Easter

This past week has kept us busy.

School and work were as usual, Allison and I both continued to get good grades on our class assignments.  I also am still pressing forward on my portfolio to apply to the Nickelodeon Artist Program that is due the 15th of April.  2 weeks, I can do it.

Thursday we also had a bit of a scare with a visitor to our office.  A Scutigera coleoptrata, a house centipede. It is this freaky 30 legged spider-mutant.  obviously not a spider, but before we knew what it was it was just creepy. I intentionally kept this picture smaller in case you get freaked out, if you are intrigued, you may search for it on your own.

Friday we went and donated blood, Allison was very happy that her iron was high enough to donate this time. 

Saturday night after work we watched the Doctor Who premiere at a friends house. It looks like these episodes will be a nice finish to the season and a great build-up to the 50th anniversary.

We had Easter yesterday on Sunday at my moms house and were able to visit with a few of my family members there.  Afterwards we went to the park and tossed bread to the ducks.  we also found out that it is entertaining to throw a whole roll out to the seagulls and they all flock to it.

late late incredibly late

Sorry about that...

It has been a busy week (or two) with much drawing taken place.

I am posting for both weeks as penance for not having posted on time last week.

We went to the final taping of the second season of Studio C at BYU's TV studio on campus, hilarious by the way.

 Here is a picture of the line waiting to get in, we get there over 2 hours before it starts to be able to get good seats.  And yes, the line does indeed go up the stairs and twisting all over the place. Each time we go we arrive earlier and earlier and yet we are almost always in the same spot in line.

We received this cheesecake key lime pie for Pi Day/St. Patrick's Day from Bob and Cindy Anne, it was delicious!!  It was so good that we ate it rather quickly, but we enjoyed in immensely.

 Allison and I both have been doing great in our classes by getting As.  It will be nice when summer comes and I can focus more on my art.  I still feel like I need to improve so much, but at the same time I feel like I am learning twice as much as the previous day, everyday.

Even though spring is here, we still get snow... but it was mostly gone by the end of the day even though it was still snowing into the afternoon.  That is Utah weather for you, we will probably still be getting snow here and there until May. 

A lot seems to happen each day, but everything is so minor that it isn't that memorable, to put in a weekly blog, but on campus a couple days ago I did overhear a girl talking on the phone and she said "...and... is it still looking like it's edible"  I can only imagine the other side of the conversation.  For things like that I miss being on campus more often.

Dark Days

As I put off homework, I thought it would be a good use of my time to write this week’s blog post.

There really isn’t a lot to say about this past week. The library had an author event (Pitch Black: Dark Days Tour) on Wednesday that I helped with. I was Kiersten White’s signing assistant and got to know her a little. We both graduated from BYU with a BA in English, so that gave us something in common to talk about.

The authors answering questions during the Dark Days Tour in the Provo Library ballroom.

Library staff at the event with our awesome Dark Days t-shirts.  I'm second from the left, not counting the guy walking in the door.

I also signed us up to attend the last taping of Studio C, which is this coming Wednesday. I’m excited to say that we’ve made it to exactly one half of all the season 2 tapings. We’ve gone to every single 9:30pm show. So, if you watch Studio C, odds are that every other sketch you see will have Ezra and me laughing in the background.

The last bit of interesting fluff from this week is that we had a staff book club meeting on Saturday. We read The Round House by Louise Erdrich. As of Friday morning we only had 47% of the book read according to my Kindle. By 10pm we had finished. I read the whole book out loud to Ezra, which was a little odd at times. There was a lot of editing on my part. It was fun though. The next book we’re reading is Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. I’m pretty excited about it and can hardly wait to get started.

Until next week!

Birthday Week

I just had my 26th birthday on Friday.  It was a big one, full of... stuff, and things....

Free food is always good and a couple years ago I signed up for birthday clubs with a ton of restaurants and now each year I get freebies.  We had a few meals out and went up to Salt Lake to visit family.  2005 was the last time my mom saw me on my birthday.  We also went and visited with one of my mission companions and good friends. His daughter just had a birthday, and it was fun picking out princess toys and accessories for her.

I got Doctor Who Yahtzee from my mom, Allison and I have played that quite a few times now. And she gave me a coupon book...  Hehe, best present ever...ish... and we're not talking last minute, quickly hand written coupon book because you forgot.  This was done on the computer with pictures and well thought out gifts... she also used the sewing machine to make the pages perforated for easy tearing and redeemability.

The car was also finally fixed, again.  The parking break has had issues and once it was "fixed" it didn't actually hold us if we were on a hill. Now it is all good and our car likes us again for taking care of it.

We again went to Studio C on Saturday night.  It is a lot of fun to go to a live taping of a TV show. The atmosphere is great and you get to see them set up the sets and what goes on between shooting the scenes.  Over all fun experience and a perk for still living in Utah.

Healty and back to busy.

We’re both feeling a lot better this week. Woohoo! Good thing too because it’s been a busy week, though not overwhelming.

