Some thoughts (and some pictures) about Snow

When I was an undergrad, I didn't really appreciate snow that much. In fact I hated it! It was cold and wet and I couldn't wear my flip flops in them. Needless to say, by the end of my undergrad education, I came to enjoy snow a little bit. It helps if I don't have to drive anywhere in it... So, when I came back for graduate education, I generally resolved to enjoy things more and not solely focus on school. Snow definately fell into this category, so here are some evidences of me enjoying snow.

Sledding with friends! What a blast! I do need to get some proper snow gear though...

My cousin Matt and I show off a snowman we built with Robert.

Our dancing snowman!

What I've learned from this is that we do ourselves a big favor when we learn to enjoy where we are and not always looking at where we could be or wish to be instead. Hope for the future is a good thing for sure, but we can't live only for what we hope to get tomorrow. We got to also live in today and enjoy where we are. So, I am enjoying snow, singledom, school and everything that comes with my situation in life right now. I hope you are too!

The Danger of Cute Purveyors of Disease

This is my niece Hannah. Isn't she cute? Yeah, she's really cute and I love her, but she gave me the worst cold I had in a loooong time. Oh, I felt bad that she was sick, but she got over it in a few days. I have had this beastly cold for a week and a half, right before all my final projects were due! All semester I was in the schools with all sorts of flu-ridden, cold carrying children and I was fine, but now...NOW is when I have to get it? Unfair. Oh well. All is not lost. At least she's really cute... I mean look at her. Who couldn't resist a cuddle with this little cutie? Miss you Hannah-babe!

Some Changes

I haven't done anything lately on my blog because grad school this year has been TOUGH! Working in the schools and trying to keep up with class has been so crazy. I still do stuff, but I just haven't had time to blog about it, except to put the pictures on facebook. So if you're my facebook friend you shouldn't feel so behind.

Because of the craziness, I decided to change my blog title to Common Nonesense. This title came from a quote from the Anne of Green Gables book series. In Anne of the Island, when Anne is getting ready to go off to college, she's walking with Gilbert and they're talking about people in the town that were making her feel bad about going off to college. Gilbert was telling her that she shouldn't mind other people's comments, but she couldn't help feeling their comments even though her common sense told her it shouldn't mean anything to her. She said, "There are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense take possession of my soul."

I think I know how she feels. Common nonsense has definately taken possession of my soul. I'll probably update some during Thanksgiving or Christmas Break... but don't count on it. After March 2010, I should be a lot better about keeping up with things, because after March, my thesis should be done and defended! That'll be a beautiful day... Back to work!

Before the craziness started

In other words, before school started... I hiked Squaw Peak with my friend and old roommate Michelle! It was a long, long hike, but really fun and nicely shaded and an awesome view :D

Michelle showing off one of the lovely hills we climbed

Some of the awesome mountains behind Squaw Peak

Lots of flowers on the trail.

I got attacked my a stray branch!

But I had a hanky so my leg was protected :D

View from the top.

Over 2,000 elevation change and 8 miles round trip.

Good times!

So it's been awhile...

At the end of August I moved in with Grandma in her new Orem house. It's been really fun living with grandma and having all my cousins and their kids come over all the time. I pretty sure grandma is loving it too. Here's grandma and Kimber having fun.

And I built my own desk and chair (from kits, but still!). I enjoy have my little corner desk and my free of rent room.

I think this'll be a good year :D

The hike of doom!

So this is beautiful right?

It's Red Pine Lake up a moutain in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

From the other side of the lake.

We look pretty happy after hiking right?

(Reality: we were excited because we could now eat lunch)

Ok, the lake was beautiful...

But it was 3.25 miles UP HILL to get there.

The last 1.5 miles of hills looked just like this!

It was just a little too much for me, but I made it!

Camping!!

This is a video of our campsite at Tanner's Flat up Little Cottonwood Canyon. That place was awesome! The managers were really nice and the sites were well maintained and beautiful! We had a great time!

