Day 26 - What I think about my friends

You know, I've mentioned it before that I'm not the worlds most social person so my friends are fairly limited. Not to mention, of course I like my friends and I think they're awesome or else I wouldn't be friends with them.

I have my high school friends, the smart people who weren't the nerds, just a little out there and random. (Yes, truly random, back when that was considered a bad thing. Not the overused word by every teenager who ever giggled and flipped her hair.) They were a great group, a bunch of misfits who helped me belong when I wasn't sure anyone else would accept me. And then I got married and a bunch of them turned their backs on me. Cheers!

There are the friends I've made since then while in college - some of them in my classes and in my groups, my trip to Panama, and the one person I work with - though I'm not the social person that would invite them over for a party. They are a bunch of fantastic people who share similar interests to me, who speak my language, they know what it means when I say committee year, or when I say like my rhomboids are in killing me. Despite that the common linkage of science this group is very diverse. I love the variety of people, and different viewpoints they share. Variety is the spice of life, and I love it!

My final group of friends are those who were merely acquaintances before who I've gotten to know better through the internet. I've gotten to know some really amazing people this way. It makes me sad that I didn't get to know them better before, when I actually had the chance to have some of these conversations in person. It makes me grateful for tools like Facebook. I still get the chance to form friendships with missed connections.

Day 25 - What you would find in my bag

Well this really depends on the time of the year, and day of the week. Well since it's summer, I mainly carry a bag on work days. It's a bigger purse so I can carry what I need for the whole day in it, and it is nicely divided into different sections. In one side I carry the typical purse items: My cellphone, a few pens and pencils, keys, headphones, eye drops (I'm way to blind to just go without if they ever accidentally fall out during the day), a small hairbrush because I have to room to do so, chapstick, and occasionally my time card to record my work hours. Sometimes I'll even stick my wallet in there, which only contains my debit card, and a few bills. One the other side of my bag is where I carry my lunch. Usually there's a water bottle, some sort of fruit or a similar small snack, a stick of string cheese, and the main course which could be leftovers from the previous nights dinner, a salad or a sandwich.

On a none workday, if I am going to carry a bag I'll either pick the same bag and instead of a lunch I'll bring some snacks and a cup of milk for Gabrielle. If I'm not going to be gone long, or I don't have Gabrielle with me, I'll take a small purse with only my wallet and a stick of chapstick.

However, when it's not the summer, i.e. most of the year, I will have my backpack with me all the time. Of course in my backpack is everything mentioned above, purse objects, lunch, plus always a spare dollar or two, note cards, highlighters, many pencils, notebooks, textbooks, my computer, and a whole bunch of crap that gets forgotten and lost in the backpack black hole.

Day 24 - A letter to my parents

You know, the quality of the post cues goes down dramatically as this 30 day challenge goes on. Why would I write a letter to my parents here? If I wanted to write a letter to them why wouldn't I just send it to them? But, alas, the title decrees it, so write it I must. (Or do I? Do I really have to? Can this whine just count as my post instead.)

Dear Mom and Dad,

I love you. Dad, I'm sorry we couldn't meet up while you were in Logan a couple days ago. You've got to give me forewarning on these sorts of things, I'm kind of busy. I'll miss camping with you guys at the reunion this weekend. Tell everyone "Hi" for me, and tell them that you have the cutest granddaughter of them all. Gabrielle was very sad to see you guys leave after you dropped us off from our trip to Canada. Her adorable, big baby blue eyes started watering. She made me stand in the driveway for a long long time, looking down the road hoping to see your car come back. She will be very glad to see you guys again, I hope that can be sometime soon before she forgets all the fun. Luckily she's remembering for much longer periods of time now.
Thanks for being the great parents you were. You weren't perfect, you certainly had your faults, but you did a good job of teaching me what I needed to learn. Some parents don't seem to give a crap about their children, but I know you cared about me. Other parents seem to think their kids are porcelain, I call them helicopter parents, always hovering around. They do everything for their kids, hand them life on a silver platter and protect them from anything slightly unhappy. You most certainly did not do that for me. And for that thank you, now I can be (somewhat of) an adult. I can even go buy my school supplies on my own, without having to ask the teacher what type of notebook they want. (That really happens, true story.)

Love ya,

Britain

P.S. Please stop spoiling my daughter. It's this dark cloud lurking over our shoulders during our visits, and it leaves a bitter aftertaste. When we have to watch our daughter throw more temper tantrums then she ever has, and then have to deal with the spoiled child afterwards it casts a very negative hue over the whole visit. Please respect my parenting.

Day 23 - Something I crave for a lot

Is that title correct grammar? I've merely copy and pasted from the challenge instructions. Something about it seems choppy and wrong. I feel like the "for a lot" is a bit much. Either something I crave for, or something I crave a lot would have sufficed. Not that the rest of my titles and posts have outstanding grammar. Oh well.

I feel like this post might be a repeat of Day 21. Obviously I desire the things that make me happy, and satisfying my cravings typically makes me happy. 

