Still Trying to be Intelligent

So this week's poem I tried to memorize while swimming was Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. I'm still a little shaky on the first two lines of the last part, for some reason my mind wasn't working properly.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for both the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
I saved the first for another day
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And I, I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

I think that's how it goes. Once again, the grammar - so wrong. I think this week I'll try memorizing some scriptures or something.

In Escrow

One of my old friends asked me if I was all moved in or just in escrow. I had to look up what in escrow meant before confirming that yes, I'm in escrow. I officially get the keys either on Monday or Tuesday, depending on if everything goes smoothly. I'm hoping that it does so that I can start getting mail in this mailbox:


It's pretty awesome. It needs a little cleaning, but I feel that it will welcome mail quite pleasantly.

Closing

Tomorrow I close on my house. Really, it's kind of weird. This will probably turn into a before/after kind of blog. I'm sorry. Constantly, I've been thinking about things to do to the house. Not too many things are concrete in my mind since I haven't been able to sit and stare at everything and visualize a plan. But that doesn't stop me from looking at all the design blogs.

Here's a place that Brigham referred to me this morning. My house has nothing but wood paneling. Wood paneling, wood paneling, wood paneling. Some of it I'm planning on tearing down, some of it I just might paint so that the room looks all cute like this:


I saw this the other day and thought, this is genius. Genius. I want it so bad with a heart so true. Maybe in my storage room? Then, if times get tough and I have absolutely no money whatsoever, I can tear up the floor! No prostitution for me!


And oh, my heart went pitter patter when I saw this on Design Sponge today. I've got a room in the basement that I'm thinkin' I might tear the carpet out, paint the cement a royal blue and put some friggin' stars all over the place, kind of like this pattern that I made for the background of Andi's ball page.


Wish me luck!

In other news: I kind of teared up when both Philip and Kaitlyn got booted off SYTYCD. Sorry if I just spoiled that for you. Sure, he was a one-trick pony, but he had so much heart. And she seemed just like the nicest thing ever. I agree with the decisions, but ugh, it makes me sad.

In other news: it is officially flip flop weather.

In other news: I'm getting a haircut on Tuesday. I'm thinking Farrah Fawcett.

In other news: Joe got me a ticket to go see Harry Potter with him, midnight on Tuesday.

My Larry the Cable Guy Pilgrimage

When I go to foreign lands, I try my best to go where the natives live. When Kim and I went to Bali, some of my most favorite parts of the trip were when our river rafting tourguide, Koma, took us to his village. I was invited to visit a land foreign to me within my own country and to stay with some honest to goodness farmers over the 4th of July and I gladly accepted that offer.

Jake came and picked me up at the Lincoln airport and we headed into town to get some lunch. We stopped at Brewsky's and ate some burgers and then wandered around the Haymarket area for a bit. I didn't get to stay in Lincoln too long, but it has that warehouse turned business center kind of feel to it.


We wandered around the University of Nebraska campus a bit more and I tried on a corn hat. Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I had bought that hat. You would all be so jealous.


The campus has a few renowned sculptor's pieces all around it. This one, by Richard Serra, was one of my favorites.

Then we wandered around a little bit more and took a tour of the capitol building. It is a really pretty building in kind of an art deco style. Jake liked that it wasn't a cookie cutter representation of the United States Capitol.


Inside and around the building there are a lot of works of art celebrating the history of the state. This one was my favorite. It's by Jeanne Reynal and it depicts the Blizzard of 1888. Apparently all good Nebraskan children know this tale because Jake seemed a little mystified that I hadn't heard of it. Apparently one balmy January day, everyone went to school with flipflops on and by mid afternoon, the temperature had dropped to -60 something degrees and a huge blizzard hit. One school teacher tied a rope around her waist and lead the children at the schoolhouse to her home to escape the storm. This picture doesn't do the mural justice. It's filled with flecks of gold mosaics and is really pretty.


We went up to the 14th floor and got a good view of the landscape.


It turned 5 and they closed the building.


Did you know that Lincoln is named after Abraham Lincoln? Things like this just make sense.


As we walked back towards town, we were met with this frieze of a typical American family with really tight clothes on. The baby is really freaky.


For some reason I really liked this Fire Marshall's building.


And this Fire Marshal sign.


Jake got himself a new t-shirt. It's a nice color on him.


I got myself a new t-shirt as well. They had all these nice tasteful ones, but this one was on sale!


On the University of Nebraska campus, I found that some of my people had some smarts.


Then we headed on over to the stadium. Jake had gotten tickets for the Larry the Cable Guy show and it was in Memorial Stadium. Apparently, and I don't doubt this because it was written on every entryway to the building, it's the home of the greatest fans in college football. "Not the victory but the action; Not the goal but the game; In the deed the glory." is engraved into the building and was written by former UNL professor of philosophy Hartley Burr Alexander.


