Where have all the blockbusters gone?

Now that you all have the 90's hit "Where have all the cowboys gone" stuck in your head, I present to you my question of the day: Where have all the blockbusters gone?

I have a sad story to tell you about my adventures with Richard last night. This story began with the words "maybe we should rent a movie tonight". Usually neither of us has any opinion whatsoever on a movie we want to watch and we end up watching a&e's "storage wars" the whole night. Not last night. Oh no. Richard was dead set on watching this action thriller:

Excited that one of us had an opinion for once, I said "yeah let's do it!" (timestamp: 7:30 p.m.)

Redbox didn't have it. How do you rent a movie if redbox doesn't have it?

We looked up blockbuster. while it's around 4 times more $$ to rent from there, it's really the only way to get a movie if there's a certain one you have in mind. Guess what?

The closest blockbuster is in AMERICAN FORK. okay, that's not THAT far away, but it was too far away for us. we also found out it's the only one in Utah county. Utah county is big, folks. Some people would've stopped there and picked a different movie. not us. richard reeeallly wanted to see disturbia for some reason. we could not be stopped. so we began our hunt.

stop #1

(time stamp: 8:00 p.m.). i love this place. they have cheap movies from the last few years, so we figured why not! it was on the way to our stop #2, which I will reveal shortly. After browsing through every movie in the store with no luck, we figured it was a no go and left for.....

stop #2!

 (time stamp: 8:45) we were promised online that this place had our dvd. we were feeling pretty good. upon our arrival to the electronics section of walmart, however, we were informed that "online stuff is always wrong". however, we were also informed that the movie was currently residing in here:

  

That's me in the pic, just looking through the movies. jk. sorry if that's you and you're reading this. i got it off google images, okay?

the next thing that happened I'm not proud of. richard and i separated to increase productivity and hit up both value bins at the orem walmart, clawing frantically through the dvds as we searched. i know, it's embarrassing.

after literally touching the bottom of the bin and looking at probably 100 dvds over the course of 20 mins or so, we gave up. no disturbia. I did, however, wind up with this little gem of a movie:

(i saw it on a date once, oh, 5 years ago or so and i've been looking for it ever since! score!)

 now, probably anyone in their right mind would've given up by now, right? not us. we needed one last chance.

Stop #3

time stamp: 9:45 (did you notice this is an HOUR after our walmart time stamp? and also very late to begin a movie)

at this point we were sick of being wronged and ready to get our movie. all we wanted was disturbia! target said online that they carried it, so we knew we would find it here.

that's why, with confidence, i approached the help desk and asked the question of the night,

"do you guys carry the movie disturbia?"

"no."

wronged once again. at this point, now that all other stores were pretty much closed, we decided it was time to throw in the towel. so we went home and watched "Pure Luck!" and i checked on richard every 10 seconds to make sure he was awake for the whoole thing (he was laying on the floor because he gets RLS (restless leg syndrome)-it's a made up disease, very serious). we also ate a lot of cookies and ice cream. it was all around a good night.

i learned 2 things last night:
1. just get a redbox
2. i want my blockbuster back!

Weekend getaways!

Yes that's right, a weekend getaway.
Sometimes our lives get boring, and we need to get away. So we did. Two weekends in a row, in fact!

Getaway #1

 We decided to go "out of town" to Salt Lake. Yes, it's only about 45 minutes away, but hey, sometimes you just need to get out of Provo. We checked out the new City Creek mall (above), went into the Rolex and Tiffany's store, you know, to do some casual shopping. Best of all, went to some outlet stores in West Valley/Jordan? are they the same place? including the Banana Republic factory outlet store (how did I not know this place existed??)

Also ate some Thai food on our way to Richard's grandma's house (his parents were in town so we got to hang with them and his sister's family which was awesome!)

 I got the green curry. As you can see, it's green. A man in the restaurant walked out of the place with his wife, then hesitated, came back in, and approached me. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but my wife and I couldn't help ourselves... what is that you're eating?"

Getaway #2- Camping!

 This time we decided to go South! All the way to Spanish Fork Canyon!

