iChat is so fun

Tried iChat for the first time (well, the second, if you count me and John iChatting across the living room, laptop to laptop) with Catherine and Richard in Philly. It's so much better than just talking on the phone! Catherine gave Johnny a virtual tour of their apartment (I've seen it in real life), John showed Richard his new business logo, Catherine tried on two shirts for me that she bought, and then we had a dance party (well, John didn't dance, but he did strobe the lights for us!) It was so fun! So all you video conferencing capable people out there- we should chat! BTW- have you all seen the Apple tech support ad about iChat? It's pretty funny. Anyway, have a happy Wednesday, all, I'm off to class!

My stuff

I know a lot of you probably aren't interested in scrapbooking, but it is my favorite thing to do with my spare time. I was looking around my small, small apartment the other day and decided to take a bunch of photos that represent me right now and make a scrapbook layout about it. Here's some of my random stuff. (It's an interesting project to tackle, even if you're not a scrapbooker. It's just fun to have a little snapshot of life, whether it be a journal entry, blog post or series of photos.)

Gratitude

I was reading one of my favorite bloggers, Ali Edwards, and she made a list of what she was grateful for right now to lift her out of a grumpy mood. Even though I'm not particularly grumpy right now, I have known to get that way :) so here's my gratitude list.

Things I Am Grateful For Right Now:
1) My husband- who loved me enough to get married, twice
2) That I can go to school- even though it seems like it's taking me forever to get through my undergrad, I need to quit complaining, buckle down and be glad I have the opportunity at all
3) Friends and family- wouldn't this be a lonely life without them?
4) That my car still works- even though it's not super cute, I'm so glad I have it!
5) The hint of spring in the air

Reply with your own short list of gratitude- the top five things you are most grateful for right now!

Web envy

The deeper I get into my web addiction, the more jealous I become when I see something cool on the web that I want to duplicate for myself (aka rip off). I have several examples of stuff I think is awesome, but the latest site that put me over the edge was this one here of my friends, Bethany and Reese Madison. We got to talking on Saturday and blogging came up and Reese mentioned that they have their own website. Plus, Bethany is a photographer and she has a great site that showcases some of her work (check her out if you get a chance.)
Now, what good is being married to a web developer if you can't get some cool stuff out of it?? So I explained to John rationally and calmly that I would love it if he could explore the possibility of creating a custom site for me (well, it either was like that or I whined for ten minutes until he said yes just to shut me up... I can't remember.) So hopefully the next cool thing I fall in love with on the web will be my own custom website!!

Our Temple Day

John and I were sealed yesterday in the Salt Lake Temple. We had gorgeous weather and our friends and family around us- we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day! Here's some pictures from our celebrations.

Good Deed

The tag I've posted in the left column is part of a new fundraising website called Six Degrees started by Kevin Bacon. You can use the site to find a charity to donate to, or (and this is the cool part), you can create your own tag to raise money for your favorite charity. The tag that generates the most donations (regardless of total money raised) will receive $10, 000 from Kevin Bacon to that charity.

This tag was created by Ali Edwards in honor of her autistic son, Simon, and to benefit the organization Autism Speaks. Ali is an artist whose scrapbooking and photography work I admire and I've been really touched by the support she's gained from her blog for this organization. Her tag has more people donating to it than big celebrities' tags (like Nicole Kidman and Kanye West). It just goes to show what everyday people can accomplish when they are passionate!

My cousin's son has autism, as well as one of the little boys I babysit. Today, 1 in 150 individuals is diagnosed with autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. Chances are that we all know someone whose life is affected by autism.

This is just one small way to reach out. If you'd like to donate, just click on the tag- the number of people who've donated will automatically be updated.

Kindness counts

Today is World Kindness Day. Sadly, there have been some tragic and shocking events in our community recently that have made me wonder about this world that we live in.

