Survey Says

I'm being spotlighted on our single ward's newsletter. They sent me this survey, and this is what I sent back.

Age: 25 years 11 months and 8 days
Home Stake: Upland
City: Rancho Cucamonga
Occupation: Filling out surveys about myself. This is my first gig. I'm really excited.
Education: B.A.
Family Rank: Wisest of 6 kids
Mission: Georgia Macon, Southern Speaking
Conversion Story: I never was good at math.
Status: Engaged in a good cause
What Qualities do you look for in a BF: A bowling score above 250, can wrestle alligators, has a paparazzi problem and can fluently speak pig Latin.
Most Embarrassing Moment: Falling asleep during a hymn when the whole congregation was standing -- I fell back into the pew. But actually, it wasn't really embarrassing. It was downright hilarious.
Goals: I was always a defender on my soccer team, so I never made any goals.
Person you most want to meet: Buddy the Elf
Song that best describes you: Good Little Girls Make Some Mighty Wild Women
If you were a superhero what would your special power be: Make life saving floatation devices out of marshmallow Peeps to save people from drowning.
Hobbies/Talents: Forming icicles out of water, carrying on a conversation while sleeping, reading books before they're written and kerning type.
Who's your hero: Michael Scott
If you were a gourmet dish what would you be: A silver platter.
Thing you’re most proud of: Slept in every building on BYU-Idaho's campus
Dreams:  (car, date, etc.): I dream about alligators, sharks, killer whales and people chasing me.
What famous person do you resemble: Zooey Deschanel

Favorites  I may have moderately changed some of the original topics...
Tempo (original "Temple"): Allegro 
Profit (original "Prophet"): Donations to my bank account
General Author (original "General Authority"): J.K. Rowling
Color: Inferred
Mood (original "Food"): Ecstatic
Movie: Big Fish
Snack Food: Asparagus. Because we all cuss for asparagus.
Type face (original "Concert"): Chaparral, but Garamond comes close.
Music type: Paleolithic Rock (true classic rock)
Book: Go Dog Go  
Movie Quote: "Is the place of records far?" -from The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepard
TV Show: Psych and Eureka
Song: Scripture Power (it keeps me safe from sin).
Childhood Memory: Getting locked in a department store at closing time because my mom forgot about me.
Ice Cream: Ben and Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. For real, it will blow your mind.

Apple of my Pie

My aunt wants to start a pie blog. All pie all the time. So she wants me to design it. Being the gracious person I am, I said yes. It gives me purpose in life.

The most important first step was coming up with a great name, which my sister actually thought of, "Apple of My Pie." But, that domain name is already taken, even though they haven't posted anything yet. And even though we could do .net or something, I didn't think it was a good idea unless we could have the .com. Other names were given, like "Princess and the Pie" or "Pie Politics," but she decided on "Pie Parade," (which just so happens to be a name I thought of. And an old Betty Crocker cook book -- didn't find that out until after).

Step two: design beautiful blog. Step one of step two is figuring out theme/banner/logo, because the rest of the blog design will fall into place. Yesterday we had a pie party so I could take lots of pictures. I really wanted to do a photo shoot resembling this banner (isn't it gorgeous?):

But ended up with this.

I knew mine wasn't going to turn out like that guy's, because he's a professional food photographer. But a girl can dream. I took some of my favorite elements from the shoot to create this collage, which reminds me a lot of my friend Melissa's floral inspiration boards -- thanks Melissa!

I really like the collage, I'm just not sure how I'll incorporate the name. Oh, woe to the little details. Here are some other photos; tell me what you think, or if you have a great idea for the blog banner/logo. My aunt and I were thinking the theme should be county fair/americana, with blues, reds and creams. And if you're in the area and we have another pie day, and you gave me a really good idea or led me to my future husband, I'll let you have some pie.

 Side view. Duh. 

Above: My mom and Aunt Quenta setting it all up. And my dog Captain chilling.

