Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

I keep on telling myself I am going to stop eating out so much, and what happens? I go out to eat three days in a row! But no more. I am making a stand. For at least a week. (that sounds pathetic, yes, but my friends and I have kept on finding excuses to eat out!) Monday night, Esther and I stuffed ourselves silly with Thai food. Very good, but we definitely ate more than was good for us. Then Tuesday afternoon, we had an office lunch for an employee who is leaving. And last night was “Girls’ Night Out” with some friends, and naturally that includes going out to dinner! Naturally.

Actually, “Girls’ Night Out” ended up being really fun. Those of us who went out to eat had a really good time being goofy and weird together, flirting with the waiter (sorry, Mom, I didn’t leave my number with the receipt), and leaving a business card magnet with the fellas at the neighboring table. Oh, yeah. It was a good night for scoping out the guys. Well, not necessarily in the sense that there were a lot of guys worth scoping out, and we definitely focused on our food, but we were in the mood to “shop”, if you know what I mean. Maybe you don’t. Meh. Doesn’t matter. We also watched a chick flick when we got back to Mary and Andrea’s, and half the commentary was about the two very attractive actors in “Sweet Home Alabama”. Who to choose? Who to choose? And all of it was topped off with a stirring interpretive dance performance by Andrea and Beth of a song I had never heard. I can’t fully describe the dance, but it was completely riotous. I was on the floor, crying because I was laughing so hard. That’s the beauty of girls’ nights. Don’t get me wrong. We all know I love boys (when they’re not being moronic), but having a night with my gal pals when we can act completely silly and stupid with each other and laugh until it hurts is quite awesome.

I am grateful today for my musical gifts. On Sunday, I walked into sacrament meeting and there wasn’t anybody playing prelude music, and I immediately saw the bishop make a beeline straight for me. I knew right away he was going to ask me to play the piano, and that’s totally fine. I can do it, and I like it, too. (go figure) I’m glad that I can help out in that way, that I am gifted enough that people know they can ask me to do that. Not that always being asked at the last minute to accompany a musical number is the greatest feeling (believe me, it’s not, I’ve been there), but I’m grateful that I have the talent to do so. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Quote of the Day: “We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.” –Francois de La Rochefoucauld

-Me

To Life, To Life, L'chai-im!

Well, all. There is a new Jensen in the family! And I'm way happy that it's a girl. We've managed to keep the Jensen family very balanced in terms of gender-ratios. With the addition of Lucy June, we have now exactly seven boys and seven girls! Not to say that leaning any which way is bad (i would be a total hypocrite in saying that, considering how many boys i grew up with as cousins), but it's kind of cool. Anyway, she was born last night at an extremely healthy poundage (hmm, is that a word?) of 9 lbs. 3 oz. Managed to beat her aunt Megan by three ounces, so that's pretty impressive. The sad part of all this is that Tom and Lisa are up in Oregon and I'm here . . . in Utah . . . a thousand miles away. -insert pouty lip here- Anyway, all is well, and it's always awesome to welcome a new little life into the world!

(for family members who read this, you'll probably
recognize that I stole these from Tom)

In other news, our house is looking really bad, what with "squatters" and Becky moving in and trying to figure out where we're going to put everything (we now have three standing lamps in our living room, which is totally laughable). But hopefully all the clutter will be clear very, very soon. (if becky is reading this, hint, hint! i love you) So far I haven't bothered anyone with playing the piano. Even our duplex neighbors have said that they "love" to hear me play. And it's become a natural part of the house. Yay!

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one." - Leo J. Burke

-Me

Sing us a Song, You're the Pianoman (woman)

Life has continued to be pretty dang good. A miracle happened last week and I was actually asked on a date. Honestly, the guys asking me out happens about once a year, and this marks the second time in 2008! No sparks, but hey, a date is a date. We had some slight thunderstorms last week, so it was a welcome change to the intense heat, especially when I helped out at a volunteer activity outdoors for work last week.

The really awesome news of last weekend was that I finally got my piano! I was really excited, even if it didn't come until Sunday afternoon. Some people have been under the impression that I bought this particular instrument. Believe me, I didn't. It was completely and totally inherited. It's just been up in Oregon for awhile. So now it's here, and I'm really happy. I played up a storm on Sunday after the guys helped me move it in (which was very kind of them). So now I don't have to sneak over to Kelly's to play anymore! Woohoo! I just have to watch when and how much I play, what with neighbors close by and roommates I could possibly easily annoy.

Speaking of roommates, Esther and I went to see Brian Regan perform on Wednesday night at Thanksgiving Point. My gosh, it was awesome. Buying the tickets for it was a completely spontaneous decision, but I figured that since we both love his material, Esther would definitely come. Which she did. It was totally worth it, too. There were some moments that I couldn't breathe because I was laughing so hard. The guy who opened up for him was pretty funny, too. And fortunately, the rest of the night wasn't damaged by us getting stuck in traffic for ages coming out. We totally beat the traffic getting out of the parking lots. Yay!

