he loves me. he loves me not.

"so... can you just tell me why i'm that girl that never really dates anyone? I mean, out of the three guys that halfway dated me in the last year, you are on the nice end of the spectrum and are probably the only one that would tell me..."

No, i didn't recently start a phone conversation with that... okay, maybe i did.

every post that involves something off about myself deserves one good photo. I pride myself in my ability to dress myself. Today i pretty much looked like this (but subtract the hipster glasses and replace them with classy square frames) but add a blue necklace, lime green shoes, a pink/orange bag, and purple nails. A rainbow explosion at its best.

Here is brief history of my dating.

-at 16 i actually had a boyfriend, the only time the 'title' happened. This relationship lasted about six months but was high school mormon dating which=not real dating. You know the type, you are best friends and everyone knows your dating and after a couple months they kiss you, real heavy stuff.

-a couple boys who i would rather forget that i ever knew let alone kissed...

-My freshmen year of college i kinda dated a great guy. We never officially dated, he kissed me the night before he went home for the summer and then one visit and a couple months later he went on a two year mission. We wrote the entire time but when he got home i freaked out (I was terrified of the stereotypical return missionary that is pining for marriage). 

He got married last week.

-Last summer i thought i was dating a kid but it turns out he never really told anyone about me and when someone called him my boyfriend he freaked out and broke up with me. 

-and now my newest phenomenon, a variation of: 

boys that know me but never talk to me. One day that actually talk to me and decide i am super cool, hangout with me a ton and then drop off the face of the earth. 

This takes us to my recent phone call. 

For the last couple months I have been spending time with a certain fellow. We have mutual friends and met a year and half ago but only really started hanging out recently. 

This is where is gets sticky. You see, i now view myself as the main character of He Loves Me He Loves Me Not (a fantastic french film, go netflix it.) The tagline should explain it, "Is she crazy in love, or just crazy." Turns out I am the 'just crazy' type.

We went on numerous dates, or accidental dates as he called them. People would refer to us as dating when we were out and he would always make some agreeing statement. He called me Honey, came over one night at midnight just to say hi because he felt like he hadn't seen me in a long time (it had been a week), asked me about a boy i didn't date last year--he wanted to make sure he wasn't doing the same things that turned me off...

And the list continues. 

To me--in public--it looked like we were dating. However, we weren't. We did hold hands once, but that is one of those situations where i still can't decide if he wasn't trying but i thought he was so i went with it, or if he was legitimately trying...

After a couple months of this i was sorely confused and annoyed so i called him out on it. He apparently didn't see the same things and was more than a little surprised at my view. During our conversation i asked him why i never really date and what i need to work on. After an hour i feel that most of the things he told me where things about himself and not me (oh the irony, i ask and can't accept, we never want to see ourselves as less than awesome). He said i was too forward but also said he likes forward girls. He said i text too much but still texted me to hangout. He said i make it too easy for non-interested boys to spend time with me yet he made the first move and had me over for cinnamon rolls and took me to a movie three days after we first hungout. Basically i feel it all boils down to attraction and though he didn't say it, he was never interested. This is what makes me that crazy girl. That girl that read every sign possible, the exact wrong way.

As i have been blowing through discs of Mad Men--before Netflix charges me more to view dvds at home--i found this great quote:

"So do you go on those dates were you ask each other questions?"

"Its a means to an end."

"But nobody knows whats wrong with themselves, i mean everyone else can see it right away."

And since i already opened pandora's box about my less than desirable qualities, i might as well continue. here is the list of things i am working on:

-i am better at talking about myself than asking questions about you-i do not shower everyday-i can be a bit overwhelming on the text front-i give awkward goodbyes-i say whatever i am thinking which can sometimes be inappropriate-i would rather do everything myself than let someone help me-i am slightly addicted to shopping, mainly at banana republic-

And now that i am a self proclaimed 'crazy girl' and am having zero success at dating on my own. I hereby change my previous dating practices and will go willingly on any blind date any lovely creature plans. The only stipulation is that you actually think we are compatible and don't just set me up because we are both single...

oh on a side now... said fellow is a great guy and we are still friends. It is amazing what actually talking to someone about why you aren't dating makes things less awkward.

if you knew me solely from facebook...

I had a realization. My facebook statuses make me look like a fat zit faced teenager with zero social skills. 

If you only knew me through facebook, imagine what picture these statuses would paint in your mind... (and these only have to do with my physical appearance...)

read this blog. now. it is hilarious and reminds me how i feel sometimes about food. God of Cake, Hyperbole and a Half

6/18/2009

my shorts match my toenails. who knew that GAP carries Skanky Barbie Fuchsia colored clothes?! 

11/3/2009

i feel like i am going to vomit. is it nerves, or that ridiculously large chimichanga i just ate? 

3/27/2010

Bethany looks likes someone smashed Cheetos on her face. 

5/24/2010

i have a heating pad stuck to my back, my right foot is still swollen and bruised, and i have blood running from my heel into my shoe. i thought i had at least 40 more years until my body started falling apart.

9/9/2010

either i got bit by a gnarly bug or has the worlds largest zit. either way, my eye is swelling shut... 

9/30/2010

why i like hanging out in the hfac print lab: "i like your sideburns, i mean the lack there of. They have a nice shape, they aren't like guys since you don't have facial hair."- Brannon 

my purple hair.

12/24/2010

i think i looked better as a brunette instead of a purplette. christmas eve dye job fail. 

2/8/2011

i made an arm sling out of my sweater belt. classy. 

5/3/2011

i woke up with mascara on my chin. how the? 

5/12/2011

Levi informed me that today my shoes are outlandish in both color and height. 
Did it seriously take him 4 straight years of working everyday with me to catch on to that? 

 

5/31/2011

you always (secretly) hope that the day you run into your arch-nemesis after many years you look beyond fantastic, alas when that happened to me today i had a frumpy braid, extra big sweater, one fist holding a chunk of fudge and the other shoving a cookie into my mouth... i guess they just won again. damn.

6/23/2011

I am going to go ahead and pretend that since I can't see my butt hanging out the four inch hole in my shorts, no one else can either... 

6/29/2011

When you go to school with no makeup or deodorant, wearing sweat pant shorts and your sister's maternity shirt, your day only has the possibility of getting better. 

But the hard truth is, I have photographic evidence that this does indeed paint an accurate picture of me. (and sadly, the photos even say more and are more frequent...)

case and point

And then there are the statuses that make me look like i have zero social skillz, to go with my 'i just ate an entire batch of cookie dough' persona...

11/21/2009

when i put on my sunglasses i thought, "wow this is like the recovery slider in the RAW window of Photoshop..." and that is when i realized i am a huge nerd.

these are just so i feel better about my self.

3/4/2010

Day #3 of using a princess sandwich tupperware as a water glass. time to do the dishes at the office... 

3/22/2010

i feel pathetic, either too much photographing or too much invoice folding (at super sonic speeds) has landed me in a wrist brace. 

