I Get The Point

But I had to wait a good 4 or 5 years for you, so you're just gonna have to be patient little guy.

Just Because

Not much is new with me so I thought I would post a few pictures of Evan. Because I can. And he's cute :) (I'm afraid the background on my blog kind of bleaches him out and lightens everything but he's still pretty cute.)

On an unrelated note, does anyone have any good ideas for Christmas presents for parents? I think Heidi and Jeff are probably off the hook this year, since they have given them the first grandchild. I definitely can't top that, but any other suggestions would be good. Feel free to comment mom :)

It's A Boy!!!

And I'm an aunt! Evan Michael Clift was born at 4:51 am, Sunday November 8th, in Shreveport Louisiana. He weighed 7 lbs 6 oz and is 19.5 inches long. Mom, dad, and baby are understandably tired but doing well. Congratulations Heidi and Jeff and welcome Evan. Can't wait to meet him!

Baby Evan

Holding dad's hand

The proud parents

(Ps- Heidi, sorry I didn't give you the chance to post first but I figured it might take a few days and I just had to show him off. You can beat me later I guess : )

Yet Again

I know how you feel, little guys. I know how you feel.

Must Be A Virus

And surprisingly not the swine flu. Or the regular flu. I am hoping for a certain level of herd immunity on those two since the vaccine supply here is non-existent and I am not in a priority group anyway. If I'm lucky I should be able to get one about mid February. In the meantime, it seems I have caught a full blown case of the craft bug.

I had thought that I was already immune. That the very core of my being was so craft illiterate that it wouldn't recognize a craft bug if it was quilted and covered in glitter. But somehow, when I was least expecting it, I got hit. And these are some of the results.


An apple pie. A homemade apple pie. A made-from-scratch-including-the-filling-and-both- crusts apple pie. I know that this is not a craft, but considering that the only thing I didn't do from scratch with this pie is hand-mill the flour, I am counting it. I think the apples that came from our tree and which I peeled, cored and sliced myself, were harboring a virulent strain of the craft bug and that's where the whole thing started. Because then I found myself making these.


These leaf prints were actually surprisingly easy to make. Even more surprising is the fact that I finished them. Within a week. And hung them on my wall. On the rare occasions when I am forced into crafting, such as for Young Women's activities and the like, I rarely finish the project within a year. You only need to see the unfinished state of my "Temple Wedding Time Capsule" from a Young Women's Activity EIGHT years ago to realize that I am quite serious about this procrastination. (Maybe the reason I am not married is because I never finished it...Hmm... So if I DO finish it, does that mean I will get married? If so, I will probably have to wait for a few more years to catch another craft bug to be motivated enough to finish it. Also, don't think that I haven't finished it because I am planning some elaborate wedding. No, no. Not for me. I actually just have to seal it to have it be considered "finished." It is in one of those metal cans that you use for storing flour and sugar and the like and I don't have one of the machines that seals it. So eight years later, its still sitting in a drawer in my room somewhere. And probably will be for another eight years.)

Anyway, back to the leaf prints. Here they are all finished and hanging neatly on my wall, which I painted green by the way. But I promise it is not such a barfy color in real life. Blame that on the camera I guess.

It was really easy and they turned out pretty good. I just took some leaves and dipped them in craft paint, mixed with a little water, and pressed them onto some fabric. Then I used some fabric glue to stick them onto some boards I found in the garage, glued some ribbon onto the back for a hook and hung them on the wall. I liked the result so much that I decided to do leaf prints on a bag. The only problem was that I didn't have a bag. So I made one.

Now, here is where it gets really crazy, because not only do I not sew, I don't even know how to thread the machine. Seriously. And I have taken several sewing classes. Why they can't make a self threading sewing machine is beyond me. Or even one with arrows pointing to the various holes you have to wind the thread through. I mean, really, you have to guide the thread through like 5 different gadgets just to get it to the needle. Is that really necessary? Fortunately for me, my mom had just finished a sewing project herself and had left the machine threaded. So I went ahead and made this.

