I know it wasn't their fault, so whatever.  It was nice of them to deliver again and not charge for the food, and pay half of the cooler.  I asked if I should write my name on my cooler so that the delivery person knows which cooler belongs to which Emily.  They said that would be a good idea.

They would deliver it that night, instead of making me wait for my delivery the next week

.  Great.  They asked if there was somewhere else they could put the delivery so that it would be less likely to be stolen.  I suggested they come inside the entryway.  This would be good for two reasons:

1. Passing my house, random people would not see groceries on my porch.

2. I can have my cooler in front of my door and the other Emily can have hers in front of her door, so there won't be confusion about what belongs to whom.

They redelivered.  (I put a label on my new cooler, which Paley quickly removed.  Hm.  I don't want to write with Sharpie, though...)

AND NOW! 

A week later!

I skipped my delivery.  (I don't always use that much milk or orange juice or bread.)

There is a delivery not in a cooler or aluminum bag, in the entryway, just in the middle of the entryway.  (But closer to my door than hers.)  It's got to be the other Emily's, because it's not stuff that I order.

There are two coolers outside.  The bottom cooler has a bunch of plastic milk containers (the Winder Farms kind; you're supposed to rinse them out and return them; I do the same thing with glass ones) and the top cooler has the cooler bags in them.  

I'm 99.99% positive that this is what happened:

My neighbor stole my groceries last week!

She is also up during the night (always coming and going), so she must have seen my delivery and known she was getting one too, and taken my cooler even though she did not put a cooler out last week.  This also explains why she left out the cooler bags, and eventually took them in.

I don't understand though, if she just doesn't realize we're both getting deliveries, or what.

Then this week, she took both coolers out and put them on the porch (hers that belongs to her, and mine).  But she took them out too late.  Her stuff had already been delivered.  But her stuff was delivered inside, because I had asked WF to deliver mine inside.  So she didn't know

 anything about that.  When she took the coolers out, she probably didn't realize that she saw her own delivery in the hallway.  

But I don't understand that.

Because every week you select what you want to have delivered.  So if the six or seven things sitting in your entryway are the precise six or seven things you selected online...either it's yours, or someone else is getting stuff delivered too.  And it's probably yours.  (Just like if you take a cooler when you didn't put yours out, and it has stuff that you did not order, it is probably not yours.)

And if you think those six or seven things are not yours, then that means someone else is having things delivered, in which case, wouldn't you think twice about taking stuff that doesn't look like stuff you ordered??

It's all very confusing.

So I moved her aluminum bags into the bottom cooler (I don't think they'll take them back anyway, but whatever) and took one of "her" coolers back into my house.  Because she never had two delivered to begin with (and I saw her invoice last week so I know).  She stole mine!  And I had to pay for the new one!

Really, we should just talk about this.  Wouldn't that make things so much easier?  But we don't talk.  I moved here in September, and I've only actually seen her once.  I do hear her come and go all the time, though, and she smokes on the porch in front of my apartment.  I knocked on her door one time (when our landlord called me and wanted me to see if I could get her phone number for him), and she didn't answer the door.  She was home.

Should I write her a note?  Maybe.  I wonder what she is going to think when she goes out later today and her groceries are still in our entryway (and I just realized, they're probably her standing order!  She may not even realize she ordered them this week...) and her cooler is still on the porch but one of them is gone, and her stuff is all in one cooler.  I hope she calls WF and says that one of her coolers is gone and they tell her she only had one to begin with.  Ha!

So.  That's my random morning.  

(Also, I'm not expecting that you will, but if anyone decides that they want Winder Farms in the future, tell me.  If you say I referred you, we both get free stuff better than what you would get if you just sign up on your own.  Despite the confusion with my neighbor, they really are a great company and their stuff is amazing.)

The story I mentioned recently, about being followed.

I found my e-mail that I sent my family on the day that the guy followed us. 

This story was way better than I remembered!

I'm just going to share the one paragraph from my letter.  It looks like it was from 27 April, 2005.  

