363/365

this time last year i decided that i was actually going to make a new years resolution. this was big. this was huge. don't get me wrong, i make goals, i tend to write them in dry erase on my bathroom mirror and erase them as i knock them out of the park- but new year's resolutions, not my thing.


but last year i decided that i would wear makeup everyday for one year and make it my new year's resolution.

see, proof i wear makeup.

you see, i sell high end cosmetics for a living. i can tell you the shade name, retail price, shipping weight, our price, and a decent description of every item that we carry. don't worry that we have over 600 listings on ebay, over 50 shades of lip gloss alone. i am pretty good at cosmetics, however, wearing them and knowing how to wear them is something else...



i like clothes and accessories. i am known for my extensive banana republic wardrobe and amazing assortment of stilettos. i always know what i was going to wear, but i never put much thought into my hair or makeup. i decided this should change.

i figured out how to photograph my crazy eye, don't include it! (oh, but i did leave in my scar from eye surgery) thank you banana, for this eye covering fedora for $3.74

now that it is december 31st, 2010, i can officially say that i succeeded at my first ever new year's resolution. i wore some form of makeup everyday (except for the two days i spent in lake powell) of 2010. and since it is the last day of the year, i decided to go out with a bang. i am wearing mascara (and it is not sunday), and i even added in a few smashbox false lashes.

there is a reason i rarely do self portraits, it just doesn't work for me... modeling that is...

so how do i feel it turned out? i think it went pretty well. i actually had a short lived romance and went on dates with a few other guys this year. that blows my semi annual dates of years past out of the water. i guess boys do like makeup, so stop lying that you like it when girls don't wear it.

we were always made to be zorbing together

Last week i was showing my friend Rachel my photos from New Zealand. When i got to the ones of zorbing she got super excited and made me listen to this song, needless to say i am hooked and have listened to it about 25 times. (who knew someone had written a song about how two people were made to zorb together, precious).

Zorbing: you do a running dive into a soft plastic ball that has a few inches of warm water in it. They then push you down a zig zag track that is cut out of a hill. If you have amazing acrobatic talents like Lynsey, you will get so rambunctious that you will bounce yourself out of the zig zag track and all the way across the hill. Then you get turned upside down and birth yourself out. weird.

some of us 'birth' a little more attractively than others...

case and point

Though we could have gone rafting instead of zorbing and gone down a 7 meter waterfall, I am pretty happy with my choice of being tossed to and fro like a hamster. We also did one ride with three people. As you can guess it was basically a lot of arms and legs flying every which way.

she got to go down with the two of us, we got all sorts of personal with our limbs flying...

I also found out that they now have a Zorb in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Yes, Sarah and Luke, I am taking your kids on this during one of my next visits. (okay it might have to wait a while, there are height requirements...)

classy

I always like to think of myself as a classy gal. I pride myself in the outfits i create on a daily basis and that i do classy things like seal letters with wax. I enjoy old movies and a good book. I love the way food looks when it is dished up neatly on a plate. I am classy.

However, after looking through all my photos from New Zealand I realized that I make a LOT of unfortunate, less than classy, faces.

And I wonder why I am single...

getting ready to go caving

this is what happens after 30 hrs of travel

lynsey sat on me on the rope swing and i got a rope burn on my thigh, go figure.

okay so i don't look that bad, but Lynsey's face is priceless.

that is what i thought of the stinky boiling mud.

Tim Tam Slam!

nighttime antics.

and my super amazing outfit that i hiked 8 hours in. I didn't know we were hiking and neglected to pack decent hiking attire...

utah hair? in new zealand?

once again another swing accident.

a tim tam thanksgiving

I have fallen in love with many a thing while i have been in New Zealand, so much so, i may never come back to the states. 

one of these newly found wonders is:

Tim Tam cookies

It is actually a Australian creation but i discovered it in New Zealand so i will leave it with that. It is pretty amazing and you can do what they like to call 'the tim tam slam' where you bite the ends off of the cookie and sip hot chocolate through it, then you slam the cookie in your mouth before it melts/disolves. This sounds like a winner of an activity. If i like you enough, you may be one of the few that is invited over for a tim tam slam night (since i will of course be bringing some back since i have ample room in my baggage as my last post indicated.)

In honor of Thanksgiving, i decided to be glutenous with Tim Tams instead of the usual pie (BUT i still need a pie fix, i am thinking i can only safely make it two weeks without the pie i was due today). We also had a turkey dinner, i think by accident, but however it came about, i appreciated it.

And in the true Thanksgiving spirit, here are the things i am currently grateful for (just some, not all of course):

-my hilarious family that is always a fountain of good stories
-a good job that lets me take paid vacations, a good brother named levi would go along with those too
-milo, especially when he wears a sweater and falls asleep on me at work
-tim tams and pie
-education and the fact that i enjoy learning/reading/school
-friends, the good kind that stick around forever
-boys, even if they don't like you back, having crushes is at least entertaining/fun/funny
-home furnishings, the more i apartment shop the more i appreciate good furniture/bedding/linen
-food, all of it (except mushrooms and olives, they are always a bad decision)
-and last but not least, i am thankful that i am happy.

In other news from my trip: i of course had a tiny mishap involving water, long jumping, mud, and my iPhone.

you can probably figure out what happened, but when i get a better internet connection i will add a photo...

packing minimalist

Lets go over my last few hours, shall we?

6:15pm rush home from the dog park with Milo to make it to ward temple night

6:30 decide the line is too long at the provo temple so we drive to the mt. timpanogoes temple.

6:50 arrive at timp to find out they are randomly closed. EPIC FAIL.

7:00 start writing my research paper on Robert Capa (who i may or may not be totally in love with, only if you were still alive, young, and tweezed your eye brows, this could be a beautiful love affair)

8:00 bake cookies to keep me awake

10:00 shower (third day in a row, this is a record. seriously.)

10:30 take a cat nap

11:20 back to Capa

1:00am eat more cookies, drink more coke

3:30 FINISHED my paper

3:31 second cat nap

5:03 edit my Communal

6:45 get dressed/ready?

7:00 finish packing

7:25 go to the library to print off my paper 

7:59 turn in my paper, before the 8am deadline

8:03 go the print lab, print Communal images

8:45 edit Harley Davidson images

9:00 turn in prints and edits

9:30 go to work

11:00 leave for airport

and that is why when i first started packing my suitcase looked like this:

I mean who wants to actually pack after a hellish night like that?!

I have the necesities. 

      Camera (actually two with a few lens etc)

                                                         underwear

                                                                    passport

yup, got it all covered.

