steaks-giving

remember how i ate thanksgiving at sizzler? yup, i did. it was truly an american thanksgiving. or something like that. 

one of the reasons that my grandma wanted to go to sizzler for thanksgiving is because she reportedly eats turkey all year long and she just wanted a nice steak for thanksgiving. so we went to sizzler and all got steaks. (did i mention she had coupons to sizzler? truly truly american)

so for my thanksgiving, i ate steak. remember when i was a vegetarian for a long time? my vegetarian self was rolling around in the grave when i ate this bad boy.

it turns out that after all that fuss about the coupons and wanting steak and going to sizzler, my grandma didn't even like it. go figure. although their soft serve vanilla ice cream was a big hit with all of us.

so that was that. but we did have an actual "traditional" thanksgiving at my house on friday. complete with yams with the marshmallows on top and the green jello with grated cheese and stuffing. that's what my plate consisted of. it was good and i loved it and worth one meal of sizzler food.

goodbye, world.

i'm committing social suicide. by necessity. 

i'm not even taking hard classes this semester, and yet i'm still struggling to keep up with everything! i think it's mainly because i'm without a doubt the world's slowest paper writer ever. everything has to be perfect and word-vomit is never allowed, because i think that would end up being dangerous. so the result is me spending hours on one page. seriously, it took me 2 straight hours of hard work to write three quarters of a page today. yikes. and when all of your classes require research papers, that makes time an issue.

i will be emerging from my homework cocoon as soon as i've officially finished the following projects:

1. chronic disease advocacy research report on alzheimer's disease

2. chemistry lab practical exam (aka potions class - mix chemicals and see what happens. except this time i have to figure out what mystery chemical is in my potions flask)

3. technical communication oral presentation on obesity treatments

4. infectious disease research paper on transmittable skin infections (weirdest topic ever)

5. a 5 page new testament paper on galatians

6.  my research paper on obesity, inefficiency of traditional dieting, treatment policy, etc... (aka my baby - i've been working hard on this all semester!!)

7. bio 100 challenge exam (yeah, due to weird circumstances and nursing applications, i have to have bio 100 posted on my transcript by the end of this semester. surprise to me! i have until dec 6 to finish studying all 38 chapters and take the challenge exam. thankfully i've learned most everything of the stuff already, i just have to mega-review everything)

so i guess i'll be peacing out for a little while. i'll come up to breathe every once in a while, hopefully to eat, definitely to sleep. 

sizzler say what????

any of you that know me know that thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday EVER. i love it so much that one year i legitimately dressed up like a pilgrim. i think the rest of my family was in pajamas...

my thanksgiving two years ago consisted of me being sick (in true missionary style - you're either sick or miserably hot or cold), working all day as a new missionary, and finally, victoriously ending the day with a single thanksgiving jamon y queso empanada in the summer heat in the desert of paraguay. my companion and i walked home during the sunset eating those empanaditas, thankful for the sheer beauty of the paraguayan sky, which looked like this...

or maybe it was this day...

and then last year, thanksgiving brought a freak rainstorm that caught us and our lunch appointment by surprise. we ran for shelter inside of our friends' little stick hut of a house. we busily stuffed the holes in their roofs with clothes and newspaper so that water didn't pour in and turn the floor into mud (because it was a dirt floor). my companion and i had to literally kick the chickens out because they kept running inside, and hey, that's just not sanitary to have a chicken on the bed next to you. (i say that jokingly, because to the house with holes in the roof and walls and water flooding in, chicken infestation was probably the least of their worries.) and yet, we sat there eating on their multipurpose bed/front room(only room)-couch talking about what we were grateful for. we even made turkey hands and wrote the things we were most grateful for.

my comp and i even spent the next day, which was a weekly planning session, eating one of those rotisserie chickens from a little street vendor that i swore to myself i would never eat, but did. 

needless to say, i have been looking forward to this thanksgiving for two years now. i've been looking forward for the tradition of the holiday. because heaven only knows that my last two have been far from traditional. 

my intentions in writing this blog post were to say how my thanksgiving had been ruined this year. my family's going to logan to be with my old (or should i say aged? is that nicer?) grandma who invited us. a few days ago, however, she decided it was too much work to make the thanksgiving meal and to clean it up, so she wants to go to sizzler instead. 

yeah, you heard right.

this place...