So same as Day 21, the first thing I crave for is Ice Cream and Coldstone is the best.

I also crave chocolate, in any form all the time. As well as other forms of general sweetness like brownies and cookies.

I do crave raspberries and blueberries. I wish they weren't so expensive or else I would justify this healthy craving. When I have a home of my own I am growing my own raspberry bush.

Courtesy of my childhood days in Alaska, I love Alaskan King Crab Legs, and yes them being from Alaska matters. Unfortunately I hardly ever get these. 

This one is almost not a craving, it's more of an obsession, sauteed mushrooms. 

Sourdough bread will be my last craving. Once we bought a loaf and I ate the whole thing in 2 days. Slice, butter, devour and repeat. 

I feel like my blog should come with a warning label: Dieters Beware. Contains many tasty food pictures. 

Day 22 - What makes me different from everyone else

Somehow the title of these makes me feel like I'm about to write another application essay, though I prefer to stay away from that. 

I got married very young, and not because I was pregnant or was trying to escape a bad home situation.

I had a child at a young age, and yes she was planned. 

While those two may stereotype me as the young mother who just want to stay at home and be homemaker and housewife extraordinaire, I have no desire at all to be at home. I love the idea of having a career, of working and contributing to society, reaching out and touching others beyond my family. Throw in the fact that I live in Utah and I'm a Mormon, and that previous sentence makes me even more of a stereotype breaker. How many girls do you know who want a career in a rigorous field like medicine or law, that also have children before even entering training?  

Despite being a Mormon, and my rather conservative upbringing I have some more liberal views. For instance, I completely believe in evolution (come on, I am a scientist after all) and I support gay marriage. Throw in the fact that I'm a feminist and I've upset most of my family and my church. (If any of my typical readers suddenly feels the urge to pray for my soul - it's nice that you care for me but no thanks.)

Someone told me I was an interesting case study in contradictions. 

I don't drink caffeine or even carbonated beverages at all. My one health conviction, I'm going to stick to it.

I'm a picky eater, but I like the things most picky eaters hate, like fish, escargot and mushrooms. 

I hate watching movies but I love to watch TV shows and documentaries. Yeah, I don't know what the difference is either. 

For the last one, I hate telephones. I get an anxiety attack every time I have to call someone. Texting has been my lifesaver. I don't know why I am so afraid of talking to people on the phones. It's not just that I'm shy, I'm open to other forms of communication. I'd rather drive down to the business place and talk to them in person rather than call them. Because of this little phobia I am so surprised that I got a job working for Walt Disney World. Their interview took place by phone, and it was one of the more intense (read: actually asked me interview style questions) interviews I've ever had. 

There you go folks, the differences of Britain in a nutshell, or more, what I could think of right now. 

Day 21 - A picture of something that makes you happy

A lot of things make me happy. We'll start off with some good ol' ice cream, especially Coldstone ice cream.

Come on, you know that looks delicious.

My sweet daughter makes me happy, when she's not driving me nuts.

That's the center to my whole world right there.

A good book always helps.

Fantastic book. One of my favorites. Her blog and comics are hilarious too.

I love scrapbooking. It nice to be creative once in a while, and it's nice to feel like I'm good at something.

However I just don't get the time to do it as often as I'd like. So I am forever behind.

And as weird as this one sounds, school makes me happy too, stressed but happy. I've always loved school.

I have a love/hate relationship with this campus.
But truthfully, I've enjoyed my time here and I'll be sad to leave.

 Lastly, bright blue skies, sitting out in the sunshine soaking up that vitamin D is the best thing ever. (To a certain aunt: you're not allowed to grumble about this one.)

Oh, and the ocean makes me happy as well. 

Also, I made an edit to the previous day's post. I have put up another wedding photo taken from the photographer's site, courtesy of my aunt (and of course my fantastic Grandma who took the photo). So feel free to go back and look.

Day 20 - Someone I see myself marrying/being with in the future

Ah, super young JP. Isn't he just so cute?
That's why we are going to have the cutest kids.

Someday I going to marry this man. No, really it's true. Yeah, I don't know what to write for this post considering I'm already married and I plan on staying that way for the rest of my life.

See what happened is one day he finally decided to ask me out on a date. We fell in love and got all engaged. See aren't we so lovely dovey mushy?

As a consequence of that decision we got married. Yep, that's really how it goes folks engagement results in marriage. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage.

Now I would post a wedding photo here. It would seem a fitting spot. But I don't have any of our wedding photos on the computer. This is the only wedding photo on the computer. (For some forgotten reason or other that was important and urgent my mother-in-law desperately needed a wedding photo so I scanned that one in.) If I had planned ahead better I wouldn't have used that photo in that post so I could use it here. Oh well. Anyways, I married the love of my life and best friend 4 years (-10days) ago. Someday I'll get wedding photos on disc so then I can share them with ya'll.

Edit: Here is another wedding photo that I took from the photographer's site. (Shout out to my aunt, who suggested stealing this photo, and to my grandma, the fantastic photographer.)

Click on the photo if you want to blow it up extremely huge.