Puss In Boots

Everyone always posts adorable pictures of their kids. Since I don't have [or like] kids, I'm posting a picture of me and Leo. And if you don't like it or think it's weird... DEAL! 

We have fun at our house.

Aurora Borealis: Fail

Raise your hand if you remember watching Balto when you were a little kid.

This is by far my most favorite childhood movie. I admit, it gave me nightmares, too. Probably has something to do with my fear of wolves and coyotes. I saw this movie at that weird point in my childhood life where I was fascinated with astronomy. I got a telescope that year for Christmas, I had a massive print of the Milky Way pointing to a spec titled "you are here". I was obsessed. I couldn't have been older than 10 or 11. [Back to Balto...] I loved this movie. There was just something so amazing about a dog sled team in Alaska/Yukon traveling to get the Polio vacine for their village in the dead of winter. How inspiring, right? Remember this scene:

Ah... The Northern Lights. Talk about one of the Great Wonders of The World. I about died when I saw this in Balto- I never knew something like this could exist! So scientific, yet so beautiful and mesmorizing, you can't help but feel something more than charged particles in a geomagnetic storm. 

But how would I know? I've never seen them. 

I remember hearing so much about them during random cosmic events, but since I lived in Boise, I was never able to see anything. I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights, but the 'planets never alined' for my opporunity to see the spectacular view.

I have this cool app on my phone that allows me to see the index used to rate the geomagnetic activity in Calgary. Total nerd? So when I heard about this huge storm expected to hit Earth yesterday, I cancelled all my plans I had for the night, which to my convenience was none, and told Warren I was driving out into the country to see them. I had my cameras full of new batteries and set to 400 ISO with shutter speed at 30 seconds. (I did research... I'm no professional photographer.) Ooo! I was so excited! My first perfect chance to see them, full of glory! My weather app's both said clear skies, but when I was walking to the car, it was a little cloudy in spots, but stars were shining through in the clear areas. The clouds were very light, but thicker in some areas. I wasn't going to let a few measley clouds flounder my faith though.

So we drove out past Langdon, about a 45 minute drive east of Calgary. We didn't want to go north, because we would be driving for over an hour and still be within city limits. I wanted to get as far away from the city lights as possible, keeping in mind that it was 9pm [my bedtime] and I had to work the next morning. We decided to pull off onto a rural dirt road as to not distract from anyone else on the road, and turned off the lights. And what did I see?!

Nothing. I saw downtown Calgary to my left, in fact. Dumb! We didn't drive far enough! The tiny parts of the open uncloudy skies I did manage to see were dark enough, but no pretty lights. All I could see were dumb clouds- getting thicker by the minute. I was so disappointed. I don't think I've ever been this disappointed in something before. I know there will be other opportunities, but I keep trying and I get nothing. What gives?!

So first thing this morning I got online and started reading my new favorite website: http://www.spaceweather.com/, and found out that the ginormous storm had disapated as it crossed over the Atlantic ocean, and was completely gone by the time it hit North America. Bummer... and UGH! What a waste! I could have painted my nails or something. Apparently the only people who really got to experience this pheonomenon were people in northern Europe. So here are some photos I took from spaceweather-- many of these people were saying this storm was the best they've seen in years. Too bad I missed it.

I need to move to Sweden.

Most Embarrassing Moments

This is for Lindsey. You're welcome.

I have a bible's worth of embarrassing moments, ranging everywhere from running into the middle divider post at the front door of my high school and starting my period in gym class all over the gym floor.
But I have two that take the cake.

First, when I was around 12 or so, my family and I went out to eat at Perkins. They had those dumb glass ketchup bottles that you can never get the ketchup out of. I was shaking it, but I was getting really frustrated and I could tell it was going to volcano-ize (just made that word up) so I gave it one last big shake... as it came back up, the bottle hit me in the forehead with such strength that it knocked me out. In the middle of the restaurant. My mom nearly busted a gut laughing so hard... yet she was trying to see if i was okay. The people in the nearby booths were trying to cover up their laughter as well. To this day, everyone jokes about it. I've got a few glass ketchup bottles for my birthday even.

Second. Again when I was a mere young teenager, couldn't be older than 13... I went to a very popular water park in Boise with a friend. I had on a bikini (i had nothing to hide, i was 13), and we were walking up to what we called the 'drop off' slide. The line was long and we noticed a very hot life guard who was patroling the area where people would be getting out of the pool from the drop off. We kind of did our giddy flirting and made sure he noticed us getting in line. I went off the slide and hit the water with full impact... came up from the water and since this slide had two slides going at the same time, my friend and I went at the same time, and thus, popped up out of the water at the same time. The first thing we did when we came up out of the water was trying to look hot for the life guard... I got up, walked up the stairs and noticed that the guard smiled/kind of laughed at my direction, as if he were impressed. It was awesome... then my friend said, "kelsey your swim suit top is up over your boobs, you need to pull it down."

omg.

A book?

So, I've given it some thought... and I think I'd like to write a book.

