Happy belated birthday, Gwyl!

Yesterday was the General Relief Society meeting broadcast.  And, thanks to my friend Meagan, I actually went to it. I’ve never been before because I normally wait until the talks are released in the Conference edition Ensign or watch it on the Internet. I’m glad I actually went to it.

The meeting was opened with singing “Redeemer of Israel,” one of my favorite hymns. Almost immediately after I began to sing with the congregation, I got choked up. I didn’t cry, but I found it difficult to sing because my throat kind of closed. I don’t know if it was feeling the spirit so strongly or the song itself since it’s one of my favorites (probably both).

All three members of the presidency gave talks, like they normally do, as well as President Monson. I enjoyed every one of them. However, my favorite talk was by Sister Barbara Thompson, the second counselor. I think I enjoyed her talk to so much because she’s single and doesn’t have any children. It helped me realize that even though Corey and I don’t have kids after almost ten years of marriage, we’re okay. Getting married and having children is very personal and individual. Yes, there are certain standards that the members of our church should follow, but there are always exceptions that can be made. We’re not expected to follow commandments blindly and do things just because everyone else is. We are supposed to commune with God and do what we feel’s right for us based on our communion with God.

Sister Thompson’s talk wasn’t about being single or not having kids; her talk was about family. She mentioned she was probably the one asked to give the talk because she’s never messed up with her kids since she doesn’t have any (ha ha). It was a nice perspective to hear about family from her point of view because I felt I could relate to her. Even though we may not be parents, we’re still members of a family, whether it be as a child, sibling, spouse, or aunt/uncle. And in the bigger picture, we’re all members of God’s family. Thus, we still have responsibility to help strengthen our own family as well as God’s family. I look forward to reading it when the Ensign comes out in November.

I joined an online book community called Shelfari. With Shelfari, you can keep track of books you’ve read, books you’re reading, books you want to read, and your favorite books. You can also create groups of people interested in the same book, recommend books to others, rate books, and post and read book reviews. It’s pretty neat!

Shelfari’s in beta right now, so there are a few things I don’t like about it. For example, I can’t change a book’s title. The title comes strictly from Amazon and sometimes they have books titled strangely. I also can’t import an image for the cover. Again, I have to rely on what Amazon has. I also can’t sort the way I want to. I can only sort by author, title, the date I added the book to my shelf, rating, and opinion. I want to sort it by author and then by series. If I weren’t so anal, this probably wouldn’t bother me so much.  The nice thing about the site is that the administrators are listening to the users’ suggestions and implementing changes every day.  And, right now, my biggest problem with Shelfari is I’m spending more time updating my shelves than actually reading.

I’ve been tagged (yet again) by my niece Amber. I love these games!

5 Things I was Doing 10 Years Ago

1. Attending USU.
2. Working at JB’s Family Restaurant in Logan, UT.
3. Getting to know my soon-to-be-husband.
4. (In December) Seeing Titanic in the theater with Amber and a bunch of friends.
5. Going to Lagoon Amusement Park to experience Frightmares.

5 Things on My To Do List Today

1. Go to work.
2. Update my blog.
3. Spend time with Corey.
4. Read (possibly finish) Seventh Son.
5. Watch CSI: NY.

5 Songs I Know the Lyrics To

1. The “Elephant Love Medley” from Moulin Rouge
2. (hard to admit) Almost every NKOTB song ever made
3. “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” (hymn)
4. “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic
5. “The Girls of Rock and Roll” from The Chipmunk Adventure

5 Things I Would Do if I were a Millionaire

1. Pay off my debts
2. Help Corey start up his business
3. Invest a good chunk of it
4. Donate a good chunk of it
5. Buy a modest house and a couple of cars

5 Things I’ll Never Wear Again

1. Sleeveless shirts
2. Stretch pants
3. Oversized T-Shirts (except as pajamas)
4. Moon boots
5. Big, fluffy hair bows

5 Favorite Toys

1. iPod
2. GameCube
3. My laptop (I wish it were a Mac)
4. GameBoy Advanced
5. A laser pen and my cats

5 Lucky People Who Get to do this Next

(Sorry to those I didn’t tag, but you’ve already been tagged or I could only choose five people.)