Look at all the fans in the stadium waiting to see Larry the Cable Guy. (I just checked his website and it's actually really nicely designed and well thought out).


We were sitting there waiting and people watching for a while. The guy behind us in white was just there all by himself and he just had a great old time. I like that he's looking at the camera too.


There were two comedians before Larry came out. When it was his turn, they made it look like he was parachuting from a helicopter into the stadium. The parachutist had a bit of a rough landing and started spiraling and falling way too fast and instead of landing in the designated landing spot, he landed on his rear end in the bleachers and kind of curled himself over the railing. Everyone kind of breathlessly stared at him while he lay there. Fortunately he got up and walked to the stage, but later, when Larry was doing his routine, they brought out a stretcher and carried him off. Exciting!

Here was the show! It was pretty funny. Lots of fart jokes, lots of fat women jokes and lots of there's no such thing as global warming jokes. An all around good time.


The next day we were in Elk Creek and I got a tour of the surrounding farm area. I learned about things like why female Cedar trees are bad, what Jake means when he talks about tractors and calls them an M or an H, that Hazelnuts are liars and that the sky is pretty amazing over there.


Everywhere you go, it seems like little bird houses have been put up.


This is one of the views.


And this is another one. It was really pretty and I got surprisingly good weather.


I can't remember, but I think this is an H. It says a letter on the side, that's how you can tell. Jake can tell what kind of tractor it is by the sound it's making.



Here's an old rundown building on their land. It's got a lot of character.


There were flowers growing everywhere. This one is more of a noxious weed, but it's still pretty.


Holy cow, I'm good.


This is the road you take to get back to the farm. I guess that there's a dirt road every mile connecting the land together.



On Sunday we went to Jake's Lutheran church. It's been a while since I've gone to a service that was anything other than LDS. It was pretty interesting. More standing involved and only an hour!


Then we went into town for something, I can't remember what. Here's a building, it's kind of old, the rest aren't this old and rundown. Wikipedia says that Elk Creek has a population of 112 people.


Then we went down to Pawnee where Larry the Cable Guy is from. Apparently the name Larry the Cable Guy is trademarked and they can't use it on anything without paying fees, so they've named one of the streets after his birth name.


He's even part of the Shilling Bridge Winery.


Jake had some lime beer that he really liked. We ate some Havarti and Jalapeno Salami and bread while sitting on the back porch. It was pretty tasty.


Then we crossed over the Missouri river into Missouri. Jake had talked about leaving me there on the side of the road so I was a bit nervous about the drive. He's so pleasant.


Before going over, we took a look at this old steamboat. The tour was $3 each and the old guy giving the tour wasn't about to budge when we told him we only had $3 between the two of us.


We drove up though Missouri and a little corner of Iowa to get back to Nebraska City. While there, we stopped at the Lewis and Clark museum and looked at a replica of a Keel boat that was there.


Jake inspected a sign about Lewis and Clark's trusty dog, Seaman. Huh, huh, huh, huh.


Jake in a canoe with dirty water in the bottom.


Me trying hard not to smile for a photo.


This was one of the most exciting parts about the trip. We went to the Arbor Day Farm and Lodge. The Arbor Day Farm is a little place you can go and have a nature walk and there's all these plaques identifying trees and animals. This was one of the art pieces they have on the nature walk.


Me and some trees. You know Nebraska is where Arbor Day was started, right?


You can also go into a few greenhouses and in one of those you can pick up your own free tree.


This is the Arbor Lodge. It was home to the founder of Arbor Day, J. Sterling Morton. It started out as a 4 bedroom cabin and grew to it's present size over time.


There are tons of gorgeous, enormous trees at the park and of course, squirrels. Any place that has giant red squirrels is okay by me.


After that we decided to catch a movie at the theater there and saw Public Enemies. It was alright. A little too much hand-held camera for my taste, but very interesting. I don't think I had ever heard of John Dillinger before and I really love Depression era gangsters. I guess I don't love them that much, eh?


The next day, Jake's brother came over and brought along his new black lab puppy, Trip.


Trip was easily entertained by playing with his squeaky toy.


I sat in a swing for a bit and watched Trip.


This was the last day that Jake had to work on tractors and he got to work on a few of them. Here he is memorizing a tractor fix-it book.


Here he is driving the wheat thing out so that it could be cleaned. We never really got around to that.


Corn


Wildflower


Sign with an old windmill in the background.


Here's me in the tractor. I wasn't much help. Jake tried to fix the brakes and I had to sit up in the chair and pump them a lot. That was my job. Then I got to drive it for two seconds and almost knocked Jake out of the tractor. Good times.


This is a view of the Jake's farm from the shed. It's such a pretty area.