I've been taking some small trips to Nostalgia Land this last week, too, when I've had the time to. When I was about nine, the TV show "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" premiered, and my brothers and I totally loved the show. Tom and I would slightly gloat at Craig when he had to go off to Encore practice on Sunday nights and we would stay home and watch it. Anyway, I found out last week that a co-worker of mine owns the first three seasons on dvd, and she offered to let me borrow them, which I was quite eager to do. I was mainly curious to find out if I'd still even like the show, fifteen years later. After watching a few episodes, I have found out that yes, I DO still like the show. It's hardly Shakespeare, but it's still really entertaining and fun, and I'm glad that I've gotten to take a small trip down memory lane and not be totally ashamed of my former (and clearly still present) tastes. "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

Seriously. Hot guy. Hot girl. Who wouldn't watch this show? (teehee)

All right. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I suppose I shall sign off. This weekend is going to be interesting because I haven't made any plans, which isn't exactly in keeping with the last couple of weeks. But it will be nice to sleep in. We like sleep. A lot.

"I think Superman should go on the Larry King show and announce that he would come back to life if people in all 50 states wanted him to." -Dave Barry

-Me

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

First, the good news that made my Monday a tolerable, nay, a great day! (normally, monday’s are no good) My boss called me into his office, which doesn’t happen very often, so naturally I assumed I was in trouble, but heaven only would know why if that were the case. But it was really wonderful news! I’ve been up for a promotion to be an editor, and Clint just got the go-ahead to switch me up! I’ve been doing editor work now for close to a couple of months, so it’s all a lot of the same stuff I’ve already been doing, but with a change of title . . . and more “importantly”, a raise! (we all like to hear that)

Now for the rest of the news that made my weekend fun. I, along with a couple of friends, went down to Cedar City for the Utah Shakespeare Festival! I’ve never been to the Utah festival, and I’ve only gone to the Oregon one in Ashland once, so this was a pretty cool and fun excursion for me, especially since it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision for me to go. But go I did, and it was totally fun!

Megan and I spent the entire drive down to Cedar gabbing and catching up on a bunch of stuff, considering we haven’t had a good talk in a few months, so the drive went by fairly quickly for me. The six of us met up, set up camp (we slept in tents at the KOA), then immediately headed to SUU to see Cyrano de Bergerac. Talk about cutting it close. The play began almost the instant we sat down. Good timing. And, wow! Out of the three plays we saw, Cyrano was my favorite. It was hilarious, touching, sad, exciting, etc., etc., etc.! The actor who portrayed Cyrano just owned the part, and it was awesome! I spent a good portion of the play crying, and fortunately I wasn’t the only one who did.

After Cyrano, our group headed over to the Wal-Mart so Megan, Jenny, and Mashell could pick up the latest “Twilight” book, since it came out that night. It was funny to see how excited they got about it, and we were thinking of reading it out loud with each other once we got back to our tents (megan was especially excited to do voices) because we were all just being silly. That didn’t exactly work out, considering we didn’t get back to the site until close to one, and we would have all been giggling and laughing and making too much noise for the other people around us.

On Saturday, we spent quite some time being silly in the souvenir shops and taking pictures with Mr. Shakespeare, but we went to Fiddler on the Roof in the afternoon, which was very excellent. Once again, I cried. (big shock) The musical numbers were just fun (when they were supposed to be, that is) and I really enjoyed the production. We watched the green show, which was sufficiently entertaining, before going to Othello. No crying in that one. It’s not really the kind of play to evoke a lot of sympathy from me because I feel like Othello doesn’t behave like a person you should feel sorry for, not after he becomes crazy-obsessive-scary man. But I still maintain that Iago is one of the smartest villains ever written.

After Othello came the drive back to Provo in the middle of the night. Megan and I did a good job of keeping each other awake and alert by playing music and singing along at the top of our lungs. First came Queen (which we sang along to a bit, but not really loud), and then came Wicked, which we started belting and didn’t stop, even when our voices became incredibly hoarse. (and what was joe doing the whole time he was in the back seat? Not sleeping, that’s for sure.) That was probably the most fun part of the night. After Wicked came Abba, which we again sang along to, not quite as loud as to Wicked, but still fairly loud. I was really glad I went in Megan’s car for the trip, because Jenny’s car was probably not nearly so . . . musical. Anyway, got home at about 3 am. A whirlwind trip, but a totally fun one, and I was really glad I went. Friends, food, fun, and awesome plays! Who could ask for anything more?

Quote of the day: “The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good—in spite of all the people who say he is very good.” –Robert Graves

Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow!

-Me