6/30/2010

i hope God has a replay button for our lives. I really want to know who screamed first in their sleep last night which caused me and Jenny to end up in a bear hug (complete with her nails digging into my arm) screaming at each other in terror. we also  terrified ada which added to the screaming mayhem. fun times at the Davis household at 3:45 in the am...

7/8/2010

thank you, efy boy, that flirted with me today. even though you may have thought i was 14, my dating moral has still been boosted. 

11/23/2010

apparently my long jumping skills were much better in the 8th grade. Hey running clothes and iPhone, meet the middle of this super muddy and merky marsh! 

see, i can be cute.

3/3/2011

days that start with car failure and end with a razor blade lodged in my finger are pretty memorable.

3/7/2011

thanks to Carrie and Jenny, I now have a tag line for my blog. I am cool in a perfectly awkward, uncool way. exactly what i always wanted to be!

5/6/2011

So I just accidentally went to a midnight showing of Thor by myself. I am awesome.

6/7/2011

mom "you should really go to that big east coast single adult conference next summer, it sounds like a fun vacation and it is full of doctors and lawyers, real catches...
"
me "so you have that little of faith in my dating skills that you are planning a year in advance to find me a date."
mom "oh no, i mean, it just seems like..." 

6/20/2011

apparently texting people when deliriously tired is equivalent to drunk dialing. 

no i didn't do that recently...to a boy...that i want to date. 

damn. 

Though amidst the unbecoming statuses there were a few gems that give a hint as to my true awesomeness, i would say that my social networking skills need a bit of help.

he kicked the bucket!

We all have bucket lists. Sure they became more prevalent after the Morgan Freeman movie, but we all know we secretly had one before those two crusty old men made them hip. 

My friend Allison, was recently reading me hers and it inspired me for the first time to jot down my own list.  There are a few that i have tried-some failed miserably and some (1?) been conquered-but the best ones are still awaiting my mad conquering skillz. 

And with that, meet my current 'Bucket List.' 

Now lets hope that it isn't like my favorite Bright Eyes song, Nothing Gets Crossed Out, and more like the opening sequence of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World where i will 'kick the bucket' with as much vigor as a decrepit dying old man. 

Now as for the ones that i have tried and failed:

Hike Timp: 

Well i tried once and alas my friends and i took a wrong turn and ended up going 4 miles in the opposite direction, that kinds kills your desire to hike another entire trail...

Then i have tried doing the midnight hike a couple of times but my 'friends' have bailed every time.

I need new friends. Now accepting applications for friends that like hiking, oh and me. You must like me. 

Eat an ENTIRE box or Oreos in one sitting:

Let's just say that i have never felt so putrid/nauseated/overdosed on shortening in all of my life. But one day, perhaps when i am great with child and crave gross thing, i will power through the pain.

Sky Dive in New Zealand:

I had the option to sky dive in the most beautiful country in the whole world and i passed it up to buy a couch when i came back to the states (it made sense at the time, they were about the same price). I love my couch, but sky diving probably would have been more memorable... So sometimes i dive into my couch and pretend that New Zealand is below me, it has yet to evoke any sort of adventurer spirit in me... perhaps i should try jumping off my ottoman into the couch, you know, get a bit more height...

Now for the ones that i am in the process of completing:
                                              

Own enough books for a home library:
I am currently at 324 which doesn't account the few that are out on loan. By the way, i have great taste in literature. never doubt me. And 1000 books is probably not enough, lets shoot for 10k  

Visit every continent:
I have been to: North America, Europe, and Asia, less than half, weak i know...  oh wait, Lynsey reminded me that we went to New Zealand and Australia for Thanksgiving. Chalk that up to 4!

Bury a Treasure:
I don't like to spend $1 bills, it makes me not use as much cash and pass up on the small things. Because of this i have a secret spot in my apartment for all of my ones. One day, these will be the base of my buried treasure OR i will tape them to the back of a work of art so when someone 100 years from now finds my 'fine art' photograph at a yard sale they will be pleasantly surprised by the hundreds of dollars hiding in the homemade frame.                


Have a Six Pack:
Jillian Michaels has been kicking my trash for the last week... she claims that you can look like her work out lackey (who has a killer stomach) in 'no time at all' with her shredded workout, she best be telling the truth...

Have a Sappy Romance Worthy of an Olson Twin Movie/Get Married:
um yeah, perhaps my post on dating would enlighten this subject... Dating is weird and this crazy phenomenon keeps happening; boys know me for a long time but never hang out, they hangout with me once and decide i am very cool,/witty/awesome/good cook etc., they hangout with me a lot for a month (or a few if i am lucky) and then they drop off the face of the earth. i should work on that.

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, if that were true i would have been a child bride. liars. but that doesn't stop me from having a dozen dark chocolate/peanut butter cupcakes in my oven at this very moment.

And for the ones that are DONE.

Own a home:

My siblings and i just purchased a home together. I don't own 100% of it, but for now 12% is okay by me.

Go to a Movie Alone:

I have never wanted to be one of those people who is afraid of being alone, hence i wanted to do the thing that most people never do alone. I haphazardly fulfilled this one: meet one of my recent Facebook statuses: (and yes it was a thursday night which made it all the more random...)

you see, a boy invited me to go see Thor with his friends for his birthday. 

I don't think that accidentally going into the wrong theater and thinking that i was only a few rows below him and his friends won me any points in the 'awesome and smart girl' category...

But hey, at least a dozen of my facebook friends enjoyed my amazing mistake.

oh i guess there are few more i am half way through completing.

i have seen about a bajillion bands, including almost touching Bono last week, if only i was ten feet tall instead of 5'4"... 

oh and i am trying to cook more. 

(bands i have seen, and yes i realize that some are WAY better than others, but if i'm counting i'm going to count them all)
1. the band of annuals 2. the get up kids (x3) 3. the format (x3) 4. the counting crows 5. the all american rejects 6. limbeck 7. ben folds 8. beruit 9. belle and sebastian 10. bright eyes 11. stars 12. the aquabats 13. dashboard confessional 14. she & him 15. modest mouse (x2) 16. harry connick jr. 17. U2 18. the fray 19. the new amsterdams (x2) 20. Mae 21. vendetta red 22. anathalo 23. matisyahu 24. built to spill (x3) 25. death cab for cutie 26. doug martsch 27. the killers 28. rilo kiley 29. m. ward 30. rooney 31. sufjan stevens 

dating daterton

Dating.

I feel like I am always surrounded by that word. Dating. It is mentioned in church weekly, my professors try to set up their students, random people want to know why I’m single, it is everywhere.

The problem with dating, I don’t understand it in the slightest.

One of my professors said that dating is the definition of insanity; you keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome.

Insanity. He nailed it.

I think that a lot of discussion on dating has been spurred do to a talk given by President Thomas S. Monson (President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) a few months ago. The talk was directed at young men in the church, and this was the main gist of it:

A post on mormon dating should probably contain some more dating signage. yeah baby.