Tragedy!

Tonight, I was cleaning up after dinner with my friends and stowing away the leftover dessert (Smith's had 2 for 1 Marie Callendars Pies! MMM!) when the flimsy pie pan bent under the weight of all the pie on one side. This was the result... Sad.

Well, might as well not waste it!

Just kidding! I only ate one bite off the floor...

The Penderwicks

I recently took the time to re-establish my membership at the Provo Library and the first book I read was the second Penderwick book. Boy, I loved this book! Despite loving this book, my big criticism with this series is that the little girls are far too smart for their ages, but even with that, I don't mind stretching my imagination to believe in them! One of the things I really love about this book is that the author describes the setting in such a way that it makes you wish you lived in the fictional town of Cameron, Mass, on Gardam street next to the Quigley Woods. And though the plot is somewhat predictable, the author is able to make the mundane become magical and you find yourself wanting to go on the journey with these characters even though you can guess at what might happen. To me, that is good writing! (Oh, if you have read Sense and Sensibility or even just seen any of the movie versions, you'll get some inside jokes in this book.)

Saved Soul

The day after my birthday, I went to the Provo Temple with a friend. When we got out, they were pruning the rose bushes. Hundreds of lovely roses were strewn about the ground. I discreetly picked one up and save its little soul (for a few more days at least) This little beauty graced our table for a week. Roses and sweet peas remind me of my mom, who loves to grow flowers. When they bloom she always has a vase of them on our tables. It was quite appropriate then to have this one as mom came to visit the same day I collected it.

Birthday

Look at all those candles! Yep they got all 25!

Mmmm pie!

We had pie and strawberry shortcake.

A fine spread if I say so myself.

Kimberlee threw me a last minute birthday party at her house

And some people actually came!!

My cousin Dan came to represent the family.

Some other friends came, but the picture uplaoder thing is driving me nuts, so they don't get to be in this post. But I love them and I'm glad they came!!!

Something Fun when you don't have cable...

So how many of us have ditched our cable because we're trying to cut expenses? Well, we advised our landylady that we'd rather ditch the cable and land line phone number (that we never used anyway), than have our rent raised. So I have been without cable for most of 2009. That's not a huge deal. Most of the shows I really like are online. But now all of them are done with their regular season and there's not too much you can when you want to just relax and watch some TV. Well, the other day I remember this obscure show I'd seen on BBC America called Top Gear...

If you've never heard of Top Gear, well, that's not surprising. It's basically Three british guys and an unknown guy, fondly called the Stig, doing a show about awesome cars. Not sold yet? Neither would I be at this point. The beauty of this show is the challenges. They have these challenges where they use cars to do crazy things. There was the one where they rocket launched a mini-cooper off a ski-jump to see how far it would fly, and the time they taught some grannies to hand brake park... just hilarious things that give me a hearty giggle. Then they like to do races like the camper races on the race track, or the London bus races. (very funny episodes) And sometimes they like to race across different parts of the world, testing and showing off the engineering strengths and weaknesses of different vehicles.

All in all it's just a fun time... and it's online, for free, with NO COMMERCIALS!! I love it! Check em out at TopGear.com

A Special Day

Today I went through the Temple with my family! It was amazing! It was a beautiful day and a wonderful experience. I can't wait to go back again and again!

Grandma, Mom and me in front of the Temple after my session. I wish I could have got a picture with my brothers and sister as well, but they had to run off to relieve babysitters and such.

But here I am amid the Spring flowers with my casual just plain happy look. Yep. It was a wonderful day!

This is why I'm tired...