i may or may not have completely and totally freaked out. i said things like, this is my first thanksgiving back in the united states in two years and you expect me to go to sizzler??! i wouldn't even go to sizzler on a regular day, let alone for my second favorite holiday ever. WHAAAT IN THE WORLD IS MY GRANDMA THINKING?!!

it turns out, i'm pretty opinionated.

but as i was writing about my thanksgiving experiences i had in the past, i couldn't help but think, wow... you can really have thanksgiving anywhere. 

if i can have thanksgiving walking down a hot, dusty road or inside of a falling apart shack with rain gushing through holes, then gosh dang it, i can have thanksgiving at sizzler!

so yes, this thanksgiving, while most normal families are sitting down to beautiful tables with turkey and stuffing and that awesome green jello with cheese on top and the sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows (yum!), my parents, my two brothers, my grandma and i will be heading out to go to sizzler. 

my dad says they have a good salad bar. i guess we'll see. maybe if i'm really lucky, they'll have a thanksgiving empanada for me.

sshheeeesssh. come on now.

one of my bosses at work is this old, grey-haired, big-bellied, really-hard-to-have-a-conversation-with man. if i had to categorize him with one of the seven dwarfs, he'd probably be grumpy. my favorite thing to do at work is to be sickly sweet to him and see how he reacts. is that wrong?? 

anyway, that's not the purpose of this post, but he's the one that started it.

in the front lobby of where i work, we always have a stack of byu's weekly student newspaper. this week's has a picture of obama on the front saying 'four more years'. 

my boss insists on turning it upside down so that you can't see the front half of the paper. and for the past few days i keep turning it right side up because that's how it's supposed to be.

so today he came out and paced around staring at the newspapers and finally said, "who keeps turning this right side up?"

"that was me! is there anything wrong?" 

(imagine me saying that in the sickliest sweetest voice ever)

"well, he's not my president, so i don't want to see his face."

that's where i literally had to stop myself from saying anything because i potentially could've been a buttface.

but really?? can you believe there are people like that? and i know for a fact that my boss is not the only one. my facebook feed post-10pm on tuesday was full of people saying how life was over, how they are moving, how practically the world is going to end.

let's not forget that our 12th article of faith states:

we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

yeah, so maybe the republicans didn't have a win this week. maybe we didn't get what we want. but can we honestly believe that life as we know it will change? chances are things will be exactly the same. at least  for awhile. obamacare doesn't take full effect until 2014. in the meantime, 27 states have already filed a lawsuit to completely repeal it.

i may not share democratic values, but i at least feel like i can see where they're trying to come from.

the church of jesus christ of latter day saints came out with the following statement:

We congratulate President Obama on winning a second term as President of the United States.

After a long campaign, this is now a time for Americans to come together. It is a long tradition among Latter-day Saints to pray for our nati

onal leaders in our personal prayers and in our congregations. We invite Americans everywhere, whatever their political persuasion, to pray for the President, for his administration and the new Congress as they lead us through difficult and turbulent times. May our national leaders reflect the best in wisdom and judgment as they fulfill the great trust afforded to them by the American people.

We also commend Governor Romney for engaging at the highest level of our democratic process, which, by its nature, demands so much of those who offer themselves for public service. We wish him and his family every success in their future endeavors.

i think in the end, that's all we can really do. pray. as long as we're doing what we need to do, god's not gonna let us fail. 

gotta love PY

i was at the dermatologist's office this morning. he started off this conversation:

      "where are you from again?"

      "i grew up in montana."

       *silence* "hmm... well then what in the world did you do there that gave you so much sun damage?"

       "oh. well, that was for sure from serving a mission in paraguay. the sun is extra hot there."

this is where he started going off on a rant about the church missionary system and how they don't encourage missionaries to use sunscreen and about how he needs to personally do something about it. he continues by saying...

      "well, your neck's sun damage looks like mine. the only difference is that i'm 71 and so i have about 50 years on you and i spent every summer of those extra 50 years in the alaskan outdoors."

why thank you doctor, for telling me that my neck looks like a 70 year old's! it's not my fault that i served a mission in the hottest place ever, where i swear the sun was closer to the earth than normal. also, why did i ever think it was cool to tan in high school? curse you, peer pressure!

think twice about not wearing sunscreen, my friends. since i've been home, it is my best friend. even if it's not hot outside. you don't want your old man dermatologist telling you that you're all sun damaged and shriveled. (okay, he didn't say shriveled...) but still!