"I've made a list this week, and I have some good things to tell you about. There is a man sitting about a foot and a half away from me looking at the screen of the computer and he's been following us around this morning. AUGH. I met him on the bus or something and gave him a pass along card (one of the ones with church info, but not our phone number) because he seemed interested. Yeah, so since then he came to english class, and I think he's tried to come to church a couple times since then (one week we had district conf. and it was at a different place). But we saw him at english class last night, and then he saw us from the bus when we were on our way to do grocery shopping. Got off the bus and met up with us and said hi when we were in line at the grocery store. Well, of course we say hi. And he keeps following us after that. We were going to go home but decided to go to do e-mail directly instead. (sounded safer) And as we're walking he's asking about soccer (we all go play soccer on Saturday mornings), and we told him about that, but he also wants to go with us and play the game that has the little ball and you hit it with the paddles that has the same name in Italian as in English and he would recognize if I typed it, and the other game with all the balls with numbers on them and a green table, and he wanted us to go tonight. And we said no. And so what about tomorrow? No. Maybe we could do something as a district. And he said he didn't care if they came. And he asks if we're hungry and I said no, already ate (true anyway), and thirsty (no), because he was willing to pay. So we get to e-mail, and we figure hopefully he'll go...but he offered to pay for e-mail (no.) and then left for half an hour. And now he's back (augh!). SO I don't know how we'll get home without him seeing where we live. The Anziani invited us to do something with them, so we may do that. With our groceries though? I don't know how it'll work. The interesting problems that sister missionaries have...."

Isn't that a terrific story?  And that's just the first part.  The other part I mentioned before (he ended up following us downtown).

CAKE! In 5 minutes! Really!

Today I joined this thing online called Librivox.  

Basically, people record books that are part of the public domain, and then anyone can listen to them.  For free.

On Friday we had a meeting at work to discuss expectations.  We talked about a bunch of different things--attendance, eating smelly foods, taking too many breaks, and t

alking with coworkers.  The meeting was for everyone, to clarify things, but really attendance and breaks were discussed for one guy (who actually wasn't there, heh heh), smelly foods were discussed for another guy, and talking with coworkers was for everyone, but mostly me.  

When I started working there, I started the pandemic known as "friendship and conversation."  I think before I started working there everyone mostly sat quietly just scanning.  People listen to music on their ipods, music on the computers, etc.  And then, I started working there, and I started chattering.  And I can work just as fast while I'm talking.  But not everyone else does.  So our boss has been telling people not to talk to me.  Sad!  

WELL, I have to cooperate with our new "Don't talk to your coworkers about things other than work" policy, so I decided I'm going to start listening to books while I work.  Ideally, I'll find some of the books which I am supposed to read for classes later in the semester.  This could be a really good thing.  Think of all the books I'll be listening to if I can listen to 4 hours per day!  This can be a great way to get in non-required "reading," too.  I'll become the most anti-social person there!  

Anyhow, I found this site.  And I'm going to start recording chapters of books.  But probably not super often, since I have classes and homework, and work, and LSAT classes, and homeless shelter volunteer stuff, and volunteering at the symphony, and my calling with church, and I'm starting my knitting club, and getting ready for my half marathon in a couple months, and I have a teenage cat that plays with loud toys while I'm trying to record things.

After I registered, I downloaded the software I needed to make recordings, and I went through all of the setup steps, and I did my test recording, and then I had to wait for people to leave me feedback.

So I started looking at other sections of the forum.  And there's an off-topic category, and they actually put "yes, this is where knitting gets discussed" in the title.  Knitting!  What?  So I clicked on it.  And I didn't see anything at the top about knitting.  BUT, I found this:

A 5 minute Chocolate cake recipe

posted 24 November 2008 by libraryanne

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons flour 
4 tablespoons sugar (You can decrease this amount slightly.) 
2 tablespoons cocoa 
1 egg 
3 tablespoons milk 3 tablespoons oil 
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional) a small splash of vanilla extract 
1 large coffee mug 

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. 
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) 
and vanilla extract, and mix again. Put your mug in the microwave and cook 
for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if 
desired. EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous). 
And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or 
night! 

Note:Using a 12 ounce mug is ideal, and won't rise over the top.

Gasp!  Books, knitting, and chocolate cake?!  I fit in perfectly!

I had to make the little cake immediately to see if it actually worked, and IT DID!  And it actually really took like 5 minutes.

Amazing!

It would have tasted better with ice cream.  The texture was a little different than normal cake (I think because it has a whole egg for just a little cake), but it wasn't bad.  

When I flipped mine, I thought maybe it was gooey at the bottom, but it turned out the chocolate chips had melted on the bottom.  I got it out of the little bowl thing, and I smeared the chocolate chips on the top, which made it look like frosting.  

I knew this recipe had changed my life forever, so I wanted to share it with the world!  (Or, all four of you who read my blog, anyhow.)