Ten in Twenty-Ten

To recap the year I decided to do a countdown:

10 Friends I made this year

Tyler Skinner

Andy Gross

Kara Nelson

Becky Ransom

Marlena Workman

Abe Cortina

Danny Herrera

Shawna Meldrum
David Lamb

Trent Nielson

Scott Brinton

Katy McClure

Daren Bosted

(Ok I put more than 10, I'm kind of a big deal, People know me)

9 new movies and TV shows I liked (ones I hadn't seen before)

Despicable Me

Tangled

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Iron Man 2

Toy Story 3

Modern Family-Possibly my most favorite show ever

Pushing Daisies

How I Met Your Mother

Community

8 things I learned (some with google's help)

how to take blood pressure with a stethoscope

how to draw blood with a finger prick

all the Canadian provences

how to replace headlights on car

how to unhook a sink and snake it

how to fix a vacuum

how to skype

how to drive in the snow (I knew before, but I definitely honed my skillz this year)

7 books I read-I read a lot more for sure

Northanger Abbey

The Help

Somewhere Inside-Ling sisters story about being held in North Korea

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

The Hunger Games 1,2,3

Three Cups of Tea
All Quiet on the Western Front

Still Alice

6 places I went/roadtrips

Moab, UT

Las Vegas, NV

Disneyland, Anaheim, CA

Mona, UT

Spokane, WA
White Salmon River, WA

5 miscellaneous things

crossed "something" off my bucket list with Nikita Dabling

Had a huge bonfire in Eltopia with two couches and then got lost after

Bought my own fireworks for 24th of July

was a bridesmaid in Monica and Danny’s wedding

Saw the Lion King broadway show in Salt Lake City

4 scary things I did

moved home to WA

went cliff jumping in othello

drove in the snowstorm of the century and watched someone spin out in front of me and drive off the road and was almost next

started life after college

3 Jobs I had this year

A. Health Assessment Technician

B. (let's not talk about this one)

C. Administrative Assistant at Reliance Medical Clinics

2 concerts

Michael Buble

Sara Bareilles

1 year of awesomeness

Sometimes I think my life is boring, but then look at all the cool stuff I do, it's totally not! 2010 has been a good year. Hopefully 2011 will be even better!

Honorable Mention goes to these things that happened in 2010 that didn't fit in my list-Londyn Garns being born, Jillian going to Israel, Watching the Olympics, Visiting the Olympic Park in Park City, UT, Killing my computer Lucille but getting my new one Cecily, Monica and Jules coming back from missions, going to a cowboy party dressed as indians and feeling super cool about it, Holi festival of colors at the Hare Krishna Temple, Easter dinner at Sheri Dew's house, playing sardines at Audrey sauce's and Eric Ree's houses, meteor shower watching, going to the dinosaur museum, discovering new music, fireworks, summer in general, awesome roomates Rachelle, Audrey, and Jenny, a really fun birthday, numerous dance parties and game nights, and raiding WinCo for free food really late at night.

Thumbs down to-killing my computer Lucille, not having a job at certain times of the year, not having health insurance, having to leave my friends in Provo, drama. No more in 2011!

feeling the melancholy

I don't know why but all my favorite Christmas songs this year are the more melancholy type. The kind where the singer can't be home for Christmas, they lost their loved one, or life is just hard at this time of year. They include Kenny Loggins' "Celebrate Me Home" Dan Fogleberg's "Auld Lang Syne" The Eagles "Please Come Home for Christmas" and Wham! "Last Christmas" among others. It's weird becasue the past couple of years my favorites have been songs about coming home for the holiday. Probably because I was at school and could relate to it.

It could be the fact that not seeing the sunshine really bums me out.
It could be the fact that I just don't feel in a Christmasy mood.
It could be the fact that I get a grand total of one day off for Christmas.
It could be the fact that I'm listening to sad but classy cello music right now.
It could be the fact that I've only watched one Christmas movie so far.
It could be the fact that I've recently said good bye to a good friend.
or a plethora of other things.

But I love Christmas. I made gingerbread today with Jillian and we will bake it tomorrow! Also those songs are just really good so why shouldn't I like them? I still have shopping to do and wrapping and I still don't feel like it should be december but time keeps marching on I guess. It's just me adjusting to the holiday when I get one day off work instead of two whole weeks. yay.

what canadian province am I thinking of?