Okay, so i did pack a little more. I did add a few shirts, one skirt, my trusty Chacos, running attire, and toiletries. BUT i am still a packing minimalist. When i got to the airport i realized that my bag has tons of extra space, like a lot, like i could fit a small child in there too. does this mean i am forgetting something important?

oh well. i guess that is why God put stores in New Zealand too.

on a different note:

please admire this image that is on the inside of my super industrial camera bag.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

I, unfortunately, do not have any whitey tighties that are hot and steamy, right out of the drier to pack.

well that about sums up my: paper, photography, editing, blogging, working, coke drinking, cookie baking, temple going, dog chasing- day.

now i am off to L.A. (currently i am in Denver), then Auckland, and then Wellington. good think i just recently became one of those people that is dead to the world 15 minutes before take off. (but the flight from SLC to Denver scared the living daylights out of me, i was so out of it that when the plane took off i couldn't remember where I was and about crapped my pants when the plane shot in the air...)

Davises go all the way

apparently my last post inspired my sister to send me this paper that she wrote for a family history class. to prove that i was also part of this adventure, i decided to add the photos.

Davises Go All the Way

-written by Sarah Davis Bollschweiler

Snow. The Myrtle Beach Marathon was officially cancelled. Would-be runners sulked around the Sheraton Hotel lobby in yoga pants and Chaco sandals, their tanned faces creased with disappointment---some even with rage. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” one pony-tailed woman ranted. “I drove all the way from North Carolina for this?!” 

(jojo was THIS excited about the cancelation)

“That must have been an inconvenience,” my brother smirked. “I had quite a time getting here too. You see, I set out from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, two days ago, flew to Raleigh (my original flight here being cancelled with all this crazy weather), slept all night on the floor of the airport, hopped in a rental car and drove ten hours to Pennsylvania to get my sister who was snowed in, sawed up the thirty-foot fallen tree blocking her driveway, and drove all day to get her here in time for her first marathon. We’re a little disappointed too.” 

As absurd as his ordeal sounded when he recounted it, Aaron relished the opportunity to share it with someone---even this stranger (now looking quite bewildered) ---because if there’s one trait he values above all, it is persistence, an attribute thoroughly saturating the Davis gene pool. In our family, when you do something you go all the way. 

Maybe the original source of our thoroughly thorough behavior is my mom: how a woman with ten children could have the most immaculate kitchen cupboards in town (not a stray grain of sugar to be found) still mystifies me. We knew that when she asked us to clean the bathroom, she meant CLEAN the bathroom; so while all the other kids in the world (if they even had to clean a bathroom at all) haphazardly squirted 409 here and there and gave the counters a quick swipe, we were supposed to bring our bathroom up to hospital sanitation standards. Of course, Mom’s perfectionism had its perks too, especially when it came to cooking. We knew that while other moms might call tossing a frozen chicken pot pie in the oven “making dinner,” our mother would always make something delicious from scratch. No gluey instant potatoes or crumbly cake mixes at our house... no way.

(Joseph Dyer was not involved in the B17 incident, he is part of another article)

My dad’s stick-to-it-iveness exceeded even my   mother’s, his life driven by an obsession that began in his youth. As a boy he dreamed of airplanes, read all he could find about them, and even almost succeeded in stealing a four-engine B-17 in his rebellious teenage years in a failed attempt at running away (a secret kept from my mom for decades). Nothing---not even my grandfather’s attempt to reform him after the B- 17 episode---could keep my dad from his dream. In adulthood he acquired an airplane in a more legitimate (although still unconventional) fashion: he designed built his own from scratch. His Starship Alpha, a boomerang-shaped single-seater, was modeled after Jack Northrop’s flying wings of the 1940’s. (I suppose Dad decided that since he was doing something crazy like building his own airplane, he may as well build one with some style.) Most of my early childhood memories of Dad involve his airplane: hearing him talk about it, driving to the airport to see him work on the airplane in his hangar, watching him fly it, and bragging to my friends that my dad had made the cover of Popular Mechanics (as if they—or even I, for that matter---really knew what that meant).

As Davis kids, we learned by example what it meant to see something through to the end, whether it was something as simple as baking a cake or as complex as building an airplane, and though all ten of us kids have a bit of persistence built into us, Aaron seems to have been given a double portion. I remember, for example, watching him at age twelve or so spend months building a two-story playhouse for us kids, doing almost all the planning and work by himself. So when Aaron promised my sister Jenny he would be there for her first marathon, he meant he would be there beside her for the whole 26.2 miles, no matter what.

On that snowy morning in Myrtle Beach, while most other runners slept off the beer they had sorrowfully drunk the night before, Aaron readied himself for the race. For him, hardship made the event all the more important, and since he’d come this far, by golly, no “official cancellation” could stop him. Instead of filling out the standard “medical information” required on the back of his race bib, he scribbled with a sharpie in large capital letters: “Shoot a flaming arrow through my heart and float me on a barge out to sea.” Then he pinned the number to his breast, ingested his final energy gel, and knocked on the door of my sister’s room. He was ready to escort Jenny though the streets of Myrtle Beach, whether anyone else showed up or not.

With Aaron by her side, Jenny covered her first ever 26.2. He cheered her on, told her the kind of stupid jokes only brothers can tell, waved at drivers who honked in camaraderie, ran ahead to build snowmen and throw snowballs. The rest of us (no Davis event is sparsely attended) followed in my minivan, stopping occasionally to hand out Gatorade and snacks. My husband and I even ran the second half of the race along with Jenny. But Aaron was there every step of the way, and four and a half hours after the official Davis family marathon began he escorted his little sister across the finish line because he is Davis, and Davises go all the way.

if i die, send me out on a barge with flaming arrows

my family: we are intense. i have been told i am intense more than once but then i realized that i per say, am not intense, but my family and my growing up are.

we are intense for a number of reasons but my personal favorites are endurance/pain tolerance/athletics.

though i may not be the most shining example of a true athlete, i can always pretend, right?


meet my family:

first, of course, there is my Dad.

really, he should have been in the circus. i never got to witness his super human strength first hand, but he did like to talk about all of his conquest like:

-walking off a 40 foot platform on his hands to dive into a hot springs
-walking on his hands down flights of stairs at BYU
-tightrope walking between two buildings at BYU
-doing a giant (when you flip all the way around a bar with your body straight) on the free bars in gymnastics (too bad he didn't mean to do the giant and ended up flying off the bar and landing on his head on the hardwood floor..)
-balancing his body between two chair backs, one under his neck and one under his heels
-building his own jet ski in high school (the 50's)
-riding his motorcycle down as many flights of stairs as he could find at BYU
-surviving a major plane accident is pretty impressive too.
      -okay all of his plane stuff was impressive, stealing a B17 bomber at 17, making the cover of Popular     Mechanics... you name it, it was impressive

then there are other members of my family:

meet Aaron or Thor as he likes to be called

(if only i had the photo of him standing on a mountain in garbage bag 'jacket' downing the can of easy cheese... oh he also had a gotee, yes, it was just as gross as you imagined. no, worst than imagined.)