I MADE IT! I'm telling you, I was ill. Really, truly ill. Anyway, the only fabric we had lying around when I got this idea in my head was some drafting paper (which is actually really thin linen that has been starched into compliance) so it turned out to be kind of a flimsy bag, but a bag nonetheless.

This virus was unrelenting. It even manifested itself with random creativity. Case in point: After I painted my room I was going to put the curtains back up but I suddenly got this idea that they didn't really go well with the new look and I decided to change things up a bit. I was thinking of hooks and my mom found these cute bird hooks at Tai Pan Trading (Of course she found them. Like I would ever set foot in there of my own accord :)

So I nailed them to the wall and used some willow branches as curtain hooks. The curtains will probably be up in a few years when I catch another virus, but in the meantime here is what the rods look like.

(I took the pictures at night so the colors are really off. It's usually a lot brighter and less olive-y but you get the idea.)

Just so you know how bad this virus was, it even gave me the motivation to finish a project I started two years ago!

I had been meaning to frame these pictures from my mission for a long time but I could never find a frame that had the extra long mat to fit the Seattle skyline picture. But when we went back to Tai Pan to get the bird hooks I found this frame and altered it a little. The top part of the mat originally had two photo slots but I just used an exacto-knife and cut them into one. (The fact that I even know what an exacto-knife is should give you a clue to just how badly this bug affected me.)

Fortunately I survived my bout with the craft bug, and I even got a few cute things out of it. Thankfully I am over it now and I should hopefully be craft free for a few years. Too bad it doesn't offer any immunity against the flu :)

Officially

So even though I have known for almost two months that I was going to officially finally graduate, I didn't want to jinx anything until I had the proof in my hands. Well, my diploma finally arrived so I feel I can finally say that I am actually a graduate. Whew! Heavy sigh of relief. So here is a picture of the most expensive piece of paper I have ever owned.


In case you can't read it I have been awarded a Bachelor of Science in Health Education Specialist (My degree is actually in Health Education with an emphasis in Community Health. Not sure why they wrote it the way they did. Oh well.)
Here are a few more pictures.

Diploma Cover

Inside of Diploma

Since my graduation date was in August and ceremonies are only held in May and December I had the option of walking before I actually completed all my classwork (which, call me superstitious but I felt like that would jinx me even more. As it was I finished my internship hours and got all my papers in just two hours before the final deadline!) or walking this December after I had been out of school for four months (which seems a little anti-climactic). So I have basically decided not to walk this time around, which I am ok with. I would have had to buy a robe and pay money and sit through a boring ceremony and be in Logan in the freezing winter and not really have any classmates graduating with me. Plus I've never really been one for pomp and circumstance, so all in all I am ok with the decision. I figure that I will walk when I get my master's degree, which for right now is the plan. Assuming that I can find a job that will give me experience in health care, take one or two more prerequisites, and get accepted into a PA program. It may be awhile before all that happens. So for now I am just focusing on the job part.

Anyway, I am glad to finally be caught up to all my friends that I started college with: ) It only took an extra two years! I don't think I will ever get caught up in the marriage and babies categories, which at this point in my life I am quite ok with : ) I like being in the honorary aunt category.

One more thing. Since I didn't go out for the whole robe and ceremony deal there are no pictures of me on "graduation day." So I thought I would share this picture instead, which is a picture of a photo (got that?) that hangs on the mantle in my parents' living room. On the right is me sitting on the A, and on the left is my grandpa (my mom's dad) standing next to the A. He was the first USU graduate in our family (in engineering) and I am proud to be part of the legacy.

Utah State Hey! Aggies all the way! Go Aggies! Go Aggies! Hey Hey Hey!!!

A Weed By Any Other Name...

Would be Crocosmia. Or Montbretia. Or any number of other local names, such as Copper Tip or Falling Star. The following is a picture of said "weed"


Personally, I think it is all in the eye of the beholder.

