Girly Girl

I've never really considered myself to be a girly girl.  I'll watch an NBA game before a Cupcake Wars marathon any day.  I love to play basketball and volleyball and ultimate frisbee, allowing myself to get extremely sweaty and gross while playing them.  I absolutely HATE dramatic reality shows.  In my book, if makeup takes more than a leisurely 4 minutes to put on, it means you are putting on too much.  I'm not the type of girl that goes chasing after guys (sometimes I wish I was).  I like having new clothes but I don't really love to shop.  I try not to become obsessed with any one thing because, if I did, I wouldn't have time to accomplish everything I want to do.  But over the last few months, I have found that I am perhaps more girly than I previously thought.

I just discovered this year that I LOVE to paint my nails.  I don't know why putting a couple of coats of polish on each nail and then sitting back to let them dry, blowing on them occasionally, is so therapeutic but it is.  I love the fact that my nails are long enough now that I can drum them on my desk.  (The people around me at work might be a little annoyed by that but I like it.)

Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors.  Mr. Knightley is the most ideal* man ever created in fiction with perhaps Captain Frederick Wentworth running a close second.  I've seen basically every film adaptation based off of her novels that is available to the public.  Because of my deep love for Austen's work, I have branched out to other authors of a similar time period and location.  Jane Eyre is a classic.  North and South is amazing.  I just love this stuff!
*ideal does not mean perfect or flawless

I squeal and shriek in fear whenever I see a spider.  Here's a picture of the nasty wolf spider that greeted me in my office a couple of days ago.  (It's a little blurry.  I had to stand back and take it because I wasn't getting anywhere near that thing.)

I worry about way too many things.  I think far too much.  I lose valuable sleep time because I can't turn my brain off at night.  I envy those people that can sleep anywhere, any time, and through their alarms.  If only...

I thought I had a variety of genres in my movie collection until someone made the comment, "Wow, you have a lot of chick-flicks."  I got a little defensive saying, "Hey, I have Batman Begins and The Bourne Ultimatum and Star Trek and Rudy and Gettysburg!"  But then I looked at the titles of my movies again and had to retract my defensive thoughts.  So I may have While You Were Sleeping, You've Got Mail, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Never Been Kissed, Leap Year, Anne of Green Gables, Emma...but Cinderella Man is still my favorite movie of all time!  And that's a movie about a boxer! ;)

I love crafting.  My crafting board on Pinterest has dozens of cool ideas pinned to it.  I am perfectly content to spend a Saturday scrapbooking or making some new decoration for my apartment (or someone else's).

So yeah...I'm kind of a girly girl.  But don't ever let that knowledge deter you from inviting me to a Saturday morning basketball game or an intense game of Ultimate Frisbee or a soccer match (even though I'm kind of horrible at soccer) .  I'm always up for that ;)

Classic Celia Moment #2

There are many positive things that come with the beginning of spring and summer. 

Warmth.  Flowers.  Day trips to the beach.  Bonfires.  Good movies. 

But the warmer half of the year has its downsides, too.

Wildfires.  Heat stroke.  High energy bills.  BUGS.

That's right.  This is yet another post chronicling Celia's horrible experiences with insects and arachnids.  Enjoy CCM#2:

A client came in to meet with my boss.  I got up from my desk to go tell him that someone was here to see him.  When I sat back down at my seat at the front desk, telling the client that Jeff would be with her shortly, she said, "By the way, this crawled out of your mail."  She opened up a napkin to show me the pincher bug she had just killed.  Hoping against hope that this was just a one-time thing, I proceeded cautiously with my work.  The next day, while innocently checking my work email, I was resting my elbow on the desk when I felt a little tickle on my arm.  I glanced down to find another pincher bug crawling around on my desk.  I stood up quickly, knocked it to the floor with my pad of paper, and stepped on it about six times before the nasty thing finally died.  I came into work the next day hoping that my harrowing experiences with pincher bugs were finally over.  As it turns out, they were.  However, that doesn't mean that other many-legged creatures did not move in uninvited.  While eating my lunch, I felt something crawling on my leg.  I looked down and saw a spider crawling on my thigh.  Those who know me well would be proud to know that (out of reflex) I smashed the thing with my bare hand.  The last straw came the next day when I shifted some papers around on my desk that hadn't been touched for a while.  When I sat back down in my chair, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye.  I shouldn't have been surprised to find another spider but I was.  Its size made me shrink back against the cubicle wall.  A spider the size of a silver dollar (maybe that's not that big to you, but it's big to me) was crawling all over my papers.  I tried to crush it with my trusty pad of paper but missed and it fell back behind the desk out of reach.  At this point, I went to my boss and said, "I think we need someone to spray for bugs."  After recounting all of my experiences over the past week, he told me to move my computer and all of my work materials to the empty office down the hall.  So, by default, I am no longer the front desk person and I have my own office.

