Oh, Auntie Em, There's No Place Like Portland!

They say that there's no place like home. That is especially true if you're from a home like Portland, Oregon. There really is no other place like it in the world. And that is a reason why I love it. It's insane, and it's weird, and most of the things people engage in there I would never do in my right mind, but Portland marches to its own beat and is exceptionally unique. If you want further proof of how strange a place Portland is, just read this little nugget from an Associated Press article entitled, "The chi of Portland: High weirdness in Nirvana":

"Acupuncture is not just for people. It's also for cities--if the city is Portland.

"Adam Kuby has stuck a 23-foot needle into the ground down by the Willamette River and hopes to plant more, choosing locations where he figures the city's 'chi,' or vital energy, needs some help.

"Unusual? You bet. Unusual for Portland? Not really."

Follow this link to read the entire article. Believe me, it's completely worth a perusal, especially if you're from Oregon. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=3232705

Really, where else on the earth would someone think of acupuncture for a city? It's a crazy place. Half the time, I don't know what to think of it. And again, I am far too conservative personally to ever participate in a lot of, if not most, events that are Portland-esque, but you can't help but glory in its individuality, personality, and sheer weirdness. I love the diversity of Portland, and I love its ability to throw caution to the wind and yet still be "one of the nation's more livable cities, listed among the best places to have a baby, grow old, go for a walk, ride a bike, take a jog, breathe clean air, own a dog, take public transportation, start a business (green or otherwise), go out for dinner or not get mugged."

So call me biased, call me weird, but I don't really care. You may go bug-eyed when you see the bumper stickers that read, "Keep Portland Weird", but I just smile, shrug, and say, "Hey, that's Portland. That's home. Isn't it great?"

With affection and alliteration (and a little bit of oddity), Megan.

April Showers Bring May Flowers; What do May Flowers Bring?

As April draws to a close, I breathe a sigh of relief that I've gotten through another month without any major catastrophes. It's been a good month: birthdays, parties, friends, family, moving. Some things have been stressful, but all around everything has been going well. The worst day for me this month was probably last Thursday, about which I have already posted. What an awful day. The effects of the pepper stuck with me a bit and messed up my system for the next day and a half or so, but not so much that I couldn't do anything. Good thing, too, considering I moved out of Windgate that same afternoon. Yep, got home and immediately loaded up the car, cleaned the bathroom, and got going.

Esther and I moved into our new place on Saturday, and I will say that I never want to move anywhere without Kelly Swan's help, considering he and his tools were extremely convenient. Jeremie, Steve, Chris, and Becky helped us transport, but Kelly was our slave for a couple of hours after the others left. -forgive me a cruel chuckle, heh heh- In all honesty, though, he really was great in helping us out. There was a heck of a lot of stuff left by the previous tenants, so we had to pile that all up and get it out of there because we had no desire to keep things that no one was coming back for. It took us awhile to really get it all put in one spot and out our door (it wasn't gone until yesterday, being tuesday), but it's finally done and we're pretty much all settled! We keep on remembering little things that we need (food items, mostly), but that's not a big hassle (except when we realized last night that neither of us had procured pepper while making dinner--oops). It's a nice little corner of the world, and I'm excited that we have a backyard. And the exciting news is that Becky will move in with us after she graduates in August! So the three of us just can't get rid of each other, which is fine with me. I love my gals.

My parents are coming down to Utah to visit next weekend, and I'm excited to see them. I'll have to drive up to Salt Lake and Ogden (at separate times), but that's all right. They don't have a lot of reason to come down to Provo from there, but if they do, I'll be happy to show them my new digs. They were just in . . . Nebraska, I'm pretty certain . . . last weekend for the National convention that Mom played the piano in (so cool, my mom rocks), and so it seems that they're keeping themselves busy. I'm still trying to figure out when I can go home for a visit, because that would definitely be a trip worth taking.

In conclusion: "I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland." -Woody Allen

With affection and alliteration, Megan.

Pride Goeth Before the Fall

Oh, the stupid things I willingly do at work. Today after team meeting, I ate an habanero pepper in front of the office. Talk about agony! (misery! woe!) Three of my co-workers partook, as well. But I'm pretty sure my reaction to it was the most entertaining, much to my eternal shame. My boss really likes spicy things, and I guess he feels like we all need to be initiated this way. I don't know, but he started goading me about it a couple days ago, so I just decided to do it. A completely unpleasant experience. No one could ever pay me enough to EVER do that again. I was in utter misery throughout my entire being for at least an hour and a half (lying down in my cubicle for half an hour, too--that felt good). I won't go into the gory details, because I'm sure I already mortified my parents (or at least my mom) by emailing them all about it. But please, for your own sake, never eat one of those things. You will most definitely not enjoy it. But you may enjoy these lovely pictures that Brett took to commemorate the event (note my red, red face)!