First, a horrible car accident involving the deaths of a pregnant mom and two small children caused by a teenage driver under the influence. Then, yesterday a mindless shooting spree at Trolley Square that ended in six deaths and many injuries. There really is so much sorrow and tragedy around us!

But then, a small ray of sunlight pierced through the dismal darkness and it came from an unlikely source- the devastated husband and father of the family in the car accident. He spoke of forgiveness and love, even in the face of unimaginable personal suffering. Then he asked his community, us, to reach out in kindness.

"We would invite you if you are in a position to extend a single act of kindness, a token of mercy or and extension of forgiveness, would you do it by Valentine's Day�" the father said. "Write the expressions down and share it with my two surviving boys."

Chris Williams has found a way to forgive and I urge us all to take a moment to think of how we can reach out in kindness, love and forgiveness as well. Tell me about it or email the William's family.

I know I will be thinking of more than just romance and flowers tomorrow. This Valentine's Day will have a much deeper meaning of love for me.

I love my Mac

I love messing around with my laptop, and even though I've had it for six months, I'm still having fun exploring. Case in point, I made a website (see Friends on sidebar for the link). John thinks I'm cute and silly because I get so excited! It is totally basic, Johnny of course could make a pimped-out, professional version, but it's still fun to try stuff out!

the Concentrating Tongue

My niece, Lily, at only nine months old has mastered walking! But that's not even the best thing she does now! Whenever she is concentrating, she sticks her tongue out of her mouth! It's such a funny thing to see a baby do! Her mom, her auntie and her grandma all do it, too. Here's some shots of Lily's Concentrating Tongue and other pictures taken at Mom and Aunt Barbara's bday party.

How well do we really know each other?

Cody has this great quiz on his website that was so fun and kind of hilarious so I made one, too! I tried to make it really obscure, I doubt even my husband will do that well on it!

Silly techies

We bought Lippy the Laptop a little brother, Lappy the Laptop. John is in heaven with TWO MacBooks! This is a picture of John with the laptops, but really we usually are sitting side by side on the couch, the nerdiest couple ever.

I am blog crazy

I have figured out that blogs are not only fun to read and write, they are a hugely efficient networking tool! I can sit here on my lazy bum and within minutes I have caught up on many of my friends' lives! Great! I also can capitalize on other's work in keeping up friendships! I owe a lot of my re-found friends to Lyndsay's blog! As I get older, I realize that I'm slowly getting dorkier ( I especially realize this when hanging out with John's teenaged brother and sister). Realizing the coolness of this blogging network only now, makes me wonder how long I've been out of it. Soon, I will be one of those people who can't watch primetime television without being completely clueless about all the pop culture references! (As I write this, I am beginning to realize that my fears are a little shallow... hmmm.) Oh well, I'll just try to hang on and try not to feel SO ancient when I'm talking to Sam or Anne about their young, teenager-y lives!

Barthes "Mythologies"

I'm supposed to be writing a paper on Barthes' "Mythologies" right now. The so of course I am doing everything else on my darling MacBook Pro (aka "Lippy the Laptop") other than writing my paper- uploading photos, blogging, reading other people's blogs, checking out MySpace profiles, online shopping, oh I could go on.

On a kind of related subject, I realized tonight that everyone has their thing. You know that one thing or area of expertise where when you're talking about it with someone (say your spouse), his eyes start to get a little glassy and you know he's not really following anything you're saying. This was a new realization for me because although I was very familiar with this phenomenon from my perspective (listening to my very smart computer programmer husband and barely grasping onto the concepts he's imparting), I had yet to induce a semi-conscious state on someone else! It was a little validating! I, too, can be a barely-understood expert! (Otherwise known as a nerd). It was a gratifying feeling. And even though I still think John's expertise in the engineering/science/math/logic field is much much cooler than my small knowledge of literary criticism/writing/literature, it still feels good to know that I can *bore* someone, too!

But enough of this talk... I need to prove my worth as an English major and crank out this paper for tomorrow.