A Few Things That Have Made Me Smile

I've been a very "Negative Nancy" lately.  Clearly you would understand/know if you have been hanging with me in the last, oh say, couple of weeks, maybe a month or two...

But, remember how that is all changing up!  Well it has been changing because I have found a few things the last little while that have made me smile.

1.  Subzero Ice Cream.  Say what?  What the heck is Subzero Ice Cream.  It's this chain that just came to town, and for a while there I was eating their ice cream LIKE once a week.  LIKE seriously!  ONCE.  A.  WEEK.  It needed to stop because clearly I am not that rich, and number two I don't need any more weight to put on!  But it is SO good.  I can't even explain how good it is.  Yeah, yeah we get how good it is, but what is SO GOOD in comparison to other ice cream places?  Okay, so they like take this liquid cream and then they like mix in whatever your heart desires (butterscotch and Twix bars for me), then they like put it under this chemical called liquid nitrogen.  And then, within a few minutes it is like totally frozen!  Then you eat it, and the texture is like you are rubbing your tongue over silk.  Although that doesn't quite describe it - try rubbing your hand over silk.  It has a silk like texture, like do you get it now?  Anyway it's LIKE SOOO INCREDIBLY GOOD!  I finally got my mom to try it, and she was with a friend of mine and my friend was getting kind of werided out because of the noises my mom started to make when she was eating it.  This is just what my mom told me happened when her and my friend went and got their first Subzero Ice Cream.  Then I was like - MOM!  Are you for real?  Keep those noises to yourself, or at least the bedroom!  Come on now!  Gross!

Am I dribbling ice cream?  Sho nuff suga!
Can't get enough of this orgasmic silky cream!

2.  The song "Call Me Maybe."  I know right, this song is SO overplayed!  Yes, yes it is.  But, this song reminds me of my summer working on Grounds Dept., and the two lovely YOUNG girls I got to work with. (I just love how hearing certain songs can take you back to such good memories.)  As I spend way to much time perusing the internet I stumbled upon this YouTube video doing a rendition of this song.  Now I love this song even more, and have only listened to this new rendition like 10 times already - obsessed, yes!!!  And maybe you will be too!  How can you not?  If you don't like it then here's my number...call me maybe...Uh lame I know, but I couldn't resist!

3.  Pinterest!  I know, I know.  But seriously - I can't get enough of this website.  This website was made for me!  The people creating it were like sitting there one day just thinking of me.  And thought, I really think Libby would utilize and share testimonies of this website, so let's create it.  Do you seriously believe that?  Sho Nuff Suga!  Pinterest puts a smile on my face each day that I get on there and scroll through all my followers.  I also love how HELPFUL it has been in student teaching.  I have used so many things from all my boards and I'm not even a bonafide teacher yet!  By the way are you following me on there?  You should because I pin some of the coolest stuff EVER!  Eva, eva!

4.  A purple large pie plate!  I finally broke down and bought me a nice pie plate.  Yes I own several pie plates, but they are ugly.  Butt ugly!  I love making pies and it's about that time of year where I start popping out pecan pies like I'm some sort of pecan pie factory worker.  I really have to gear up for this season people!  So, I was hanging out with some of my married friends (Alisha and MinDee) last Friday night.  (Which was a blast like always, and much needed because of my attitude!)  We seem to always gravitate towards TJ Max when out on the town.  The minute I made it back to the home goods section a light cast down from the ceiling above and this purple large pie plate shined in my direction.  I figured it would probably be out of my price range, since I can't bring myself to even pay around $14.00 for a Paula Deen pie plate.  But, I picked up the purple large pie plate and saw the small price of $9.99, and would you believe it but my heart skipped a beat.  $9.99 ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!  I bought it, and am so proud of it!  Now I can't wait to start making pecan pies!

Won't pecan pie look beautiful in this?

5.  The Killers just came out (Sept. 18th) with a new CD.  Hello this totally makes me smile!  I know my cuz, Libby Sr. would TOTALLY agree with me on this.  Not only did The Killers release a CD, but another band, Imagine Dragons released a CD too!  I was introduced to them at the beginning of the year by a co-worker of mine who actually served his mission with the drummer.  (And his brother knows another guys dad from the band - the guy in the bands dad is his stake president.  Did that all make sense?  Oh well if it doesn't.)  How cool is that!  This kind of new group Imagine Dragons are so totally cool in my book, and have became very popular in the last couple of months.  I guess you could say that just music in general does such wonders for me and really puts me in a good mood, or puts a smile on my face.  (Oh and one last tid bit about music making me smile.  I try to be kind of spiritual on Sunday's and only listen to churchy musak.  I have this great love for Pandora, and they have this great station called "LDS Hymns of Worship."  They play hymns that are not sung by your typical MoTab - there is nothing wrong with that I just like more modern twists to the old hymns.)

