all that and a bag a puhtaytuh chips

I've been neglecting my blog, and I feel terrible about it. SIKE. Also, I understand 'sike' is not actually a word and the correct word is 'psych', but I feel like SIKE is a better spelling to describe the action of SIKEing someone out. PSYCH sounds like, PSYCHO or something, and that is clearly not what that word means in this context. Anyway.

I've had a lot going on lately. Okay, sike again. I haven't. My life is pretty much the same. Christmas was actually awesome. It was my first Christmas away from my family, so it was definitely a little strange not waking up to little kids yelling and running down the hall. But I wanna do Christmas all over again. Seriously. It was the best. And before Christmas my mother came to visit me for a few days. But we didn't get to spend too much time together because I couldn't take work off due to the holiday season, so I was stuck working the majority of the time she was here. And she got food poisoning or something while she was here :( boo. But it was a good time.

I love Christmas. Some of the best memories I have happened during the Christmas season. Phantoming, by far, is my favorite Christmas memory. Every year my family and I would choose a family we all knew, and ding-dong-ditch them every day for the 12 Days of Christmas. So for the latter half of December, we would give this family a gift pertaining to whatever 'Day of Christmas' it was. For example, the second day of the song is 'two turtle doves' so we would give them either Dove soap or Dove chocolate or something. We also added to it, by giving them a piece of a Nativity set every night. So on Christmas Eve, or the 12th day, we would 'reveal' ourselves, give them the last piece of the Nativity, and sing them 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'. We called it 'phantoming', and it was my favorite thing in the world. We still talk about the families who chased us every night trying to catch us. We still talk about who tripped on what curb and ate cement, or that time Jael said I was in the truck when I actually was barely hanging on so my dad took off and I fell into the road and tore the crap out of my favorite pair of Lee Pipes. It is seriously my favorite tradition. And the families we do it to always have the best time, and still talk to us about it during Christmas. It's awesome.

I also love Christmas music. I don't care what anyone says, I love listening to Christmas music 24/7 in December. It never gets old. Okay, that's a lie. Some songs get old. But there are so many Christmas songs that I have inside jokes with people because of, so every time I hear those songs I crack up. I mostly crack up inside, but sometimes out loud. Then I have to explain myself. For example, the song Feliz Navidad. Funniest story ever. Me writing about it, or even telling anyone about it, does not do it justice. It's one of those you-had-to-be-there stories. But I will share it anyway. Haha. In Seminary my sophomore year, everyone knows Somerville puts on the Christmas musical program in every class. Well, me, Jael, Kami, Garrett, Lans, Scott, Aaron I think, and one other person decided that we were going to play the kazoos to the tune of Feliz Navidad. We even asked Somerville beforehand if that was okay, and he said no. Well, that didn't stop us. When it was our turn, only me, Jael, and Kami got up. I went to the piano, and started playing O Holy Night. Jael and Kami were the vocalists. They sang one line of the song, to my accompaniment, and then we hopped up, whipped out our kazoos, and the boys joined us up front and we started jamming out to Feliz Navidad. With no music, of course. Just our plastic kazoos. Somerville got so angry. He turned off the tape recorder, and sat with his arms folded, glaring at us. Me and Jael and a couple other people made the mistake of making eye contact with Somerville, and we busted out laughing, so we had to sit down. Lans and Garrett were the only ones that finished out the song. The rest of us, including the class, were laughing too hard. Somerville was so mad at us. But it was so worth it. Seminary was awesome. Feliz Navidad is awesome. Among other songs. Like O Holy Night. And Happy Holidays. And others. Oh Christmas songs. I love you.

