Vitamin D

So lately I have been ridiculously grateful for the sunshine for a few reasons. The number-one eternal reason for sunshine love is the fact that it makes me tan. We all know I love that (we also know how much my parents hate that). Anyway, there is a new reason why I love the sunshine (which, now that I think about it, could kind of the be original reason why I loved the sun I just didn't know it). Wow that was a really bad sentence. Anyway. The new reason I love the sunshine is because it gives me vitamin D. Vitamin D makes me happy. Happy people don't shoot their husbands. Just kidding. Recently I was reading an article that said that (one of) the only proven alleviators of Fibromyalgia pain is vitamin D. I believed them because I have noticed a substantial improvement in my fatigue and other symptoms as the sun has been shining more regularly. So that made me go out to Good Earth and buy some vitamin D supplements. I was also very happy to find that the vitamin D supplements are really cool looking. They are like little beads of clear liquidness. Amazing. I love vitamin D. But I like the real stuff best.

Oh PS the whole point of this post was really to tell you that I looked out the window this morning and what did I see? Snow on the ground. And I was furious. So what did I do? I popped a vitamin D pill just because I could.

Eggs are Cool

One of my favorite memories from elementary school was making Ukrainian Easter Eggs, also known as Pysanky. The art of Pysanky involves hot wax, dyes, no patterns, and a serious need for steady hands. I remember creating my own egg in this fashion (I still wonder why we were trusted with such dangerous/expensive tools in 6th grade), and realizing how ultra-lame American eggs looked after they had been submerged in vinegar and Paws dye. Then I was wasting time on NOTCOT today and I saw this awesome Slovenian artist, Franc Grom, who drills beautiful designs into eggs using an electric boring tool. I don't really have that much to say about it, I'm just happy that someone has finally been able to make an egg as beautiful as the Ukrainians.

Oh and I'm obsessed with the little girl on August Rush.

Fin.

The Only Thing Better Than Hairpsray...

The long-awaited Hairspray party finally happened last night. Of course it was amazing. We had a full house and platters full of food to feed hungry sing-a-long attenders. Some of us dressed up, as noted below, and we had a blast. The only thing I regret is that I didn't have time to make my hair overwhelmingly huge.

Awkward. We couldn't really get the camera to work and this caught me a little off-guard.

Ben is trying to be Corny Collins...and he looks a little goofy.

Rachel is Penny. Obviously.

Hairspray!

Her hair is huge but in a different way.

Jane (Amber), Bekah (Tracy), Rachel (Penny), Me (unspecified character), Natalie (not dressed up)

Beautiful Hairspray sing-a-long ladies!

Long Live Müller (or anything that tastes like it)

While studying in Italy this past summer it quickly became apparent that going out to eat was not going to be option for me (because salads in Italy are actually pretty bland and I go sick of tomatoes and mozzarella). Pizza, pasta, bread, and pretty much everything that anyone on the trip wanted to eat was out of the question for me because I…I have a disease. Just kidding. Sorry. Celiac joke. Anyway, the “food routine” became this (since we were usually not somewhere that I could cook myself food): go sit in the restaurant with my friends, feel embarrassed because Americans are SO loud and everyone notices it, order a drink, watch my friends eat, and then find the closest supermarket and get (depending on the day/meal) peanuts, chocolate, fruit, and, most importantly, YOGURT. Yogurt is one of my favorite Italian memories. I seriously had about three a day. My friends and I cleared out the shelves at Il Centro of Müller yogurt all the time. And as we traveled yogurt was one of the only things that we could find consistently from city to city, so it was a quick staple. Well, the morning we left from Rome I went to the market in the bottom of the train station and I bought all the yogurt that would fit in my purse. The taste of those yogurts has lingered on my tongue for months now. Two weeks ago I ate my first yogurt since returning from Italy. It was rough. It’s just not the same. And I am sad about it.

Luckily for me, however, the tables turned yesterday afternoon. My friend’s Mom has been telling me for a while, “Missy, have you tried Kefir? It’s a gluten-free yogurt drink and it is so good.” Well, I knew she didn’t understand the attachment disorder that developed when I left Italy, so I didn’t bother telling her that I hadn’t eaten yogurt in almost a year. I kept hearing about “Kefir”, but I ignored any mention of it because I was NOT going to eat yogurt. It was just too hard. Anyway, yesterday I took my Mom grocery shopping so that she would have food for me to eat at the house, and while we were standing in the produce section I suddenly thought of “kefir" and I ran over by the yogurts. I looked for a minute and realized they had one flavor—vanilla. “I liked vanilla yogurt in Italy,” I thought (even though I have never liked vanilla anywhere else), and I grabbed the bottle of yogurt and went back to my Mom. She asked what it was and I said matter-of-factly, “kefir”, and she stopped asking questions. I had to go pick up Natalie from school and I still had the groceries in my car. I grabbed the bottle and looked at it very skeptically. I opened it, smelled it, and took a tiny sip. Um…OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO GOOD! My taste buds were happy for the first time in a year! The tangy vanilla flavor was bouncing all over my tongue and I could smell the open-air markets and see Antonio, my leather-selling Italian dreamboat running toward me with open arms. I tilted my head back and chugged this blessed drink for at least ten seconds. For a moment I was sure I was sitting in the living room of 85* Tabani in Florence staring down at the commotion in the restaurant below my apartment and wishing just a little bit that we were allowed to actually hang out with the Italians that asked us to do something with them every night. I thought I could hear the dog barking in the apartment below and smell the potent odor of alcohol that drifted out of that apartment every night…but then I realized that I was sitting in front of Salt Lake High School East and my little sister who is trying out for the cheer squad in a few weeks was walking toward me. So I tipped my head back and drank more kefir. It made me feel better. (But I was happy to see Natalie, too).