“Now, I have thought a lot lately about you young men who are of an age to marry but who have not yet felt to do so. I see lovely young ladies who desire to be married and to raise families, and yet their opportunities are limited because so many young men are postponing marriage.

Perhaps you are having a little too much fun being single, taking extravagant vacations, buying expensive cars and toys, and just generally enjoying the carefree life with your friends. I’ve encountered groups of you running around together, and I admit that I’ve wondered why you aren’t out with the young ladies.”

I wonder also, why aren’t you (the boys) out with the amazing young ladies like myself?

I feel like most girls blame the boys for our dating woes, but lets be honest, if dates aren’t happening some of it has to be the girls fault. I mean if we were doing everything right the boys wouldn’t be able to contain themselves and would actually ask girls out. And in return, if boys were doing everything right, girls wouldn’t be complaining about the dumb thing the last guy that took them out did or how they aren’t getting asked out at all.

In this lies the secret to the dating dilemma, once we know what each sex is sucking at, hopefully we can find a solution.

The problem: what exactly are girls and guys doing wrong?

Let’s start with the ladies.

My dear friend Richard recently wrote a column for the Utah Statesman entitled: To The Single Ladies of Logan, in which he outlined what he viewed as our faults and follies (needless to say he has gotten more hate mail than all the other regular writers combined). His main points included prioritizing, honesty, communication, maintenance, and perfection. Basically, his encounters with the opposite sex have taught him that women don’t know how to show a guy they are truly interested (or disinterested), that honesty is lacking, they expect the guy to be able to read minds, and they take too much time applying gaudy makeup or the exact opposite and are sloppy. Though his column was harsh and the word witch was used incessantly, I found myself laughing and picturing different girls that I know for each unfortunate description. 

And with that here is my own list of problems that girls have, myself included:

Honesty: telling a guy why you don’t want to date him is a courtesy not a backhanded thing to do

Communication: guys will never understand girls, make your communication more direct and easily decipherable. I hear that guys realize you like them if you touch them while you talk to them (don’t take my word for it, I haven’t dated anyone in a year)

Appearance: don’t pretend that guys are being shallow by asking the good looking girls out, don’t dress sloppy and put a few minutes thought into your dress/hair/makeup

Openness: don’t always be so busy that guys can’t ever get to know you or take you out. Even if you are busy don’t let them know that. Staying up all night to finish a project that a boy didn’t know about so you could go out with him aint so bad every once and a while.

Humor: everyone does stupid things, be able to laugh at yourself and awkward situations on dates, chance is the date realizes it is just as awkward as you do

Bitterness: no guy wants to ask out a bitter girl. No girls want to be your friend either for that matter.

Now onto the male species:

Communication: you are champions at leading girls on. If you like a girl, spend time with her, if you don’t, don’t ask her to do things with or for you. (that includes meals, those of you freeloading)

Judging: I would say that most guys are quick to judge girls based solely on their appearance. Give a girl more than a once over before you ask her out, it could save you from a terribly boring night where you end up just making out because she can’t hold a conversation and it gives girls a chance that aren’t the drop dead gorgeous stereotype. 95% of men are dating 5% of the women or something like that…

Acceptance: If a girl is hinting that they like you, accept it and act appropriately. If a girl is saying no, accept it and move on.

Finance: don’t plan expensive dates, it makes you not want to date and breaks the bank.

Commitment: only hardcore pursue a girl if you are genuinely interested. Cut the noncommittal crap.

The other hard to handle and awkward new phenomenon now invading dating is social media. Let’s be honest, first dates are no longer ‘get to know you’ dates. We all know that once we have the remotest romantic interest in a person we facebook, blog and anything else on the internet stalk them. We also almost always start texting the interested party before a date ever transpires. Now not only do I have to look good for a date in real life, I am supposed to be witty at a moments notice when they get the hankering to send me a text. 

I am screwed.

And after writing all this I realize that it didn’t solve anything.

Dating is still a mystery and we all, unfortunately, are it's slave until we have that marriage license tacked up on our living room wall.

Best of luck to all the single ladies and gents.

waiver has been approved

It is no secret that i loath the BYU Off Campus Housing Office. BYU has a lot of great things, i wouldn't be starting my 3rd senior year if that wasn't true, but the housing lacks even the most common sense.

A little background: this one time my terrible landlord did a slue of illegal things and then topped off my tenancy with threatening to ruin my credit and put a hold on my academic account at BYU (neither of which she had power to do anyway). I spoke with BYU OCH (Off Campus Housing) about my problems at least 4 times and they never helped me. Even though my landlord changed the locks without telling me, which left me locked out in the middle of the night with nowhere to go, the only thing BYU said was, 'well if you go to court and win let us know and then we will help you.'

Needless to say i went to court and won. It was glorious, my old landlord looked like a babbling fool. Her only defense was that: everyone hates Bethany so it was okay that i treated her like crap too. (don't worry, not everyone hated me, just those two roommates that i never care to see again if i live to be 107).

If you want the full story on housing issues at BYU and what I presented to the OCH, go to this blog post.

That was all a while ago. 

I had been to BYU OCH at least a dozen times since the beginning of my problems until last fall. After having a meeting with the entire OCH staff and telling them that said landlord even lost a master key to the complex and hadn't re keyed (the key was missing for 18 months before she recovered it, still she did not re-key the apartments), having a very candid phone conversation with Garry Briggs-where he pretended like he had no idea who i was even though i had been in his office less than a month ago presenting for an hour to his staff, talking to the rep over my old complex who said she wasn't sure of the laws regarding missing keys and therefore they weren't going to do anything, and then reading an article in the Daily Universe about housing, i decided to write a letter to the editor.

http://universe.byu.edu/node/15591

I thought that it was funny that on the same day this article was published i submitted my most recent housing waiver. I had forgotten about the letter since it was published almost two weeks after i wrote it, but it was very fitting that it was all the same day.


Meet my latest housing waiver that BYU approved today:

"Because of the many encounters I have had with the BYU Off Campus Housing office in the past two years and the lack of respect and due diligence on their part to keep me and my residential facility safe, I feel that I have no option but to not reside in housing that is affiliated with BYU, owned or accredited.

I have talked to every member of the OCH permanent staff, including attending and presenting at one of their weekly meetings. Though I brought a number of legitimate concerns and student complaints to them, they neglected to ever contact my landlord or follow up in any way to the allegations.

Once when speaking to Craig Thomas about my lackluster view of BYU Housing and that I did not feel safe living there and never would again, he simply replied, "I don't blame you."

And with that, I assume that there are no intentions of fixing any of the problems that students present, even when like me, they bring a court verdict in their favor from a recent law suit against their 'BYU Accredited' landlord. Because of this, I trust my own decision making skills over where I should reside and the safety of my residential unit, than that of BYU and an unit that they have not visited or reviewed in no one knows how many years.