Okay, can I just say... the Strip is AMAZING at Christmastime. Sometime around Christmas I got to walk down the Strip, and pretty much went into every hotel possible except like 2. Seriously, it's my favorite. I didn't feel like the Strip was the normal trashy, hooker magnet place that it usually is. Everything was so cute! Inside the Bellagio, they had this whole set up of penguins and poinsettias and frosty swans (looks prettier than it sounds) and this HUGE Christmas tree:



I love it. At the Venetian there was also a big Christmas tree outside that changed colors and was awesome. They also had a fake ice rink set up and people were ice skating outside. And then there was a flash mob sort of thing where a few people dressed all in white were on the side of the building on small platforms and were singing along to Christmas music that was playing real loud. Everyone stopped to watch and it was so cool! I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

My New Year's celebration was equally awesome. Yet again, another SIKE. Let me tell you about my New Year's. Well, I hadn't had any solid plans for New Year's Eve. I had to work until 2pm on New Year's Eve, and I made the mistake of saying yes to my boss when he asked me to work New Year's Day. So that kind of screwed up the non-existent plans that I had of going out and getting crazy. I had a girlfriend from Tucson who was supposed to come up to Vegas for New Year's, but ended up flaking out. I had a couple other friends come up but they were just going to the Strip and getting shwasted, and that didn't sound like fun to me. There was an institute dance on the other side of town, but my roommates were out of town, and who goes to an institute dance by themselves. Scratch that. Who goes to an institute dance. Anyway. So I didn't really have any plans, except that all I'd been hearing about was the fireworks that happen on the Strip, so I reeeeeally wanted to watch those, whether it was from someone's roof or someone's TV or whatever. So that was what I wanted to do. Well, after I got home from work around 3pm my Visiting Teaching companion called me and said she was having a party at her house around 9 and said I should come. So I said, "okay sweet, I'll be there." Well, at about 5 I decided to take a nap so that I could actually stay awake til midnight, because I usually can't. I set my alarm so that I could get up and shower and whatnot. Well, my alarm went off, but instead of getting up I turned it off and went back to sleep. And I slept... til 4:30am... ummm yeah. I woke up and the first thing I realized was... I missed EVVVERRRRYTHINGGG. I was so mad. Then I was like, "well eff it, it's all over." So I went back to sleep, woke up at 7am, and wandered around my apartment eating random things until I had to get ready for work. It was the. worst. New Year's. ever. And I was in Vegas for crying out loud! Ugh. Still mad.

The end. Here's to 2012. If my first few days of this year were any indication of how the rest of the year will play out, it's gonna be a lonnnng year. But I'm excited. Less than 12 months til the world ends so I hope I am prepared. Yikes.

Some girl the other day....

thought I was black.... Again... This happens on a regular basis. Well, not necessarily people thinking I'm black, although that definitely wasn't the first time that's happened. It's hilarious to hear what people think my race is. I've gotten all sorts of crazy guesses since I can remember. It's kind of ridiculous actually. And I was recently talking to some of my coworkers about it, because I'm in a new town and, well, whenever I meet new people I know that question will come up eventually. "Caitlin, what ARE you?" It happens. It happened at work, it's happened in my ward, it happened at FHE two nights ago... Ha. At FHE the other night two random guys, at two different times, came up to me and asked if I am half Filipino. They were both white guys, so I said, "why, did you serve there?" Both of them had haha. They both said they were gonna start speaking Tagalog to me to see if I'd understand. I told them I would not have. And then it was awkward. But then after that I was talking to a few guys I met a couple weeks ago, and we started talking about "what I am." And I was telling them all the crazy things people in the past have thought, or nicknames people have come up with for me. Here are a few, more memorable ones:

-Arabian Princess
-Persian Princess
-Egyptian, because of my eyes...
-half Mexican/half black... WAY off
-just Mexican
-just black
-other ridiculous things.

Truth is, I don't even know "what I am" half the time, not even kidding. Every time I see my grandpa, he tells us we're something else. "Oh, you're part Indo-Chinese." or, "Yeah, you're part Caribbean Indian." No one even knows what that means. Bottom line, I'm a mutt. I have an idea of where I came from but some aren't actually confirmed. I'm just confused.
-

Just whatever.

Here's a newly developed pet peeve of mine: POINTLESS DOGS.