So there is this game where you ask someone "what state am I thinking of?" and you put your hand on their knee. They guess a state and each time they guess wrong you move your hand up their leg. Technically they have fifty guesses. I was playing this game with Brian but he kept giggling and couldn't handle it. Then I played the game with my friend Andy. I sat down next to Andy and said "Hey Andy, what state am I thinking of?" But then there was one small problem. Andy is from Canada and doesn't know all the United States. Ha ha! That game could never end...whoops. So I changed it to "what Canadian provence am I thinking of?" after a short geography lesson we got that game going again. I found that whole situation highly amusing. O Canada!

FYI: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador (I guess they get grouped together), Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut. (for the next time you play trivial pursuit.)

sometimes things just stink

LIFE.

It gets harder when you get older. Did you know that? There's been some serious stuff going down yesterday and today (not really my own personal issues but others' that have affected me) and I am just having a hard time dealing with it. I think some sleep would help the problem.

i need a time-turner

I'm about to lose one of my friends to moving away and I am really bummed about that fact. It stinks because we've only known each other for 3 months and only been good friends for about a month and a half. If I had a time turner like Hermione has in HP3 I could go back in time or maybe slow it down. I'm not sure of all the technicalities. Then I would make friends with this person faster and we'd have more time to do stuff and be better friends. It's also at a point where we haven't been good friends for a long time; what I mean is that we could totally just forget about each other and never talk again. But that would stink! I just wish we had more time to be friends. I feel kinda jyped. And it's like the third or fourth time this has happened this year. I make a friend but we are doomed by time constraints. I feel like friendships shouldn't be dictated by school semesters because I'm not in school anymore, and neither are most of my friends. Alas, life is crazy and you never know when things will get shaken up. Anyway, my point is I will miss my friend and I wish it didn't take us so long to decide to be friends.

snow and sara

1. Due to certain events I have yet to see the new Harry Potter movie. I know right? I don't know who I am anymore. This should be fixed this week.

2. It snowed this week in WA. I guess UT has a blizzard advisory (side note-didn't really happen). I have a love hate relationship with snow. I hate that it makes it dangerous to travel right when my sister is trying to come home for Thanksgiving. I hate that it's negative a million degrees outside. I hate biffing it on the sidewalk. I love how it looks, everything is so pretty. I love that my work closed for the rest of the week because everyone is scared to drive on the snow. I love sledding, getting really cold, and then getting hot cocoa. But I only love that for so long and then I'm done with it. I'm totally a summer girl. The minute it gets sunny I eagerly await the days where it's warm enough to go out without a coat. And I hold on to summer as long as I can. Last week I noticed that my neighbor still had roses blooming. Something I equate with spring and summer. But my ultimate rule is that snow is not wanted before Thanksgiving or after New Years.

I find Richland really funny after living in Provo for five years. When it snows it's not like Utah where they can deal with the snow by plowing it, salting the roads and school not getting cancelled. Here, everyone freaks out. No one knows how to drive on it. My city owns one snowplow which means all the roads are bad. School gets cancelled because the roads aren't getting plowed. Businesses shut down. People shut themselves inside. But we still brave the elements and crappy roads to go sledding on Carmichael Hill. This snow is giving me a workout though. Between shoveling the driveway and sidewalk and walking up the hill sledding I am using muscles. Yay.

3. JILLIAN is coming home for Thanksgiving. Hopefully. If not, see number 2.

4. I saw Sara Bareilles last Saturday night. It was a blast! I went with Nichole and Erica, two girls I grew up with, and Erica's little sister, Claire, and her friend, Angela. We did a little shopping, ate at Beneditos Pizza (thanks to Becca for reccommending it), and saw her concert. We got to the venue just in time for the opening act. Again I had the problem of not being able to see because I am short but there was a little girl there with her mom and I stood behind her. Sara is so good live. She has a great voice, a lot of energy and her songs are so much fun to listen to. She has her own shiny blue baby grand piano and also played the guitar and some kind of box organ thinger. A lot of her music can be taken as "girl power" songs because they are about how boys are dumb or how she or girls in general let them have control or girls change themselves for them. But there are also songs about love and relationships and love that didn't work out. Sara was really nice and cute, she was really good about talking to the audience which always makes things more fun for the crowd. She played about half and half from both her albums. She did play my faves "Uncharted" and "King of Anything." For her finale she sang "many the miles" and danced on top of her piano. We all had a good trip, and we realized that Spokane was really not that far away and that we should go more. Thankfully the snow waited until Sunday night to come.

Nichole, Erica and me at the concert

Sara Bareilles singing

singing on top of her piano

you should read my brother's blog

because he's really smart and I think he's pretty cool. He just wrote an interesting little piece that I'd like to share. Stephen is his name, going to medical school is his game.