Or rather, this post is about rocks. More specifically about the entertainment value of rocks. You see, a while back Brittany asked me if I would know, theoretically what one would need to do if one wanted to paint rocks. And as luck would have it I do. And I have nothing more interesting to write about at this time. I guess I could write about starting school again but really all there is to say is that 18 credits is ALOT and that I will be done in the summer. So you get to hear about rocks.
For those of you who don't know, for my 20th birthday my roommates and I had a rock painting party where we painted phrases on rocks then secretly scattered them around campus. It turned out to be one of the most random and fun birthday parties I have ever had and walking around campus the next day seeing our handiwork and people's reactions was even more awesome. ("Dude, its another one of those rocks!") Most of them were picked up after a day or two but the next spring walking past the library I saw an orange one that had been overlooked after the first snow and lasted the winter.
I had never given much thought to painting rocks or how random it might be, but since that time, painted rocks have been a recurring theme in my life so I thought I would share a few stories with you.
My first memory of painting rocks comes from primary where our teachers had us paint prayer rocks. The idea was to put the rock under your pillow (or so I thought) so that when you went to bed you would feel the rock underneath and remember to say your prayers. In actuality the idea was probably to put the rock on top of your pillow so that you would see it and remember to say your prayers. This turned out to be an unfortunate mix up as the rock that I painted was roughly the size of a football and significantly heavier. Contrary to what I thought, the rock would not just feel slightly uncomfortable under your pillow but would in fact inflict serious pain to your skull if you had forgotten it was there. Which I did. And nearly gave myself a concussion one night as I dove into bed. I don't remember what happened to that rock (actually there are a lot of things about that time that I don't remember....) but it never did find its way under my pillow again.
You might think that painting rocks would be a sort of juvenile activity and I would probably have agreed with you. So I was surprised to find myself painting rocks once again on my mission in Seattle, at the request of the ward mission leader. He wanted us to give out "reference rocks" (not reverence rocks) to the families in our branch. The idea was to gather some big heavy rocks, paint them hideously and give them to members with the instruction that the only way to rid themselves of said rocks was to give the missionaries a reference of somebody we could teach. I was a little surprised but very glad that I had all the necessary skills for painting rocks.
First we gathered them, and don't worry we did that in full missionary gear- three sisters in skirts and dress shoes lugging rocks into the back of a Toyota Corolla. Then we lugged them up the stairs into our apartment. Well, actually we just tried to do that but we were laughing so hard that we had to stop halfway up and our Russian speaking neighbor who probably thought that we were crazy anyway had to help us drag them up the rest of the way. It was one of those times that I really really wished that I spoke Russian. (Though at the same time I am not really sure there would have been a satisfactory explanation anyway.) Once we were safely in our apartment, with the 75 pound box of rocks we proceeded to wash them in the bathtub with old toothbrushes and then to lay them out on the tiny balcony to dry.
Next came the painting part which we did with spray paint. Construction Cone Orange spray paint. It was about the ugliest color we could think of and made for some pretty hideous rocks. We used magic marker to write "Reference Rock" on them along with a scripture reference and proceeded to give them out to the members.
I ended my mission a few weeks later so I never saw any of the rocks come back with references but always assumed the best had happened. Though upon further reflection I realize that orange may not have been the ugliest color we could have come up with. In fact, a lot of hispanic people really like bright colors, including orange, so the rocks we thought were so hideous may not have had universal Un-appeal. They may even have made great decorative prayer rocks:)
So there you go. Everything I know about painting rocks. You can also use regular craft paint and the best rocks to paint are smooth flat ones. And you can get pretty creative with the messages. Heck you could even set them on the steps of Old Main to propose to your girlfriend:)
Incidentally, since I have become an expert in this medium I have decided to move on to other art forms so if anyone hears of any glass blowing classes please let me know:)
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Home Again
So (do you think I can ever start a post without using the word "so"?) I just got back from vacation and it was lots of fun. Three days in Seattle, five in Island Park, and lots of driving in between. But it was worth it. And since I don't want to bore you with all the details I thought I would post a few pics instead.
This is me in front of Pike's Place Market, possibly the most famous place in Seattle after the Space Needle, which is far less cool and more expensive. The market is free until you spend all your money on the cool stuff they have for sale there.