Yesterday was a long awesome day! It started with my cousin John's missionary farewell. We had a bruncheon afterwards at my Aunt's house and it was great to visit with everyone. I brought my camera with me, but so many pictures were already getting taken that I just decided to leave it to them. I would have liked to stay at the family gathering longer, but I had to rush off to appointments with my Bishop and Stake President to dun dun daaah! Get my recommend to recieve my endowments! And I went to my own church ward because they needed someone to play piano in sacrament and my second appointment was after Sacrament anyway. Of course, sacrament ran long, so I had to bolt across campus to my Stake President's office. Also, I was stupidly wearing heels because I'm crazy, so I ditched the heels and ran barefoot. It's been pretty hot lately and I actually burned my feet, but I got there in time!

After the exhausting day, I had dinner with some friends and relaxed. After dinner, I started reading the book I'd been reading on and off this last week. The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society. I had seen it advertised in my Border's email and thought it looked interesting. My professor happened to have it in her office when I went up for our weekly meeting about my thesis and she let me borrow it. She enjoyed it, but said it's difficult to get into at first (the kind of book you like to read, but can easily put down), but if you stick with it there's a point where you just get hooked and can't stop reading it. I hit spot that last night and while I didn't stay up too awfully late reading, the long day before and the early morning in front of me finds me with an "I'm tired" headache. Oh well, the end of the book was sooo worth it, because while the ending is certainly nothing suprising, how it is told is pretty hilarious! I completely recommend the book :D

Ward Service Activity

Today I got to help shine and clean up this guy to get him ready for Memorial Day! Our ward went down to the Spanish Fork Cemetery to help clean and wax the beautiful bronze soldiers of the Veterens Memorial. It was a tradition established by the previous Bishop of my ward who served as a Marine when he was younger. I went the first time we did it 4 years ago and I went and did again today. It was nice to see my old Bishop and it's a good service rendered. The soldiers look great! Represented in the memorial are the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and the Coast Guard. Having known several Marines the past few years when I lived in San Diego, I decided to take care of them. If you want to see pictures of the other statues, visit www.kellygpeterson.com. They are absolutely beautiful!! Happy Memorial Day next weekend!

Dreams are a Wish your Heart Makes

Last night I had this really random dream that I married this guy that I went out on only ONE date over a year ago. As I was dreaming this dream, I thought, "Weird! This guy didn't even like me enough to go out with me again! Why am I marrying him?!" All I can guess is that even my subconscious is so desperate for something to happen in my social life, that it's taking me back really far to look for options. Sad :(

Don't Ignore Signs

My advice for today...

If you see a sign like this, don't ignore it...

Cause this could be you!

And this could be the result!

Beware!

Caught in Action

Beware of this Cat!!!

Crazy Cat

So we have a crazy cat lady next door, which means we have a ton of cats roaming the neighborhood and our yard. I don't encourage the cats because they happen to also be crazy. One in particular, that my old roommate Mary termed "the brain damaged cat", seems to think that he lives at our house and always blocks our entrance to the house and attempts to get in. For further proof of this cat's weirdness, I submit this experience I just had only moments ago...

I'm sitting here innocently working on my thesis at my computer, still in my PJs (oh the joy of working from home) and I suddenly get a desperate call from my roommate Aileen:

Aileen on the phone: "You have to help me!"

Me: "Why?"

Aileen phone:"I have a cat on my back!"

Me: "What?!"

Aileen phone:"I have a cat on my back and he won't get off!"

Me: "I'll be right there" (I could hear her talking from the backyard)

When I get out there, there is indeed a cat firmly attached to Aileen's shoulder and backpack. To make it worse, the cat was drooling on her. Gross.

Aileen: "He won't get off! Everytime I try to get him off, he claws me to hold on!"

Me: "How did this happen?"

Aileen:"All I did is pet him and he jumped up here and won't get off!"

Me: "I'll get the broom..."

Aileen: "That's not going to work!"

It did work. That cat is skittish.

Moral of the story: Don't pet crazy cats!