This is what I pretty much did the rest of the day. I was no help with tractors and welding so I read my new murder-mystery novel, The Likeness. I'd give it a B+. I liked her first novel, In The Woods, better.


That was it, my trip to Nebraska. People always kind of grimace a little when you talk about Nebraska, but I thought it was just fine. The trees were lovely, the people wave.

Art Show Opening

I posted this on my papercutting blog, but feel like it works on here just as well!

What I DO have are pictures from the art show opening at the Terra Nova Gallery last Friday. Featuring Randel McGee, Ada Gardner and Rick James Marzullo. You're very excited, I know. Here's me with one of my coworkers, Hillary and her sister, Ashley. Kudos to Hillary for coming all the way down!


Jamie, who has a friend who likes my stuff but she didn't come along with her!


These are my old landlords who became friends from my college days, Mike and Jenni. I would someday like to be as cool as they are.


My mom and my dad are to my right, to my left is my dental hygienist and her husband. Random, right? Especially when you learn that they heard about the show because they were up here flying hot air balloons and Kim's parents told them about it.


Erin! One of my most favorite companions from my mission. She can sing like an angel.


Kim, who was such a wonderful help the whole show, and Stephen.


Marie, Lena, me and Rachel. I really like these ladies. I'm so glad I've gotten to know them a little better over the past little while.


Kim's parents, Ron and Carol!


Randel and his wife, Marsha! Randel is the reason I was in the show in the first place. He's a talented papercutter AND a talented puppeteer.


Kellie and Brigham! I was so excited to see them again and they even bought the roaring 20s piece. It was one of the ones that I got some of the most comments about the whole evening.


Ryan was someone I met that night but have known for a little while. I'm so glad he showed up!


El Stevo! Steve and Krista showed up too. The time is farspent in between viewings of these two.


Christian and Kirsten! It was so good to see them as well. Christian has a new movie coming out pretty soon.


Whitney with Mary poking her head in between us.


Michelle! Michelle bought this piece for her collection. I think she has the largest collection of Cindy Ferguson papercuts of anyone I know besides maybe my mom.


Erin. I can't even say how happy I was that she was there at the show.


This is David Hawkinson, the owner of the gallery where we had our show. He is such a nice guy and I was so glad to be able to work with him.


All in all, the show was a great success and I hope that if you haven't seen it, you can go down to the Terra Nova Gallery and take a gander (41 W 300 N, Provo). Thanks all!

Gifts in the Mail!

The other day I got a present in the mail from my old boss, Dave. I
know I've mentioned before that I love to get stuff in the mail,
especially unexpected stuff like smoked salmon. This was totally
unexpected and so nice. Squirrels! I love squirrels!

More Tacos!

Rob and Stephanie were in town for a whirlwind visit from Seattle and on their way back home, me and Christopher were lucky enough to get to have lunch with them. When I was saying the local food choices, Rob perked up at the words "Taco Wagon" and didn't seem to have too much emotion about anything else, so we decided to go to Taco El Morro and partook of some of their delicious food. Afterwards we went to Paces where they serve shakes and astrobars. Tasty.


Today I had a real breakthrough in the hair department. Yesterday I asked one of my co-workers, Jodie, how she makes her ponytail buns so messy. I try and try and I can't get them to look all messy. She kind of looked at me like I was a little wacky and said she didn't quite know. When she walked away, Tara turned around and said, "I'll show you, want me to show you?" and she did! So I tried it today and I did it! The unfortunate thing about taking a picture of the back of your head is that you notice that you have a friggin' bald spot. What on earth is that? It's just where it parts. It's just where it parts.


The other thing that is marvelous in my life is this mirror I got at the DI the other day. It was one of those finds where you are looking and you're having a pretty good day at the thrift store and have a few good things when all of a sudden, you see the most awesome thing and you put down all your good things and you carry the awesome thing around with you everywhere you go and when you buy it, you keep looking at it over and over again.

Memorable Week

So this last week all I did was get ready for my art show that I'm doing with three other papercutting artists on Friday. A sample of what my week was like: Exercise, go to work, come home, cut, sleep, repeat. The one thing I did start doing this week was to try memorizing stuff while I went swimming. I am going to write them out and if you want, you can check if I memorized them correctly.

The New Colossus - Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land.
Here at our sea-swept, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch,
Whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand glows world wide welcome,
Her mild eyes command the air bridge harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, Ancient Lands, your storied pomp," cries she with silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shores.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven - W. B. Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
enrought with golden and silver light
the blue and the dim and the dark cloths
of night and light and the half light,
I would spread these cloths under your feet,
But I, being poor, have only my dreams.
I spread my dreams under your feet.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


That's them! I'm sure I got the grammar wrong. Does anyone have any other suggestions on favorite poems or important historical writings that I should memorize while I'm trying to swim?