Lazy Days

I feel so totally lazy today.  I need to go to the gym but so far I've just been lying in my bed.  In fact, I even ate my dinner in my bed.  That's how lazy I feel.  So many things I should be doing but instead I'm blogging...

It's still cold outside.  Fortunately it's not snowing.  It's just super windy which makes me really cold.  Here's a couple of my favorite things from the week:

• the first thing is the grand opening of Winco!  It's just down the street from my house.  I am a huge fan of Winco and have been since my mission in Oregon...so long ago....  I didn't brave going to Winco during the day Monday, but Sam and i made a trip that night at 11:30.  It was great!  The lines were short and we got all the deals and, of course, some of my favorites from their amazing bulk section.  Man, I love that place.  It makes me feel like I'm in Oregon when really I'm here in Utah.  I forgot how much I love it.

• secondly, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."  I've been wanting to read these books for a while, but the first one was always checked out from the library.  (I can't read books out of order, so even though the third or fourth one would be in, I never got it.)  I knew it would be an easy read, what I didn't know was how funny it would be!  It totally made me laugh out loud.  Good times!  It was kind of nice to take a little break from reading "Lord of the Rings."  I would honestly recommend those books to anyone, although I've only read the first two.  It makes me want to see the movie.

• last, but not least, is merely the fact that I've had good gym attendance this week, excepting today...but I'll go...eventually.  I've even been really good about doing cardio, even though it depresses me that it's too cold to run outside AND it's May 6th.  Guess you can't have it all.

It was snowing off and on all day today.  That makes me really sad.

Random thoughts...

What happened to the nice spring weather?  Good thing our "mini-reunion" was not this week.  So cold!  As I was walking into work today, I almost got blown over.  No joke.  The wind was so strong and cold.  I thought I was done with my winter coats for the season...nope.

What's with people my age having 4 kids?  It makes me feel old...I am old.  But still...it's crazy.  I guess they got married young...something I never had a desire to do.

This year is my ten year high school reunion...that's weird.  I really AM old.  Neat-o.

I just hope the weather warms up....and the price for flights goes down...and that I don't die from carbon monoxide poisoning.  Now is the perfect time to test our, supposedly, "perfectly in order" heater.

And anyone who cares can thank Tracy for my blog remodel.  She wanted to make me look cool or something...at least on the web...

Photic Sneezing Update

My mom is a photic sneezer...that explains it. Dominant trait...about half my siblings have it. Makes sense.

Oh, and I loved that the comments on my last post started with T saying I was a freak and then everyone else said they, or someone they knew had it! So funny!

Photic Sneezing

I, along with 30% of people, suffer from photic sneezing. You probably have no idea what that is. Basically it's when you sneeze because light gets in your eyes. For me, it's really just the sun.

Here's what i learned from the world's most reliable source, Wickipedia:

"Photic sneeze reflex is an autosomal dominant hereditary trait which causes sneezing (due to naso-ocular reflex [1]) when suddenly exposed to bright light, possibly many times consecutively. It is also referred to as photic sneeze response, sun sneezing, photogenic sneezing, the photosternutatory reflex, being photo sensitive, allergic to the sun, ACHOO syndrome, and Achooism,[citation needed] named after the sound made when sneezing, along with its related backronym Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome. The condition affects 18-35% of the human population.[2]

The first mention of the phenomenon is probably in the later work attributed to Aristotle (Problems, book XXXIII).[3]"

Hereditary...interesting. I think one of my sisters has it, I don't know about my parents or other siblings. I just want to say, "Yes, it is a real thing."

I always said I was allergic to the sun!

It's been warm this past week...well after it stopped snowing. I hope it stays that way. Warm. I like the Spring.

Ammendment I

I totally forgot the most exciting part of our spring break! I can't believe it...

- we felt an earthquake. It was about 300 miles away in Mexico, at the epicenter it was measured to be 6.9. It lasted for over one minute...cool huh?

One more thing, but less exciting:
- the second time we were at the beach we saw a couple dolphins.

I think with the addition of those two things, I have now satisfactorily covered spring break.

Spring Break

So this year for spring break, Sam and I went to California. It was a good time...overall. We stayed with Sam's sister, thanks! His nephew is super cute. Loves to scowl at people...it's so funny. He'll totally scowl at you and then laugh and smile.

Here are a few quick highlights of our trip:

- learned a new, and kinda funky way to play rook...I was called a "Rook Purist."
- ate home-made fried ice-cream...a delicious treat.
- went to the beach a couple of times...the water was cold, but still fun and beautiful.
- went to the fashion district, very interesting...they sell a lot of tight jeans and shirts, purses, shoes, and yes they even have lingerie stores...skank-a-licious...we bought nothing.
- stumbled into the fabric district...much more my speed. Crazy amounts of fabrics there, crazy prices. It was great! There were quite a few items that tempted my there, but I refrained and only walked away with serger thread for me and my mom...only a dollar a spool. (Talk to me in person and I'll rave about the fabric district for 20 minutes. I told Sam we're going every time we go to Cali from now on...lucky him!)
- I finally ate the infamous Tito's Tacos, pretty good...a Rosenthal tradition.
- drove by Bubbi's house...I hear it looks the same.
- and we watched the Biggest Loser, of course I've been keeping up with the season...yay for voting Melissa off!

That's my spring break in a nut shell. Ironically, the only picture we took was when Sam's car hit 100,000 miles on the drive home. Yes, I was lazy when it came to taking pictures. Oh and thanks for dinner, Mare! It was great! Oh, I guess the last thing to mention is that Megan performed a 15 minute concert on her "drum set," including such hits as, "Santa Wants You to Love."