I know these are the most random things that make me smile, but it makes me smile and that is what should matter.

"Last Christmas," and other Favorite Christmas Songs

First I want to say, go check out my lil Sis's blog because she did a fun, yet kind of hard Christmas quiz.

Second of all, last year I did a blog on all my favorite Christmas movies and music.  My Christmas movie list is still about the same.  However, I have been watching some really lame, cheese-y, and totally free Christmas movies on ABC Family...maybe I shouldn't have canceled my Netflix instant, and maybe I should stop renting really lame movies on Netflix like "My Idiot Brother."  Why do I feel the need to finish a movie even when it is freaking terrible???

I'm digressing here - I wanted to discuss my love for Christmas music since I only listen to it once a year, for one month only.  I start my listening on December first, and no sooner, no sooner, no sooner.  I never did understand these people who start listening months before.  Christmas music is terrific, and if you are like me and don't really get into the holiday season, music can really help ring it all in.

I have to rant first, and ask the question as to WHY some songs have been written, and have a huge following.  Some people should be locked up for a few months for writing terrible songs such as, "Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer" - a song about ones possibly drunk or dementia Grandmother getting hit by Santa and his reindeer, then being killed, is just terrible.  Great Christmas song people?  What song is next, let's talk about "Santa Baby" - every version known to man is sung annoyingly and nasally about some spoiled woman/girl who wants the most expensive gifts for Christmas.  Many versions specifically the one sang by Miss Piggy (I know right, I have actually heard this version) and another by Madonna are the worst!  I can only imagine that all the other versions especially by Brit (Britney Spears), and Kellie Picker, an American Idol contestant are just as bad!  Lastly, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" - what is this song really about?  Is this Mommy having an affair with a jolly, white haired man, or is the Daddy dressing up as Santa and the Mommy is getting all kinky down by the Christmas tree?  Seriously, why do they have to play these songs - they momentarily put me in a bad mood.  One last song that is equally terrible, but kind of bearable, only because it's my Christmas ring tone for my cell phone is "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't be Late)."  No question - dumb song.

Let's talk about what Christmas songs I adore!  One song in particular that is not your typical "hymn book," traditional song is "Last Christmas" by Wham!  I still am trying to figure out what this song is all about?  I'm assuming it's about a couple who dated one Christmas then the next year they are broken up, yet they see each other again the following Christmas and want to rekindle that once holiday romance?  Whatever it a may be, this song tops my charts!  I seriously put this song on repeat and just listen to it over and over for the whole month of December.  I never tire of it - weird, I know.  Thus far I have listened to the song 94 times according to my iTunes.  I even love every version of this song except for Taylor Swifts version - who does she think she is?  I know she is all pretty, writes her own music, and is just sweet as pie, but one thing she CAN'T do is sing "Last Christmas!"

Besides "Last Christmas" here is a list of some of my favorite songs this year.
Sinead O'Connor:: Silent Night
The Killers::  Boots (Yes this is a Christmas song)
Sufjan Stevens::  Joy to the World (and a bunch of their other songs - so folk!)
Justin Bieber::  The Christmas Song
Glee (this years album)::  Do You Hear What I Hear
Pink Martini:: White Christmas
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds:: Christmas Song
The Bird and the Bee::  Carol of the Bells

And of course "Last Christmas." Sung by Wham!, Jimmy Eat World, and that Disney teen freak Ashley Tisdale - all who produce a great rendition of my most favorite Christmas song ever!!!

Technology - Good, But Also Bad?

What did we ever do before technology?  Don't you hate when people say that?  We got by just fine.  Don't' get me wrong, I love technology, I think it's great, but I also think with all good comes some bad.  My latest technology behavior has allowed the bad to seep in quite a bit in the past few weeks.  