 I took a picture of this random field below because it is on the way to where we went camping last year around this time when our kayak fell off the roof mid-drive and we had to pull into this field for 2 hours trying to figure out how to tie it back on! Good times

 Is it me, or does it always take forever to get the fire started when you go camping?? For us it had been raining all week before we went. Richie did a great job though. My job was gathering the wood and trying to sound encouraging :)

 You got it babe! Just like that.

 We got a late start, so by the time we got our fire going and had hot dogs/s'mores it was really dark so we left our food outside (don't tell anyone). Probly had animals prancing around our campsite all night!

This picture was taken to show how small our tent is.

See? It's kind of little for 2 large individuals like ourselves

Here's Richard toasting a bagel over the fire like the pioneers used to do

Because it felt like -45 degrees during the night, I think I literally slept about 2 hours. Most of the night I laid awake wondering why we were out in the middle of nowhere in the cold when we have a nice warm bed at home. Soon as I felt that fire in the morning.. BAM.

After I woke up, suddenly that special phase began, where all I wanted to do was dance around singing Justin Bieb's latest hit, girlfriend, with accompanying dance moves. Lasted all the way til we got home and I crashed again!

No fee required.. that's what I'm talkin about

 Then we got home. All that fire-making and wood-gathering wears a brother out.

He told me he didn't remember putting the pillow on his head. I wondered if maybe he had also side-winded in his sleep to end up in this strange position. Hmm. Often I wake up in the night and he is sort of somehow diagonal so it makes sense! I guess all my sweet JB songs/moves didn't pump him up the way I hoped.


"If I was your boyfriend I'd never let you go. I'd take you to places you ain't neva been befo'"

If anyone wants to know the lyrics, you know, just ask. I've got 'em.

Camp Hope

Recognize this, anyone?

Today I used this, one of my favorite movies, in therapy! Awesome.

How did I do this? Well, one of the things under the umbrella of speech therapy is working on social skills, which involves reading emotions. Three of my kids (teenagers) have goals that involve reading emotions.

I've been doing different stuff with them to target this, but it's kind of tough (and boring...) without fancy programs or apps. So an idea hatched in my brain as I watched this section of Heavyweights:

For those of you less familiar with this movie than I am (which, if you've watched it less than 100 times you are- I really like it, okay?) this is the part where Tony's introducing himself to the camp.

So many emotions. Just look at Jerry! Also, can you believe that guy to the right is him now?! What?? Looks like the Perkisystem really works.

It was great fun for me, hopefully the kids enjoyed it as well!

Easter easter easter

Ohh Easter. It has to be one of my favorite holidays.

This year Mr. Clover was deathly ill all weekend long, but luckily we still managed to celebrate a little bit here and there.

Reason #1 why I love Easter: because it's a great opportunity for us to focus on the Atonement. Church was so great on Sunday! Our lessons were amazing. My only regret is that poor Richard was on the couch so I had to go alone (I thought going to a single's ward alone was bad... turns out going to a married ward by yourself is much worse.) Still overall a great day at church, though.

Reason #2: EGGS!



I must say, i don't care how old I get, I will always love decorating Easter eggs. Although I don't understand how people eat them afterwards... gag. Never been on the boiled egg train.

I am, however, a big fan of reason #3 why I love Easter: The fantastic candy!

We didn't eat much of it on Easter because Richard was sick and we just didn't buy any.

However.

My mama's taught me well so I know that the day after Easter, everything's half off or more. Monday, after hitting up not one but TWO grocery stores, I came home with this:

Do you hear the hallelujah chorus when you look at this picture? I do. Seem like a lot for 2 people? Probably is, but hey, we all need a little food storage, am I right? Since I only eat sweets on the weekend this may be around for a while. Like til the end of the weekend...

This picture is also proof that I love my husband. I find York peppermint patties to be one of the most foul and disgusting candies ever made, but I still bought a bag for him (awwww).

The grand total for all this was $14! Still seems like a lot to me, but it would have been a lot more if it was full price :)

Gotta love Easter!

When I grow up

One of the kids I work with at my internship asked me the other day, "what do you wanna be when you grow up?"