I'm currently house-sitting for a coworker and his wife who are visiting his family in Guam. He's been gone about 2 weeks, and comes back this weekend, I think. The main reason he needed a house-sitter is because he has two little dogs. I thought, sure, hey, my family had a couple dogs growing up. How hard could it be. Of course, my family dogs were outside dogs. Which I have decided is the only way to go. Okay. These two dogs I'm watching are the most pointless dogs I've ever seen. My coworker, Roland, said they just live in the house during the day when I'm home, including at night when I'm sleeping. When I'm gone they go in the kennel. And if I open the backyard door they'll run right outside and go to the bathroom. The first few days, they pooped and peed on the floor at least 5 times a day. Not kidding. I went to take a shower, got out, came downstairs, there was poop in the family room and pee in the kitchen. I went to go pee in the bathroom for 1.5 minutes. Came out, the biggest dog load I've ever seen had been dropped in the middle of the living room floor. I went to sleep at night like a normal human being. Woke up in the morning, there was poop on 3 stairs! I about kicked those dogs out the second story window. Now, they live outside when I'm home, and when I'm sleeping or at work they live in the kennel. They are the worst-trained dogs I've ever seen in my life. Roland and his wife have had these dogs forever, apparently. BUT they barely acknowledge their own names. They poop on the floor when I'm out of their site for more than a minute and a half. They don't go to the bathroom outside when I open the door. I get they're not used to me, but it's absolutely retarded!

Lack of dog training isn't what defines a pointless dog to me, though. Not completely, anyway. These dogs don't get walked. They don't provide entertainment, like fetching balls or something. They don't really ever leave the house unless they have to pee or poo. They're not even good watch dogs because they bark for ten minutes at literally anything that moves, including me. THEY'RE JUST POINTLESS.


I texted my sister, Jael, last week and told her that I appreciate that she and her husband trained their dog so well. I'm not a dog person. I never have been, and I am confident I will never own a dog. So trained dogs were always kind of like, "ooh, cool" to me. Jael and Paul have worked on training their dog since he was a puppy and when I lived with them I never had to worry about Toka being an idiot like these dogs. Even though I still am not a lover of pooches, I have quickly learned to appreciate people who take the time train their dogs. And I have quickly learned that I won't ever house-sit for pointless dogs again. The funny thing is, my coworker and his wife talk about their dogs like they're gods. It's really awkward.

Blenting through FB statusi

I invented a new word. Blent. Blog vent. Eh? You like? Today, I don't know why, I've had one-liner thoughts running through my head all day. Most of them are recently acquired annoyances. So, instead of posting 1400 statuses on Facebook in a 24 hour period, I decided to blent about them. Okay, so they're not all one liners. But I would make them one liners if I were on Facebook. Pft.

Commence blent.

1. I decided I hate listening to Eminem songs. Firstly, I would never buy any of his albums, or even any of his singles probably. He swears literally every other word. Consequently, I hate listening to his edited versions on the radio. Literally every other word is bleeped out, and I spend 3 minutes of my life listening to, "uhh *bleep*, yeah, *bleep* *bleep*, mockingbird, *bleep* you dumb *bleep* ..." stuff like that. It's so stupid. And that happened this morning. I can't get those 3 minutes back.

2. It really, REALLY bothers me when adults misspell simple words. I'm usually a stickler when it comes to grammar and spelling, but I get that there are difficult words to spell. I understand that. But when you're 60 years old, you've seen these common words every day of your life, and you STILL misspell them? One of my friends' grandmas posted a comment on her Facebook and it said, "that is so GROSE." Seriously? How many times in your 60 years of life, your 21,900 days of life, have you seen and read the word "gross" and you spell it "GROSE"?? I was so annoyed by that. If that were MY grandma....

3. I think it's hilarious when you see an old man with a see-through white shirt and you can see his dark nipples. Or when the enitre top half of his shirt is unbuttoned and you can see his dark, leathery chest and saggy boobs. I see that on a consistent basis at work. While it is disgusting and I wouldn't be sad if I never had to see that again, stuff like that screams, "I don't give a damn." And that makes me laugh.