Heater Saga

So, we finally got the work on our old GE heater done. I guess it wasn't work on it so much as just replacing it completely. Well, it did get replaced, and so our basement is warm. Unfortunately, our upstairs is still cold.

I'll be brief in my ranting. I did yell at the company at least one more time before anything got done. They came at 8:30 one night to replace it. They got it half done and then Sam and I went out of town. They were scheduled to come back monday and do it...apparently scheduled appointments mean nothing. Oh wait, I knew that. They DID call us tuesday night to see if they could come by...it was at 11:30 pm. Like we would want them coming at that time of night to work on it. Genius pantses!

And they actually came wednesday afternoon to finish the job. Yes, Sam missed more work. But it's done. Now if we could only get the Lennox fixed. We did call the warranty to have another company come to check the Lennox. they almost sent CDM over again!!! Seriously?!? Hopefully we'll have better luck with this other company. Such fun!

So, I went to a high school to interpret for a meeting. When I walk in the lady in charge says, "What grade is your student in?"

Heater Issues

For those of you that don't know, we've been having major issues with our heaters and even bigger issues trying to get them fixed. Thanks to our home warranty it's relatively cheap for us to get them fixed, it's just a matter of dealing with possibly the worst company ever.

After not showing up for TWO appointments we had set to get it fixed today (this is after a lot of crap we've had to deal with...paperwork not being sent in, inaccurate diagnoses, etc.), I decided it was time for me to step in (up til now, Sam got to deal with them). Sam had taken the day off work to be here for them to come. They told us it would be an all day project. An hour and a half after they were supposed to be here, Sam called them to see what was going on. They fired a technician and so they weren't able to come at the scheduled time. Did they bother to call and let us know that they wouldn't make it? Oh no! Even thought they said they knew they wouldn't make it at 9 this morning. So the rescheduled for the afternoon and Sam went to work. When I got home from work (7:30 pm), they still hadn't come...or called. So, I decided to give them a call.

I can be pretty mean when I feel like it's necessary. Today was a long day. I was tired, grumpy, and hungry. Poor, poor lady who answered the phone when I called to complain....

Warm Weather

Today was such a nice day! Yay! I got to go for my first outside run...and I made it a long one. It was so nice to actually go somewhere on my run instead of trying to keep my balance on the treadmill at the gym as I watch whatever movie they happen to be playing at the time. And they do not always pick running-friendly movies. Ever tried running to "Bedtime Stories?"

I don't know if you have ever run in a "cardiocinema," but it is not the easiest thing. They make it all dark and have a movie playing on a big screen. It took me a while to get used to running in that type of a setting. It makes me totally off balance. I think it might be caused by the glaring red lights on the treadmill contrasting with the darkness of the room. At first it made me sick to try to run in there with the red lights in my peripheral vision. Eventually I got used to it, but there were plenty of times that I almost fell down due to a loss of balance...so fun!

Just glad it's actually warm enough to run outside again...at least for now.

Easter Candy

This is a shout out to my mom. A few weeks ago, at Sunday dinner, we were talking about holiday candy. I mentioned how I am disappointed with the candy industry. I hate that the holiday candy selection is mostly regular candy in holiday wrappers. It seems like when I was a kid we could get different kinds of candy during the holiday season. Not just snickers in pastel wrappers or pastel colored m&ms.

Ever since that conversation my mom has been buying my unique-type of Easter candy that she has found at the stores. As a result, I left Sunday dinner tonight with glorious bag of candy. My mom must really love me!!! Thanks mom!

Blast from the Past

This post is dedicated to my brother, John....

So, the other day I was remembering an event from my childhood. When John and I were younger we were watching some Disney movie. It may have been Aladdin...I'm not sure. Whatever movie it was, it had a preview for Disney's newest feature film, The Lion King.

During the sneak peak of this, soon-to-be-released movie, they showed typical things. You know, artists drawing the lions, beginning stages of making the movie, etc. One of the lines during the preview was, "Disney's 32nd animated feature film, The Lion King."

John, who was pretty big into wild cats at the time said, "I don't care if that movie is only 30 seconds long, I want to see it!"

I laughed right out loud and told him how he had misunderstood what it said. Good times!

Hearts to John!

Whose Mom are You??

So, I didn't think that I looked older than my actual age, but some events this week have made me re-think that estimation of myself.

The Junior High School I work at was having a book fair this week. I decided to go check it out and see if there was anything I needed to get. I sometimes feel like I should support my place of employment. I went to the book fair and I found this awesome cook book. It was "Quick and Easy Chicken recipes from Scratch." I decided I would buy it. As I was paying for the book the cashier, a PTA volunteer, told me about the raffle they had if you bought a book. Then she says, "You can just put your student's name on this ticket and it'll go in the drawing."

Really?!? I look like the mom of a junior high student? That would mean I had a child at age 15. I told her that I don't have a student at the school and that in fact I work there. She was like, "Oh, well we have a separate for faculty and staff that you can enter."

The very next day, I was taking a little break during second period. You know, just getting a drink, going to the bathroom, walking around a little. As I start walking down one of the main hallways this man turns to me and says, "Whose mom are you again? You look so familiar, I just can't place your face with your student."

Seriously??? I said, "I don't have a student here. I work here. If I did have a student I would've been 15 when I had the child...so nope, just an employee. Thanks though."

So...what can we conclude from this? Either I look about 32 or I look like the type of person that would get pregnant at 15. Thanks for making my week, Ms. PTA volunteer and Mr. Choir Teacher.