Usually kids think I'm about 40 or however old their mom is. This kid has actually asked me how old I am before (in addition to questions like "are you married?", "what's your favorite superhero?", and "what's the hottest pepper in the world"), so maybe he thought at 23 I still had some growing up to do. More likely, he wanted to tell me what he wanted to be when he grew up, so he asked me first to make it less random (he tends to do that). Case in point: he wants be a paleontologist.

Either way, it made me think. I'm graduating soon and have no idea what I want to do. HELP. I can either work in a hospital or a school. Or a private clinic. Or do early intervention. Or a rehab facility. Or a nursing home. Or about 10 different other things. HELP. The only things I have experience with are one rehab hospital and one school.

At the hospital, patients swore at me in ways I've never heard before, passed away :( , used the bathroom in their beds while I was in the room (woof), flashed me (sometimes on accident but sometimes on purpose- these people are in hospital gowns and aren't wearing pants), etc.

However, working with kids, I've been jumped on, kicked, slapped, spit on, screamed at, run away from, etc. One kid even tried to kiss me on the mouth. Yikes

Of course there are good things about each place too. At the hospital I helped 2 people my age with traumatic brain injuries phonate for the first time since their accidents-so cool, connected with people, did therapy in ASL for a deaf patient, and it was just a neat experience. And kids are so fun. All we do at the school is play games with them. But really I just don't have passion for my work with the kids at the school.

One day in the next little bit I will figure this out. My resume is out on the market and I've had a few calls about it already so it's crunch time! Many of my cohort members already have accepted jobs!

Even though, I'll admit, I didn't know what the word "cohort" meant when I started grad school (was I really cut out for grad school?), I love those guys. Here's a pic of us last week at our going away party.
After class all day every day with these guys, after tears and break-ups and crazy clients, etc, we're all pretty close! They're great.

Now I just need to follow their lead and figure out what to do. And where to go. HELP

Word to my Plano homies:

Just saw this posted on a high school friend's facebook page:

Plano Independent School District: Plano, TX, is a suburb situated within Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX, and boasts many wealthy neighborhoods. Once named by CNN Money as the 11th best place to live in the country, it’s also been called one of the richest towns in the area, if not the whole country. Plano’s public school system is significant on two very different but possibly related fronts — its academic and athletic performances are some of the best in the United States, but it also suffers from a significant drug and suicide problem among its students. Lance Armstrong and many professional football and baseball stars attended public high schools in Plano.

This just makes me wanna say "PLANOOO PLANOOOOO. EEEEEAST EASSSSSSSSSST"

I grew up in Plano and have to laugh that it's the #2 most posh school system after #1, Beverly Hills. Really?! My school was definitely on the ghetto side. Many of those suicides they're talking about happened in the high schools themselves. And kids did drugs in my classes. And got beat up at lunch. And there were gangs in my school. Posh indeed! On the other hand, people did get made fun of for wearing clothes that didn't have a name brand on them, driving older cars, and for living in a one story house (and that was in elementary school! I thought that was normal).

But way to go Plano. Now I can use this as the reason why I wasn't in the top 10% of my class or on any sports teams (marching band!). My AP classes in Plano truly were harder than most of my classes at BYU and about 10 times harder than my AP classes in Idaho. I guess they have something there.

It's good to be from Plano.

This week's highlights

Lots of amazing things have happened in the last little bit so I want to highlight them all!

It's great that amazing things still have time to happen. I find myself with very little free time these days (which you may not believe from my 2 blog posts in one day..) between my internship, working on my thesis, "An Acoustic Analysis of Elements of Contrastive Stress Produced by 8 to 10-year-old Children", which involves 60+ hours of data analysis, plus write-up of the results, plus annotated bibliographies, etc, doing my relief society thang (i'm the secretary in my ward and we spend several hours each week doing visits, meetings, etc), and working out. But great things are happening.

Speaking of working out: Great thing #1- Gold's gym memberships for the husband and myself!

Call me weird, but this is something I've been wanting for a loong time. I'm so burnt out with running the same paths outside in the cold/wind/snow/rain. Richard has never had anything good to say about Gold's gym and has even sworn to me several times that he would never work out there "because they swindle your money" or something to that effect. However, as we weighed the different gym options in the area, Gold's had the best deal (that we could find. and it has zumba!!!) so we decided to go with them. Now we are planning to work out in the mornings before we have to go to work and it will be fantastic. I've already been several times and I must say that the zumba changed my life.