Anyway, a while ago Elise asked me if I could identify this flower that she saw frequently in the northwest on her journey from Washington to Virginia (that's the state, not DC...long trip!), or if I knew a way to identify things from their pictures. And since I still don't have a job (what is the deal with "experience"? Does education count for nothing?! I mean, I can't get a job without experience and without a job I can't get experience. Something's gotta give here! Also, why the arbitrary amount of experience? Is 2 years absolutely necessary or can I get by with 20 months? Not that I have 20 months of experience because, oh yeah, nobody will hire me because I have no experience! Do you see the problem here?) and my only other project at this point in time is peeling wallpaper in my room (now officially the second biggest bane of my existence) I decided to see if I could figure it out.

I started with a google image search for red flowers but that quickly went nowhere. So then I figured that it was probably a wildflower so I searched for "red wildflowers of the northwest" which miraculously got me nowhere :) However, it did turn me onto Flickr. Flickr is kind of like a cross between Facebook and Photoshop where you can edit your pictures and share them with other people. There are photo sharing groups on Flickr for pretty much every subject that you could possibly be interested in, from llamas to babies falling asleep in their food. (Actually, I can't attest to those two groups in particular because I didn't really search for them, but I would still say there is a pretty good chance they exist.) In this case I found a group dedicated to shooting and sharing pictures of wildflowers. And while I still didn't find a picture of this particular wildflower I did notice a few conversations going on in the comments section in which people were asking the very question Elise had. Namely, how in the world do you identify something solely from its picture?

The answer: flowerguide.com. It is a site run by a floral company or something and they have common flowers listed in alphabetical order with a written description of color, size, shape, other names, etc, and a photo of each. Fortunately for me, Crocosmia is fairly high in the alphabet :)
At any rate, once I found the site it only took about 5 minutes to identify the flower and a quick trip to Wikipedia to learn the following facts about Crocosmia:

• It is a member of the Iris family (Probably my second favorite flower, after California Poppies. In case you were wondering.)
  
• It is actually native to South Africa
  
• They are usually Orange or Red in color
  
• The flowers are hermaphroditic (Mostly I just thought that was a cool word and didn't know it existed so I thought I would share it with you)
• The name Crocosmia comes from the Greek Krokos, meaning saffron, and Osme, meaning smell. Apparently they smell like saffron.
  
• They are actually an invasive species in the Pacific Northwest of the US. In other words, they are a WEED!!

I was kind of surprised by that because I think I would much rather have these growing in my front yard than the dandelions that like to make their home there. But weeds they are, since apparently they can choke out native flora and fauna. (Sidenote: Flora and Fauna mean plants and animals respectively and always make me think of Flotsam and Jetsam, which you might be surprised to learn are not just evil hench-eels [hench-eels. HA! I love it!] in Disney's The Little Mermaid, but maritime terms for wreckage left floating in the sea after a shipwreck (flotsam) and cargo thrown overboard by distressed ships and either sunk or washed ashore (jetsam). Also, they are a heavy metal band from Phoenix, Arizona, but that's not really my thing).

Anyway, I think they are quite beautiful and wouldn't mind if they decided to invade Utah. As it is, we get invasive species like cheat grass, which is not only plain and boring but also presents a fire danger in the summer. I think it would be much cooler to look out into a field that you thought was on fire and find that it was actually the bright reds and oranges of these "weeds."

In conclusion, weeds are just expatriate flowers out roaming the world, experience is overrated, and wallpaper will be the preferred decoration in hell and scraping it the preferred method of torture.
Also, I would like to suggest the name Montbretia for any friends or family of mine who plan on having children or are currently expecting. After all, a Montrbretia by any other name would smell like saffron :)

Mold Surgery

That would be the literal translation for plastic surgery if you were to translate it from the original Greek. But don't worry, it's not the yucky green stuff that has an affinity for proliferating in unclean bathrooms (like the one in my basement, cough, teenage brother, cough....) That would make for some pretty unsanitary surgery. Although, on second thought, mold is the original antibiotic so maybe it wouldn't be too bad? I mean, gross for sure, but maybe not lethal. At the very least un-beneficial. So moving on.

