Memorial Day Sale

While I was up at BYU-Idaho, a good friend of mine introduced me to thrifting and crafting. At first I was a little skeptical, other people's germ crusted stuff can be turned into something absolutely adorable?
Psh. Show me. 

Oh. 

I was sufficiently intrigued. After a couple fantastic thrifting adventures and crafting afternoons I was sold. I love finding great deals on things I can fix up and throw my own personal flair to. 

So, over this past long weekend I decided it had been long enough and I should go thrifting again. On Memorial Day, I went to Savers for the first time since a looking for a high school Halloween dance costume. As I pull up the parking lot it packed. People walking in and out like crazy. I sarcastically think to myself 'Man, must be a sale hahahaha why would a second hand store ever need a sale?' Low and behold I see the big, red

  sign in the window. I suddenly feel horrible for my completely rude thought process. Then I quickly jump from guilt to great surprise and realize 'Sale! Perfect! Cheap stuff even cheaper!' and I head in for my grand adventure. And an adventure it was. This time, like no other time, I realized what other kind treasures can be found at a second hand store. 

I went first to the book section (no surprise to those who know and love me) and I found some real winners. Things that made me wonder why someone would ever give these up...let alone buy them in the first place. 

Purple crocodile skin Bibles, self-help memoirs, old romance novels and college textbooks. I must say my favorite was this almost New York Times Best Seller. 

 

Only makes sense right? Economics and marriage...they practically go hand in hand...

Next I made my way through shelves and shelves of glassware from Marilyn Monroe shot glasses to plastic party martini glasses to figurines. 

Homemade wood wall decorations that said profound things like 'L8RG8R' and cute family quotes that clearly don't mean so much anymore as they laid discarded on the aluminum shelf. These along side racks and racks of linens, old sheets and pillow cases, curtains and my personal favorite

   

Because why wouldn't you want to get your toilet seat cover second hand?

As I combed the walls of the store completely overcome with the scent of commercial laundry detergent and an odd combination of strawberry air freshener I could only smile to myself as I appreciated the small and awful treasures that even the best crafters couldn't disguise to be something useful and I tried to imagine them in the houses they were originally intended for.

So then overall, was my adventure a success, you may ask? Three old fat books, a lace curtain and three little glass bowls say yes, very much so.

The Worst Thing To Happen To You While Driving

You're driving on a freeway; cruising at 70. Things are going your way and though the roads are crowded, you've got things on lock. You're paying attention because of the large amounts of traffic, but it's nothing you haven't dealt with before. 


Then. Out of no where. You get that tingling feeling in your nose. Your eyes start to water. You start breathing abnormally. Your face starts to have mild spasms, you begin to feel absurd amounts a pressure building in your sinus' and you know exactly what's coming. 


You're about to sneeze. 

Has this ever happened to anyone else? I can almost hear the narrator's voice every time this has happened to me (and there have been several occasions). I hate it. Every time I have to sneeze it's always on the freeway or right when I am about to make a left hand turn. The two most inopportune times possible and worse, there is nothing you can do about it.

A sneeze, according to medical-dictionary.com, by definition is:

To expel air forcibly from the mouth and nose in an explosive, spasmodic involuntary action resulting chiefly from irritation of the nasal mucous membrane.

Gross, right? And when you are driving, hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, complete disequilibrium occurs. This is where the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' begins.

Do you cover your mouth with your hands?

Yes. Read A.

No. Read B.

A. Now not only have you created the road hazard of a car drifting due to you're lack of attention and when you grab the wheel again, you get whatever was 'expelled' from your 'nasal mucous membrane' all over the wheel. Or your pants. Or the passenger seat...


B. Congrats. You now have that moisture all over the inside of your windshield.

Do you do what happens naturally and close your eyes?

Yes. Read C.

No. Read D.

C. At any moment you could drive into a median, a fellow driver, a pedestrian or miss a turn. Your visual inattention could cause some serious damage. You know what they say, it only takes a few seconds to change your life...


D. You just had your eyeballs explode because of the extreme amount of pressure from the sneeze. And you thought there would be a mess from not covering your mouth.

In my experiences with this dilemma, I have tried out all variations of how to deal with this seemingly trivial but temporarily terrifying experience and have yet to find a solution. All I know is that either I feel like I am going to crash, burn and die in those split seconds or my car just feels contaminated after.

A lose lose situation. A 'Catch 22' if you will. Either way, bad news.

"Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend"

I find this phrase to be debatable. Granted, square cut or pear shaped these rocks don't loose their shape, I believe other things can be good best friends too, like say, people, for instance.

I believe that I have been lucky enough to have the best best friends ever. Midnight phone calls, laughing till you cry, all that cliche girlie stuff and so much more. These ladies are basically the best thing that happened to this planet. As a tribute to these people who don't have to be nice to me but are anyway, Because a picture is worth a thousand words, here are photos that demonstrate some of the reasons they have remained such great people in my life.

It's ok to be jealous.

Needless to say... we have a pretty good time.

Why We Should Never Heed Fashion Trends.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the similarities between orthopedic shoes and shape ups are just a little too close for comfort...


. vs. 

Ah the 'Simple' Things in Life

I don't by any stretch of the imagination presume that I am of the 'older generation'. I was around when cell phones came into popular use and have had one for years. I've been using the internet since grade school, and computer classes were standard at all grade levels.

On the flip side, I don't feel as though I have been raised in such a technology world that I haven't been exposed to the more simple things in life. I've had drinks from the hose and played night games in our neighborhood streets, I've used paper phone books and maps and know the purpose of an index and glossary.

But something happened this weekend that made me, 20 years old, feel like I was in a whole different generation.

I was tending a family in my wards kids, making sure they got to their games and birthday parties while their parents were out of town. I was taking their 8th grader to her lacrosse game along with her 9th grade friend and her friends 3rd grade brother (I tell you their grades to show that these kids have been around for a little while at least). As we were driving home from the game, it was pretty toasty in my car, the AC hadn't cooled all the way yet and the youngest wanted the window down, so I told him to go ahead and roll it down.

He didn't know how.

Now my car doesn't have automatic windows and locks so the inside of the door looks like this:
 



None of the kids in my car at that time had any idea what that little mechanism was. Once I showed them the incredible simplicity, they were enthralled! They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

From my perspective, I see this as a little old school, but not retro by any means. Am I that dated?

Anyway, they had a great time being the power in my not-powered windows, rolling them up and down the whole way home. Then as we pulled into the drive way and I am about to turn off the car, the youngest quickly exclaims that I need to wait to shut the car off so he can roll up the window. I just have to smile at this point.

The beauty of manual windows is that they are manual all the time. Not just when the car is on.

And again, coolest thing ever.

This just makes me wonder, where do kids these days think the expressions like 'roll down the window' come from? So many things must make no sense to them, but I feel as though I have done my small part in educating a little about the simple things in life.