On Monday we had our All-Staff Training at the library. In other words, the library was closed to patrons but we still had to come in. We really enjoyed it though, especially since Café Rio catered our lunch. We learned some great things, heard from Provo’s mayor, and had a police presentation about active shooters in the workplace. We watched this video which was pretty powerful. This was the second time I’ve seen it and I got pretty emotional both times. It’s not gory or anything, but it’s powerful in such a way that reminds you this could happen anywhere. It’s scary to think that you could go to work one day and because of one person you might not make it home to your family, or your family might not make it home to you. That’s why I get emotional.

On Wednesday we went to another taping of Studio C. So far we’ve made it to every 9:30pm taping that they’ve had, and we’re signed up for another one this coming Saturday. I always get super excited; Studio C is such a blast! A recurring character they have this season is Ann the librarian… as a librarian I find it hilarious because no one at Provo Library is like Ann. Thank goodness otherwise we might scare all of our patrons away!

I took my car in to get fixed on Thursday. They installed the part and when I left it still didn’t feel quite right. I tested it using the ramps for the library’s underground parking and the break doesn’t hold, so I’m taking it in again tomorrow. He said he has another idea of why it might be having problems, so hopefully we’ll get it fixed and working this time.

Ezra had another quiz this week and got over 100% again. So proud! I had an article critique essay to write which I drug my feet about, but I got it done and turned in with time to spare. I was pretty happy with it so I hope my professor feels the same.

Where I usually sit and do homework at the library. It's pretty quiet first thing in the morning.

The week of continual sick, ugh

This week has been mostly about rest and relaxation.  We have remained sick and possibly got each other sick again. Allison is on the mend which hopefully means that I shortly will be too.

On the plus side Allison finished her first sewing project, an apron. Se is very excited about it and can't wait to use it.  I think she did a really great job on it. She is enjoying sewing, there were a few cases of frustration that arose but it was the sewing machines fault, mostly.

Ezra modeling the almost finished apron.

All done!

My mom spoke in Church today and that took us up to Salt Lake.  We had a great dinner and I got some of my birthday presents early since I might not see them again before my birthday. Doctor Who Yahtzee.  Hehe, the cup IS the TARDIS.  We have yet to play it, but I am sure we will enjoy it.

I'm also working on a personal project, An animation based on the Russian fairy tale the Snow Maiden. Not to be confused with Disney's upcoming adaptation of the Snow Queen, Frozen. I'll start posting images and progress on my art blog.

I'm still not very good at knowing what to say in these blog posts.

Studio C

This past week hasn’t been too terribly busy, but there were some definite highlights.

Wednesday evening we went to a taping of Studio C. It was a lot of fun. If you’re ever in Provo when they’re recording the episodes, try to get tickets (which are free). It’s an hour and a half of laughs, and you get to see the skits before they air on TV! Fun fact (aka what I think I remember from what they told us), apparently two years ago the biggest audience for any BYUtv show was for Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting, with 8,000 viewers. Today, it’s Studio C with 500,000 viewers! That’s so awesome! Ezra and I love being in the studio audience.

On Friday we went on a date to celebrate the two year anniversary of our first date. We wanted to go back to the hospital cafeteria but decided instead on Jason’s Deli in Orem. We had a gift card and only ended up paying $0.23 out of pocket. It was awesome! And there’s free ice cream! As we were sitting there eating our lunch the sky dumped snow. The flakes were huge and we could barely see University Mall just across the parking lot. Thankfully the roads weren’t too bad and by the time we had finished lunch it had stopped snowing.

While we were out and about in Orem we stopped at Jo-Ann Fabric to pick up some stuff that I needed for the apron I’m sewing. I had gotten the wrong stuff earlier, but now I’m all set! So last night instead of writing a blog post I was playing with my sewing machine. Here’s what my apron looks like at the moment. Some sewing… lots of pins.

My ladybug apron. It took forever for me to figure out the pockets on my own but I did it!

When I'm finished everything (except the ties) will be lined in black like the pockets. I wanted to go with something that was yellow and black because according to Pottermore I would be sorted into Hufflepuff.

Ezra keeping busy.

Ezra had a quiz and test this week, both of which he got As on! So proud of him! I haven’t had any assignments to turn in yet, the first one will be next week. So far my classes have consisted of reading documents, listening to lectures, and participating in weekly discussions on class discussion boards.

Oh! There is one thing that I learned that I’d like to share:

Apparently way back when (long before the printing press when books were crazy expensive), ancient monastery libraries were so protective of their books that if you didn’t return one you borrowed you could be excommunicated and cursed. Here is one such curse:

For him that stealeth, or borrow and returneth not this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, cry aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony til he sing his dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of hell consume him forever.

A part of me wishes that we could hang a sign over the circulation counter with that curse on it… but I have a feeling the library director wouldn’t approve. Oh well.

Well, that’s all from this past week. There’s nothing exciting on the calendar for this coming week, so we’ll see what happens.