Anyway, plastic surgery gets its name from the Greek word for "to mold" (which on second thought doesn't really clarify....hmm.) Well, let me explain. The term "plastic surgery" has been around much longer than the stuff water bottles are made of. Plastic, both the surgery and the name for the material are taken from the Greek word "Plastikos" which means "to mold" or "to shape." It was first practiced over 4,000 years ago (I can't believe that surgery existed that long ago, not to mention plastic surgery, but apparently it did) in the form of skin grafts and such.

The history of plastic surgery in the US begins in earnest around 1830, when surgeons began to repair cleft palates. After that it got a big boost from various wars, especially World War I, due to the various non-lethal injuries that soldiers sustained. There were a lot of advances in skin grafts and burn treatment at that time and in 1931 the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons was formed. After that it was pretty much history. The shift from reconstructive (repairing birth defects or injuries) to cosmetic (purely for aesthetic reasons) happened slowly but got a big boost in the 1960s and 70s. Nowadays when you say plastic surgery most people (well, at least, I) think Hollywood glamor/beautification. But even though the glamor aspect is probably more common, the repair aspect is still important and still practiced.

As I was looking up the various types of surgery offered, I realized that the idea of beauty and glamor is pretty subjective. I was amazed to learn that among other things, plastic surgeons can

• Turn your outtie bellybutton into an innie (But not the other way around. Interesting sidenotes that I learned about bellybuttons: Did you know that there really is no reason for it to be one way or the other? The doctor can't make it be an innie or outie when you are born by tying or cutting the umbilical cord a certain way. Actually, tying is a myth. They put a little plastic clamp on it after they cut it to stop any residual bleeding and then they just let the cord fall off on its own. This usually takes about a week or so, but it can actually stay put for 3 months or more! About 85% of people are outties but nobody really knows why)
• Etch a six pack on your abdomen,
• Enhance your calf with implants (Is the plural of that calves? Is that confusing to anyone else?)
• Shorten your second toe if it is bigger than your big toe (or if you just happen to think it's too long. Whatever)
  
• Implant hair from your head into your eyelashes
  
• Fork your tongue
• Make your ears pointy like an elf (also pin your ears back if you were born with pointy ones that stick out)
  
• Create dimples if you don't have them
• Bedazzle your eyeball (seriously, they implant a little jewel just under the conjunctival layer of the eye...because, you know, that wouldn't be at all irritating. Can you imagine allergy season? Ugh!),
• Create a permanent nose piece for your glasses!(This is actually more of a piercing but it was so interesting that I had to include it here.)

It is also possible to alter people's Asian eyes to make them look less "ethnic", which understandably upsets quite a few people, and fill in holes in your ears from piercing. I think I would have that done because I never wear earrings anyway as I am allergic to most of them. You know, if I had extra money lying around. So pretty much I am going to go through life with holes in my ears :) I can live with that.


I used to be very opposed to plastic surgery (At least for aesthetic reasons. Cleft palate repair is a different story), but now I am not so sure. I mean, I would still say that eyeball bedazzling and tongue forking are on my list of surgeries that should never be done, but I am somewhat less opposed to other procedures. I think this is because I just recently realized that one of my nostrils is bigger than the other. Really. It's kind of weird. I always hated school pictures because when I got them back it looked like I was flaring my nostrils, or you could see up one of them, or sadly, in one picture you could see a shiny rim of snot around the edge. I never figured out that the problem was with my nostrils and not the photographer until after I was out of school. Though if I had caught it earlier I could have avoided the head tilt they always make you do that just ended up emphasizing the larger nostril!