4. I think whoever it was in Vegas who decided that doing construction on all 3 majors highways at the same time is a super big idiot. In about a 5 mile stretch on my way home from work today, the fastest I got going was 16 mph. So awesome.

5. I really miss driving a stick shift. I've driven a LOT of different cars in my ripe old age of 22, but only my first 2 were stick. And I miss it. Somebody call the wambulance.

6. Project Runway has entirely too much GAY in it. But I sit down to watch it and before I know it 6 hours has gone by. That's happened before. But tonight it was only 2.5 hours. Why is that show so addicting!

7. I feel incredibly awkward and am incredibly bothered when a guy uses "hehehe" or "teehee" or "heehee" in a text message. Or any kind of conversation whatsoever. It gives me the willies.

8. I realized today that I want my concert virginity to be stolen by a country singer. Like Taylor Swift. I would love that. I realized this when a coworker offered me 2 tickets to go see Duran Duran tomorrow night. I realized, I did not want to. I want to go to a country concert instead. Yeah.

Blenting complete. More may be added.

can i just say

i am terribly opposed to women with facial hair. it just shouldn't be there.

Tucson

So I went to Tucson this last weekend. I flew in Wednesday night and got home last night, Monday. I wasn't exactly ecstatic to go home. I was excited for the break from work and to see family and friends, but I left Tucson for a reason. Among other reasons, Tucson had become somewhat... boring... So I wasn't bouncing out of my seat trying to be the first one off the plane. I'd been trying to go home for almost a month. I missed Maile's baptism at the end of August because I couldn't get work off so I had been trying to get down since then and hang out with Maile a little bit. I finally got a chance to go home. And I'm glad I did. Yes, while Tucson doesn't always have the ideal nightlife or social experiences, Tucson is home. There's a feel about Tucson that just makes me comfortable. It's the place I know best. It's where I have easy access to watch all U of A games. It's where my closest friends are. It's where my family is (most of it). It's where I can get my Eegee's fix. Or Nico's. It's where I can go just about anywhere and it's guaranteed that I'll see someone I know. It's where 94% of my favorite memories were spent. And being away from it has made me realize, I DO miss Tucson. I didn't know I'd ever say that. But I do. My mind is still made up that when I get married and/or start a family that I want to live in a small town with lots of trees, but Tucson will always be home. And I like that.

I'm not a big picture-taker. Some of my friends take pictures every chance they get. Sometimes I think that is cool and wished I did that. Because sometimes I'm like, "ooh I wish I had a picture of that one time. If so-and-so were with me we'd definitely have a picture." But sometimes I just forget to whip out my camera. But I did take a few when I was in Tucson. Here are mis favoritos:





My parents have one chicken. Yeah. Just one. It cracks me up. I think they are trying to train her to lay eggs? I don't even know if that's possible. But I think they said she only lays a couple here and there. Either way, they have a chicken. And I took a picture with it.





My good friend Kacy Brown and I went to get our nails done, just because we felt like it. I've always wanted to have zebra-print acrylics, so I finally fulfilled my dream. Check it off the bucket list. Next up... surfing.





Oh Eegee's. Is there anymore I can say about a FREE Party Pak of WATERMELON Eegee's?? One of my old managers from Harbor Freight really hooked me up on this one. His wife works
for corporate Eegee's and so she was able to get this for me for free. I crave this stuff. SO GOOD.





If you've ever let a kid play with your front-facing camera on your phone, you know it keeps them busy for a while. But if you have a front-facing camera WITH an app that distorts their face in a hundred different ways, it'll keep them busy for hours. Literally. I had a similar app before, but then Kendric introduced me to this one. It seriously has so many different ways to screw up your face. And literally like 20 times a day Maile and Aleigha asked if they could use my phone to either play a game or take hundreds of distorted pictures. These are two of my favorites. Those girls are crazy.