You Raise Me Up

Hey, I just barely posted! Wow, I never post this quickly. Interesting. Anyway, this is just a quick note to once again state my appreciation for my fabulous family and friends. I got to talk to Mom and Dad last night for awhile, and I haven't done that with both of them in way too long, because I am an awful daughter. So I'm grateful that we were able to catch up and that Dad knows I'm not going to be living in a cardboard box in a couple of days. My parents are awesome; that's all there is to it.

My friends are pretty freakin' sweet, too. Hayley's birthday was on Friday, so she, her best friend Keri, Justin Walker, and I went up to Sandy to the Mayan to "celebrate", and we had a good time eating the lemon meringue pie and playing UNO while we were waiting to be seated. So cool--"Turley, party of four, your adventure is ready to begin." Hayley's pretty awesome, and I will definitely miss her when I move out.

Saturday, after cleaning out a whole bunch of stuff that I don't use (an entire trunkful of stuff given to DI--wow), a few girls from my ward went out to dinner (again, the theme of the month is "go out") for Christine's "bridal shower dinner". She's not having a real bridal shower here, so we just took the excuse to go out to dinner. After dinner, Hayley and I stuck around the Riverwoods and looked in the shops. Can I just admit to loving Williams-Sonoma? I never would buy anything there at this point in my life, but I love it. Is it bad to drool over pots and pans?

It was my last Sunday in the 72nd ward yesterday, and for the practice hymn, I chose "Each Life That Touches Ours for Good", so I got to share some thoughts about that and how good it is to have those important influences in our lives--friends and family. It's kind of a goodbye-ish hymn, so it was particularly poignant for me. No tears (shock!), but I have had a pretty good time in this ward with these particular people.

So maybe we should all be a little more thankful for those good friends and wonderful family members we have in our lives and show them our appreciation a little more often. This is something that I have to realize over and over again, so shame on me for forgetting every once in a while. But when you have a minute, really think about the people who let you depend on them when you're having difficult times, because they are people very much worth keeping in your life. And be one of those people yourself. I definitely will. (at least, i'll try to be better than i have been)

Megan's Favorite Quote of the Day: "Hey, Pam? Will you wait for me . . . for a second so I can tie my shoe?" -dang Jim Halpert (for those "Office" lovers who loved that scene)

With affection and alliteration, Megan.

Movin' Out

My arms officially hate me right now. Just needed to mention that. I've never been a big fan of push-ups (and, in case I need to clarify on this as I did for my roommate, I don't mean push-up bras or push-up ice cream--she really asked me which one I meant by push-up, and she's an exercise science major!), but I know that they're good for me. I started getting back into a running habit a little while ago, but that was doing nothing for my upper body flab, so I (reluctantly) added crunches and push-ups to my workout routine a few days ago. And of course, everybody knows this--it takes a couple days for the pain to start in. And it started yesterday. My arms hate me for putting them through this torture. Good thing I don't do any heavy lifting at work, because then I would probably drop everything I'm supposed to lift. ugh.

So I've got one more week left at my current apartment, and I can't believe it's come up this quickly. Next weekend I'll move into a duplex with Esther, and I'm looking forward to it. I don't think we'll kill each other. You know those horror stories where you move in with your best friend and you end up hating each other? I'm hoping that's not the case with me and Esther, because that would be tragic. However, I spend half my time at her apartment already and lost my "guest" status there awhile ago, so I think we have at least some idea of what it will be like to live together. Hopefully it'll work out well. I'm pretty excited for it.

My cousin Steve has been in Utah this week, so a few of us got together on Tuesday evening for some catch-up (he got back from his mission just a little while ago, so none of us had seen him) and food and Cranium. It was pretty hilarious to listen to Austin attempt to hum "Eye of the Tiger" and see how mad Kathryn got when Steph and I couldn't figure out "American Idol" from her clay sculpture. I think Dane and Brett mostly just sat there, not knowing what the heck to guess. The most disappointing time for my team was when it finally clicked for Steve who sang "Like a Virgin" right at the buzzer. My family's a little bonkers when it comes to any kind of competition.

So now I get to sort through all my stuff and get rid of everything that I don't really use and is a waste for me to move from place to place. I guess that's kind of a good thing about moving, starting a little fresher, at least. As it is, I still will probably keep things that I don't really need. But I'm determined to stick to my guns and at least make a significant dent in my closet. And then there's the inevitable cleaning fun. Let's see if my roommates even attempt to do anything (the bathroom would not have been cleaned in the entire eight months I've lived here if it had been left up to the two of them. gross). Good luck to me. Fortunately, I've been cleaning on a regular basis since the beginning of the year, so it shouldn't be too awful.

