The Bane of My Existence

I have this horrible ability to attract unwanted creatures. It is the bane of my existence. I don't much care for dogs but for some reason they pick me out of a crowd and run straight to me. I once saw a huge mosquito-eater fly into our house and I thought, I bet I'll find that in my room later, and you guessed it! I found it just sitting on the wall of my bedroom. It's like they are attracted to the invisible but very obvious sign hanging around my neck that says, "I DON'T WANT YOU HERE! I HATE YOU!"

Well, spider season has started early here in Provo. One of the consequences of warm weather is that there are more bugs/creepy-crawlies out-and-about. A few nights ago, I was innocently sitting in front of my computer at my desk when I looked up and saw a brown spider crawling toward me. Letting out a hysterical cry, I grabbed the nearest shoe and planned out how best to crush it (because everyone knows that if you miss the spider the first time you attempt to squash it, it could either drop behind something where you can't reach it or it could start running around frantically, making it almost impossible to catch). Luckily I got it on my first try.

The next day, I was sitting in my living room when I saw a hairy black spider with orange flecks crawling up above our entertainment center. I promptly squished that one with a shoe and disposed of it outside. (There's kind of a funny story to go along with that one: I was trying to describe the spider later that night to my roommates and a couple of friends. "It was black and hairy and it had orange spots on its legs...it looked like a Mexican spider!" After they all busted up laughing and said things like "Who's the racist now?" I emphatically explained that such a spider really does exist. I don't want to have a picture of it on my blog so if you don't believe me, type Mexican Spider into google and you'll find several images of the Mexican Red-Legged Tarantula. The spider I crunched looked like a much smaller version of that.)

When I woke up yesterday morning, I saw a spider crawling down the wall toward my bed. That night, I crushed another spider that I found on the ceiling with my shoe. This very morning I flipped the switch in my room and there was a black spider on the wall not a foot from my face, its many eyes sparkling in the light.

At least they haven't shown up in the shower yet...and yes, I probably just jinxed myself :)

February Photo Challenge: Part Two

February 13 - Blue: It was pretty cloudy all week but there was this little patch of blue peaking through the clouds :)
February 14 - Heart: I got this card from my parents in the mail for Valentine's Day!
February 15 - Phone: This is what I look like on the rare occasion that I get a text message or a phone call. (And since I couldn't find my camera, this is the only way I could take a picture of my phone.)
February 16 - Something New: This is the first time I've seen my name on anything when it wasn't referring to me. (Funny story to go along with this: When I was walking through campus last week to get to work, a guy gave me a flier advertising his band's concert at the Velour. I looked at the flier (pictured below) and said, "Your band's called Searching for Celia, huh? That's my name," to which he excitedly replied, "I FOUND YOU!")
February 17 - Time: When we walked into the temple, the sun was shining brightly. When we left it looked like this.
February 18 - Drink: At my roommate Kristin's intramural soccer game.
February 19 - Something You Hate To Do: I had to smash a spider that was crawling on my wall. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy it's dead and that it's not crawling on me as I sleep. It's the fear of missing it and the crunching sound that got to me as I crushed it with my shoe. This is the spot on the wall where the arachnid met its fate.

February 20 - Handwriting: Writing in my "Spiritual Experience" journal that Mom gave.
February 21 - A Fave Photo of You: This is my kindergarten picture. I was cute then ;)
February 22 - Where You Work: Doing the shipping at my sister's sister-in-law's cosmetics company.
February 23 - Your Shoes: My red flats.
February 24 - Inside Your Bathroom Cabinet: I don't really use the actual bathroom cabinet but I do have a "bathroom drawer" in my desk in my room.
February 25 - Green: The pocket on my green shirt.
February 26 - Night: I tried to take a good picture of the moon but that didn't work out so well. This is the best picture I could get. It's the tree branches outside my window.
February 27 - Something You Ate: I didn't eat this, obviously, but I most definitely ingested and enjoyed it :)
February 28 - Money: A paycheck.
February 29 - Something You Are Listening To: My country jams.

Movie Quotes

Anyone who knows me well knows that I quote movie lines all the time. They just randomly come up in everyday conversation. Some people think I'm crazy but seriously...think about it. There are so many times in a day when a movie line just captures the moment. For example:

• When you are sitting at the dinner table and you want someone to pass you the rolls, you might say, "Please pass the rills." As you may recall, Steve Martin in Father of the Bride 2 takes a few too many sleeping pills and ends up asking for "rills" instead of "rolls" just before he falls asleep on his dinner plate.
• When you find out that one of your friends is a closet painter, you might consider saying, "Get outta town! I didn't know you did anything creative!" Marty McFly says that to his father George McFly in Back to the Future when he finds out that his dad writes science-fiction stories.
• When you have to walk to church in the snow and you accidentally get mud on your shoes, you might exclaim, "These are my best shoes!" When Yzma gets out of her "carriage" and begins walking through the jungle to find Kuzco in The Emperor's New Groove, she accidentally steps into a sticky pile of gunk and angrily says, "These are my best shoes. I hate this jungle!"
• When you are having a bad day and you feel like there aren't any immediate solutions to your problems, you might say to your roommate, "I am at the end of my rapidly-fraying rope!" Julia Robert's character in My Best Friend's Wedding is desperately trying to stop her best friend from marrying Cameron Diaz's character. None of her evil plots work and she finds herself at the end of her "rapidly-fraying rope."
• When something astonishing happens and you can't think of any words to describe your feelings, you might cry, "I'm speechless! I have no words! That's never happened to me! WORDS ARE MY LIFE!" Josie Gellar, Drew Barrymore's extremely nerdy character in Never Been Kissed who loves writing and studying the origins of words, gets asked out to prom by the cutest guy in school. (As you can tell by the quote above, the news is a little too good to be true.)
  

Okay, so maybe I am a little bit crazy :) Just for fun, though, do you know what movies the following quotes come from?

• "We're on our honeymoon." "Bless you for coming out in public."
• "What's your favorite Pringle? Sour Cream & Onion or Original?" "Well, the Sour Cream & Onion has a very strong taste. So if you're eating a small amount, say half a can, you want that strength. But if you're eating much more than that, you want the Original. It's a cleaner flavor."
• "I shall try." (That one's for you, Jen!)
• "Don't touch anything. You might get hepatitis."
• "Try not to kill my dogs."
• "I can't remember a time...before you started telling that story."
• "It's them squeaky shoes!"
• "Mr. Collins will turn us out to starve in the hedge rows."
• "If only this rain would stop!" "If only you would stop."
• "Don't you just love New York in the Fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."
• "Is this an audience or a mosaic?"
• "What are you gonna do? Dice me, slice me, or peal me? There's so many choices!"
• "But the wind! It's perfect!"
• "You're like my own son!" "I am your own son, Mother!" "Exactly! I endured 21 hours of hard labor to bring you into the world. The doctors begged me to take drugs but I swore I wouldn't do anything to hurt my child. Well, I've changed my mind! You screw up with Elizabeth and I swear I'll kill you!"
• "Playing with guns, fighting with swords...It gives me a frightful headache! Such sweaty pursuits are hardly the work(?) of a gentleman."
• "She makes me feel like a poet." "You may feel like a poet but you sound like an idiot."
• "152." "The number of people who think he looks like Clark Gable." "The number of people who think he looks like a Clark Bar."
• "Dustin Hoffman was 5'6"." "Would you like to see Dustin Hoffman save the Alamo?"