1. Ali & Tyler
2. Anna
3. Becky
4. Camille & Eric
5. Nicci & Keith

I’m really excited because the Fall TV season starts tonight. (Well, at least it starts for me.) I know it’s sad that I’m looking forward to TV, but a few of my shows ended with some doozy cliffhangers.

On Mondays, we watch CSI: Miami. The season finale for last season wasn’t that much of a cliffhanger. The only thing we’re really wondering is whether or not Ryan Wolfe will get his job as a CSI back.

On Tuesdays, we watch Bones, our favorite TV show (other than 24). I’m rooting for Bones and Booth to get together this season. Of course, their tension is what makes the show. So, if it keeps the show on longer, then keep them apart!

On Wednesdays, we watch CSI: NY. Corey doesn’t like this one as much, but I do. There wasn’t much of a cliffhanger for this show either. In fact, I think this season is starting completely independent from last season.

On Thursdays, we watch CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. CSI had a huge cliffhanger! We find out whether or not the miniature killer succeeded in killing Sarah. I think Without a Trace and CI are like CSI: NY; they’re starting completely independent from last season.

On Friday, I’m going to watch a new show this season called Moonlight. It’s a vampire story. Now why would I have interest in that? Ha ha! Supposedly, the vampire falls in love with a human girl, which sounds awfully familiar. However, I’m sure it won’t even come close to the swooniness of the Twilight series. It’ll be fun to watch. Heck, it may end up being my new favorite show.

I’m so interested in reading now that I’m not sure how well I’ll keep up with my shows this season. Corey and I have been watching reruns of Star Trek: Voyager over the Summer and I missed over half of them because I was more interested in reading. We even Tivoed them. I guess this is a good thing, right?

Our Relief Society hosted a “Cookie Social” after church today so all the sisters could get to know each other. (I’m in a married student ward, so our ward is basically brand new as of the beginning of September.) It was a lot of fun. Quite a few sisters (and some husbands) showed up.

To get to know everyone, our Relief Society president had us write down three truths and one lie about us. The group had to guess which one was the lie. Here are the things I wrote down:

1. I have a trip planned to go to Forks, WA because I’m totally obsessed with Twilight.
2. I’ve bungee jumped twice out of a hot air balloon.
3. I was in a Spanish immersion program for four years while I was in elementary school.
4. I’m the youngest of seven children–five brothers and one sister.

The fourth item is false as you all know because you either know me or because you’ve read my About Me page. I actually have five sisters and one brother. With that being said, did everyone at the social guess correctly? Nope!

It was actually kind of funny. As soon as the Relief Society president read the first item, a couple of girls who know me pretty well said, “I believe that.” I laughed! The second and third items gave everyone the hardest time. I heard some people say, “Can you bungee jump out of a hot air balloon?” Some asked me where I grew up to check the validity of the Spanish immersion item. In the end, I think they guessed that the bungee jumping was false. Ha ha! I fooled them all.

PS–The cookies were really good. I baked my wonderful oatmeal cookies for the event.

I renewed my library card today. I haven’t been to our library in about eight years. (I had a $12.50 fine as well as a $17.95 fee for a lost book , although I know where the book is and I’ll be taking it back soon.) I figured renewing my library card would be a good thing financially (maybe not with the fines ) if I’m going to read all the books on my list. The list has grown to over 300 books now! I keep getting recommendations. It’s great!

As I mentioned in Thursday’s post, I’ve learned a few new words from reading the Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card. The book is pre-Revolutionary war, so the dialog’s a bit different from today’s and that’s where most of the new words have come into play. As I read the book, I have my lap top open to dictionary.com or wikipedia.org, so I can look up a word if I don’t understand it. Here are the words I’ve learned so far by reading this book:

1. Caul: a part of the amnion sometimes covering the head of a child at birth. (Ew!)
2. Figger: an alternate form of the word figure in the Eye* dialect. (The first thing I thought of was, “Who would’ve thought? It figgers!” from Alanis Morisette’s song “Ironic.” )
3. Heartfire: another term for aura. (I think this is a term coined by Orson Scott Card, but I’m not sure and aura seems to be the closest thing I can find that defines it.)
4. Post hoc ergo propter hoc: Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.”
5. Purchase: an effective hold or position for applying power in moving or raising a heavy object; leverage. (Of course, I know the common meaning of purchase, but I had no idea it could be used in conjunction with not being able to get the leverage needed.)