Fun fact, the pink quilt as the semi-back drop was made by my great great grandmother, the doily under the lemon pie was made by my grandmother and the picnic table was made by my father. And the trumpet, well that was just my brother's, but the fun fact about it is that there was $150 in a wallet in the trumpet case that my other brother had put there to "hide" like three years ago and we rediscovered it yesterday. You know your money is well hidden when even you forget where it is.

Why the rage?

What is up with so many new movies coming out being 3D? Honestly, I live in a 3D world, and it's nice to view things in 2D for a change. It's one of the only reasons I go see movies. I hope this 3D fad dies like the Hansen's music career.

Because I Care

I felt the need to post two posts in a day to make up for the lack of posting recently.

My mom had told my younger brother (Tanner) to change the laundry. She had forgotten to turn on the dryer, so when Tanner went to put the wet clothes from the washer in the dryer, he found the dryer to already be full of wet clothes. Being the smart kid that he is, he took the wet clothes out of the dryer, put them on top of the dryer, and put the other wet load in. Who said you couldn't kill any birds with 3 stones?

Also, I just found this site that has caused uncontrollable fits of hysteria (so much so that my dad who is concentrating on something of obvious importance told me "that's enough Elissa."). It's called (and excuse the language) "Shit My Students Write." I've included a couple of fine samples below, complete with titles/captions given to the selections (not of my doing):

Hot Potato
The potato literally encouraged the Irish to overbreed.


Never Forget
Was it the Revolutionary War or the Civil War that the Japanese dropped the atomic bomb on Pearl Harbor?

He Always Did Prefer Thighs and Drumsticks
Indians, the other dark meat, were saved from extinction by the humanitarian, Andrew Jackson.


Flipper was his homeboy
Steinbeck always wrote with a porpoise.


I don't remember the civil war, like, at all. 
I’ve lived my whole life on the west coast and to me, the civil war seems like a really really long time ago

He's Embarking

*Note: My senior brother, Trenton, had to have three adults write him a page of advice about life after high school. In his wisdom, he asked me to be one of those adults. This letter will be turned in to his teacher. 

Dear Elissa Gator,
I am graduating from High School. As my sister, and advice columnist extraordinaire, what advice do you have to give me as I embark on this exciting time of my life? –TrennyWennyMenny

Brother,
You’re embarking? I had no idea you were leaving on a ship. Don’t expect that I’ll be there to see you off to sea. Hopefully this ship has a college on it. Hopefully you were accepted to the ship’s college, so you don’t have to be bound to KP duty. Hopefully they have oranges so you don’t get scurvy.

I have never been on a ship for a long period of time, so I can’t tell you what the best motion sickness medicine is to take. I’d call your local pharmacist and explain your situation. I do know that there will be a captain, and you need to obey all of his orders. If you don’t want to obey his orders, you and the rest of the crew need to start a mutiny and either put the captain in irons, or make him walk the plank. I’d suggest making him walk the plank, because it’d be fun to watch.

There will be very long days at sea without any wind. Your ship will be stuck in the middle of the ocean and you’ll most likely get cabin fever. Which is weird, because cabins are usually in the mountains, but I suppose you go crazy from lack of wind and think you’re in the mountains; hence why it’s called cabin fever. When going through cabin fever, make sure to hang your food in tall trees, lest the bears get it and you end up starving. The best way to starve is when you’re the most lucid, and cabin fever doesn’t rank high on the scale of sanity.

To pass time, you’ll need to make friends with others on the ship, especially the cook, because he’ll most likely turn out to be a pirate that is searching for treasure on an island ruled by a pig princess. Try not to upset the pig, as she packs a powerful round house kick that even Chuck Norris would be proud of. If you stick to doing your homework that gets assigned to you by the ship college, you shouldn’t have time to upset the pig. Moral of this paragraph: make friends with a frog.