In short: In the past I did not feel safe in my BYU Accredited unit and due to the lack of concern from the BYU OCH office, I feel that I cannot trust OCH opinion of which units provide appropriate living and safety standards."

I wonder if Craig Thomas or Garry Briggs saw either my letter to the editor or my waiver...

i here by declare today, a reese's holiday

 I love reese's.

I love normal reese's cups

 but more than that, 

i love the seasonal reese's tree/heart/egg/pumpkin.

I don't just love reese's, i might have a slight addiction. 

(you can probably tell this by how many images are in this post, it rivals the amounts in post about my lovable family)

Easter for me means lots of reese's, don't get me wrong, i celebrate for all the right reasons too and understand Passover, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but for the commercial aspects of Easter it is all about reese's, none of that crappy chocolate coated in an 'egg' like shell. gross. 

Last year, bless her soul, this was my Easter basket from Mother Dearest. It might not have been large, but she knew that the only thing i really wanted was one of those eggs so it was perfect. perfect in all of its tiny glory.

My love of the holiday reese's has been around probably since i discovered their goodness. They have the perfect chocolate to peanut butter ratio, which by the way is WAY more peanut butter than chocolate. They are easier to crumble on top of ice cream. The chocolate layer is easier to peel off so you can enjoy just the peanut butter. They are perfect in every way.

Last year i had a disappointing experience involving reese's. The following email was sent to my siblings after i purchased our Mom's Christmas present. I told them how much each of them owed me and included methods of payment. More disappointing to me than not receiving even one payment in back tickles was the fact that no one paid me in reese's Christmas trees. Two of my sisters said that they were afraid i was going to eat my self into an oblivion. Stupid sisters that look out for you girlish figure...

This year i decided i would take my reese's fate into my own hands.


Meet my best/worst decision: the 6 oz egg. 

I somehow convinced a boy that we should go on an adventure to find/eat these. Of course being a boy, he decided that we should each get one. WHAT THE?! I could have told you that 6 oz is enough for a small army but he must have been a reese's novice. Needless to say we both only ate about a quarter and then admitted defeat. The said boy just laid on my family room floor the rest of the night. I think i killed him. Okay he isn't dead but he told me last week that he hasn't been able to look at a reese's since.

This sucker is not for the faint of heart. It even took me two weeks to want to each a normal size egg again.

Then it was the monday after Easter which equals National Half Price Reese's Egg Day! Even if the large egg almost caused cardiac arrest, i couldn't pass up the chance to stock up on the delectable treats. You see, the next holiday that has a specially shaped reese's is halloween, you can't have a 6 month drought, my body won't allow it.

Don't worry, i didn't buy any of the large eggs, the chocolate is just too thick and the egg too hugantic. But i did buy a year supply of normal eggs, 36 to be exact.

Now when you come to my lovely apartment you are greeted with a large supply of eggs, exactly how every apartment should be.

and on a completely unrelated note, i split my pants again today (the other side split two weeks ago). I swear this was a work related box lifting injury and not the fact that i just bought 6480 calories worth of reese's...

'you rang?'

When i was younger i always thought that it would be cool to resemble a celebrity. You know, have people mistake you for that awesome person, try and get free swag, etc. But then i decided that i didn't want this when i realized that the only 'celebrity' that i resembled was Zoey from the PBS show Zoom. My niece and nephew thought it was cool and would talk about it but it wasn't cool to really anyone else, me included.

I thought that was bad enough, then my sister pointed out an ever worse look alike.

I call my sister jenny like every other day, or like twice in one day if you are referencing yesterday... Lately whenever she answers, or leaves a voice message, she says 'You rang?' in this super nerdy/nasally/little boy voice. I couldn't figure out why she did this, i assumed it was just another random phase like when she talks like a duck or something weird. I finally asked her what the deal was and she goes, 'don't you remember watching Little Giants? That picture on your blog of you in my West uniform looks just like the nerdy kid who says that in the movie...'

Crap. It is true, i looked just like the scrawny boy that is only remembered for blowing the biggest snot bubbles ever. 

Maybe now is a bad time to mention that this one time, mallory and i were so bored at my uncles house that we would blow our nose as hard as we could and then run to the mirror to see who's snot was farthest down their face. Oh the things we do to entertain ourselves as children.

the mommy closet

I have a confession.

I can't wait until i have kids.

This may come as a surprise to some, i generally like to stay in the mommy closet and don't admit that i want to have a litter of those snotty nose creatures crawling all over me like a jungle gym one day. But, just because i say i want kids, don't get this confused with being 'baby hungry' which implies to the hopes to be impregnated in the near future.

best nanny ever, can't you tell?

In high school i thought that one day i would have maybe two kids, and not for a very, very, verrrry long time. This was probably due to the fact that at seventeen i gave up the normal ruckus that comes with being a high school student to become a single mother of three at times. I was a live-in nanny for my older sister, though i didn't have her kids 24/7, i did have entire weekends, and the occasional week, where the kids were all mine. Those things that most women get accustomed to once they birth a child, you know, the gross stuff, i am already too familiar with. I have cleaned up my share of peed on carpets, blown out diapers, and the occasional-worst fear-liquid pooh that drips down your own leg because you made the fatal mistake of trying to carry the poor sick child to the bathroom. You know you have cleaned up too many messes when your favorite pastime becomes washing and folding laundry, it smells fantastic and doesn't whine or yell. The laundry room became my sanctuary.

It took me a few years after this to realize that yes, i do want my own kids. Not that i didn't love my niece and nephews, i did and still do for that matter. There is just something different when you realize that one day you will have your own kids that will be part crazy just like you.

Three and Five from Bethany Davis on Vimeo.

I am pretty sure that part of my recent fascination with offspring is due to this video that i recently shot and edited. I am in a beginning film class and was supposed to make a video with a story. As i was getting ready to travel to the east coast i decided that i might as well shoot some of the most adorable kids that i know in hopes that i could get something that could become a short film. I followed Simon and Ada around for a day and let them do what they do best, be kids. When i went to class yesterday my professor asked me why i created the video, my response was about how i wanted to create a 'home video' of sorts that i wished i had. My goal was to capture an average day instead of the generic holiday program or birthday party.

It's the normal days like this, caught on film, that make me want kids. I am excited to be able to mold little minds and play all sorts of random make believe games that I don't understand. I am ready to get away with: cutting the crust off sandwiches, tickle baby backs, have an excuse to buy the amazingly scented Johnson's Baby shampoo-that i may or may not use myself, coach soccer-teach that you can simply step on the other side of the ball instead of taking the entire field's width to go the other direction, watch Arthur on PBS, induct a children's section into my library, eat M&Ms out of measuring cups, and basically just be awesome.

my newborn photo, or  'i look like benjamin button' photo or  'lobster claw baby' photo.

One day i will be that crazy lady down the street that builds forts in her front room with her kids so intense, that she has to crawl through the tunnel of sheets just to open the front door. Until then, i will just keep winning the hearts of my many nieces and nephews as their favorite Aunt Bethy.