Anyway, after realizing this, I am more sympathetic to people who are self conscious about certain aspects of their appearance and I can understand their desire to change those things. I still don't know if I would ever change my nose, because I feel like it is a part of my heritage. My grandpa on my mom's side gave it to me and I have grown rather fond of it, large nostrils and all :)

But I do think that celebrities should be limited in the procedures they have, or be forced to disclose them. (Maybe not the embarrassing ones. There are lots of those and I have refrained from mentioning them here. But if you are curious look up labiaplasty on wikipedia.) Anyway, I think that this would serve two purposes. The first is that it would prevent things like this from happening:

(Love MJ, but the nose makes me sad.) The second reason is that it would prevent the rest of us from feeling bad about ourselves and our imperfections. For example, celebrities who have had children and sell ab workout videos would be forced to disclose their tummy tucks so that the rest of us wouldn't have such unrealistic expectations. (I'm sorry, but once your skin is stretched out like that, only one person in a million can go back to a flat six pack without the help of a surgeon. If you happen to be that person, congratulations, but don't try to sell me on ideals that I will never reach.)

So there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about plastic surgery. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my beauty rest. It's a lot cheaper than plastic surgery : )

As Promised

Well, I am back from vacation and have been for awhile but I am just now getting around to updating the blog. Funny how when you have basically nothing to do you get basically nothing done. You would think that the few things on your "to-do" list would get crossed off pretty quickly but you'd be surprised. Hence the delay in posting, despite having been home for two and a half weeks now. Anyway, as promised, here are some beautiful (well, sort of... I am not really a great photographer) pictures of Island Park Idaho.

Here is some beautiful Idaho wildlife

Ha Ha! Just kidding. That would be my brother Scott messing around with the camera. Please don't tell me you can see the family resemblance :)

This one is my brother Kyle, covered in dust after taking the 4-wheeler to the top of a mountain

These are my roommates (:)) enjoying a kayak (or kyack according to the rental brochure) trip down the Big Springs river. Don't let the jovial smile fool you: Dad later tipped mom's kayak over while she was still in it. Too bad he didn't count on it upsetting his balance and dumping him into the icy river too :)

Me and my sunburned self. The coloring on my shoulder is not a camera trick. I really did get burnt.

A view from the Big Springs river

Some real Idaho wildlife. I really wish I were a better photographer. At least there aren't any random old people in this one though :)

Sunset in the woods

Some blurry wildflowers. I took lots of pictures of wildflowers but a) pictures don't really do them justice and b) my pictures especially don't do them justice. I didn't find the little flower symbol button on my camera that is specifically for taking pictures of flowers until I got home :(

This is a little river that we had to go around on the 4-wheelers.

And that is pretty much it picture wise. We also went into Yellowstone park and swam in the Firehole river, which is fed by geysers and so is not freezing (I highly recommend it), drove to the top of Sawtelle mountain and enjoyed the cold, windy view, almost ran into a moose on a 4-wheeler (I mean I was on the 4-wheeler. The moose crossed the road in front of me), saw much wildlife including the moose, bats, a frog, bald eagles, a buffalo, elk, rabbits, fish, and some bugs, and overall just relaxed and had a great time. Now its back to the grind... for everyone else. I am kind of on permanent vacation until I find a job. So its back to the hunt for me!

Vacation

First off, let me just say that for a place as beautiful as Island Park Idaho, I am surprised at how few good pictures there are of the place. Perhaps I will have to try to remedy that this week, since that is where I will be. Hooray!


Seriously, this was one of the better pictures I could find. And there are random old people in it. So you will just have to use your imagination and pretend that it's me in the picture. Or maybe just that there aren't random old people in it. In the meantime I will try to remember to take a few good pictures while I am gone to post later.

I will also have to post about my mad dash to graduation, plastic surgery (in general, I mean. I haven't had any. Though a week in a bathing suit might be all the convincing I need...), and the dumb project I started. I should have plenty of time to do that when I get back, being as how I am now unemployed: )
In the meantime, enjoy your week. I know I will!!

Procrastination

So this is just a short post to say that I never do seem to learn my lesson about procrastination. I have known for a few weeks now that I would be in Logan on Aug 3rd (Um yeah, tomorrow) to give a presentation for my final class before I graduate, but have I let anybody know about this? Have I given anyone time to plan on me coming? Of course not. And my logic is really stupid too because I think to myself, "well, I don't want to inconvenience anybody or make them feel like they have to let me visit them, so I will just tell them later." It's moments like these that I think I wouldn't be surprised if USU decided I was too dumb to let graduate and maybe make me take a few more communication classes or something. It might not be a bad idea.