If at any time it seems that your ship is sailing to world’s end or heading to Davy Jones’ locker, don’t freak out. This is natural nautical nothingness and will be resolved in sequel voyages. If you do freak out, call yourself Peter Pan and pretend you can fly. Others will avoid you for fear of contracting PeterPanitis, a whimsical disease only cured by believing in fairies. When pretending to fly, only pretend at safe heights, because the key word here is “pretending.”

There will be stormy nights where one of your crew mates has a statistical chance of getting himself thrown overboard. I know that because I read it on Wikipedia under “statistical chances of getting oneself thrown overboard during a stormy night on a ship.” So I guess technically you have a statistical chance of getting thrown overboard. I’d try to avoid the statistics by not being on the boat. Statistics for being thrown overboard are fairly low for people who are never on boats (although there have been some freak accidents, but don’t let that worry you).

Last of all, if you see a giant crocodile who sounds like he’s swallowed a giant clock, check your wrist and make sure he hasn’t swallowed your watch. Watches are hard to come by at sea.

Well, my dear little brother, I’m excited to hear of your adventures on the ocean blue, which Columbus sailed in 1492. You're welcome. 

Do You Get 100%?

Video day! Share them with your home teaching/visiting teaching families and I think you'll be able to report 100%.

Hitler Doing Home Teaching 
(for some reason I couldn't embed it).

As I'm sure most of you may have seen, there are hundreds of these "Hitler" movies, some of my favorite titles (I haven't necessarily seen all these, so proceed with caution) "Hitler finds out there is no Santa Claus," "Hitler finds out he doesn't get into Hogwarts," "Hitler phones an Indian call center," "Hitler gets mad because someone farts," and "Hitler gets Rick Roll'd."

I'm digging this song right now. Remember that seminary video where the room was all white and black stuff started oozing out everywhere because the girl "let sin in" (or something like that. Too bad I couldn't find it on You Tube). This video reminds me of it, except so much cooler and you don't feel like you have to talk to your bishop after.

And of course I have to include an alligator video:

Seen any good videos lately? I think you should share with the rest of the class.

The Milk Story

I figured now is as good as time as any to tell you the milk story. Some of you have heard it, some of you haven't, but only I lived it.

I've had sleeping...issues... for awhile. Although they have gotten somewhat worse in my older age. But this sleep story takes place when I was a junior in high school.

I am the oldest of six children, so our house was/is pretty high on the decibel/activity chart. One day, my whole family was gone except me, so I decided to take a nap in the quiet solitude.

During the deep blissful state of REM, someone at the door was constantly ringing the doorbell. Being in a drunken like stupor, I answered the door to find a salesman. He was selling milk that would be delivered to your porch once a week (kind of like the old days, except the milk came in plastic not glass).

He asked if I was the lady in charge of the house. I told him I was (my logical thinking was that no one was home, therefore for the time being I was the lady in charge of the house). He then asked how many were in the family so he could calculate how much milk we needed. I told him there were 6 kids and two adults (which was true). He then looked at me amazed, put out his hand and said "may I shake the hand of the woman who looks so good for having six kids."

I shook his hand. I didn't correct him.

Before I knew it, I was signing up for 3 gallons of milk every 3 days. I even signed my mom's signature. It all happened so fast. He was a smooth salesman that had interrupted my nap. That's a bad combination.

When my parents returned home I told them about the incident, accidentally forgetting the part where I had signed my mom's name. They laughed and said I was crazy, especially because there is no way we drink that much milk that fast.

We forgot about the whole thing until the next Tuesday. At like 4:30 that morning my parents heard this thump at the door. They looked out the window and saw this random truck by our driveway. My dad, being the protector that he is, ran down the stairs, out the door, only to almost kill himself by tripping on 3 gallons of milk.

Then they saw the bill attached to the home delivered 3 gallons of milk. My parents weren't laughing anymore.

Six gallons of milk and many a phone battle later, my mom finally got it all taken care of.

Moral of the story: it's all fun and games to wake me up during the middle of a nap, just don't expect any sort of logical outcomes.