Let's just hope that i marry a super attractive fellow so my kids can take after him as a wee babe...

Maybe in the meantime i will also start writing a series of children's books. Have you seen some of them lately? Seriously, they suck. I could do this. I WILL do this. Jenny Kimball, get ready to become by business partner.

damn you, hitchcock

Recently one of my friends was surprised to hear that i am not afraid of living alone.  Honestly, it isn't that bad, i live in a safe area and have neighbors all of ten feet from me so i never feel too uncomfortable, that is-until i have to shower.

Showering in an empty house has always given me the heebeegeebees. There is something so unsettling about being in a house and then in a bathroom and then in a shower behind the curtain. So many spaces within a space, it is like being the littlest nesting doll-then to top it off you are being pelted by water. Horrible.

I have however found a solution to my showering woes. And no, it is not showering less (we all know that is virtually impossible...). I, being the cheap housewares connoisseur that i am, only purchased the clear inside shower curtain. Since my bathroom is so small and doesn't have a vent, i have to shower with the door open. Now with the clear curtain i can see 25% of my apartment while showering. Problem solved, i have now migrated from a nesting doll-stuck in a dark cramped space, to a baby kangaroo-only partially in the pouch.



I am pretty sure that my fear of showers came from my childhood obsession with $0.49 classic movie rentals at Hastings. Everyday during the summer i would ride my bike to Hastings and pick out a new movie. I am pretty sure i have seen every Audrey Hepburn, Gary Grant, Fred Astaire, Doris Day, Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock film Hastings carried. I adored all of them, probably too much for a 10 year old born in the 80's and not the 40's... all that is, but Psycho. Even though i had watched a behind the scenes on Hitchcock and knew that the blood in the infamous shower scene was chocolate syrup, i never got over the creepiness of a man dressed in women's clothes repeated stabbing a poor transient embezzler.


Yep, Psycho has to be to blame for this. Before i got super into classic movies i used to shower in the dark because we had super fun glow in the dark wallpaper. Nothing like showing with glowing kids doing cartwheels surrounding you... (the wallpaper however in sighted the need in me to do acrobatics in the shower. I am more than slightly surprised that i never broke my arm jumping between the two built in seats in the shower...)

letters, love, and high school romance

I get a little frustrated when people attack Valentine's Day. So what you aren't dating anyone, what percentage of mankind is on this one certain day anyway? Just because you aren't raptured by another doesn't mean that you can't have a stellar day. I LOVE Valentine's Day, basically i love any day that involves sending letters/cards/love notes/and has a specially shaped Reese's.

letters from all my 'missionaries'

Basically since forever, i have been saving every letter or note that i received. I am getting quite the collection (this also means that i attend way too many weddings/bridal showers/baby showers and therefore get copious amounts of thank you cards... which by the way, means i had better get a heck of a lot of people at all of those events for me.) Yesterday i went through the basket of letters and read a few, finding among some generic greetings, a few dazzling treasures.

letters from just one certain missionary

I have always had a love for letters. When my siblings were in college i would write them fairly often, and no, my spelling hasn't really improved since then. Even as s child i knew that letters have an aesthetic presence that can't be beat, i love a simple envelope sealed with wax. This is probably why i was so good at writing missionaries, i loved the visual final of the letters. One time i was writing around twenty different boys that were on missions. I didn't write them all a ton, some only got a few letters over the years but the lucky few got more than a handful. Because of this i was also graced with a number of letters.  It was hilarious going back through them, especially the Valentine's Day cards pretending to be in love with me (i think they just wanted more letters...) -side note, i went to one mission reunion with a friend and someone referenced me as the girl with the cool envelopes and wax seals, i guess my letters made it around the office...

Then there were the letters from my family. Sarah gets the award for the most creative addressing ever. Too bad i can't seem to find her Valentines, those were works of art. Any letter that is addressed to Aunt Barfy/Bethany also holds a special place in my heart, espcially when the envelopes only contain crayon drawings of ducks that look like the Pigeon books. 

There are also love notes from church. In the last couple of wards i have been in people can write notes to each other and have them delivered after church. My most favorite would be the three poems that i received from three different boys about my yellow high heels (i don't blame them, they are the most amazing shoes-quite possibly ever).

But still my most prized letter that i have is one written on Valentine's Day in 2005. In january of that year i broke up with my high school boyfriend. A few weeks later he slipped this into my hand.  We hadn't really talked since the break up, go figure, but we had been friends since elementary school. I won't bore you with the whole letter but the end was amazing. 

My favorite quote: 

"Seeing as how it is Valentine's Day i just want to say a few things. To me you are still the prettiest girl that i know...I never told you this but out of all the girls that i've kissed you were by far the best kisser. Your kiss could make an old man jump up and dance like he was young again."      

oh the wisdom of seventeen year old boys.  

Everyone needs to know that someone thinks they are pretty and amazing enough to give even old men new life. Though lets hope that i never actually find out about the old man part, unless of course i am an old bitty that is married to that old man.

Moral of the story: save all your notes so on Valentine's Day you can stop pretending that no one loves you. Have a little review of the letters and eat a heart shaped Reese's, this can cure all that ails you on such a day.

terrors in the night

this is us doing our scared faces, or how people look when they wake up to my screaming and clawing them...

Today i had the following conversation with my sister Jenny:

            me-"Hey Jenny, remember that time last summer when we woke up screaming at each other? Yeah, last night i woke up to Milo freaking out and kicking me in the ribs, it was kinda like when you clawed me..."

            jenny- "You do realize that you are the only common denominator here, right?"

I have a long history of sleep walking, talking, dancing, singing, acting malicious etc. I remember when i was a young lass, only a few years old, waking up on the couch and not knowing how i got there. My parents didn't believe me when i said i got there in my sleep, well turns out it was true. 

Within the next few years my random acts of migrating from my bedroom to the couch escalated. I have always been one to go to bed fairly early, because of this my siblings were often privy to my antics. 

These antics included:

• Carrying all my bedding upstairs, wandering back to my room where i stood curiously waiting for my sheets to reappear, or so according to Lynsey. 
• Going to the kitchen, filling a glass of water, walking to Levi's room where i proceded to slowing empty the glass on his floor while glaring at him.
• Telling Mallory to take out our nonexistent cat, because i of course, didn't do it yet.
• Singing Mallory a song about how i flushed the toilet, doing a little ditty of a dance and then yelling "Make Way!" while i ran full speed and jumped on top of her in bed.
• Getting dressed for school, usually before midnight, and then staring at the clock with my face pressed against it until it registered in my mind that it was not 7:30 yet. (this happened weekly).
• Sitting up in bed, looking over at Mallory while pointing my finger as gun and saying, "Get out o my town..."
• Yelling at Mallory for telling me that it wasn't time for school and to go back to bed, having Jenny come in to console me, then in between crying into Jenny, looking over at Mallory and glaring.