At any rate, I will be in a presentation meeting from probably 3-6 or so but after that I am free for a few hours before I have to drive back home. So if anyone a) reads this before then, b) is not already busy and c) wants to see me then give me a call and I would love to see you. I am not really sure who is there this time of year except a few people, so just give me a call. And no pressure. I may finally learn my lesson about procrastination.

Speaking of which, I received a question about plastic surgery, oh, about a month ago and still haven't gotten around to answering it. But I promise I will. Eventually :)

If I'd have known it would take that long I would have adopted!

Well, I am happy to report that I survived the rest of the rain. And so far the heat hasn't seemed to affect my brain too much either. I was tempted to try to bake cookies using only the heat inside my car after seeing it done by Primary Children's Medical Center as a way to teach parents not to leave their kids in the car. But I am far too impatient to wait 2-3 hours for chocolate chip cookies. Instead I decided to read up on avocados.

Here is a picture of the avocado plant I started growing. (Its the tall one. The vine-y one at the bottom is apparently a begonia. I highjacked the pot from my mom. Mostly because I didn't think the avocado would grow.)

Much to my surprise (which shouldn't really be a surprise at all considering the fact that seeds were made to go into the dirt and grow into plants) it grew. And grew some more until it grew a stalk and some leaves. I was very pleased by all this because the conventional wisdom on growing avocados is that you have to stick toothpicks into the avocado and suspend it over a mason jar filled with a solution of water, French truffles (which are not chocolate...that's another story), and platypus egg yolk. Then, if by some miracle your avocado pit sprouts, you can pot it in a mix of Saharan sand, Scottish peat, and crab guano and grow it in a temperature controlled greenhouse at approximately 2,147 feet above sea level. In other words, it's an arduous process. Which explains why they can charge a dollar for a tiny, unripe avocado at the grocery store, I suppose.

So anyway, I was really happy when all I had to do was stick the pit straight from the avocado into some garden variety potting soil and voila: Avocado tree. With visions of delicious ripe avocado dancing in my head I took to the internet to determine how long it might take for the tree to bear fruit. Now, keep in mind that I am aware that I am impatient, but I was not expecting miracles here. I'm thinking a minimum of 2-3 years before the little sappling pictured above gets big enough to hold fruit without snapping itself in half. And I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is 15 years!!!!

Really? I can't even sign onto a two year cell phone contract or live in one apartment for more than nine months at a time! How am I supposed to care for a glorified houseplant until I'm 39 years old!?! I didn't sign up for this. I mean, if I wanted that kind of comittment I would have adopted. At least kids start doing impressive things before they turn 15. All my friends' kids are about a year old and they're already crawling and eating solid food. Is it too much to ask for an avocado tree to pick up the pace a little?

Actually there is one other option. It involves stem cells and a trip to Madagascar...Just kidding. It is almost that involved though. Apparently you can graft branches from a mature avocado tree (which are obviously very plentiful in Utah) onto the slowpoke tree and get fruit after about 3-4 years. From what I have heard about grafting it is not a job for a layperson, which means that I would have to pay a professional to do it, which means that in addition to being faster, adoption would likely be cheaper too!

For now I think I will just let it battle it out with the begonia. If all else fails I can just leave it with my mom (something you really can't do with kids, adopted or not). She has too much guilt to intentionally kill a plant so she might just keep it around for another 15 years. If so, you all are invited to my 40th birthday party. I'll be making a killer guacamole.

Curiosity, Kitten, Doesn't Have to Mean You're On Your Own (unless you are busted for growing drugs.Then I'm outta here.)

Sometimes I worry about my own curiosity. Most of the time I think of it as a sort of hyperactive aspect of my personality that occasionally leads me to say or do odd things. Things like sticking an avocado pit into one of my mom's flower pots to see if it would grow (which I am happy to report it is and I am thrilled about the prospect of homegrown avocados, in a few years of course.) Kind of quirky, but I can live with that. But sometimes, such as following my latest experiment, I worry for my health and or safety and freedom.

