The Things that Take Up My Time Lately

My World Cup Teams That Have Lost:

-Argentina

-USA

-Cote d'Ivoire

-Brazil

-Portugal

-France (miserably)

Things I Mean to Read But Never Quite Get Around to:

-Notre-Dame de Paris

-Joe's novel

-In Defense of Food

-La Dame aux Camelias

-Any number of things I should be researching for my thesis

All I Really Want to Do of Late:

-Road trip to New Orleans

-Lay out in the sun

-Ride my bike random places

-Sleep

-Bake/cook random recipes and give them away to anyone willing to eat them

-Shop

-Go home

-Visit Seattle for a week

-Go to festivals/concerts

-Chat

Life In Real Time

Projects I Am Behind On:

-ORCA project

-MA reading list

-Work

-Car maintenance (I have an appointment tomorrow morning)

-Breaking up (maybe I shouldn't make this one public, but oh well, since when do bloggers have privacy issues?)

-Hair maintenance (I need a haircut, desperately!)

-Cleaning my room!!!!!!

-Road Trips

-Reading scriptures every night 

-Being healthy

Projects I've Actually Followed Through On:

-New Computer (MacBook)

-Relaxing

-Dancing (tango and for fun)

-Going home with Aaron (for a weekend)

-Going to the gym (although I just barely started lifting weights)

-Reading for fun (Currently reading Julie&Julia)

-Making yogurt (although I need to buy more for a starter)

Issues With Getting Things Done:

-Hanging out instead of working

-Thinking I have more time than I really do

-Loss of interest

-Loss of budget

-Lack of moral support (mostly for the road trips-- I can't do them alone)

-Sleeping in too late, staying up too late, repeat

-Fickleness, Timidity, etc

To Do List For June:
-Road trip to Grandma's in St George
-Finish ORCA project
-Finish Bonheur D'Occasion
-Start new book for MA
-Reorganize room

A Short List of Some of My Favorite Reasons to Go Home:
-Shopping with Mom
-The food is so much better (especially produce-- California's produce is so much better than Utah's!)
-Roxy
-Sunny weather
-Being around people who not only accept sarcasm, but deal it right back to me
-Going through Mom's closet
-Reading Mom's magazines
-Asking Dad ridiculous questions (which is ridiculously fun)
-Gaining five pounds (maybe not my favorite thing, but it's inevitable so I just accept it every time)

Goals for the summer:
-Read books for fun
-Read books off of the MA reading list
-Work
-Weigh less than Travis (it's an old goal, but it's a fun one, and near impossible since he is constantly losing weight himself)
-Run 3 miles in a half hour
-Go to the gym at least 3x a week
-Finish ORCA grant (by June, actually)
-Write the musical with Tasch and Bobby
-Finally write a breadbox story
-At least one road trip, even if it's just to St George for a day or two

Issues to overcome to accomplish these goals:
-laziness
-forgetting about them
-finding motivation
-apathy
-creating new goals in the moment
-not taking them seriously
-giving up
-Writer's block
-falling into a coma
-relapsing into an analphabet stage of life
-sudden amnesia

Books on my Summer Reading List (So Far):
-The Handmaid's Tale (done)
-He's Just Not That Into You (done)
-Love in the Time of Cholera (a little over a 1/3 of the way through this already)
-Les Lettres Persanes
-Bonheur d'Occasion
-Le Rouge et le Noir
-Lots of cookbooks (Julia Child, Martha Stewart, etc)

The End of a Year

My Favorite Christmas Day 2008 Memories :
-CNN Season 1 on DVD (unedited and unexpurgated)
-Three of my nephews playing with a clone trooper helmet
-Reading Kafka and taking a long nap
-Roxy (the German Shepherd) hiding under the dining room table
-holiday txtmsgs
-My brother, who is 31, getting excited about getting a lightsaber for Christmas
-He also gave a bunch of Star Wars themed presents to my nephews, making it a Star Wars themed Christmas overall
-My oldest niece and nephew playing spies together, and labeling my brother and I as "two really really bad guys" who stole 62 pounds of diamonds the size of an adult's heart.

My Christmas Presents:
-clothes
-CNN season one on DVD (actually it was Columbo season 5, which I had to give back to my Mom)
-fondu set
-pink flamingo slippers
-jewelry
-money
-purse
-boots
-coco mix with 2 mugs
-Trivial Pursuit

Other Memorable Moments from Christmas Break So Far:
-Reading The Great Wall of China by Kafka to my nephew Charlie as a bedtime story
-Visiting target about three times in four days
-Dinner with high school friends I haven't seen in four years
-Seeing Valkyrie and Bolt
-Showing Mom that there are bathrooms in Borders
-The lack of cooperation between myself and my hair
-My niece Quinlan's birthday party dinner with the missionaries
-My nephew Braxton whispering that Quinlan was opening my present (psst... this one is yours..!) because I didn't know what I was giving
-txtmsging my brother-in-law in binary

Christmas Break

Things That Are Awesome:
-Drifting
-Dogs
-Cats (to a lesser degree than dogs)
-Academia
-Europe
-Asia
-Books (excluding Twilight, obviously)
-Good Music
-Silence
-Good meals
-Dark chocolate
-Good friends
-Being content
-Good teas (I really like Twining's Orange Tea right now)

Things That Suck:
-Dirt/litter/trash
-Bad meals
-Bad friends (frenemies)
-Bad internet connections
-That overly full feeling after a large meal
-Soda (seriously, it tastes kind of good and that's where the good in soda ends)
-Realizing something you thought is/would be meaningful is actually empty
-Bad grades
-Not being content