This is me at the Seattle Aquarium, which if I let myself I could turn into another exorbitantly long post. So I will just say that it is a very cool aquarium and yes I am allowed to touch the spiny thing whose name I have temporarily forgotten. They actually encourage it. If you stick your finger between the spines they close up on you and it gives you a "hug." We also got to see them feed the giant octupus but that was about the time that my camera batteries died, so these are pretty much all the pictures you get. Lucky for me I get the memories:)
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
You Speak-a English? Or: The Longest Post In All The Land
Due to the long nature of this post I have taken the liberty of shrinking the font size. My apologies to those who must now squint to read this.
At the beginning of the week I put up the following poll question:
Which of the following phrases have I *not* misunderstood at one point or another? The options were
A) To make ends meet
B) Lbs
C) Layman's terms, and
D) Sealing wax.
I then closed the polls two days later. Now, usually I am not so on top of things and will look for any excuse to delay updating my blog, if only to prevent myself from establishing a pattern of when I post because I don't want to be held to a regular schedule (see 101 reasons post below). However, I am leaving for vacation tomorrow morning and won't be back till the 17th-ish (another example of a lack of commitment on my part). I am going to Seattle for a few days, then to island park after that but don't distract me from the point here, which is that I won't be posting for a good week and a half. So I thought I would leave you with this extra long post to keep you entertained while I am out.
Well now, shall we examine the poll question?
The first of the phrases I HAVE misunderstood is "to make ends meet." Sadly, it was only recently that I learned it was "meet" as in come together, not "meat" as in food. Thinking all this time that the phrase was "end's meat" and knowing that it meant just barely scraping by, I logistically determined that the ends of the meat must be the worst part that you would not ordinarily consume. Therefore, if you are having to make "ends meat" you are not doing well and would much rather be making pot roast. Interestingly enough, the fact that I had never come across a recipe for "ends meat" did not stop me from believing that this was the true meaning of the phrase.
Ok, now that you are done rolling on the floor with laughter, lets move on to the the next phrase that I HAVE misunderstood, which is LBS. (You may want to take a bathroom break before continuing reading.)
I have a very specific memory of when I determined the meaning of that strange abbreviation on the butter container. I was sitting in a car parking lot as a child while my mom was loading the groceries and as I looked at the butter I determined that it must mean lillibeaters. Like millimeters only bigger. Never mind the fact that there was no lillibeater measuring cup to be found anywhere on earth, I had made sense of the abbreviation and it stuck. I don't remember when I learned that lillibeaters don't actually exist and that LBS stands for pounds (now really, who decided that pounds had an L in it?!) but I do remember when my younger brother learned it. He had taken a far more logical approach to LB and determined that since he often saw it on bags of candy it MUST stand for Large Bag. So you could go to the store and ask for one Large Bag of Skittles and they would know exactly what you were talking about. At least I am not the only one in my family.
Now, the next phrase that I misunderstood was sealing wax. This really shouldn't have happened because I remember watching The Scarlet Pimpernel as a kid and seeing the man SEAL the backs of envelopes with red WAX. Foregone conclusion, right? Except that I also have a distinct memory of watching Puff the Magic Dragon and his friend Jackie Paper packing their bags with shoes and ships and CEILING WAX. Seriously they have a bottle with "ceiling wax" written on it, I swear. I would verify this by watching the show again but I'm pretty sure we don't have it anymore. Anyway, I remember being confused as to what one might do with ceiling wax but figured there must be a good use for it somewhere, and never having sealed a letter with wax myself it took many years for me to get this straightened out in my mind. I guess this is what happens when you watch too much TV.
So, the only phrase that I have never misunderstood is Layman's terms. I would pat myself on the back for this but the only reason I never misunderstood it is because I had never heard it until a high school English class. The teacher was going over funny mistakes that people had made in various term papers and one that he found entertaining was a student who had thought it was "Laman's Terms." As in whiny brother of Nephi. Yeah, that Laman. In all likelihood I would have probably made the same mistake later in life had this not been the first time I had ever heard the phrase. So if you all know of any other random expressions that you think I may not really understand please let me know before I start writing about why you would need to rotate your tires if all they do all day is rotate. (My cousin actually takes credit for that one. She thought that rotating your tires involved jacking the car up and spinning the wheels. Just in case you thought so too, it actually involves taking the tires off and moving them to different positions:)
And don't think for one second that I am done with this post. I told you it would be the longest post ever and I meant it. (Why is it so hard to write this much for term papers?) So, you may want to take a lunch break before continuing.
Ready? Ok, the reason that I thought about these misunderstandings is because of a question that Rhonda posed about the English language. Specifically she wanted to know why it breaks so many rules. Like why don't "hanger" and "danger" rhyme?