I have been feeling for some time that my habits of using/dealing with technology are getting out of hand.  About a month ago two of the girls I work with decided to do a "media fast" which was to cut out movies, TV, Facebook, and music.  As they told me their plans I thought to myself what a great idea - good luck to the both of you.  But, I also thought to myself, I should try to cut at least Facebook out for a month, or something.  Not that I got on Facebook that much in the past, but as of recently I have spent FAR TOO MUCH time on that social network.  And what am I accomplishing on there to begin with - NOTHING!  

Just yesterday I was on the phone with my cousins wife Shellie, and the topic came up - "technology, and how it's taking over our lives."  She told me of a friend of hers who decided to do this "no technology day" once a week.  As I continued to think about this during the day I decided that I need to take one day of the week where I don't have any use of technology.  I have decided that I will do Sunday, only because it's a day where I know I won't have any need of the computer, texting, TV, and movies. It would probably be hard to do this during the week when I am in school, and at work.  On top of all that I am teaching my Gospel Principles class on Sunday which is about "Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy," and figured that one way of keeping the Sabbath holy would be cutting out technology.  

Listen, I'm not PERFECT by any means, but a person can try!  So, I am going to try! 

Let me begin with texting.  I have done my fair share of hanging out with people and in the middle of "hang out" I'm texting another person - I try not to do this, but if they start texting someone I just go ahead and text someone also.  I'll show them, right?  That is a huge irritation of mine, texting when you are with people - totally rude.  So is texting at church, but we won't get into that today.  Next media downfall of mine, is TV.  I don't have TV anymore, thanks to the cable company who finally caught on that we shouldn't be hooked up.  It's been 4 months without it and I really haven't missed it that much.  However, I have turned to other things - like the internet, and more frequent Netflix watching.  Speaking of internet, I am grateful for my neighbors who were nice enough to give me their password to use the internet.  The other thing I am grateful about is that by using their internet I don't have full bars so it doesn't allow me to watch videos online unless I'm willing to wait hours for the movie to download and that would be a negative...I'm not that patient.  So, how do I watch my show Glee and other instant movies - oh yeah, I wait until I'm at school, or my parents house.  Which both of those places don't allow much time for movie or TV watching.  I'm not watching much TV these days, and my movies at this time are about two at a time per week due to work/school/life.  Lastly, it all then comes back to this wonderful world wide web.  I'm an addict to Gmail, Netflix, Blogger, allrecipes, Goodreads, and that social network Facebook.  It needs to stop, it all needs to stop.  I need to get this technology lifestyle under control before I lose all control.   

This is what I'm going to try to do on my one day off of technology a week.  

1. No Texting!  I will do phone calls only on this day.  Besides, what happened to the old fashioned "calling someone" to shoot the breeze.
2. No TV (already do that) - so, in my case NO MOVIES!  I will read a book, or study my next lesson for Sunday school.
3. No COMPUTER.  PERIOD!  No computer for me means, no solitaire, no playing with photo's, no iTunes organizing, and anything else that has me using my computer.  Oh hello, the internet - none of that will be going on.  Duh!
4. No Internet.  As stated above.
5. I want to say no music, but I feel that some music is okay to listen to.  Maybe eventually I'll just cut it all out.  

*  As for my latest social media addiction I am going to limit myself to once a week on Facebook.  I can do this, I did it before, and I need to start doing it again.  Besides, my brother hates Facebook and already gives me a hard time when he catches me on there.  He usually say's something like, "Are you on Facebook?  I want you to get the hell off of there in my house!"  Rude, huh.  It's all out of love.  He's right though, he is most definitely right in my opinion; I need to stay the hell off Facebook for a while. (Side note:  Facebook isn't all that bad - there are people from my mission that make me grateful for Facebook because it has helped me stay in contact.  Facebook does have some positive things...)

I can't say this is going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it to try.  (I bet this reminds some of you of my mission homecoming when I said no more "Friends" TV show...the worst part about that whole thing is my families wonderful dedication to recording all the episodes that I missed as I was out serving - then me asking them a month before I got home to get rid of all the VHS recordings they had made...only to find out several years later they released all the episodes on DVD - who knew???) 

What are your thoughts on no media, is there anything else I can do to limit myself? 

To All The Singles Out There - This is Our Year!

(Mommy, this video is for you - it's your main man singing AWESOME AS ALWAYS! You, Jessie, and I are such Gleeks!)