The instantes continued as i got older, generally it was just small things like waking up on the other side of my room or wandering around the house, but nothing terribly exciting. However, things picked up again when i got to college. 

our room, case and point

When i was a freshmen i shared a room with Diana. For a while we kept our beds on opposite sides of the room but soon it became apparent that i had a problem with keeping the area clean between our beds. This led us to pushing our beds together. This gave us ample storage space under the beds and made for entertaining evenings full of girl talk and slumber parties with our other roommate. However, moving the beds also planted the seed of sleep walking in both of us. 

Soon Diana began to cause scenes of her own. One night she sprang up yelling something about slavery and began to run off the end of our bed. She occasionally gave me American History lessons too. She however, was not the only one to run-amuck in the night. My best episode was wandering out of our apartment in the middle of the night only to wake up with my forehead against the outside of the front door with my hand on the handle. The door was open and i was standing in just my underwear and a tank top, very scandalous for BYU. One more second and i would have locked myself out. Diana and i were also constantly talking to each other when one of us was getting up early to go to work and the other was still asleep.

That was four years ago, i haven't done much of anything since then so i figured i was done. But then came Jenny and our screaming match last summer.

(this is how i imaged we looked)

Ada's infamous 'Spin and Shake,' or how i image her spinning around my room...

Jenny came to visit which meant that i was sharing my full size bed with her and her daughter, Ada, was sleeping on the floor next to us. Neither of us like touching people in our sleep so we are pretty good at sticking to our side of the bed. In the middle of the night we both woke up, arms wrapped around each other, nails digging in, screaming at the top of our lungs at each other. After a few split seconds of this charade, we both let go and lay back, trying to catch our breath. Ada however, was spinning circles on the ground screaming. We then began to question each other as to what caused the ruckus, to this day we both think the other person started it. 

The next morning while at breakfast Ada turned to Jenny, "Mom, i don't know who screamed first, you or aunt Bethany, but i was like number 99 scared..."

This is one of the instances that i want to replay when i am in heaven, i really want to know who screamed first.

looks docile and innocent, huh? well not in the middle of the night, i swear it was him...

Now this exact same scenario has happened again last night. Replace Jenny with Milo and subtract all the screaming. I am pretty sure at least three of Milo's legs jabbed me straight in the ribs. I swear he was having a night terror, but as Jenny pointed out, i am a common factor. 

I guess now that i live alone and don't have someone to notice if i scream in my sleep, i will have to wait until i am married to find out if i really cause others to have night terrors. I pity the fool that marries me only to wake up to my white knuckles digging into his rippling biceps...

see jane date

something strange happened in my 22nd year, but i still can't figure out what.


You see, i am not the dating type. It isn't that i don't like dating, i just am not good at being the girl that guys immediately think to ask out, it generally takes a few encounters before they realize that i could be a possibility (or realize i am not crazy and my comments are sarcastic not serious). 


Girls that get asked out a lot are good at flirting, generally shower every day, wear cute outfits, are never seen without makeup, say the right things etc. And why wouldn't they get asked out? They do everything right and therefore deserve it.


I however, not many of those. Flirting is like a foreign language to me, if i don't feel dirty i don't shower, i had to make a new year's resolution to wear makeup, and i more often than not say completely inappropriate things on accident. I do wear cute outfits though, (even the girl at the Nissan dealership stopped me yesterday to tell me how cute my outfit was). But i am not bitter toward these flirty girls, to each his own, we are all different and neither of us are pining to be like the other.


But recently i have somehow shifted to the other side. I, Bethany Jane Davis, had not one, not two, but three boys ask me out or ask for my phone number in January. 


I fee like i have become a Bakawali flower, it rarely blooms and it is does so, it is only at night and wilts before dawn. 

Perhaps i am reached my prime. I had better act fast before the dawn comes... or i could just figure out what has started intriguing the opposite sex. Yes, that latter idea sounds like a better plan. Find out why they are intrigued, perfect it, and then hook the entire male population. This is fool proof. This is perfect. 


Maybe i should write my own version of the childhood classics 'Fun with Dick and Jane.' 'See Jane Date' could become a quick bestseller. It is bound to be full of off color comments said on accident, awkward dating formalities and of course, graceful exits-my specialty.


or perhaps boys have started asking me out because i am no longer bitter (yes, this is me admitting that i was a bitter person). I recently found a note i wrote on Facebook almost exactly a year ago, it is more than slightly bitter towards the male race...


and yes, i now realize i am probably just as bad of a date as the boys that i mentioned. Heck i know there is at least one blog post floating around about me... haha


"anthem of a 22 year old girl 
(not to be confused with a certain 23 year old girl)
posted on March 1st, 2010


before i begin, let me warn you, this is a pessimistic note. do not think that i hate life or half of the population, a lot of you i still love, like this much <3 <3 <3, this note is mostly for about ten or so unnamed individuals and anyone who mimics them.

i have come to a pathetic realization over the past little while, chivalry is utterly and completely dead and for the most part my counter part in society, the male, is lacking.

my friends often remind me of my stellar dating trend and ask to hear stories of the latest awkward/entertaining date that i have suffered through. Okay, suffering isn't a completely honest word choice, they have not been that bad, but i do wonder what goes through a boys mind when he thinks, "i want to ask that bethany girl out, we have so much in common!" seriously? so much in common? But even worse than the less than magical, semi-annual dates, is the fact that boys can't even be trusted in daily interaction.

Though i doubt that many, if any, of the boys that need a lesson in dating or just how to be human, will read this, let me give a few pieces of priceless advice.

15 tips for the lacking male:

1. do not go on a date with a girl and never tell her your full name, 'Buck' is not attractive.
2. do not go on a blind date and play 'how well do you know your date' because the answer is not at all.
3. do not hold a girls hand and then the next day tell her you already have a girlfriend, whoops!
4. do not ask a girl to meet you by a fast food restaurant to start off your date (and yes by, not even at) on campus none the less.
5. do not say 'let's get dinner' at the end of the date and then let her pay for herself, it was your idea after all.
6. do not go on walks that are miles long when the girl is wearing high heels and then no shoes at all.
7. do not invite a girl to watch a movie, cuddle, and then pretend it never happened, that was all your doing.
8. do not plan a group date and tell your date all the details but say 'but don't tell the other girls, we want it to be a special surprise for them.'
9. do not ask the girl to drive herself to part of the date, especially a group date where everyone else picks up their dates.
10. do not take a girl out for long periods of time without feeding her.
11. do not kiss a girl and then tell her it was an accident and you didn't mean to.
12. after you reject a girl do not keep asking her to do favors for you.
13. do not sit in your chair while your date leaves the restaurant to feed the parking meter, maybe you should even offer to pay for half.
14. do not be little a girls major or job, it only makes her want to punch you.
15. do not throw a fully clothed girl into a pool (amazingly enough this has happend to me three times, yes three different boys, three different pools) either you really hate me or your way of flirting sucks.

i know that i am not the perfect date, but i do try. living in provo and going to byu is already strange enough when it comes to meeting the opposite sex, let's not try and make it more difficult.

so to all of you boys that have one of these pathetic rules named after you, shame on you, what would your mother say? i do not wish to be put on a pedestal but the doormat is a little much. and in case you didn't realize it when you blew me off or made a fool out of me, i am worth it and a hell of a lot more.

best of luck to us all, but i wish you even more luck, mister male, who is anxiously engaged in trying to woo the ladies."