-this summer he became an IRON MAN! go Thor! he only lost a few toenails, and sadly it was before the race began

-he was on the National Guard marathon team

-has qualified for the Boston Marathon more than once

-hikes 50 milers like no ones business

he is also known for completing adventures that most, sane?, people would have stopped. Like the one time with the dangerous zip line, or the hike into Loon Lake that was hellish battle against the ungroomed trail with a mountain bike on his back, or our families personal favorite: the freak flash flood at Loon Lake that left Aaron with 5 younger siblings walking through ice water and hallucinating. 

Then there are the runners:

Jenny and Sarah are ROCKSTARS

Jenny:

-don't worry that she has TWO kids and still has a freaking six pack. rockstar

-she also completed her first marathon even though the official race was canceled due to a freak snow storm in Myrtle Beach, SC

-at her first official marathon she qualified for Boston! Huzzah, that is how a Davis does it.

Sarah:

-last summer, at the Wasatch Back Relay, Sassy passed runners left and right even though he had a serious baby bump going on

-she also recently qualified for Boston with Jenny

-she and her husband Luke (who also just qualified for Boston) were named the 'Fastest Couple in Knoxville, TN'

-she consistently runs through her pregnancies until she is about to pop that sucker out

Next we have Levi:

-he used to go to Utah to compete in rock climbing contests when he was still in high school. he won a lot too (not to mention he turned his bedroom into a rock climbing room...)

-he builds longboards and has had his few brushes with death (like crashing so bad that the road cut through his leather jacket)

oh mallory... darling mallory...

-LOOK AT THAT SIX PACK! i love that even when she was little mallory was pretty rock solid

-she played soccer for years, though this image doesn't show her talent, it does show her personality...

-always on the 'A' team for volleyball

-set records left and right for the triple jump

Mike may look laid back, but he is pretty intense too, just look at the sweet surfing injury

-mike thinks that the right job is the one that allows you to go surfing on your lunch break. he has taught both lynsey and mallory how to surf, if i move to LA i assume i will be next.

-he also did the Wasatch Back relay and a Mud Run in LA

the Champion of the family:

my brother in law lane is not only an avid runner but was part of the World Class Athlete Program for the Army. He even went to the Olympic trials. (He also won a slue of races but I, for the life of me, can't remember the names...)

he also had the mile record at South Jr. High for over 20 years at just over 5 minutes

S'Lynsey or Rynsey...

This one time lynsey got: Scarlet Fever, strep, croup, and staph all at the same time, needless to say it kind of messed her up BUT she still played soccer, did cross country, track and is the most flexible of the bunch. She can do the splits or a scorpion at any given time. oh my rubber sister.

though i don't have any images of her kicking butt at limbo, i think that going to aerobics that Richard Simmons teaches is pretty amazing. he liked to call her and her friends skanks. apparently it is a term of endearment coming from good old 'sweatin to the oldies' simmons.

and these were the people that I had images for. there of course, are more.

Mary: 

my teachers in high school were still talking about Mary when I was in their classes 17 years later. She was a pretty impressive volleyball player and the like.

Katie:

at the age of 12 Katie won State for gymnastics. She also did track and volleyball.

She is also a personal trainer and we (my six sisters and i) have unanimously agreed that if all 7 of us got in a fight she would reign supreme. 

noting is more attractive than recovering from ankle reconstructive surgery.

 

my 18th birthday, the same day i had cartilage removed from my hip

And then there was me, the tithing child.

i like to think that i am athletic. i played: soccer, volleyball, basketball, tennis, track, and was on the ski team. But alas, due to a few incredible soccer injuries i had hip, knee and ankle surgery by the time i reached the ripe age of 18. 

could i have been way more awesome if i hadn't been hurt?!

well, i am trying to live up to my family and have started running again. i do not love it on days like today when it is a whopping 33 degrees outside, but it has to be done.

i am getting excited for Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay 2011, the Davis Flying Wings are going to be the most entertaining group around, hopefully pretty athletic too.

but, if I don't survive this winter and training, send me out on a barge with flaming arrows like a Viking.

Aaron has said over and over that we have 1000 Viking ancestors that you can call upon to complete a strenuous activity, and if they don't, well, you can go out on a barge like a Viking

i am an artist, i think this proves that.

mmm chocolate....

God made man,
                     then he made eve,
                                         and then he made the nestle chocolate chip cookie recipe
so she could make all other creatures happy.

nothing makes me more happy than pulling perfect chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and eating them while they are hot.

today being tuesday, the night biggest loser is on, it is only fitting that i finished the night off with a round of cookies. (levi told me that i need to stop watching the biggest loser since i seem to eat/make copious amounts of fatty food while i watch it, he thinks i am on the slippery slope to ending up on the show...)

you may think that i am being pompous when i say that i make the best chocolate chip cookies, however i am not. i think it is the 15 years of practice that has made me a master. thank you, levi, for making me make you cookies every sunday for years.

Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup shortening (butter flavored is the secret)
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
---cream---
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla (the more the better!)
---mix---
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
flour (i never know how much, the secret is to add an amount that makes the best dough, not sticky but still soft, you all know what good dough feels like)
an entire 12 oz bag of chocolate chips. don't skimp on the chocolate.

bake at 375 for 9-10 minutes.

take them immediately off the pan to cool so that they don't over cook on the hot pan.


now you can be as happy as i am right now. (watching albie and chris from real housewives of new jersey may also be helping...)

vigilante justice

In 2006, a survey of nearly 2,000 BYU students revealed the following percentages relating to different problems in their BYU Off-Campus Housing

Today I met with BYU Housing for about the billionth time about issues I had with my landlord a couple years back. They actually liked what I said and want me to work with their office to create a document that will be handed to every student when they move into a BYU approved unit. (my description of it is near the end).

Here is what my 15 minutes of fame in the Housing Department meeting consisted of:

Thank you for letting me come and talk to you today. Since I have not met many of you let me briefly introduce myself. My name is Bethany Davis and I am from Boise Idaho and the youngest of ten. My parents met at BYU in the sixties and all of my siblings have attended BYU over the last 22 years. I am a BFA student in the Photography department and will be graduating in 2012.

