to end the year on....

so my colleague at work just got back from south africa and had this great story to share. this woman denise works at the company we are partnering with. denise lives in a nice home in a rural area in the hills, about an hour out of town. every week day as she drives to the city, she passes a tribal village area. she would see the little village kids, ages 7 to 12, out on the road walking to their school about 3 miles from their village. she picked up a child one day, and after dropping him off at the school, she noticed he had left a sack in her car. she drove back to give it to him, and he was standing on the side of the road with a panicked look on his face. she handed him his sack, and he hurried and opened it to make sure his stuff was still in it. it was; but it turns out the only thing he had in the sack was a 5 or 6 inch bread crust. he was worried that denise might have stolen it from him.

the next day, she picked up that boy and his brother. she asked the brother what he had in his sack, and he showed her. for lunch he had brought a little glob of lard. that night, she started making peanut butter sandwiches and giving them to the brothers when she picked them up for their ride to school. word spread about the sandwich/taxi lady, and she now picks up 14 little kids, gives them each a sandwich for their lunch that she and her husband prepare each night for them, and drives them the 3 miles to school. she says she has no idea how they all seem to smash themselves into her honda CRV, but somehow they make it work.

happy new year. and peace.

gay tidings from the GOP....

so a friend sent along his christmas card to me that he received from senator hatch's office and much to my surprise, hatch is posing with his wife and president bush. a very handsome trio.

but what caught my eye were the small blue and yellow diamonds on each side of the card.


if you just slightly turn the diamond a little to the right to make it "straight", it ends up looking like this:


which is the human rights campaign logo, the biggest gay rights advocate organization in the u.s. either hatch and bush have had a huge change of heart, been drinking too much eggnog, or someone at the christmas card company will soon be losing their job.

my favorite gift this season....

christmas came early this year. this sticker came in the mail last week. i framed it.

a starbucks christmas miracle....

so this morning on this fine christmas eve, i decided to treat myself to a starbucks peppermint hot chocolate and TWO vanilla bean mini scones (its the holidays, so i get to eat two). when i drove up to the window to pay, the starbucks cashier said, the man in front of you wishes you a merry christmas and has paid for your drink and scones. wow. i had heard stories like this but this had never happened to me before. i got this warm fuzzy feeling inside and i went to put my card away and then i realized that there was a line of cars behind me and i should take a cue from the man ahead and do the same.

so i told the cashier that i would like to pay for the car behind me. she got this big fat grin on her face and replied, i love it when the chain keeps going. she told me that the car behind me had only ordered a coffee and the total was $2.10. that didn't sound too fair to me since my purchase total came to like $6.00 (i know, highway robbery, but that's not the point of this posting). so i asked her what the car behind that car had ordered and she said a white chocolate mocha. i'll pay for that one too, i said. and then, like they taught us in primary, this little feeling of joy that you feel that only comes with giving spread into my brain and i started thinking of my friend charlsie that i work with at the office and how much she loves pumpkin lattes. i thought, i should really get her one too. just to keep this holiday spirit going. so i asked the now beaming starbucks cashier, could you please get me a grande pumpkin latte?

she came back a few minutes later with the second drink and i handed her my card. how much is it, i asked. and she replied, no charge. its on the house from starbucks. merry christmas.

wishlist #523

so i really want this voltaic generator back pack which is the first solar bag powerful enough to charge a laptop, cell phones, ipods, etc.

this super awesome back pack includes:

• solar panel that generates up to 15 watts using 20% efficienct cells, enough to fully charge the voltaic battery in about 5 hours.
• stores the equivalent of a typical laptop charge and automatically delivers the required output voltages
• common adaptors are included for connection to laptops, phones and other handheld devices
• connect via USB or car charger
• fabrics made from recycled PET (soda bottles), which is tough and water resistant

its only $499 too! oh yeah, i forgot. we are in a recession. so may next year someone can get this for me!

i forgot i went to mexico.....

so i don't how it slipped my mind, but i spent thanksgiving week in cozumel, mexico this year.

and i went with these people.

and we ate a lot of yummy mexican food and drank margaritas.

and we spent a lot of time on beaches that look like this.

and we also did some major kareoking.

me hogging the mike and making heidi be my backup singer and go go dancer.

nate's amazing air guitar.

lenox is stunned by the talent is he watching.


we also did some ruins climbing.

and we saw some baby turtles released back into the ocean.

and life was pretty dang good.

a runaway weekend....

so this past weekend, i flew the beehive coop and ran away to CT. i haven't been back there since may and i haven't been back to the big apple since march. it was a long time coming and made me realize that a part of me will always remain on the east coast.

matty is now living with uncle t and c and that's an even better bonus. he was very sweet and came and picked me up at JFK at 6:30 am in the morning! nobody ever picks you up at the airport in nyc so it was a very novel experience for me.

we rushed home to find t awake and ready for breakfast and we ate at this cute little deli in downtown new canaan. we chatted about a myriad of topics and somehow we landed on the subject of the broadway show avenue q and how matty and i had both never seen it. so that sealed the day's plans and t insisted we drive into the city (bentley style) and catch the matinee showing.

of course we had to do some shopping along the way. how can you not be in times square and not go to the hershey store or the gourmet popcorn store. we almost got our goods confiscated at the theater (like my cuban cigars i had confiscated in customs, duh!), but t was able to pull out the charm and smooth talk the ushers in letting us stash our chocolate and candy in the back room.

nothing says christmas more than a 20 foot poster of will smith.

uncle t and matty.

matty and me.

by this time, the red eye flight is catching up with me and i desperately need a nap. so i volunteered to give up my shot gun seat in the continental flying spur and sit in the back so that i can snooze on the way home to CT. sitting in the back of a bentley though gives you a big head and you start day dreaming that you are a celebrity being chauffered around. it makes you want to wave to the passerbyers that stare at you through the tinted window. i would make a good celebrity i decided. to keep me awake until we left the city, i tried out my new canon camera that miss. em recommended to me and took pics of the traffic, of the holiday lights and the bustles of people. so many people shopping you would almost forget that we are in a recession.

the stragglers of fifth avenue.

the lights of the city.

can we stop here now?

mad traffic.

we picked up yummy thai food on the way home and brought it with us to the hospital that c is doing his residency at. after we caught up with c and gorged ourselves with shrimp pad thai and beef fried flat noodles, we rolled ourselves homes to watch movies. t hit the sack at 9:30 and even though i was desperately tired, i couldn't let myself go to bed on a saturday night, in ct at that early of an hour. so matty and i watched more episodes of the best show on televison, gossip girl. xoxo.

sunday we slept in and had a yummy breakfast. did some more shopping at the westchester mall. made a good go at seeing the new movie Milk in pleasanton but much to our surprise it was sold out. c decided to make dinner for us - this yummy turkey and rice soup and t asked me to make a pie. spenc caught the 5:00 pm train from the city and made it in time for dinner. it was great to catch up with him and i got to see the new long hair he is sporting. (i tried to take a pic but he wouldn't sign a release waiver to allow me to post it on my blog) his hair is so long that i was able to do two french braids down both sides. t and i caught the christmas devotional at the church which was wonderful and helped me get into the christmas spirit. and then we came back home to chew the fat, talk stories and watch movies. spenc ended up spending the night so we could catch up and it was great to reminisce on college years, our years in nyc together and the weird fact that i now live back in utah. good times good times.

the only thing that could have made the trip even better is if i could have seen mickey while i was out there. but she was busy flying home from dominican republic with the family she works for and our reunion will have to wait until christmas.

uncle c and me cheesing it up in the kitchen.