Tell me what you want, what you really, really want

I want to have normal sleeping habits.

I want to blog about my Disneyland trip.

I want to blog more, period.

I want to be able to wiggle my nose like Samantha on Bewitched and have my house clean and laundry done.  And let's be honest, I'd be pretty cute wiggling my nose like that.

I want to start listening to Christmas music, and yet I don't.

I want to get to work on time.

I want to be a better daughter, sister and friend.

I want to use the phrase "waxing and waning" in a sentence and not sound like a dork whilst doing it.

I want to also say "veritable cornucopia" more often.

I want to know why chargers will no longer fit into my iPhone properly.

I want to know if I should baby my breaking phone along until the new version comes out in 2012 or if I should just suck it up and get the dang 4S.

I want to see Kim while she's so close and yet so far away in Utah and not in dang London.

I want to not freak out about all that's required of me in my life.

I want to be able to read a complete book in less than three months.

I want answers to the questions I'm obsessing over.

I want to upload this year's camp videos to Facebook and to have it actually work on my first try doing so.

I want to fly across the country so I can see Callie and hold baby Maggie.

Brazenly lifted off Facebook

I want to be able to look at this photo of them and not weep.  (My Callie is a momma!)

My words of wisdom

This September, I will have worked for my company for 24 years. Yes, I was only 10 when I started working there. Okay, okay, I was 12.  Anyway, rather than calling attention to the fact that I’m indeed, old, I tell you this because with experience (and years on this earth) comes knowledge.

Basically what I’m trying to tell you is this: I know stuff.

There’s a guy in my office who realizes that I do in fact, know stuff, so he comes over every Wednesday to get words of wisdom from me. These vary between work related advice (i.e. if you have to choose between working solely from home vs. working in an office, choose the office if you want to ever get promoted) to items that are more personal (if you’re a female high school teacher, it might not be a good idea to exchange cell numbers and then text with a male student 800 times over a period of a month. See here.)

I know it’s not yet Wednesday but I thought I’d share a few items of wisdom with you because I know a handful of you miss the blogger Jeanelle. I miss her too. She needs to blog more often (yes, I just dropped 3rd person!)

1. If you’re dating (or thinking about dating) multiple people at once, try to keep the facts straight about each person. If that involves creating an Excel spreadsheet for yourself, just do it. It’s totally okay to date more than one person at a time. Just make sure you know the basic facts about the person you happen to be talking to instead of asking ridiculous questions that don’t apply to them (i.e. thinking you have a roommate or that you live in a city not remotely close to the one you actually do live in – both topics covered at length during previous phone calls.)

2. If someone offers you a piece of that super dark whatever percentage cacao chocolate, just don’t eat it. It will not taste good. At all.

3. Every so often friends can turn into beloveds (i.e. my darling Callie & her sweetheart Andrew.) More often than not, however, if you fall in love with a guy who is already your very good friend, he will probably only be able to see you as a friend. It hardly ever happens like it does in the movies and books where the guy is smart enough to see that the girl he is BFF’s with would also make a totally awesome girlfriend. Yes, it stinks and yes it’s totally unfair. But don’t give up hope – there are lots of cute fish in the sea! (And secret message to another sweet girl whom I adore and love having late-night text-fests with: I’m totally blogging about you…again! Why? Because I love you!)

4. If you ever get asked to work with the youth of the church, whether it’s chaperoning a dance, teaching a skill at a Mutual activity, going to YW camp or youth conference, etc. just say yes. Don’t even hesitate. Serving the youth of the church, while it can at times be sucks-the-life-out-of-you hard, is truly the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. I cannot even begin to count all of the ways my church service with the youth has blessed my life.

5. When you’re at a day-long youth activity like the YW general broadcast followed by a dinner followed by a stake dance (or basically you're on your feet from 3:00-11:30 PM) bring slippers to wear when your feet start to hurt. Because trust me, they will start to hurt, no matter how comfy your shoes were at 2:45 PM.