Well, lets just say that as I was researching the answers to these questions (and it was very scientific I'll have you know. I was working with the esteemed Dr. Google :) I came across enough information to write a doctoral thesis or sixty. But as we all know, I am far too lazy to do such a thing and am content with the idea that maybe someday a University somewhere will award me an honorary doctorate degree. Hey, at this point I would settle for an honorary bachelor's degree.
So, here is what I learned.
The English language as we know it began in the 500s AD when three groups of people invaded what is now known as England. They were the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. They came from Germany and Denmark and pushed the Celt speaking natives of England (would they be called native englicans?) into present day Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The invaders all spoke Germanic type languages that eventually sort of meshed together into what is known as Old English and which doesn't look anything like modern day English.
That went ok for awhile till William the conqueror, you guessed it, conquered England. His army was composed of Normans who hailed from Normania. Just kidding, they were from France. So then French got mixed in with the Germanic stuff and turned into Middle English, which is what Frodo and his hairy-toed posse speak when not chilling with the elves. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
In about 1500 something called "The Great Vowel Shift" started (seriously, that's what its called) and people started pronouncing vowels shorter and shorter. This is similar to what happened to the traditional English greeting which started out as "Hello" and rapidly deteriorated into a seizure like upward jerk of the head, sometimes accompanied by the monosyllabic "sup". (You have no idea how happy it makes me to use the word monosyllabic:)
Anyway, all this coincided with the Renaissance and the invention of the printing press which pretty much finalized English into what it is today. Obviously it is still changing with new words being invented as technology requires and also borrowing from other languages. (You'll notice we use the Japanese word sushi instead of making up one of our own, like barfy fish paste)
So all this would explain some of the confusion involved in a language that started as German, meshed with french, got gansterized and globalized and regionalized. (Y'all want some chitlins with those shrimps on the barbie? They're chillin in the boot of the lorry)
Also, as far as grammar rules go it turns out that some dork applied Latin grammar rules to English long ago, despite the fact that English is Germanic. This is what accounts for the stupid don't-end-a-sentence-with-a- preposition rule that nobody actually follows up with. Ha.
Oh, and as for the hanger/danger thing it is because danger is of Latin origin and as far as I can tell hanger is of French origin (at least, hangar is, so we'll assume hanger is too) that probably accounts for their lack of rhyming.
Gruesome side note: the expression "hanging out" stems from the practice of public hangings being a recreational activity people used to enjoy.
So. There you have it. The longest post in the history of the English language. Or maybe on the history of the English language. And now that I have answered that and stated that I still like nuts and nuts like me (Lacey) I have only one more "theoretical" question to answer involving the painting of rocks before I run out of questions. Which gets me off the hook post-wise, and which I am ok with. So send some more or don't. But definitely don't ask me how I have managed to function so far in my life because that would be the shortest post ever. I have no stinkin idea.
At the beginning of the week I put up the following poll question:
Which of the following phrases have I *not* misunderstood at one point or another? The options were
A) To make ends meet
B) Lbs
C) Layman's terms, and
D) Sealing wax.
I then closed the polls two days later. Now, usually I am not so on top of things and will look for any excuse to delay updating my blog, if only to prevent myself from establishing a pattern of when I post because I don't want to be held to a regular schedule (see 101 reasons post below). However, I am leaving for vacation tomorrow morning and won't be back till the 17th-ish (another example of a lack of commitment on my part). I am going to Seattle for a few days, then to island park after that but don't distract me from the point here, which is that I won't be posting for a good week and a half. So I thought I would leave you with this extra long post to keep you entertained while I am out.
Well now, shall we examine the poll question?
The first of the phrases I HAVE misunderstood is "to make ends meet." Sadly, it was only recently that I learned it was "meet" as in come together, not "meat" as in food. Thinking all this time that the phrase was "end's meat" and knowing that it meant just barely scraping by, I logistically determined that the ends of the meat must be the worst part that you would not ordinarily consume. Therefore, if you are having to make "ends meat" you are not doing well and would much rather be making pot roast. Interestingly enough, the fact that I had never come across a recipe for "ends meat" did not stop me from believing that this was the true meaning of the phrase.
Ok, now that you are done rolling on the floor with laughter, lets move on to the the next phrase that I HAVE misunderstood, which is LBS. (You may want to take a bathroom break before continuing reading.)