Craig Thomas asked me to come in today to describe my experience with living in off campus housing and how this housing’s office failures to enforce and oversee housing concerns between students and landlords forced me to seek vindication in court.

In May of 2007 I moved into a fairly large complex with around 120 units, each with 4 tenants. I knew that when I moved in that the complex was large and the involvement of management would be different than with a small complex or house, but I had never anticipated the problems that arose.

Early on in my tenancy I began to be frustrated with the way management ran the complex and voiced my concerns to them. It was not uncommon for the management to violate the terms of our housing contracts and in effect trespass by coming into our apartment without proper notice or no notice at all. When we did request maintenance it could take weeks, if they ever came, and the work that was done was shotty to say the least. The apartment was not cleaned thoroughly before my roommates and I moved in, leaving us to clean copious amounts of hair out of our carpet and take a load of items that were not ours to DI. My landlord was also abrasive from the beginning and once called me just to tell me that my roommates would hate me when they moved in. As time went on the problems only escalated.

In August of 2008 I returned from a vacation to find that my front door lock had been changed. There had been a notice placed on my door that said, “stop by the office today to pick up a new key, we are changing the locks.” I called the office to see if they could let me in but they were closed and the automated message said that if you are locked out it is not an emergency and not to contact the emergency number, because of this I had to frantically find a place to sleep at 1:30 in the morning. It was between semesters and many people were out of town. I did not know any girls in my complex so my only option was to sleep on my brother’s floor even though that is against housing rules.

The next morning I went to the office to confront Donnetta Knight, the manager, about the lack of notice for changing the locks. I knew that Utah mandates that the tenants are given written or verbal notice at least 24 hours before such maintenance is done. Donnetta did not seem bothered at all that she had rekeyed a building full of 20-year-old girls without warning them. This being the same summer that a rapist was on the loose in my neighborhood and we had a police officer constantly watching the area, I was even more disheartened by her actions. Seeing that she did not regard the safety of her tenants I sought help through BYU’s Housing Office.

I went to the Housing Office assuming that something could be done but instead I was asked to back down. I was told that if I filed a complaint at BYU Housing against the complex and it led to Carriage Cove losing their accreditation with the University, I would be solely responsible for making around 400 students that currently resided at Carriage Cove find new housing. The Housing Representative also informed me of what a caring person Donnetta was since they were longtime friends.

A few months later I attended the Off Campus Housing Q&A where I voiced my concerns about my landlord still feeling entitled to come into my apartment with no notice whenever she deemed fit. The representatives present asked me to speak with them after the meeting where they collected my information and informed me that they would contact the complex and call me to let me know that something had been done. After trying to follow up a few weeks later with them, they still had not contacted the complex or notified them of my complaint.

In April of 2009 I tried contacting BYU Housing one more time when things had escalated with Donnetta. She started singling me out of my roommates, blaming me for damages in common areas of the apartment and charging me alone to fix them. She also informed one of my roommates that “I don’t know who Bethany thinks she is, she has no rights. If she doesn’t fix this (regarding the ‘damage’ in the apartment) I will ruin her credit and put a hold on her academic account at BYU.” I had never paid my rent late, I was a quiet tenant and left my apartment much cleaner than I found it, and had, in my estimation, lived up to my end of our written housing contract, had respected the rights and property of Carriage Cove and had been a complying and high-caliber tenant and did not deserve this treatment. I told Craig Thomas about this encounter and the things that she said. I knew that Donnetta did not have the power to do either of the things she threatened but I do not take kindly to being threatened. While I was in his office I filed a formal complaint with BYU about the many violations Carriage Cove had committed ranging from harassment to trespassing, to endangering tenants. I then told Mr. Thomas that I would never live in a BYU approved space again because I felt that the landlords were given unlimited power by BYU and were held in higher regard than the students. To my comment he replied, “I don’t blame you,” this left me feeling even more hopeless that the situation had not and would not be being taken seriously. I then asked him what I was supposed to do about the situation and he said, “Well you can try mediation but I can already tell you Donnetta will not go, you could also take them to court. If you win, come back and let us know and we will file it as a claim being validated.”

After being left with no options from BYU other than pursuing vindication and justice via a court of law, I sued Carriage Cove on November 6^{th, 2009} for violating my privacy and disregarding the wellbeing and safety of their tenants. The Fourth District Court of Provo found my accusations to have merit and a judgment in my favor was awarded me. Carriage Cove was forced to pay my court fees and I was awarded punitive damages in the amount of $200.

Preparing for and going to court was an enlightening experience for me. It was much easier to file in the small claims court than I had anticipated and if you go in with proper documentation of your allegations you have nothing to fear. When I went to court I had a copy of my contract and the BYU Off Campus Housing Guide that had the many infractions I witnessed highlighted, a receipt that showed the actual cost of an item Donnetta claimed I broke and charged me an outrageous amount to replace, notices I had received from Carriage Cove that showed the improper amount of notice for entry given, and past and current tenants who participated on my behalf as witnesses.

Prior to having a judge hear your case you are asked to go to mediation to see if you can work out a solution without the courts. In this meeting Donnetta did not want to discuss any solution other than me dropping the case. She also claimed that she had never, in all her years, received a complaint through BYU and that she had every right to treat me like she did. While I was in the mediation room alone with the mediator, she told me that they usually do not handle cases that involve punitive damage and if the judge listened to my case instead of throwing it out I would be lucky. Apparently the judge saw my claims as substantial and choose to hear our case. In court it became apparent that Donnetta did not document anything at the complex other than contracts that are being signed. She quickly became flustered when she could not back up the answers that she gave the judge and her only defense slowly became trying to convince the judge that I was a terrible, unlikeable person that did not deserve to be treated properly. Her defense was one that had no merit, was strictly based on unsubstantiated personal option and not upon fact, nor was it corroborated by the testimony of others.

Although I found vindication in a court of law, I am not quite sure it was worth my time and energy if significant and meaningful changes are not made here within BYU’s Housing office to help support honor-code-abiding students who are mistreated by the property owners and management companies who do not follow the policies that they have signed on to as BYU-approved landlords.

Though prior to going to court I was told that this was the only way BYU would act upon my complaints, when I turned in my court verdict to this office, I was told that it would be looked into to see if they needed to do anything. From a student’s standpoint, I had assumed the time to investigate such claims were when they were happening and a court verdict means they have been deems valid by a judge and therefore merit action.