My current obsessions

So to make it through the month of August with more than one blog entry, here are some things I am obsessed with at the current moment:

Sarah Dessen books. I know, I know. I just blogged about her books last week.  But I am 2/3 of the way through my second one, "Along for the Ride," and I called my mom today to reserve a couple of more from the library because I envision myself reading my way through the upcoming holiday weekend.  I cannot express to you how interesting, fun, thoughtful and easy to read these books are.  Love, love, love them.

The Angry Birds app. for the iPhone. Holy cow, people...I cannot stop playing this game.  I started with the lite version (lite = free in Apple language) and quickly realized I needed to spring for the 99 cent full game.  Really great graphics and funny sound effects.  So.  Much.  Fun.

The "Say Yes to the Dress" TV show on TLC.  I love watching it because a. people are kind of crazy and ridiculous in what they will spend on a wedding dress and b. Randy & Keasha.  Love them.  I am also amazed at how rude some of the "friends" and family are to the girls trying on dresses.  Like, not even close to helpful and outright mean.  I would get fired as a consultant because I would kick those people out of the store.

And...I think that's it.  Here's hoping for more interesting things to blog about in September!!

Restaurant chains I love

I came home last night from an expensive dinner with all of this leftover food that I didn't even really love and that's what drove my blog entry listing all of the restaurants I dislike. So by popular demand, here are my most favorite places to eat, in no particular order:

• California Pizza Kitchen -- duh! If you know me at all, you know that this is my favorite place to eat. I tend to order the same thing every time (half of a BBQ chopped salad/no jicama and hopefully I can talk my table into ordering the thai chicken spring rolls as an appetizer.) I love that the food is always fresh, they have limes for my soda and my salad is just the right size (outsized portions sort of offend me for some reason - maybe because I generally dislike leftovers? I'm not sure why.) Anyway, I love this restaurant and I think I would eat there at least once a week if I could.
• Panera Bread -- love this place. Like CPK, I think the food is always fresh tasting and hello they have the name of my favorite food group (bread!) in their name. Besides great bread, the salads are yummy and I especially love the broccoli cheddar soup! They have free wi-fi too...how cool is that??
• Red Robin -- when you want good french fries, you've gotta go to "The Rooster" as a friend of mine used to call it. I love the campfire/onion ring sauce for my fries and the raspberry limeade is totally yum!
• PF Changs -- kind of expensive Chinese food but I love all of the sauces they mix up for the lettuce wraps and the Mongolian beef is fabulous.
• Qdoba Mexican Grill -- I'm not necessarily a fan of the big giant burrito type places but the food here is just great. I love getting a quesadilla when I go here (their beef & chicken tastes real & like they just grilled it -- some restaurants do not have good tasting meat, in my opinion.) They also have limes for my soda, which is almost unheard of for a restaurant that is probably considered fast food.
• Salty's -- I wouldn't call this a chain but they do have 3 locations so I'll slip them in here. Salty's is one of my most favorite special occasion restaurants. They do a really expensive but really special and amazing brunch on Saturdays & Sundays (and we Mormons appreciate a restaurant that has brunch on Saturdays, don't we??) The Alki location is my favorite and they have the best view of downtown Seattle.

Okay Lindsey & Jazzy...are you happy now? :) If you guys want my leftover chicken piccata and asparagus from last night, let me know!

Restaurant chains I dislike

In honor of my dinner out tonight, I thought I'd share a list of restaurant chains that I do not enjoy. I would prefer to stay home then go out to eat at any of these places:

• Maggiano's Little Italy: Overpriced, the portions are too large and it's really just boring food. Plus our service tonight was awful. Boo hiss.
• Olive Garden: I know this will be an unpopular opinion but with the exception of the salad and breadsticks, their food is just not good and I will never understand their popularity.
• Stanford's: They have a ton of different options on the menu but do none of them well. Pick a theme and stick with it!
• Bahama Breeze: Meh. I've never found anything I liked on their menu. I understand the bar is great, however, if you're into that sort of thing.
• Red Lobster: Horrible, horrible service.

What's on your list???