I have a very specific memory of when I determined the meaning of that strange abbreviation on the butter container. I was sitting in a car parking lot as a child while my mom was loading the groceries and as I looked at the butter I determined that it must mean lillibeaters. Like millimeters only bigger. Never mind the fact that there was no lillibeater measuring cup to be found anywhere on earth, I had made sense of the abbreviation and it stuck. I don't remember when I learned that lillibeaters don't actually exist and that LBS stands for pounds (now really, who decided that pounds had an L in it?!) but I do remember when my younger brother learned it. He had taken a far more logical approach to LB and determined that since he often saw it on bags of candy it MUST stand for Large Bag. So you could go to the store and ask for one Large Bag of Skittles and they would know exactly what you were talking about. At least I am not the only one in my family.
Now, the next phrase that I misunderstood was sealing wax. This really shouldn't have happened because I remember watching The Scarlet Pimpernel as a kid and seeing the man SEAL the backs of envelopes with red WAX. Foregone conclusion, right? Except that I also have a distinct memory of watching Puff the Magic Dragon and his friend Jackie Paper packing their bags with shoes and ships and CEILING WAX. Seriously they have a bottle with "ceiling wax" written on it, I swear. I would verify this by watching the show again but I'm pretty sure we don't have it anymore. Anyway, I remember being confused as to what one might do with ceiling wax but figured there must be a good use for it somewhere, and never having sealed a letter with wax myself it took many years for me to get this straightened out in my mind. I guess this is what happens when you watch too much TV.
So, the only phrase that I have never misunderstood is Layman's terms. I would pat myself on the back for this but the only reason I never misunderstood it is because I had never heard it until a high school English class. The teacher was going over funny mistakes that people had made in various term papers and one that he found entertaining was a student who had thought it was "Laman's Terms." As in whiny brother of Nephi. Yeah, that Laman. In all likelihood I would have probably made the same mistake later in life had this not been the first time I had ever heard the phrase. So if you all know of any other random expressions that you think I may not really understand please let me know before I start writing about why you would need to rotate your tires if all they do all day is rotate. (My cousin actually takes credit for that one. She thought that rotating your tires involved jacking the car up and spinning the wheels. Just in case you thought so too, it actually involves taking the tires off and moving them to different positions:)
And don't think for one second that I am done with this post. I told you it would be the longest post ever and I meant it. (Why is it so hard to write this much for term papers?) So, you may want to take a lunch break before continuing.
Ready? Ok, the reason that I thought about these misunderstandings is because of a question that Rhonda posed about the English language. Specifically she wanted to know why it breaks so many rules. Like why don't "hanger" and "danger" rhyme?
Well, lets just say that as I was researching the answers to these questions (and it was very scientific I'll have you know. I was working with the esteemed Dr. Google :) I came across enough information to write a doctoral thesis or sixty. But as we all know, I am far too lazy to do such a thing and am content with the idea that maybe someday a University somewhere will award me an honorary doctorate degree. Hey, at this point I would settle for an honorary bachelor's degree.
So, here is what I learned.
The English language as we know it began in the 500s AD when three groups of people invaded what is now known as England. They were the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. They came from Germany and Denmark and pushed the Celt speaking natives of England (would they be called native englicans?) into present day Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The invaders all spoke Germanic type languages that eventually sort of meshed together into what is known as Old English and which doesn't look anything like modern day English.
That went ok for awhile till William the conqueror, you guessed it, conquered England. His army was composed of Normans who hailed from Normania. Just kidding, they were from France. So then French got mixed in with the Germanic stuff and turned into Middle English, which is what Frodo and his hairy-toed posse speak when not chilling with the elves. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
In about 1500 something called "The Great Vowel Shift" started (seriously, that's what its called) and people started pronouncing vowels shorter and shorter. This is similar to what happened to the traditional English greeting which started out as "Hello" and rapidly deteriorated into a seizure like upward jerk of the head, sometimes accompanied by the monosyllabic "sup". (You have no idea how happy it makes me to use the word monosyllabic:)
Anyway, all this coincided with the Renaissance and the invention of the printing press which pretty much finalized English into what it is today. Obviously it is still changing with new words being invented as technology requires and also borrowing from other languages. (You'll notice we use the Japanese word sushi instead of making up one of our own, like barfy fish paste)
So all this would explain some of the confusion involved in a language that started as German, meshed with french, got gansterized and globalized and regionalized. (Y'all want some chitlins with those shrimps on the barbie? They're chillin in the boot of the lorry)
Also, as far as grammar rules go it turns out that some dork applied Latin grammar rules to English long ago, despite the fact that English is Germanic. This is what accounts for the stupid don't-end-a-sentence-with-a- preposition rule that nobody actually follows up with. Ha.
