Flower POWER!!!

(Charlotte, Shellie, Andrea, Me, Kelly, Lindsay - my coworker this summer, and Crystal - who I worked with last year.)

Well, I'm back in the garden again! Yes, I'm back planting flowers, gett'n dirty, and screaming louder at the worms in the dirt. However, I just got done reading some children's books (yes children's books) about worms, and have a new found love for them. Yes they still frighten me when they pop up to say hello, but they are my friend, and good for the earth. So, I am starting to love them.

Enough about worms...I'm back on the Flower Crew sporting my FLOWER POWER, and hot overalls. I have a new buddy, Lindsay, and a new area. I asked for shade this year since I didn't really want to burn and shorten my life due to skin cancer, so ask and you shall receive, I got put in the Shakespeare area. Lots of shade but lots of weirdos...Where do these people come

from??? We see people daily who make us stop and stare, and wonder how they are here in small town Cedar City?

It's been a lot of fun, and I am learning lots more about gardening and flowers. My boss wants me to get my "Master Gardner," but I have to wait until spring to take the classes and then intern at a garden somewhere. Sounds exciting, and I would love to know more and more about gardening!!!!

The Great Cookie Debate

Now, listen here! I did NOT, I repeat, I did not do this out of pure boredom. One of my great Family Consumer Science classes this semester had a project of doing "homemade" vs. "convenience." I already knew going into this project that homemade would win. But, because this was our assignment I did what I was told to do. We had to take an item of our choice and present four different ways of making the item. I chose, homemade (of course), Pillsbury (the kind that is just dough already cut and you just place on a cookie sheet), Betty Crocker (add a stick of butter and one egg), and last the very convenient of "already made" just packaged chewy chocolate chip cookies (Great Value brand, Wal-Mart).

Let me just begin by saying - THE WAL-MART GREAT VALUE BRAND COOKIES WERE DISGUSTING!!!! I threw that set of cookies in the garbage as soon as I was done with this taste test assignment. Second on the list of horrible cookies, and I will never make, was the Betty Crocker, add butter and an egg. That package of cookie mix didn't even make that many cookies, and they were very dry. Third batch of cookies was the simple Pillsbury, open the package, plop on the cookie sheet, and bake cookies. These cookies were actually good, but the only thing I didn't like about them was how small they ended up being. The final batch of cookies was the always pleasing HOMEMADE BABY! There is no way to go wrong with my mom's famous cookie recipe...minus the oatmeal - yuck!

(Homemade, Betty Crocker, Wal-Mart, and Pilsbury)

The cookies got "taste tested" by a group of people (my family), and the results were unanimous - the Homemade Chocolate Chip cookies won by a landslide. So, take my word, homemade is always better than convenience, and homemade is SOOOOOO much better for you!!!!

Running "For Fun???"

My good pal MinDee talked me into some runs the last month, and I said why not, if they're "fun?" The first run was in Ivins, with their very first 10K, and the other race was the St. George Midnight 5K. I have a big run coming up in a week, and so these little races were part of the training. The race I have coming up is the Wasatch Back, got roped into it, but I'll be with good company (Shellie), so that will help me get through it. At least that is what I keep telling myself.Ivins 10K - made me feel like a really good runner because we ran with all these really big people who were staying at the "Biggest Loser" Fitness Ridge. Yes, I saw some "Biggest Loser" people, but did not feel inclined to talk to them because I am SO over that. The other thing that made me feel good was that half the people who were running the 10K turned at the 5K and didn't even end up doing the 10K. Now who's the Biggest Loser....

Midnight 5K - after being up since 5:00am I meet up with my two girlfriends Alisha and MinDee to try to run in the dark, dark, night. This Midnight 5K is fairly new, but the night we ran it felt like the whole town came out! So many people, and couldn't see anything!!!! One cool thing, I saw an Elder from my mission - totally RANDOM! Another cool thing - short story, I'll try to make it short! As we started the race we were running along when all of a sudden a mouse ran out in front of me and for some reason I COULD SEE THE STINKING MOUSE! So, I of course started to scream like a rape victim and had many people (cops included) looking at me trying to figure out what my dealio was...A mouse, seriously???? After the race we went and ate some greasy food at Denny's - how lame is that? We run a race then stuff our face with fried oily food, and PANCAKE BALLS, yes I said pancake balls that were so heavy! Other than grease - good times were had with my two dear friends. Thanks for running the Midnight Race! Let's do it again, and make it a tradition!!!

Kyle Stapley (Elder Stapley) running his first race...yes he's married, I met his wife! Besides, not interested - Super nice guy!

All geared up in our stuff that glows...can't remember what it's called! Me, Alisha, and MinDee

Indiana Trip Part 2

Second half of our TOTALLY AWESOME TRIP!!!

Indiana Trip Part 1

I finally am posting about my awesome trip to Indiana!!! This took forever to post because I got carried away with putting this video together. Once I got it together I had a heck of a time uploading, then I had to split the video into two just so YouTube would play it for me since Blogger isn't very good at uploading videos.

Well, enjoy! This was probably the best trip I have been on yet! I can't wait to travel again, and with my cousins Ethan and Libby!!! If you want to read more about my trip then you can go to Jessie's blog, or Libby Sproats blog.

I hit a deer!!! And, scared the SHIT out of it...Literally!

***PARDON ME FRENCH!!!***

So, I just want to state I have not been blogging in a while...long story. But, I have a much better story - I'll try to make it quick. I'm back working on the SUU Grounds Crew - TOTALLY EXCITED about that, but, I'm not excited that I have to be to work at 6:00am. However, my second day back as I was zooming off to work in the dark early hours of the morning, the road to work was dotted with DEER! OH DEER!!! I saw them in a great herd ahead. I slowed down, but not enough... Then out of the blue this deer ran forward and I hit the breaks. Wasn't quite quick on the breaks and next thing I know the deer is eye to eye with me, then suddenly I see the deer fly past the driver side (in slow motion). As this is going on I am swerving on to the side of the road and hoping that I don't hit another one. Eh, eh, Eh, eh, I had NO idea what I was doing or what I should do. After the deer went flying I continued on to work. I felt like I was sitting pretty since nothing much happened. WELL, as I got to work, and later in the day when the sun came out I decided I should see if there was any damage on my car. (I only did this because one of my co-workers hit a deer this morning also, and had a lot more damage done to her car...I'm super lucky!) About 9:00am this morning I examine the damage to see a nice dent, and "SHIT" smeared up the side of my car. Nice??? Now what do I do? I do have to say that it's been three years since I have been in this deer infested area and this is my first "hit and run." Speaking of "hit and run" - I was so nervous on the way home to see the evidence I left behind. I inspected the area of where this incident happened...NOTHING, there was no deer, nothing! So, I'm in huge hopes that I didn't kill the deer, and that all that happened was that his pride was hurt by his shitting on the side of my car. Because, believe me, if I almost got hit I would probably shit on the side of the car too.