Today's inspirational thought: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid of misinformed beholder a black eye." -Miss Piggy

With affection and alliteration, Me.

You've Had a Birthday, Shout Hurray!

Yes, yes. My birthday was two days ago. I am 24 now. It was quite good, aside from the boring part at work. It was kind of spread out over a few days, though, because my crew wanted to take my out to dinner, but they were all pretty much busy on my birthday, so we went out to Carrabbas (naturally) last Friday for my birthday dinner with the friends. It was very scrumptious, of course, and I was glad to have the chance to be with them, especially since they bought me dessert into the bargain! My friends really are awesome.


Then Tuesday I got to see Bethany and be goofy with her in the mall for a few hours, and we went out to dinner, as well. This was not strictly a birthday thing; just a "friends hanging out" thing, but because we were just having fun and got haircuts next to each other (we were actually asked if we were sisters! haha), it kind of felt like a fun birthday excursion. Shocking that I would have fun shopping! It did help, though, that we ate in the middle of all this, though.

Wednesday was the day, and I got to see my wonderful cousins! Kathryn took me out to dinner, and after stuffing ourselves silly, we headed over to the intramural basketball game that the other Provo cousins were playing in--and we'll stop talking about the game right there. It wasn't pleasant. Stinking refs.

I was home for about an hour after that, and Hayley and the Tanner 7 guys showed up and sang me "Happy Birthday" with a tiny cheesecake with tons of candles and a bouquet of flowers, but that was pretty fun. My home teachers brought me flowers, too! Woohoo! Then it was back over to Centennial to eat the cheesecake that Esther made me, and I spent the rest of the night over at 123 with them all.

So, all in all, it was a much quieter birthday than last year, when the entire ward showed up at my party and strew confetti all over the courtyard, but it was great, anyway. I got to see and be around pretty much everyone that means something to me (those who are in Provo, at least). I'm truly thankful for everything that my family and friends do for me, because they really do an awful lot.

So, in closing: "Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." –Robert Frost

With affection and alliteration, Megan.

I've Been Dreaming of a True Love's *CRASH* . . . ow

The word of the last couple weeks has seemed to be "party"! Seriously, I know so many people who have birthdays around this time of year, not to mention the fabulous office party we had a week and a half ago that involved pie! (unfortunately, it also involved "pi", so we had to take a test because i work with a bunch of nerds!) Anyway, for "PI" day (3/14, har har), we had a pie contest. Each group had to provide two pies to be judged for the themes of "PI" and "St. Patrick's Day". So the two pies that the Dynamic Documators (my team) came up with were both worked on by me, but the one we were especially proud of was our twist on PI--instead, we thought "P.I." as in "Private Investigator" as in "Magnum, P.I." (yay, tom selleck!) That was pretty flipping sweet (even though that placed second--what a shame), although the st. patty's day one ended up being very cute (and placed first in its category, thank you to me for decorating it at the last minute).

So fun times with pies--I've never baked a pie without my mother's supervision before, so I was a tad nervous about the crust, but hey, it tasted pretty good.

Last week a few of us from work also got to go and work on a house for Habitat for Humanity, which was kind of cool. I got to work power tools, so I felt pretty awesome. The only problem was that I smelled like sawdust for a couple of days (i showered, really!) and only a couple people I know find that particularly attractive. Oh well.

Friday night was Becky's birthday, so there were a TON of us together for that celebration. Man, she knows a lot of people. Nineteen people at Thai Ruby for dinner because she couldn't stop herself from inviting people! Crazy and loud. But pretty fun. We all watched "Enchanted" after having cake and the like at the apartment, so fun times. And, what a shock, I spent the night over there after drinking a bunch of Martinelli's with Becky and Esther (well, Esther didn't drink any, but Becky and I sure did). I love my girls. And Becky had a really good birthday, so fabulous times to be had all around.


Then Sunday was Mom's birthday and Easter! I spent the day at Becky and Esther's, although Esther was the only one there because everyone else went places for Easter dinner. But we still had a good dinner--ham and funeral potatoes. Pretty standard, but always scrumptious. People started trickling back around 8 or so, and I spent the rest of the evening back and forth between 123 and 211, which is very normal for me now. Jeremie says that he definitely sees me at least twice a week now--Wednesdays when I come and teach Kelly piano, and Sundays when I'm at 123 and their place. Glad to know I'm so predictable.

Favorite quote of the week to share: "Now if only I could find a place to rest my head for the night. Oh, I don't know. Maybe a nearby meadow or a hollow tree. Or a houseful of dwarves! I hear they're very hospitable!"-Giselle, Enchanted

With affection and alliteration, Megan.