Oh, and as for the hanger/danger thing it is because danger is of Latin origin and as far as I can tell hanger is of French origin (at least, hangar is, so we'll assume hanger is too) that probably accounts for their lack of rhyming.
Gruesome side note: the expression "hanging out" stems from the practice of public hangings being a recreational activity people used to enjoy.
So. There you have it. The longest post in the history of the English language. Or maybe on the history of the English language. And now that I have answered that and stated that I still like nuts and nuts like me (Lacey) I have only one more "theoretical" question to answer involving the painting of rocks before I run out of questions. Which gets me off the hook post-wise, and which I am ok with. So send some more or don't. But definitely don't ask me how I have managed to function so far in my life because that would be the shortest post ever. I have no stinkin idea.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Yay for Yeast
I have officially closed the polls and the answer to the question about yeast is (drumroll please)
TRUE! Yeast is a tiny organism that lives just about anywhere and is especially prolific in the fall and spring, making those the ideal times for "harvesting." And all this time I thought it came from the store. Actually, truth be told I had never thought about it until I read a book in which the author mentioned that he had made bread from yeast he harvested himself. Say What?!?That made me do a double take and I did a little research. Turns out that yeast can be captured from the air by mixing up some flour, water, and sugar in a glass bowl and leaving it out for awhile. Then you have to keep feeding the yeast every day with more of the mixture until the yeast causes the mix to approximately double in size. Then you can do one of a few things 1) add it to your bread dough mix and get a tasty sourdough 2) keep it in your fridge and feed it once a week to keep it active for use in the future 3) fail miserably at the above experiment and resign yourself to dumping the sour smelling mixture down the drain. Theoretically speaking of course :)
There are several reasons for harvesting your own yeast including saving money (though flour and sugar aint all that cheap), the satisfaction of doing it yourself, using what is available, and of course, just to see if you can. But the main reason is that there are different kinds of yeast in different areas. So Utah yeast will lend a different flavor to your bread than say, Louisanna yeast, or California yeast. Or even Southern Utah yeast. Imagine the possibilities : German yeast and African yeast and Brazilian yeast! Oh my!
All of this is of course assuming you have the equivalent of a yeasty green thumb (that just sounds gross), which I have a sneaking suspicion I don't. I guess I am consigned to go on believing that yeast comes from a store and buying mine there. But that doesn't mean that you have to! If you want to try this little experiment just google "grow your own yeast" and get started. (I hereby absolve myself of any responsibility for failure of this experiment and will not reimburse you any flour or sugar should your experiment fail. I will however gladly eat your bread and take tips on how to be a successful yeast harvester) Yay for Yeast!
TRUE! Yeast is a tiny organism that lives just about anywhere and is especially prolific in the fall and spring, making those the ideal times for "harvesting." And all this time I thought it came from the store. Actually, truth be told I had never thought about it until I read a book in which the author mentioned that he had made bread from yeast he harvested himself. Say What?!?That made me do a double take and I did a little research. Turns out that yeast can be captured from the air by mixing up some flour, water, and sugar in a glass bowl and leaving it out for awhile. Then you have to keep feeding the yeast every day with more of the mixture until the yeast causes the mix to approximately double in size. Then you can do one of a few things 1) add it to your bread dough mix and get a tasty sourdough 2) keep it in your fridge and feed it once a week to keep it active for use in the future 3) fail miserably at the above experiment and resign yourself to dumping the sour smelling mixture down the drain. Theoretically speaking of course :)
There are several reasons for harvesting your own yeast including saving money (though flour and sugar aint all that cheap), the satisfaction of doing it yourself, using what is available, and of course, just to see if you can. But the main reason is that there are different kinds of yeast in different areas. So Utah yeast will lend a different flavor to your bread than say, Louisanna yeast, or California yeast. Or even Southern Utah yeast. Imagine the possibilities : German yeast and African yeast and Brazilian yeast! Oh my!
All of this is of course assuming you have the equivalent of a yeasty green thumb (that just sounds gross), which I have a sneaking suspicion I don't. I guess I am consigned to go on believing that yeast comes from a store and buying mine there. But that doesn't mean that you have to! If you want to try this little experiment just google "grow your own yeast" and get started. (I hereby absolve myself of any responsibility for failure of this experiment and will not reimburse you any flour or sugar should your experiment fail. I will however gladly eat your bread and take tips on how to be a successful yeast harvester) Yay for Yeast!
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