I want one.

My Top Ten

One aspect of my personality that I don’t particularly like is the fact that I am sort of a “black or white” thinker. I don’t find very much gray area on controversial subjects, and I tend to give all or no effort in my personal endeavors. I am a perfectionist and easily obsess over trivial things. I have been thinking about that a lot lately (being enfatuation-prone), and decided that although quirky, my personal fetishes have an impressive record for being unconditionally unpremeditated and, generally, they have little to do with each other. Ever. In lieu of my recent self-admiration I thought I would treat my readers (what, three of you?) to my ten favorite fetishes of all time. These are in no particular order.

VOLLEYBALL
My high school career.

THE BABY VOICE/GENERAL IDEA OF "BB"

I have threatened endlessly to kill this terrible creature (the actual voice), but all actual efforts to do so have proven fruitless.

NES

My roommate Erica has a Wii and we have never touched it. But she mentioned the other day that we can play old school Nintendo games on it and we have suddenly resolved to calling ourselves “gamers” and stressing over getting past x, y, or z in Mario and Donkey Kong. Greatest game system of all time.

TONGANS (and Tonga in general)

I fell in love with Dallin Tupua in seventh grade and I think I had a crush on at least one Tongan boy every year after that. Does anyone remember Sioeli? If the mere mention of his name isn’t epic, I don’t know what is.

JAPANESE...STUFF

Okay, I didn’t really like Japanese stuff in general, but I was obsessed with Sanrio and Sailor Moon at separate points in my life. I just couldn’t decide which was funnier.

CARS

Acura RSX type S (candy apple red). Jeep Wrangler with a 6” lift and 36” tires. Toyota FJ40. Volkswagen Cabrio. Land Rangers. Period. I decided I was cool when Preston Langeland commented on how radical it was that I could hold my own in car conversation. Luckily for my parents my obsession with owning a fancy car has been put on hold (because I love my Toyota, Florence), but unfortunately for my husband I am still expecting a Maserati for our 25th wedding anniversary.

KEITH URBAN

This love did not happen at first sight--er, listen? Caitlin gave L34 (my sophomore apartment) a cd of all her favorite Keith Urban songs, but I refused to listen to it because it was country. Then my apartment started dating J12 and their man crush on Keith Urban somehow convinced me that he might be worth consideration. The rest is history.

Madras. Duh.





CINDERELLA

This Disney classic was said to have run on a loop throughout my entire childhood. I don’t know what was more mesmerizing…Cinderella’s pinker than pink lips or her desire to hang out with rodents all the time.

DIET COKE

This phase comes and goes. It has been here for a while so I actually decided yesterday that I’m giving it the boot.


Fetishes that nearly got posted are: Italy, Patten Frederick Johnson, jesus shoes, chocolate, Haagen Daaz Macadamia Brittle Ice Cream, natural medicine, the anatomy of the digestive system, missing art class with Liz and Cait, stomachs, Anne Applegate, and Shar Pei puppies.

¡Dress Like a Mexican!

So, we had the “¡Dress Like a Mexican!” party on Saturday night and it was obviously a huge hit. I mean, how could it NOT be? We had red, white, and green streamers from the dollar store, nasty nacho sauce made from “Melt N Dip” pasteurized processed cheese (I gag thinking about it), horchata, and a huge Mexican flag borrowed from the Spanish house hanging on the wall. We also had a station by the front door where you could have a mustache drawn on your face in cheap eyeliner for free! Isn’t that something?

Anyway, I don’t really have a lot to write about, I just wanted to tell everyone that the party was a huge success. Also, I woke up sick this weekend and I have officially stocked my cupboards with airborne and herbal tea. My fridge is full of orange juice and oranges. Oh and I slept in until 2:30 today. Sick, I know, but I blame it on celiac. I blame everything on celiac as of…now. Thanks.

PS - The the above picture is the template we used to help people pick which mustache they wanted on her face. I did not make it, so I did not pick all of the labels, but they are kind of funny right? Okay bye.