Prior to this meeting today, I had met with different members of this office at least five times detailing the problems I had witnessed at my complex and each time I was not taken seriously and left feeling frustrated with the system. I documented everything I was told to and even went the extra mile by going court. In one of those meeting I was asked if the main reason I kept coming back was because of a violation of privacy, my answer was, no, this has become something much more than lack of privacy, this is now about the rights of students. The last time I came in it was also to inform this office that Carriage Cove has made the news recently because of numerous apartments being broken into. Even worse is the fact that if you ask Carriage Cove they won’t deny that they lost a master key to the complex over a year ago and never rekeyed the buildings. This, like when I reported being locked out, comes at a time when this area of Provo was the scene to a horrendous crime where a girl was brutally raped and left for dead on the river trail only a short distance away.

I, sadly, am not an isolated case at BYU. Over the last three years, since I have been more aware of my rights as a tenant, I have heard students talk about the following things happening to them: two students never received a deposit or itemized receipt from the same landlord, one student came home to find a random maintenance man in his apartment and when he confronted the office they told him not to worry about it and blew him off, one student was charged recheck fees for cleaning checks when her apartment was cleaner than when she moved in, one student was charged $100 to replace carpet that was damaged after she moved out-by a can of gasoline that her landlord neglected to remove from the outside storage of the apartment prior to her ever living there, a landlord tried to evict a student for not paying rent when he had-they felt justified because they wanted him to pay the next months rent early, another student had his landlord burst into his apartment without knocking for cleaning checks-he was only in a towel and the people ran around him and did not even give him time or ask if he wanted to put on clothes, 4 girls were each charged over $600 each when they moved out for damages that did not exist and for storage of items that were in there apartment before they moved in.

These instances were not all at one complex but at different areas of Provo showing it happens everywhere. Though these instances were all since 2007, problems like these have been going on for years. In my family alone, this is not the first time we have had major problems with management. In 2003 my brother came to BYU to seek help after his landlord tried to evict him and his roommates without cause. They had been in constant confrontations over a number of things; his landlord came into his apartment without notice many times, vandalized my brothers property and for vengeance only lied to the honor code office that my brother was doing drugs. Though this landlord had the police called on him after he got into an altercation with a tenant and was charged with assault, this office still chose the side of the landlord who was older over my brothers despite the facts at hand.

Some of these students, like my brother, came into this office and others did not. Some of the students that have come to BYU to get resolution for problems told me that they felt more like they were coming to a counselor, a good listener, rather than someone that would enforce housing guidelines. Others said that their concerns were listened to but the person they talked with tried to get them to change their mind about the complaint because they personally knew the landlord and/or alluded to having personal financial interest in the property. Others felt that because there is no form for complaints that when they turn in a concern typed out on normal paper that it is more like a comment for a suggestion box rather than a formal document to a large organization that demands and should enforce high standards.

Students that did not come in to voice their concerns told me that they either didn’t know how since there are no forms available or that they had heard of other students not getting their problems resolved. At this point they would rather move than try to get the problems resolved through BYU. Others also did not feel comfortable complaining since they assume that BYU is constantly checking up on the complexes enforcing standards and that they must be mistaken about their landlord treating them in such a un-church-like way. Many more are choosing to completely avoid the Off Campus scene by applying for housing waivers.

I understand why this system was created. It was created to give students an environment that would uplift them spiritually and academically. It creates housing where all of the tenants have similar beliefs, are living by the same standards, and are in the same social station of life. In theory, this system is flawless. It also extends the comfort students feel in their classes at BYU into their home life. I feel that many students come to BYU with the view that BYU checks out every aspect of their college life for them. They make sure the professors are upstanding saints, that the students are abiding by the Honor Code, and that the housing has been found to also employ the standards of BYU. Unfortunately housing is only a shell; on your website it says: “The university cannot guarantee that owners and managers are employing their best efforts to maintain our standards, that all residents are complying with BYU standards, or that contracted living units meet our physical criteria.” I think it is ironic that students can be kicked out of the university for an Honor Code violation at their home, yet the apartment that they live in is not held responsible to even maintain BYU’s standards. Because of this I feel that students do not realize that they need to be in charge and seek help though the city when they have problems. Once many of them do realize there is a problem, they would generally just move instead of going as far as I did. Many of them back down after confronting their landlord because they are told that their concerns are not important to the landlord and made to feel that they are in fact the ones that have made a mistake.

When I was here last week Craig Thomas and I had brainstormed different options for mass education of the students. One that I feel would be extremely easy to implement would be to create a document that landlords are required, by BYU Off Campus Housing, to give to their tenants when they move in. This document could have the top ten things tenants need to know whether this is their first or 20^th apartment. Things that should be included would be landlord’s rights, like the right to enforce the Honor Code and Curfew at the complex etc. It should also include a number of rights of students that are currently and all too commonly violated such as when a landlord has the right to enter the premises to how long a landlord has to give back a deposit or itemized receipt. I feel that if landlords are forced to give a document with information that is worded in common terms vs. legal jargon like the contact, they would be less likely to violate those terms since many more students would realize the injustice and call them out on it earlier. If the form also had a BYU Off Campus Housing header students would feel that BYU is truly involved and if they have a problem they can contact the office. Other documents could also be mandated to be given to tenants such as a Utilities Contract should be given to every unit that does not have utilities included in rent. I, unfortunately did not know that this contract existed until I moved out of my last apartment and was still owed utilities payments by my roommates.

I understand that BYU is frustrated if students do not come to them with problems but students also get frustrated when they feel that they have to do so much to go to this university and are still not taken seriously as adults. Every time I get a new ecclesiastical endorsement I am reminded how there are fewer questions and stipulations to get a temple recommend. I only wish that my landlords also had to go through an equally rigorous interview or at least be required to follow all of the Housing Guidelines.

I thank you again for letting me come to your meeting today to voice my concerns as a student. I am more than happy to answer any questions and aid this office in any way that I can in order to resolve the concerns that fellow students and I have.

24 days and counting

only 24 more days of October.

why am i ready for this pleasant fall month filled with sweaters and pumpkin shaped reese's to be over?

because this is my line up for November:

November 1st: Sufjan Stevens concert in SLC

November 3rd: day trip to NYC for jenny's birthday

November 18-30th: NEW ZEALAND with Lynsey.

other than the part where I will never see November 19th I am pretty stoked for next month.

Always an artist.

Meet me circa 1996 or so. Don't you just loooove the bowl cut?! I know I did...