I have no idea what kind of book to write. I figure it probably wont be a non-fiction because it would just be a jumbled mix of Twilight, Harry Potter, The Big Bang Theory and Gilmore Girls. And I mean, as awesome as that would be, it wouldn't be my original work. Not only is plagiarism sleezy, it's also illegal. Mr. Quilici would probably hunt me down and threaten to take away my diploma at graduation again. Did any of your senior English teachers ever use that as a threat? "If your citations are incorrect or non-existent, I'll keep you from graduating." So, I'm going to stay away from stuff that's made up. A biography would be a gong show considering I'm only a twenty-something and haven't gone through any major drug rehabilitation sessions. My life isn't exactly something that can be aired on TLC. Of course a cookbook crossed my mind, but I only have maybe 50 recipes I deem worthy of being published. And cookbooks don't really give me the opportunity to use my quarky wisdom and witty-ness. All I'd do is talk about food- now I love food, but you know what I mean...

So maybe I could write short stories about things that happened in my life. Maybe change some names to protect people's identities. I could tell about stories from high school, my childhood, college... some love stories that we can relate to. Things that real people go through. Things that don't necessarily have a happy fictitious ending, but just talk about life stories and events. Mostly, I want to captivate on nostalgic emotions. First crush, first love, first time breaking the law, first time you realized who your best friend was, first break up, first day of elementary school, losing someone you love... etc.

I don't know if it will be anything worth reading. Maybe it will just end up being a fun blog... I don't care. I just want to write! I want to tell stories and rekindle moments we don't often reflect back on. I think it would be fun, and exciting... exhilarating!

What do you think?

Here's the Canadian winter I know and love

Please pray for me this week as I take the bus, take the train, take a 2nd bus and walk 7 minutes to work each morning. Why? This is why:

And for those of you who may not realize how cold this is... here it is in Fahrenheit.

I have to say, this is the coldest it's been this winter. I can't really complain. I don't mind the cold that much. I refer to the Nike ad ... "just do it." I can't not go to work because it's cold, I can't not buy groceries because it's cold, I can't not live life because it's cold... you just to suck it up and do it.

Anyways, some of you may have seen my disastrous cake on FB... it's so awful. But it was fun. I made it for my friend Allison. We were celebrating her birthday which was actually over Christmas. Have you met Allison?

Disclaimer. She was trying those shoes on to make fun of them. She does not own them.

The frosting was supposed to be vanilla but somehow tasted like mint. The only thing I can think of is it absorbed the Scentsy scent I had on (Just Breathe). It's a rich, moist devil's food cake with pudding mix, a ganache center, with a vanilla frosting. It was originally going to be a black forest cake, but I omitted the cherries. I was kind of impressed with the trees idea I saw on Pinterest, so I tried it. But my house was so hot they kept melting!

The problem started out with the ganache being kind of runny, so the top layer of cake kept slipping off... then the vanilla frosting was really stiff and wouldn't spread easily... so the vanilla and ganache sort of mixed together. Ugh. It looks awful. But it was good! It only got worse as the night went on...

So there ya go. Current events of my life. Bitter cold and retarded cakes. Tonight I'm making pumpkin pancakes for dinner. I'm starving.

Dishes

When my mom got married when I was 14, she got a nice set of drinking glasses. Then when I moved to college she gave them to me. We used them for a couple years until IKEA had a sale on some super cute new ones... So I bought them and used the two sets.

For Christmas I got my very own first set of dishes. We have been using hand me down ones since we got married. I decided I needed to down grade my collection.

Our RS presidency sends out weekly emails for people looking to recycle their things. So an email went out about my dishes. I was more than happy to give them to the sweetest young pregnant girl who was in desperate need of everything. I felt so good giving them to someone who needed them. But on my way home, I started crying. Not only did I give away my set of dishes I've had forever but I gave away those glasses of my moms.

I week or so ago I gave away tons of old clothes, most of which she bought me. Warren doesn't get why I have been hanging on to so many things for so long, and to be honest neither do I. But it hurts. I feel like I gave away a part of my mom. I know my mom would have wanted me to give them to someone in need, but it doesn't stop it from hurting.

It gets easier, right? Thanks for listening.

That time when i got new glasses

Twas the night before the day back to work from holidays, and I was crawling into bed. When I bumped the Gilmore girls DVD's that my glasses were sitting on. Before I knew it, everything was on the floor. My heart began racing as I jumped up to grab my beloved eye wear. Then I saw it. The horror. The horror of now seeing two parts to my glasses.

My glasses have been apart of me since I was 12. This particular pair have been on my face since I was 17. Okay, that was a lie. I had an identical pair at first that mysteriously got broken the same way my first year of college. It's still unknown how they broke. My all roommates and I all fell asleep on the floor and when I woke up they were broken.

Anyways, needless to say, I'm very attached to my look. I love those glasses. When I saw them laying broken in two on my floor, I started crying. Not only is it my love for those pair of spectacles, the fact that I was going to be Harry Potter-ing it the next day at work, but those were a birthday gift from my mom. I even remember asking for them.

As it turns out, I had to get a new eye exam. Lucky me. Have any of you seen Arrested Developement? You know how when George Michael goes to get his eyes checked and he has a panic attack when the doctor switches the lenses? That's Kelsey. I freaked out and had to go back and forth from lens to lens. I made it through just fine and things weren't horrible. My eyes only changed a little.

And then I got new glasses. Contacts crossed my mind but I like glasses... oh and that whole thing about losing one contact somewhere in your eyeball part. So I declined for now.

Here are my broken glasses... all Harry Potter like and taped up, ready to go.

And here is pair #1. Yes, I got two. It was two for one sale, okay?

And a close up of pair #1...

And pair #2

Close up of #2

And I apologize for how grainy they are... clearly I haven't mastered the iphone camera yet...

So, good ya- ya good? I like 'em.