Finals

Now that I've finally recovered from them, I feel I can speak about them. (Thankfully this recovery coincides with classes resuming.) My own finals were not particularly difficult, due thankfully to that fact that my program does not heavily emphasize big important tests, but instead focuses on projects and papers scattered throughout the semester.

Anyway, in order to earn some extra cash, I signed on to help the Testing Center during finals week. The schedule they gave me wasn't even all that bad, but sheesh! I forgot how stressful that place can be trying to move the people through to get their finals done with! It was strange going back to work there. When I was an undergrad, I worked there as a supervisor (pictured above with two of my work friends), which meant I knew pretty much everything there was to know about running the testing center (on a day-to-day basis of course). It was weird being back there. For one thing, I only knew five people from when I worked there before. Granted that was two years ago, but still! Also, I found that I had forgot many things that I knew I used to know at one point. This was only frustrating because since I obviously look older than most of the people that currently work there, the younger employees assumed I was some supervisor that they hadn't previously worked with and kept asking me admistrative questions. Once I got beyond my immediate frustration at not being able to help, the solution was simple because I could simply referred them to the current shift supervisor who knew all, like I used to. By the end of the week, I was amazed at how much I did remember, especially since it had no context of importance in my current life. (Funny how that works!) All in all, as much as I appreciate the money and was glad to fill a need, I was happy to leave that place, knowing I wouldn't have any need to come back unless I wanted to.

There are some nice things about working at the testing center though... like:

1. You see a lot of friends and get to tease them while they're stressed (I suprisingly still know some undergrads...)

2. You get to see a lot of funny t-shirts that people wear

3. You get a good look at the student body (i.e. I get to oggle the good-looking menfolk) and sometimes you see some funny things.

For example this one guy came in and he had an evil guy mustache, like the picture below, except it was definately real and waxed up to be more pointy! He was this average looking guy in kind of skater style clothes with a baseball cap and then this mustache. It was hilarious! I think I heard him tell a friend in line that he grew it for a play. Who cares! It was awesome!

Utah is so weird sometimes!

It's April right? Right?! Sometimes I'm not so sure! Yesterday, I walked up to campus in the rain to work on a group final. As we worked away, I looked out the window and the rain had turned into slush... shortly after that, huge fatty flakes of snow! bleh! Snow came kind of off and on for the rest of the day. But last night we must have got a truckload because I woke up to this:

Outside my window

Outside outside my window

At least the sky looks hopeful that most of this will melt soon.

Easter

For Easter I escaped to a slightly rainy, then glorious sunny home and enjoyed time with family. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, but Grandma did, so I'm sure you'll be able to see some of me soon on her blog. Anyway, when I got back to P-town, among other things there was a small package waiting for me in my room from the Easter bunny. I imagined a huge chocolate bunny because that's secretly what I was hoping for. Instead I got this:

Well, that explains the strange text from my roommate about which Disney Princess was my favorite.

Hiking Adventure!

My old roommate Melissa flew out from Chicago with her friend Courtney for the weekend. She came mainly to attend a wedding of friend, but for the weekend she wanted to go down to Moab and go hiking. Our other old roommate Sara came down from Idaho and Friday night we all had a sleepover at my house. What a great time! The next day we drove through snow and gross weather to go hiking in Arches National Park. The weather was coldish and somewhat snowy, but ended up being really nice for hiking. We saw some awesome landscapes and I wanted to take a picture of EVERYTHING! We stayed overnight in a motel in Moab and that was the worst night of sleep I'd had in awhile :P First of all, I wasn't very comfortable because I never am outside my own bed, but usually I can deal. The kicker was that I forgot that Melissa talks in her sleep! So right when I would finally sort of fall alsleep, Melissa would start talking in a LOUD voice about paperwork from her job. BAH! Oh well, I still had fun the next day, which dawned bright and sunny! It was a beautiful day at Canyonlands National Park! The views were simply amazing and when you got to the end of a trail, there was a wonderful quiet that is unique to vast expanses of untamed beauty. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.