23 years and counting

On more than one occasion my siblings and i have voiced our amazement that all ten of us have made it to adulthood. In your family this might not seem like such a feat, but the Davis family always seems to get injured more often and do more stupid things than the average family. (if you haven't read the post on my family, read this post now. or read this one.)

Okay maybe it isn't that we do more intense things, but there is a litter of us so it only seems natural that our family would have been based on survival of the fittest. That surely means that one of us should have unintentionally killed another while being more fit. Well, i guess as the tithing child i am glad this wasn't the case...

Since yesterday i celebrated me being birthed 23 years ago, let's remind ourselves how the last 23 years looked, bad hair and all (all being HUGE glasses).

But before all that bad hair, please remember what I looked like yesterday-keep this is mind when the unfortunate photos come along... like that second one... (don't worry that in the course of one week two 'friends' told me that i was one of the most unfortunate looking children they had seen...)

2011                                                                      1988

Yes, i know, i looked like an 80 year old man straight out of the womb.

1988

i am pretty sure mallory was trying to kill me, not burp me...

1989

1990

1991

is this a foreshadow of Loon Lake disaster of 1998?!

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

 1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

and yet, 

somethings never change with age...

2010

15 days in and I still have a hard time remembering that the year is now 2011. i still remember walking to the Boise Depot from katie's house for the big 2000 new year's party. there is no way that was a decade ago...

there is no way i am old enough to say 'a decade ago'

so what memorable happened in 2010? well let me tell you...


I turned 22. this involved a party with sugar cookies made to look like me, a homemade photo booth, and these fantastic boys that let me have the party at their house.

I assisted celebrity photographer Brian Smith at Sundance and met Miss Universe...

i flew to TN and then drove to SC to watch Jojo run her first (canceled) marathon. 

Thank you Myrtle Beach, for all the snow...

I photographed many a thing, one of my favorites being the Festival of Colors.

i was playing with this lovable pup, Milo, and did this to my foot. Jenny lovingly referred to me as 'Cankalicious' for weeks that felt like months.

i went to boise a couple times, visited/photographed my family and best friends from childhood.

i actually briefly dated someone (we are much cuter individuals in real life) and upped my dating quota with going on second dates for the first time ever. (like real dates)

i went to Lake Powell with Jojo's hilarious family and mike's quad nephews. 

quite the adventure.

 i flew to Idaho to cheer on Uncle Rico, I mean Thor, I mean Aaron in his first IRON MAN!

i also discovered that one of my many God given talents is trophy embellishing.

i learned that writing your calendar/to do list on your mirror and leaving dry erase markers in your bathroom leads to lots of good facial hair being drawn next to your important tasks. 

meet my niece, teen wolf.

i spent many an hour with these rag-a-muffins and we had a few photoshoots. 

some in the studio and some outside.

i found new fantastic friends in my ward,

and wowed them with my amazing acrobatics. 

i also spent a lot of time with my 'freshmen' friends.

then there was book club, at least a few. (we aren't so good at the whole once a month thing...)

and photography parties and more than a few classes.

then there was spur the moment jet blue deals that landed three sisters in new york together. 

and more expensive flights that landed two sisters in new zealand for thanksgiving.

 and of course the year ends with a christmas morning photo op on the stairs...

oh, and i met my first llama AND i managed to wear makeup everyday for a year. 

okay, almost everyday.

the end

this town is backwardz

this is what you get if you google provo culture. amazing. priceless.

Today one of my professors mentioned how when he was in school he had a professor that would give every student a platinum print as a wedding present (best wedding present ever). At the end of the class my professor asked for a print since he was not married and didn't think that it was fair that he should be left out of the amazing platinum print gifting.

This brings me to one of my biggest complaints about Provo and its backwards views.

Here, if you are married, you are instantly more responsible/mature/knowledgeable/likable/deserving/and anything else you can name.

But here is the hard truth: a vast majority of the married people i know are not smarter than me and are, quite frankly, not bright enough to be married and bringing children into this world. (there is a reason why the BYU stereotype for marriage exist, it is true that a lot of people get married young and aren't ready for it, their brains haven't matured enough...)

this 19 yr old mormon couple was featured on MTV's Engaged and Underaged. their episode...wow...

This makes me sound bitter about marriage, but i am not. One day i am sure i will fall in love and get all giddy and plan every aspect of my life down to how many children mister right and i are going to have to the color of the chargers at our reception. (that is me trying to sound classy, yes, i know what a charger is...)  

Everyone knows that i have a few issues with BYU, namely BYU Housing and that the honor code takes away honor from people. The thing with the honor code is that once you are married a lot of it doesn't apply any more. You no longer have to live in the crappy mandated BYU Housing, you don't have a curfew, you can have (are encouraged) to have the opposite sex in your apartment (okay so i don't want babies now so that rule is good), but most importantly (and frustrating) people in administration treat married students more like equals.

Somehow my social status has suffered, not due to anything i have done, but due to the fact that others have leaped (blindly in cases) into matrimony and i, have not.

this dress is AMAZING and mine will be slightly like it.

Last time i checked i was decently independent and adult. I have been basically finically independent since i was 16. I am putting myself through college. I co-own a successful business. I know how to cook and am pretty good at it. I am good at balancing my finances and really good at shopping. I know how to change a tire. I know those random cleaning and laundry tricks.

Why is it then, that i am treated like i am slightly less of a person than my 18 year old married counterpart?!

oh and also speaking of marriage, but not provo in general, why is it that you aren't supposed to need anything until you get married and then you get to put it on your registry? Do people not learn how to cook until they get married? Do you not need dishes or towels or furniture when you are single? For the record, i need/needed all of these/those things. As long as my future husband is small enough to fit in a full size bed i don't need a thing-other than a tandem-when i get hitched.