I even saw one of my old (not like old as in former but old as in old) BYU religion professors there I think. I didn't love his class because he speculated a lot and I didn't like it. Turns out this is the case for various BYU religion professors. Any of you who have been following the news (well, the utah news at least) and/or facebook know what I'm talkin about. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to this. Ouch. That guy owns the reception hall where we got married and also taught the first BYU class I ever attended when i was still in high school visiting my sister so I feel for him :( I am a little annoyed at how many people think we're racist now, though. We were watching this show called what would you do and it had some mormon people on there and talk about propagating stereotypes.. ugh.

Anyway...Richard and I have discovered only one downside so far to Gold's Gym, other than a lot of really scary looking, buff people there. We were watching 20/20 about the honeymoon killer Friday night (did he do it or not?? we couldn't decide), because that's an amazing date idea, right? And the story after it was about HOLES in the walls of the showers at Gold's gym. The men's showers, not the women's. Apparently at the Gold's in Murray and also 2 in Utah county, where we live, holes have appeared, drilled into the shower stalls. Here's the story, if you're interested. They wouldn't say which 2 in Utah county had this problem (ah!). The funniest part is they said they've tried everything to cover the holes but they keep appearing. They even filled them in Thursday night, only to find them there again Friday morning! What the heck? Hilarious. In a gross kind of way. I told Richard to check the shower stalls yesterday when we were there but he didn't do it so they could be anywhere! Just a heads up to those of you who go to gold's and are brave enough to shower there.

Pros of gold's gym: zumba and working out with the husband (because goodness knows he was never gonna run with me outside). Cons: you might get your family jewels spied on in the shower. That's a chance I'm willing to take. Just wish we would have known so we could negotiate the price down when we were buying our memberships!

Great thing #2- Richard got promoted to a banker at Well's Fargo!! I'm so proud of him, he works so hard and has only been working there for about 3 months.

Great thing #3- crafts :) I've been hit by the craft bug after staring at white walls for the last
Found some pinterest things to recreate.. such as this sign for our house:

see it says clover! and it has little clovers on the ends of the shower curtain. it's not quite as great as the one on pinterest, but it was much cheaper to make (the other one involved cutting blocks of wood and modge-podging. do you think we have a saw to cut a bunch of wood blocks? no. so I used picture frames instead). Still waiting to fill in the picture frame above with one of our engagement shots. For now, it's a leaf collage.

also this!

not the bedspread of course but the wall thing above! pretty easy to make, just stain some wood and get some spray paint and a stencil. we're all about the fancy decor at our house. unfortunately, the complex is apparently painting our walls and all the stuff has to come down :( oh well. In other craft news, I just purchase this beautiful machine

to make all my crafting dreams come true. I'm planning on making pillows out of this fabric:

which I picked up at JoAnn's one day when they were having a sale and is currently resting on our couch as if it were already a pillow. Word to the wise: Never go to JoAnn's when they're having a sale unless you want to wait in line for an hour to get fabric cut and get trampled by crafty moms and teachers. This fabric, as it turned out, wasn't even on sale but the kind cashier guy gave us a 40% off coupon just because. Now I just have to hope that the machine doesn't have the same fate as our clock, since it too was ordered online.

Great thing #4- pictures from my students at the school I'm interning at. Turns out that around St. Patrick's day, when your last name is "Clover" kids think it's pretty fun to draw pictures for you. I've received some clovers, leprechauns, and other st. patrick's day things, as shown here:

My supervisor said, "get used to it with that name". Yes, well at least it's shorter than Christensen. I had to take that pic above at a funky angle in order to not break the law in revealing the child's identity- they take that stuff real seriously.

This picture is hands down my favorite.Is that supposed to be me? So many questions from this picture. What's on my face? Does she think I have zits? Or freckles? And that I weigh 1000 lbs? Why are Richard's legs so long? You get the idea.

Anyway, lots of great things are happening for us and we are grateful! Life is good.