Today is a day of LOVE!!! I don't know if many of you know, but I'm pretty engaged right now, in a super hefty relationship. His name is Chem (for short)...a.k.a Chemistry. What? Shouldn't I be done with chemistry? That's what I thought - nope we are still going strong. In fact I'm technically in what some people call a threesome. I bought me a tutor to help with the relationship - gotta do what I gotta do!

In other words - "To all the singles out there - this is our year." Well I'm not banking on my year of love, (although it would be nice...) but I'm in really high hopes that this is my year for FINISHING chemistry. Let's get me on to the next chapter of my life for crying out loud!

Shout out: Hey Mommy & Daddio thanks for the sweet as can be Valentines Day card and gift certificate to my favorite restaurant, Pizza Factory. You two are the best. LOVE YOU!!!

To all my Singles, Married, or Whatever you call your status -

HaPpY VaLeNtInEs DaY!!!

I Love Bluegrass Music

Staying at the Akemons was great because I got to hear real deal bluegrass music. Holly's dad, Phillip, plays the banjo and her brother Phillip Wayne plays the guitar. Every Wednesday night they get together at Phillip's Barber Shop and have a jam session. Holly and I went over and listened for almost two hours. I love bluegrass music and give thanks to my mission for introducing me to this great sound. (Holly's great uncle was Stringbean who was a regular on the Grand Ole Opry - how cool is that!) The other guy in the group is Kenny, and he plays the mandolin. Yes, he is single, and the Akemons wanted to set me up with him, but, well, I'm just going to leave it at that. If you want to assume he had brown eyes he didn't - they are blue! (He does have nice hands though. Yum!)

The little boy in the background is Holly's nephew Drew, and he had me laughing the way he was acting during my video taping - he's quite the character.

My New Favorite Christmas Song

Sing it Faith! I Love this song, it's so beautiful.

Summer Concert - Totally AWESOME!

On Friday, Pioneer Day (in Utah, of course), my buddy Audra B. and I went to the Secondhand Serenade concert in Sunny St. George. The opening band Parachute played, and they were awesome! However, Secondhand Serenade was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!! It was a lot of fun to be in the nice outdoors enjoying a couple of great bands. We saw some friends from my old ward (Audra's current ward...and soon to be my ward again - I'm going to come back to church in St. George on Sunday's....Cedar's just not doing it for me anymore - church wise, school I'm still hanging in there...) and hung with them. The show lasted until 10:30pm and then it was time for me to go home. I had to work on Saturday morning, ugh. Oh well. I'm still kind of young, can still play late, and get up early. Not sure how much longer that's going to last though.

If anyone hasn't heard of these two bands look them up on iTunes - they're really good. Although, the wonderful radio stations of Southern Utah have overplayed one of Secondhand Serenades songs, "Fall For You," but I still enjoyed the song being played live. Hooray for July 24th!

Podcasts are PHAT! That's "PH!"

Lately, when I get online I spend the majority of my time looking at different podcasts. What are podcasts? I once heard a podcast described as "frozen talk radio." Basically podcasts are people who have put together these 5 minutes (or shorter) to 1 hour (or longer) talk shows that you can listen to. Some you can even watch. I have found a few series that I love to listen too, and can't wait to listen too. As I am gardening at work I turn on my ipod and listen, and learn. I almost feel smarter for the things I have been listening too. Be careful, once you get hooked on podcasts your ipod will fill up! No worries, once you listen to the podcast you can delete it and have more room for another. Most podcasts are updated daily, weekly, or whenever. I even bore my testimony to Jessie about podcasts, and SHE JOINED! (They have several Twilight Podcasts...Not a fan if you ask me???) They are so great to listen too, and even help the time fly by! Did I mention THEY ARE FREE!!!!

Here's a list of my favorite!

The Daily Boost

Fit Girl: Your Guide to Getting in Shape

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips For Better Writing

Happiness Through Self Awareness

Inside Out Weight Loss

LDS General Conference (It only has all conference sessions back to April 2004)

Money Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for a Richer Life

BYU: Most Recent Devotional and Forums

New York City History: The Bowery Boys

NPR: Fresh Air Podcast

NPR: Story of the Day Podcast

The Nutrition Diva's Quick and Dirty Tips For Eating Well and Feeling Fabulous

Photography 101

Recipe for Happiness

E! The Soup Video

Stuff Mom Never Told You

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Stuff You Should Know

How Stuff Works

60-Second Psych

Amateur Traveler

E! Chelsea Lately Video

Join the club - I know you won't be disappointed!