363/365

this time last year i decided that i was actually going to make a new years resolution. this was big. this was huge. don't get me wrong, i make goals, i tend to write them in dry erase on my bathroom mirror and erase them as i knock them out of the park- but new year's resolutions, not my thing.


but last year i decided that i would wear makeup everyday for one year and make it my new year's resolution.

see, proof i wear makeup.

you see, i sell high end cosmetics for a living. i can tell you the shade name, retail price, shipping weight, our price, and a decent description of every item that we carry. don't worry that we have over 600 listings on ebay, over 50 shades of lip gloss alone. i am pretty good at cosmetics, however, wearing them and knowing how to wear them is something else...



i like clothes and accessories. i am known for my extensive banana republic wardrobe and amazing assortment of stilettos. i always know what i was going to wear, but i never put much thought into my hair or makeup. i decided this should change.

i figured out how to photograph my crazy eye, don't include it! (oh, but i did leave in my scar from eye surgery) thank you banana, for this eye covering fedora for $3.74

now that it is december 31st, 2010, i can officially say that i succeeded at my first ever new year's resolution. i wore some form of makeup everyday (except for the two days i spent in lake powell) of 2010. and since it is the last day of the year, i decided to go out with a bang. i am wearing mascara (and it is not sunday), and i even added in a few smashbox false lashes.

there is a reason i rarely do self portraits, it just doesn't work for me... modeling that is...

so how do i feel it turned out? i think it went pretty well. i actually had a short lived romance and went on dates with a few other guys this year. that blows my semi annual dates of years past out of the water. i guess boys do like makeup, so stop lying that you like it when girls don't wear it.

we were always made to be zorbing together

Last week i was showing my friend Rachel my photos from New Zealand. When i got to the ones of zorbing she got super excited and made me listen to this song, needless to say i am hooked and have listened to it about 25 times. (who knew someone had written a song about how two people were made to zorb together, precious).

Zorbing: you do a running dive into a soft plastic ball that has a few inches of warm water in it. They then push you down a zig zag track that is cut out of a hill. If you have amazing acrobatic talents like Lynsey, you will get so rambunctious that you will bounce yourself out of the zig zag track and all the way across the hill. Then you get turned upside down and birth yourself out. weird.

some of us 'birth' a little more attractively than others...

case and point

Though we could have gone rafting instead of zorbing and gone down a 7 meter waterfall, I am pretty happy with my choice of being tossed to and fro like a hamster. We also did one ride with three people. As you can guess it was basically a lot of arms and legs flying every which way.

she got to go down with the two of us, we got all sorts of personal with our limbs flying...

I also found out that they now have a Zorb in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Yes, Sarah and Luke, I am taking your kids on this during one of my next visits. (okay it might have to wait a while, there are height requirements...)

classy

I always like to think of myself as a classy gal. I pride myself in the outfits i create on a daily basis and that i do classy things like seal letters with wax. I enjoy old movies and a good book. I love the way food looks when it is dished up neatly on a plate. I am classy.

However, after looking through all my photos from New Zealand I realized that I make a LOT of unfortunate, less than classy, faces.

And I wonder why I am single...

getting ready to go caving

this is what happens after 30 hrs of travel

lynsey sat on me on the rope swing and i got a rope burn on my thigh, go figure.

okay so i don't look that bad, but Lynsey's face is priceless.

that is what i thought of the stinky boiling mud.

Tim Tam Slam!

nighttime antics.

and my super amazing outfit that i hiked 8 hours in. I didn't know we were hiking and neglected to pack decent hiking attire...

utah hair? in new zealand?

once again another swing accident.

a tim tam thanksgiving

I have fallen in love with many a thing while i have been in New Zealand, so much so, i may never come back to the states. 

one of these newly found wonders is:

Tim Tam cookies

It is actually a Australian creation but i discovered it in New Zealand so i will leave it with that. It is pretty amazing and you can do what they like to call 'the tim tam slam' where you bite the ends off of the cookie and sip hot chocolate through it, then you slam the cookie in your mouth before it melts/disolves. This sounds like a winner of an activity. If i like you enough, you may be one of the few that is invited over for a tim tam slam night (since i will of course be bringing some back since i have ample room in my baggage as my last post indicated.)

In honor of Thanksgiving, i decided to be glutenous with Tim Tams instead of the usual pie (BUT i still need a pie fix, i am thinking i can only safely make it two weeks without the pie i was due today). We also had a turkey dinner, i think by accident, but however it came about, i appreciated it.

And in the true Thanksgiving spirit, here are the things i am currently grateful for (just some, not all of course):

-my hilarious family that is always a fountain of good stories
-a good job that lets me take paid vacations, a good brother named levi would go along with those too
-milo, especially when he wears a sweater and falls asleep on me at work
-tim tams and pie
-education and the fact that i enjoy learning/reading/school
-friends, the good kind that stick around forever
-boys, even if they don't like you back, having crushes is at least entertaining/fun/funny
-home furnishings, the more i apartment shop the more i appreciate good furniture/bedding/linen
-food, all of it (except mushrooms and olives, they are always a bad decision)
-and last but not least, i am thankful that i am happy.

In other news from my trip: i of course had a tiny mishap involving water, long jumping, mud, and my iPhone.

you can probably figure out what happened, but when i get a better internet connection i will add a photo...

packing minimalist

Lets go over my last few hours, shall we?

6:15pm rush home from the dog park with Milo to make it to ward temple night

6:30 decide the line is too long at the provo temple so we drive to the mt. timpanogoes temple.

6:50 arrive at timp to find out they are randomly closed. EPIC FAIL.

7:00 start writing my research paper on Robert Capa (who i may or may not be totally in love with, only if you were still alive, young, and tweezed your eye brows, this could be a beautiful love affair)

8:00 bake cookies to keep me awake

10:00 shower (third day in a row, this is a record. seriously.)

10:30 take a cat nap

11:20 back to Capa

1:00am eat more cookies, drink more coke

3:30 FINISHED my paper

3:31 second cat nap

5:03 edit my Communal

6:45 get dressed/ready?

7:00 finish packing

7:25 go to the library to print off my paper 

7:59 turn in my paper, before the 8am deadline

8:03 go the print lab, print Communal images

8:45 edit Harley Davidson images

9:00 turn in prints and edits

9:30 go to work

11:00 leave for airport

and that is why when i first started packing my suitcase looked like this:

I mean who wants to actually pack after a hellish night like that?!

I have the necesities. 

      Camera (actually two with a few lens etc)

                                                         underwear

                                                                    passport

yup, got it all covered.

Okay, so i did pack a little more. I did add a few shirts, one skirt, my trusty Chacos, running attire, and toiletries. BUT i am still a packing minimalist. When i got to the airport i realized that my bag has tons of extra space, like a lot, like i could fit a small child in there too. does this mean i am forgetting something important?

oh well. i guess that is why God put stores in New Zealand too.

on a different note:

please admire this image that is on the inside of my super industrial camera bag.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

I, unfortunately, do not have any whitey tighties that are hot and steamy, right out of the drier to pack.

well that about sums up my: paper, photography, editing, blogging, working, coke drinking, cookie baking, temple going, dog chasing- day.

now i am off to L.A. (currently i am in Denver), then Auckland, and then Wellington. good think i just recently became one of those people that is dead to the world 15 minutes before take off. (but the flight from SLC to Denver scared the living daylights out of me, i was so out of it that when the plane took off i couldn't remember where I was and about crapped my pants when the plane shot in the air...)