I know you were taken away with my beauty in the last image and because of this you may have failed to notice my homemade sidekick, Cynthia. Now that you and Cynthia have been formally introduced let me explain my thoughts on the arts as a child.

Art: anything that was created by you that had at least three different mediums involved. Mediums were: (basically anything I could get my hands on) most commonly paper, fabric, yarn, Sculpey Clay, and lace held together by: glue, tape, toothpicks, tread, tinfoil, pipe cleaner, or anything else deemed sticky enough.

I always considered myself quite the budding artist. As a child I used to create memorable drawings of such things as: 'The Scary Mommy,' 'A Girl Turkey Mermaid,' and 'A Girl Dinosaur in a Purple Bra.' I knew I had something going on so I started making even more creations and then telling my mom I would rip them up if she didn't buy them from me, needless to say I earned a lot of nickels. I would even line the longest hallway of our house with my work and charge my family to see the 'art gallery'.

After a few years of this I moved on to sewing and creating dolls. By now I was around 8 years old and apparently had free range of the sewing closet and the store room that was chalked full of art supplies.

My first creations were, well, how do I put this nicely... interesting. Here is one doll made of yarn and the other made of paper and tape. (I think the yarn one was me trying to emulate the corn husk dolls I had seen, why did i think corn husk and yarn were close enough to the same material?!)

Next I got a little more resourceful and the tube sock doll was invented. With this there was also progression, first a lonely head, next a full body, and last a doll that actually didn't have the seams on the outside and even had feet.

Then something magical happened in my life, I found Sculpey. Sculpey is a moldable clay that you then bake to set. This 'helped' my creations a bit but they also became fragile, hence the one poor curly headed girl that only has one foot. But then I found out that their were Sculpey molds which gave me perfect hands and feet and I could even paint the nails!

(don't you love that awesome Christmas dress with puffy sleeves?!)

Then later I skipped the whole doll thing and tried out just dresses and pillows. My sisters still give me a hard time for the large pillow. I hadn't yet figured out how to hide a sewn seam so for this pillow I found it easier just to hot glue it shut. Now my pillow has a nice hard lining :)

I can't believe I made all of these things. All of the ones that I showed here have not seen the light of day since I boxed up all my stuff when I was 16 to move in with my sister. I did come accross two lonely dolls in a box last fall when I was looking for something, and boy did they make the most wonder stocking stuffers for my sisters! I love how one of them had questioning googly eyes and the others arms were about half the width of its head. Priceless.

I can't wait to see what I am going to find when I really go through all of my stuff in a few months...

I Have Become, The Unintentional Hipster.

We all know who the 'hipsters' are. The occasional one is our friend and the others provide hours of priceless people watching.

For those who don't know what a 'hipster' is, here is part of the of the urban dictionary definition:

Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses. Both hipster men and women sport similar androgynous hair styles that include combinations of messy shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs. Such styles are often associated with the work of creative stylists at urban salons, and are usually too "edgy" for the culturally-sheltered mainstream consumer. The "effortless cool" urban bohemian look of a hipster is exemplified in Urban Outfitters and American Apparel ads which cater towards the hipster demographic. Despite misconceptions based on their aesthetic tastes, hipsters tend to be well educated and often have liberal arts degrees, or degrees in maths and sciences, which also require certain creative analytical thinking abilities.

(I would have included the whole thing but it was the longest definition I have encountered...)

Hipster is definitely the new hot trend. Secretly everyone wants to be "effortlessly cool" but some of us will never succeed. However, there have been those in the past that unknowingly set the trends. Meet my favorite 'unintentional hipsters' courtesy of Huffington Post:

This last one brings me into the unintentional hipster phenomenon.

My most recent home furnishing purchase: One hifi courtesy of Savers for only $39.99

I may have just purchased my first record player, (even though I have a plethora of cds, an iPhone, and iTunes on my computer) but to my defence, I have been purchasing records for years before it was effortlessly cool. Two of my brothers have hifis that they have refinished (and look gorgeous) so therefore I am buying this to be more like them and not a hipster.

Now I just need to decide what my top albums are to slowly purchase. Thrift stores are pretty picked through these days since the influx of kids being cool has gone up.

The albums I am currently on the search for:

The Format-Dog Problems, or Interventions and Lullabies

Sufjan Stevens-Illinois

The Arcade Fire-Funeral

Stars-Five Ghost or In Our Bedroom After the War

The New Amsterdam's-apparently all of their albums are ridiculously expensive...

then there are those other bands that i would be happy to obtain but aren't at the top of my search:

Modest Mouse, The Shins, Rilo Kiley, The Annuals, Nico Stai, The Anniversary, The Get Up Kids, Badly Drawn Boy, Coldplay, The Killers, Elliot Smith, oh and the list just keeps going and going.

Hopefully I will run across some magical thrift store that has the classics like: The Cure, The Clash, Queen, The Beatles, The Carpenters and of course some Rachmaninoff and Mozart. I know, my taste is interested and all over the place.

Perhaps when I move to my new apartment I could have a hipster themed housewarming party and everyone can wear their tightest jeans, ugliest over sized sweaters, and most importantly bring a record to leave at my place.

high heels and hymn books

In my first blog post I said that boy stories would be included and have not yet followed through, that is, until now.

I have never had a déjà vu. Previously I have been somewhat saddened by this. Why do other people get to see a glimpse into the future and I can’t? Today I realized something, I like to create fictional futures and perhaps that is why déjà vu will never work for me. For instance today I imagined the scene pictured below. Change the blonde girl to me and the boy speaking to a boy I used to date sitting in front of me. Now play scenario:

Now you may ask, what could a boy do that would make me want to knock him senseless with a harmless hymnal in the chapel nonetheless?

A boy could show up with his new girlfriend and spend all of sacrament meeting flirting, talking and staring at her a few rows in front of you. He could then walk over to say hi and introduce the new unfortunate girl. (luckily I dodged that bullet)

This comes after him treating me like crap while we dated and never acknowledging to anyone that I was dating him.

After countless awkward encounters where he tried to be best friends days after he broke up with me.

After saying we should go on a road trip together (after we broke up).

After regifting a gift certificate as a 'congratulation for getting into the bfa' while he had a new girlfriend.

After texting me day in and out for a week like I was his own personal ask jeeves (after I gave back the gift certificates and said that was weird since he has a new girl friend...)

Awkward.