*The Eye dialect is the literary use of misspellings intended to convey a speaker’s lack of education or use of humorously dialectal pronunciations, but are actually no more than respellings of standard pronunciations, as wimmin for “women,” wuz for “was,” and peepul for “people.”

Happy belated birthday, Alan, Jamie, and Sadie!

As you can tell, I haven’t posted anything for a week. I guess I was just a little busy/lazy and I was sick over the weekend, which added to the laziness. I started to feel sick on Thursday afternoon and it just got worse on Friday and Saturday. It came at a very inopportune time because Corey and I were going to go to the funeral for the father of my nephew-in-law Greg. He passed away on September 9 after a three-year battle with lung cancer. Unfortunately, because of being sick, we couldn’t make it. Corey and I felt really bad, but I think it was better that we didn’t get everyone else sick. And, Greg’s family has been in our thoughts and prayers, so we were still there in spirit.

Corey and I decided to make the weekend a movie-fest since we couldn’t do much else. We bought two movies from iTunes and downloaded them to his AppleTV. (AppleTVs are awesome and so much fun.) We downloaded The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Timeline.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is extremely creative and very funny! At first, I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of the movie because it was so different. But, it grew on me and I absolutely love it. Marvin, the robot, is my favorite character! He’s a robot with GPP or genuine people personalities. In his own dismal words, “I’m a personality prototype. You can tell, can’t you?”

The movie’s based on the books by Douglas Adams. There are five of them, which I have added to my giant book list. Interestingly enough, the books were not the first version of the story; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a radio program before anything. But, it was such a hit that Douglas Adams turned it into books. Each rendition of the story has similarities, but they are purposefully different, which I find very fascinating!

Timeline is a fun movie as well. I enjoy the story, even though it’s quite impossible. But, I think that’s why I like it so much. It encompasses many genres, such as romance, action, history, and adventure. There’s something for everyone in the family, not to mention a few hotties like Gerard Butler, Paul Walker, Ethan Embry, and Marton Csokas.

My co-worker Becky lent me the Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card to read. She lent this to me right after I read Eclipse, so I’ve had it a while. I started to read it on Saturday and I’m really enjoying it. It’s a historical fantasy and it’s the first book in the Tales of Alvin Maker series. I’ve learned quite a few new words reading this book, but that’s another post.

On Sunday, Corey and I went over to our friend’s house to play their Nintendo Wii. We played Mario Party and had a lot of fun. Dayna and Corey shared a player because Dayna was in the process of dying her hair and couldn’t play the entire time. They creamed Nate and me. (I was okay as long as Nate didn’t win.) Nate and I are very competitive when it comes to games. Whenever he plays the GameCube with Corey and me, the only thing he cares about is beating me, which I must say, is pretty hard to do because of my GameCube prowess.

The best thing happened yesterday. I had the opportunity to meet a couple of the girls, who live in Provo, I’ve befriended on the Twilight Lexicon. We all went to see Becoming Jane last night. It’s so great that we were able to meet and do something fun with each other. The Twilight Lexicon is dedicated mostly to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight universe, but we talk about a lot of other things as well. I feel like I’ve been able to make some really good friends that share a lot of things in common with me. It’s so great how technology allows us to do that. I hope that I’ll be able to meet more of my friends soon.

Now, as for Becoming Jane, it was very well done. I loved the movie. There’s a lot of speculation as to whether the story’s fictional instead of being historically accurate. I hope it’s historically accurate because it’s such a wonderful love story. I’m also sure the experience would’ve helped Jane Austen give her characters much more depth. I now have a greater desire to read her novels.

PS–I found out I’ll have another niece or nephew as well as a couple of new great-nieces or my first great-nephew in a few months!