There's this park in the buttcrack of Tucson called Agua Caliente Park. It's at the very north end of Houghton, off of Tanque Verde. Kacy, Patricia, Robyn and I went there about a year and a half ago. I don't know why in the world we went there, because none of us lived anywhere near that park, but it turned into Kacy's favorite park. It IS a great park. It's unlike any park in Tucson really. It has a pond, pretty sure it's manmade. And it has palm trees everywhere and grass and it's really pretty. Well, us 4 decided to go back again. Kacy is one of those people who takes a picture for every step she takes. The park was no different occasion. We weren't there that long because as Tricia put it, we were "sweating like hogs." Eww. But in the pond there are a bunch of little turtles. And when we went to the edge of the pond, for some reason all the turtles started flocking toward us. Do turtles flock? I don't know. But they did. I think the most we counted in a little area was 14. I like turtles.





So my family and I went to Five Guys one night. Sidenote, BEST burgers ever. I crave them. Anywho. Two things about Five Guys if you didn't know. 1. They have peanuts you can eat while you wait for your food. You just fill up a little box and munch away. *Munch* is a gross word. 2. They have index cards and crayons that you can write things on and hang up on a bulletin board. Most people write like, "Five Guys rules" or just "Five Guys!" Boring stuff like that. Not Kendric and I. Kendric decided, "I'm gonna write like a little kid." And he left the "t" out of "peanuts." Essentially, Kendric likes peanus. Nay. Kendric LOVES peanus. Say that out loud. I, on the other hand, just like peanuts. Normally I wouldn't post a picture like this because I know my mom would say something like, "ugh, Caitlin you're so offensive." But in this case, my dad is the one who took the picture, and my mom and dad were the ones laughing the hardest. So I feel justified in posting this picture. At least it's not on facebook, right?





I've recently discovered that I like flying. I'm sure I would get sick of it really quickly if I had any amount of frequent flyer miles racked up, but I enjoy the occasional short trip. Like Tucson to Vegas. Except, I don't love it when there is a screaming baby right behind me for the majority of the flight. That is no fun. So I took pictures out my window to keep me from wanting to turn around and kick that baby in the mouth. Kidding. But really. I had to do something to keep myself busy. I had about as many airplane pictures in my phone as I had Maile and Aleigha crazy pictures. I feel like that was a weird sentence. But I don't know how to fix it. Anyway, this picture was my favorite out of all of them. It's right as we were leaving Tucson.

THE END.

peectures

A few things everyone should know about me: (or not, whatever. won't hurt my feelings)

1. I think in images.
2. I don't laugh out loud when I read books, er... more appropriately, magazines, or newspapers and whatnot. My imagination does not run very wild when I read. It just doesn't happen. Picture books are a different story.
3. I DO tend to laugh out loud to myself when I SEE something funny. Like certain pictures, or something funny on TV. When I watched TV...
4. I laugh a lot. But, when I'm with people and I laugh, a lot of times it's more of a purposeful, it-wasn't-really-funny-but-I-don't-want-to-make-it-awkward-so-I'm-gonna-laugh laugh. I know funny people, but I think I know more unfunny people who think they're funny. SO, I really appreciate when someone says something that makes me genuinely laugh. I'm a sucker for ACTUALLY funny people. And I love when pictures make me laugh out loud. That's when I know they're truly funny.

Without further adieu, I thought I'd share some pictures that I've stumbled upon (heehee-- on StumbleUpon) recently. Ones that made me LOL for real.

1. The title of this was "Expectations vs. Reality." I literally laughed about this for a solid 5 minutes.



2. I'm going to start yelling, "FOR SCIENCE!" just because it sounds awesome.



3. This girl just rules.




4. I had one of those, "what is wrong with people" reactions about this one. But nonetheless, I couldn't stop laughing about it. It's hilarious in a sick and twisted way. And it's a boy. I think...



5. "Hey guys, let's go to Antarctica and tag the icebergs." I had another mental "wtf" reaction...



6. I don't think this needs any words. I kept going back to it and laughing about it. It's perfect.




7. I want a child like Russell.