But even more amazing was the fact that I found out about at least one girl he accosted within days of breaking up with me. Apparently he had his eyes set on someone new while we were dating. I do not like this boy at all, I don’t much respect him either, but something about seeing him flaunt a new girl in church today made me want to throw the good book at his face. (and for some reason I don’t think God would have been disappointed in me, maybe just the 10 rows of people that could have been hit in the cross fire)

Boys can suck so it is good I have some girl friends. You know you have good friends when you are in a fowl mood and they stick around. Enter Rachel and the best note I have received in church:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Sometimes you might want

To hit boys with your shoe.

Enter my second fictious future: (thank you Red Eye for giving me new ideas about what high heels are for)

did i mention he used my netflix account for almost two months after we broke up?

Who throws a shoe?! Why, I do :)

bargain shopping at its best

Cameron LOVES going shopping with me. Usually it goes something like this:

'Sure let's go shopping, I don't think I'll get anything though..."

then i end up finding killer deals and Cameron's car becomes very full.

(This one time after a shopping excursion to Ikea I had to sit on a folded down seat in the one foot of space that was not occupied by boxes while a very large bookcase that I couldn't pass up went from the back door all the way to the front and over the passenger seat that i should have been sitting in.)

For the last year and half I have been living with my mom. Though it has been nothing but slumber parties and sunshine I am getting ready to move out on my own. (really though, it has been nice living with my mom but we are both ready to move on, her to a different town and me to my own place). Since this will be my first apartment (by myself) I have started to acquire furniture for the first time. Luckily I am not moving for a few months so I can shop around looking for the best deals. Even more impressive is the fact that I have yet to buy something off craigslist or ksl, I have been able to find everything at stores and only one thing was from a thrift store and wasn't new.

Current deals:

Solid wood dresser from DI: $100

Two (leather?) kitchen chairs: $45

Huge leather Pottery Barn ottoman: $50

Solid wood desk: $39

total: $234

My best deal so far has definitely been the ottoman I found it at DownEast. It had been in their store for a while so it had gotten a little beat up. They normally sell it for $249 but had it marked down for the day to $50. I looked it up when I got home and apparently it is originally sold at Pottery Barn for around $700. If I can't find a good deal on a couch I figure I can push this up against a wall with some pillows and make it one.

Now I currently have:

area rug

2 kitchen chairs

ottoman

desk

4 bookshelves

dresser

bed (levi is pretty sure he will give me his)

awesome side table i painted scenery on when i was 10. it is a masterpiece.

This means i only really need to find a kitchen table and couch.

The task of moving seems so much less daunting now.

now it will take this much coke to get me through the rest of my furniture/apartment shopping.

good thing I found these the same time I found my kitchen chairs at Market Square, they were a whopping $3.50 for a 32 can pack. amazing.

friendly advice

(7 out of the original 10 aint too bad. i can't believe this photo is from 2007, it does not seem like 3 1/2 years ago...)

sunday was officially the last day of my summer. i decided that i should celebrate by making copious amounts of food and having my favorite long lost friends over. how did we hangout literally everyday freshmen year and now we go months without seeing each other?! tragic.

while we were indulging in my delicious concoctions, my guy friends were lamenting about the pressure they feel to get married. this astounded me. last time i checked we were only 22 and most are still in college, (sadly with the end no where in sight...) apparently these facts have not stopped their parents, friends, and basically everyone else from expressing how they are failing by being single. i am glad i have not felt this pressure. i sometimes get annoyed with dating and the lack thereof, but i do not feel defective for not being someones wife. (though don't get me wrong, i am going to be a stellar wife)

as we talked about dating they decided to give me precious dating advice.

"bethany, you just need to think of this in terms that make sense. think of dating as selling a house. what do you do when you want to sell a house? you spruce it up and lower the price."

translation: wear more makeup, work on your outfits, and then settle for less.

(today i started my goal of running to class, i guess showing up smelling like a recess kid canceled out my 'sprucing up' shower the night before. this sprucing up thing is hard work)

oh there was also a reference to trim the hedges, carmen and i could only equate this to shaving our legs?

we (the girls, carmen and me) did get one bit of real advice, if you like a guy compliment him and touch him when you talk to him. apparently if you do this a couple of times they will clue in that you are crushing on them, and ask you out. SERIOUSLY? that's all it takes!? it came from the horses mouth so they had better be right, because now i am a girl with a plan of attack. watch out boys, your arms are going to be gingerly stroked as i seductively compliment your snazzy shoes and newly acquired button up shirt.

you may ask, what advice did we girls give?

ask girls out.

(they didn't love that that was all we had...)

oh and in regards to my recent blog about marriage:

the items that i listed are how i am now. my married friends pointed out that when you get married you have to compromise and i can't have everything where i want it etc. i know this and will gladly compromise in exchange for the tandem and decision making. the list is simply what the boy gets to deal with currently and inadventantly fall madly in love with. but lets be honest, when i move into my own apartment in the near future, my crazy habits will only be magnified...

Love & Marriage

Living in the Mormon Mecca of the world, I am constantly surrounded by people in giggly-pda showing-‘shnuckums ‘ calling love. At times I am pinched by the love bug and feel genuinely happy for couples and enjoy attending the receptions. This is reserved for only my favorite couples that are not the nauseating above-mentioned lovebirds. When my good friends get engaged, I truly am happy and love to help with anything wedding. It seems that when you are born a girl you automatically love weddings and the nitty gritty planning. (Or is it my obsessive-compulsive ways that love the smallest details?)

Lately it seems that everyone I know is engaged, recently married, or having babies. (Since when were people my age old enough to have two kids?! Crazy). Being surrounded by all of this lace and tulle makes me contemplate marriage for myself.

The most recent conclusion: if I get married now I can avoid making all the life decisions that are looming around the corner by my lonesome AND finally get that tandem my siblings promised as a wedding present.

If you ask me this is a win win situation. Tandem & Decisions, there’s nothing better.

Now don’t get me wrong, this does not mean I am going to go out and find the freshest return missionary that thinks he is more than ready to leap into eternal matrimony, but it would be nice to actually try dating someone.

So for my future husband, lets go over a few crucial things:

1. I am a shopaholic

I happen to be a very loyal Banana Republic customer but fear not, I am the master shopper. At this very moment I am wearing skinny weekend chinos that cost a whopping $7.97. I am that amazing.

I also have an addiction for used books. When I am overwhelmed at work I usually mosey over to Savers to peruse their selection. Though I already have four bookshelves in my room there is ALWAYS room for more literature. You best be well read.

2. Everything has a place, my predetermined place.

I alphabetize basically anything with a title. My books are in genre first then alphabetical second. Clothing belongs in rainbow order. And yes, I somewhat fold my underwear.