This June has been rather more wet and rainy than in recent years, which everybody seems to have an opinion about. I don't really care one way or the other, though I am hoping to get a few good swimming days in sometime this summer. At any rate, the rain has led to some prolific plant growth in the backyard and this has lead to some curiosity (or stupidity) on my part. One plant species especially caught my interest, though not for its bright pink petals.

We have some poppies in the backyard that have been there forever without me taking too much notice of them, other than steering clear of their dark black polleny centers that stain your fingers and clothes. (And when it comes to staining clothes, I am enough of a slob/klutz on my own that I don't need any outside help, thank you.) However, this year these giant pink poppies caught my eye because they reminded me of a film we watched in my "Drugs and Human Behavior" class fall semester.

The film was about the opium trade in Afghanistan and (you tell me if this is a good or bad thing to show in a classroom setting) they actually demonstrate the way that opium is harvested. Now, because I know that most of you probably have a better handle on your curiosity than I do, I will tell you that you basically take the center of the poppy inside the petals and make a few horizontal slices to it, at which point it starts oozing plant gunk. After a few days the gunk dries andthe Afghans scrape it off and collect it into little balls of sap. Then, when they need some pain relief/a fix they just pinch off a tiny bit and eat it. All of this was shown in the film, which makes me think that the class might more appropriately have been titled "Drugs: A How-To Guide for Human Addiction Behavior." (Incidently, in this same class we also learned that various drug education programs, such as DARE, have a pretty lousy track record of preventing drug use and may actually increase students' curiousity about drugs. Now there's irony for you.)

So when I saw the poppies this year I got a little curious. First I just wondered if they were the same kind of poppies they have in Afghanistan and if they would bleed opium sap. I wasn't so much concerned with the actual opium as with the harvest process. So I thought I would test it out. And sure enough the stupid black pollen stained my hands and clothes. Oh and also the poppies did bleed some sort of sap and I though that was pretty interesting, because it makes you wonder why we don't hear about the police raiding poppy farms in the US.

So up to this point, my curiosity is pretty much at its normal level and I was just weirdly slicing a few poppies in the backyard. No big deal. It's not like I am going to harvest it and sell it or anything. And since I am not a drug addict and have no plans to be one I wasn't going to eat it either. So I pretty much left it at that. I checked it a few days later and saw that it had indeed hardened into a tacky sap, as was demonstrated in the video. With the experiment over I went inside and made a sandwich and being the klutz that I am I promptly sliced my finger. And being the overly curious person that I am I decided that, although completely unintentional, this kitchen mishap provided a perfect opportunity to test the poppy juice. This is where most people would rationally say to themselves, "Hmm, I have an open wound that could be subject to infection. Should I rub backyard plant sap into it or try the neosporin instead? I think I will go with the neosporin." Wise choice, but unfortunately not the one that I made. Oh no, not at all the one that I made.

It is only now as I look back that I realize how stupid this was. Not only was I going to put plant guts all over an open wound, the plant guts could contain opium, a controlled substance in the United States, if I remeber correctly from my "How to Be A Drug Dealer" class. This means that theoretically I could be charged for possessing it. As I said, I worry that my curiosity is a danger to me sometimes. It's as if it takes over the rational part of my brain that says, "Lindsey, you are not a drug addict. Keep it that way." So I merrily rubbed the plant gunk into my fresh wound.

The good news about my curiosity problem is that I generally learn from my mistakes pretty quickly. It only took me one time of exploding an egg in the microwave to learn not to put raw uncracked eggs in the microwave. And it only took about ten seconds of burning, stinging pain to go wash the poppy juice out of my wound and put some neosporin on it.