3. I am a gift giver, not a receiver.

I show affection by doing nice things and thoughtful presents, yet I am not the greatest at receiving gifts. One of my favorite things is finding the prefect present and the presentation that ensues.

4. I am not a fan of PDA

Seriously, who wants to see that in public? Wow…

5. Yes, I am the youngest of 10

I happen to have a HUGE family and like you would imagine, this leads to a fair bit of craziness. We are all incredibly independent but talk to each other quite a bit. Heck, last week I talked to seven of my siblings randomly on the same day. You have to like them, ALL of them. (But that shouldn’t be hard, we are just that awesome) and yes, my dad stole a B-17 Bomber when he was 17…

6. I am a workaholic

I enjoy working. Currently I run a small business that ships around 100 orders a day. I go to school part time and work 40-50 hours a week. I have even contemplated getting my MBA after my bachelors. Though a work a lot now, I don’t feel the need to work all the time. Hopefully one day I can do photography from home and be a crazy mom that channels all that work energy into doing crazy crafts/dangerous tree house/and tasty cooking projects.

7. I happen to love cooking and laundry

I believe that the two best things are clean sheets and good eats. I find laundry to be the most relaxing and rejuvenating household activity. You feel accomplished when it is done, it leaves a trail of the most deliciously clean scent, and you fall asleep like a baby on the clean sheets. Food is something that should be enjoyed. 

Meals should be about food and company and not about leaving a clean kitchen in the midst. The kitchen should be disaster but the taste epic. The conversation should last far longer than the heat of the main dish and the dishes can patiently wait to be cleaned until morning.

8. I (not too secretly) watch crappy/trashy tv shamelessly

I like Desperate Housewives, Teen Mom, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and have been known to watch lame Lifetime movies when left to my own devices. Promptly after viewing such masterpieces, I call my sister Jenny to relive the episodes.

9. Nature is God’s playground

    I can’t handle always being indoors. The world was meant to be climbed/traveled/played on. My favorite quote is: "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming – ‘Wow! What a ride!’”

10. I am a catch.

This one is self-explanatory. Seriously.

this is happiness

my sisters used to make fun of me because apparently i would say basically everything i liked was a 'simple pleasure' (prime example: walking up to someone's front door and being engulfed by the scent of clean laundry because the dryer vent is by the door), well its true, i like a lot of things.

here are my most recent favorites:

cupcakes and congratulations from friends

"i knew you would get in, its in your name! BarFAny"

oh Cameron...

finding my bathtub covered in colorful drawings and loving notes

using the bathtub crayons to do math while i shower.

(i happen to thoroughly enjoy math)

coming home from work to fresh baked cookies

and it isn't even close to Christmas

'Fat Booth' on the iPhone.

$0.99 well spent.

having a panda wielding guns greet me when i park at my office.

life is good.

and the verdict is...

ACCEPTANCE!

After being in the photography program at BYU for three years I am finally on the BFA track.

I applied once before in April and didn't get in, so this is even more exciting.

So get ready 2012, for my BFA show.

Though the BA and BFA degrees are very similar, the BFA is just slightly more time consuming and instead of majoring in art with an emphasis in photography it is basically a degree in photography. Now besides just taking the normal photography classes I will have to do a final show and an internship.

(which for the time being, I am thinking Martha Stewart Studios is calling my name... :) )

anyway, I am SUPER excited to finally have my last grueling college application over with. That combined with my neighbor turning off her porch light at night (which shines directly into my window and is not stifled by the blackout curtains and three sheets over my window...) I have been sleeping like a baby.

the funny thing is, i still can't register for classes.

For the last year i have had to add classes on the first day because you have to be a BFA student to register online. Today i was relieved that i could finally register before the first day, then i found out i have a hold on my account.

stupid ecclesiastical endorsement interview i forgot to have...

camera, clouds, keys?

today i decided that i would try some landscape photography.

i don't do this type often but the weather was gorgeous and i NEED to spend more time with my camera

(which by the way i am taking name suggestions for him/her).

i went to the lake earlier today but just as suspected the lighting was less then desirable. later this evening i was driving home with my friends and couldn't resist heading back to the lack for the 'sweet light' of the evening.

being a photographer is more like being a light chaser. i almost missed the entire sunset but was lucky enough to get to the lake in time to take a series of images for a panorama.

feeling rather satisfied with my current selection of luscious pink clouds i headed back to my car only to realize that my purse, keys and everything else of worth (like my chapstick... my lips hurt real bad) was locked in my car. i have this great ocd habit of pushing my lock button on the way out of my car EVEN THOUGH i knew i wasn't taking my keys or purse out.

since it was sunday divine intervention was on my side. not twenty minutes before this i added one of my friend's number to my phone, besides being incredibly good looking and amazing-he can break into cars.

one phone call and twenty minutes later he showed up with his roommate and almost instantly had me in my car just as lighting was beginning to strike.

(there was only one slight mishap, his car came within inches of mine as it took off down the road by itself...)

my finished image.

9 vertical images stitched together with the original panorama being 74 inches wide...

cookie says...

Needless to say, lately i have been a stressed out basket case.

I have this great fear that i am a lazy person, then i think about my day and realize that is a crazy idea.

I have become somewhat of a workaholic the last year or so. It isn't rare for me to spend over 9 hours a day at work. Heck, last week I worked 9, 10, and 11 hour days plus my other two normal 8ish hour days and a few hours on saturday. Most likely that equals 50 hours of work.

i am a cosmetic selling rockstar.

But here is the dilemma, i have about a billion other things to do besides work. Among other things, i am applying to the bfa photography program in exactly 12 days and THAT should be my top priority. I have been somewhat frustrated with my portfolio and my major in general which has made this nearly impossible to work on. And what is my coping mechanism for stress? avoid it like the plaque, (hence all the work), and clean. Well, I have committed to working half days and my house is quite clean (there are even two fresh flower arrangements and my bathroom drawers and closest are organized and cleaned out) i guess that means that i don't have any excuses and i have to start creating.

i talked to my sister last week and vented about life, life-it kinda sucks at the moment, and she told me i needed some r&r and should fly out to the east coast (i have this great thing called a delta airlines voucher that is itching to be used). She also said that if i don't go on a vacation that i need to go to a spa or something and relax.

i guess the fortune cookie gods thought the same thing:

i texted this to jenny,

jenny: "listen to the cookie!"

me: "i always listen to cookies"

jenny: 'me too. they are the only tasty treats i trust. donuts always get me into trouble."

and that is why i call her when i am annoyed with life.

the end.

and by end i mean back to that portfolio that is looming over my head...