The bad news is that sometimes you don't get a chance to learn from your mistakes. I realized this as I was contemplating the field of mushrooms that has also popped up in the backyard as of late. I started wondering if they were edible and if I could use the internet to identify them. I was nearly to the point of formulating recipes before the rational me stepped in and said, "Are you crazy? People die from eating poisonous wild mushrooms and even the experts can have a hard time telling which ones are edible. Plus, the dog uses the backyard as his own personal bathroom. Do you really want to be eating the fungus that pops up back there? Go finish your sandwich and stick to the avocado experiments."

I am thinking that maybe it would be good for my health if the rain started clearing up soon, before the beanstalk gets climb-able.

Favorite Things

Fact: There is not much going on in my life, at least that I can write about.
Fact: There are not a lot of pictures on my blog.
Fact: This makes for a very boring blog.

To remedy this, I decided to post some random pictures of things that I like and that make me happy. Maybe they will make you happy too. Or at least relieve some boredom.


These are California Poppies. They also grow in Seattle, which is where I first saw them, and in Utah. I like them because they are basically weeds in that they grow pretty much anywhere, but they are more pretty than your typical weed. I love the bright bright orange color. And they're not like other poppies with papery petals that fall off in a day. They actually last quite a while.


This is a Slurpee. The Epitome of Summer. If you have never had one you haven't really lived. If you live in the South, I am very sorry for you. They do not exist there. I will cry for you.



This is a water garden. I think if I wasn't born human, I would have been a frog (which would really have freaked out my mom), and if I believed in reincarnation that is what I would strive for in my next life. I really love water and like to spend as much time in the water as possible. I don't swim so much as I doggy paddle, and I prefer non chlorinated bodies of water. Someday I will have a water garden of my own. With frogs, of course.
These are the Seychelles. They are an island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean and someday I will visit them. They are really bio-diverse and super cool in that they are 1,000 miles from the nearest continent and yet are made up of continental rock, rather than volcanic rock. Also, they are beautiful.

This is Scientific American Frontiers, where I probably first heard about the Seychelles. (I'm sure it was a PBS special of some sort anyway.) This man has my dream job. Basically he goes out and learns about all the cool scientific advancements and research, interviews the scientists, tests the theories, and sums it up for the average viewer in 60 minutes or less. I like watching it and dreaming that someday Alan Alda will retire and give me his job.


These are the Counting Crows. My all time favorite band. (I know, I am stuck in the nineties, but hey, it was a good decade!) I wish they would tour in Utah. In the meantime, I will just have listen to some old classics. You should too. I highly recommend them.

These are real life mermaids. Really. They live (and work) in Florida and put on a show every day, which I will someday watch. So you know how I tell people that I want to be an undercover mermaid in the Atlantic Ocean and they think its a joke and that such a job doesn't exist and laugh at me? Well look who's laughing now!

These are books. I like to read. I especially love when I find a really really great book. This happened quite frequently in Logan, where the library is awesome. In Springville, this is not the case, even though Springville is a bigger city than Logan. I don't know what gives, but it got me to thinking. Why isn't there a Netflicks for books? Wouldn't that be the most awesome thing ever? I would most definitely subscribe. (And yes, I know that is the basic idea behind a library, but it is also the same idea behind video rental stores and netflicks still succeeded.)

Anyway, hope that spiced up your day a little bit, or at least stimulated your eyes somewhat. If you would like to stop being subjected to boring posts by me, please leave me a suggestion for what you would like me to write about in the comments. Thankyoucomeagain.

M&M Evolution

So since not a whole lot is going on with me, other than finishing school and moving home and getting an internship at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (I guess that is a lot, but there really isn't a lot more to say about it), I decided that I would post this link about M&Ms because it was so funny it made me laugh out loud. It reminded me of a game my siblings and I used to play with gummy bears when we were little in which we would stretch them out while counting as fast as we could until they broke. The number at which they broke was their "age" and we always felt really bad for the ones that only lived till like 17. Maybe we should have mailed the oldest ones to the gummy bear factory. We might have gotten some free gummies out of it.
Anyway, here it is. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
http://naurunappula.com/z/72813/

And amazingly I passed all my classes this semester so now I am just 400 unpaid internship hours away from graduation. After all this I really feel no need to ever run a marathon.