Here's me in my "temporary" office, happy to be away from the front desk after the culmination of that nasty ordeal.

Another bug story to illustrate my hatred of anything bug-like:  When I walked in to work a couple of days later, I could hear a cricket chirping in the kitchen.  My boss (who hates camping) kept saying, "Who needs to go camping?  We've got the sound effects of nature right here."  We ordered in for lunch that day, so we were all in the kitchen at the same time.  The cricket (which we discovered was underneath the fridge) kept chirping away.  Finally Jeff got up to move the fridge and Stephanie grabbed a cup to trap the cricket in.  After the fridge was shifted and there was a confirmed siting, Melodie exclaimed, "There it is!  It's jumping this way!" and started knocking over chairs to try and catch it.  I let out a little squeal and crossed to the other side of the room.  After I found a spot that appeared to be out of the danger zone, I looked up to find everyone laughing at me.  As it turns out, the cricket hadn't moved at all and Stephanie already had it safely trapped inside a cup.  Yes, I know I'm a wimp.

To review CCM #1, feel free to peruse the following post:  http://celiasgibberish.blogspot.com/2012/11/classic-celia-moment-1.html

Things I've Learned From My Nieces and Nephews

With the arrival of a new niece this very morning, I have been reflecting on how being an aunt has changed my life.  I now have ten nieces and nephews and two more are on the way.  Interacting with each of these cute little kids has taught me a number of valuable lessons. 

• When a kid says "Don't tickle me!" with a sly smile on his or her face, they really mean they want to be tickled.  In fact, sometimes they want to be tickled far more than you want to tickle them.
• If you start doing something fun and exhilarating with a child, they will never want to stop.  If you twirl them around once, expect to do it about 50 more times.
• If one child is playing with a toy, the other child will want to play with it, too.  A fight over the toy will ensue.  The toy is taken away.  Then both children will be playing with each other again two minutes later as if nothing had happened. 
• No matter how much you try to hide how you're feeling, little kids pick up on your emotions.  If you are sad, they know.  If you are angry, they know.
• Little kids pick up on everything you say and often repeat it back.  So be careful what you let slip out of your mouth.
• Most importantly, my nieces and nephews have taught me about the things that matter most.  They find joy in the simple things.  They see a picture of Jesus and they smile.  If you ask them where they are going to get married someday, they say, "The temple," and promptly start to sing the primary song, "I Love to See the Temple."  They love and show affection without reservation.  They forgive and forget.  They want to learn and improve.

I love these little (and not so little anymore) bundles of joy.  Here are my wonderful nieces and nephews (in order of their birth):

Mariah Mae Jordan - 5 years old

Logan William Brown - 5 years old

Jackman Scott Jordan - 4 years old

Sydney Olivia Keogan - 3 years old

Bruce Wayne Christensen - 3 years old

Erica Allison Brown - 2 years old

Rhyan Patrice Christensen - 21 months

Jace McKay Jordan - 18 months

 

Sophie Elysia Keogan - 17 months

Terah Elise Brown - born this morning :)

How can you not love all of those little faces?

Caught in the Act

That time when my roommate walked in on me vacuuming my sheets.

That time when someone called me up on a Saturday morning and asked me what I was doing.  "Uh...well, I'm taking an online virtual tour of Westminster Abbey. You?"
http://www.sphericalimages.com/westminster-abbey-360-virtual-tour/tour.html

That time when I was drying my hair, smiling at myself in the mirror (because I've noticed that teeth can look white or off-white depending on the lighting), and then noticing my brother-in-law staring at me from around the corner with a confused expression on his face.

That time when I was singing in a very forced and ridiculously operatic voice when I thought I was alone.  As it turns out, I wasn't.

That time when, as a child, I thought it would be cool to "polish" the bathroom door with Vaseline.  Though I was not technically caught in the act, my mother was not happy with "whoever did it."

That time I made a scary and disgusting face into the opening at the bottom of the slide at The Jungle because I expected my friend Jessica to come down after me.  The little boy that came down in her place was quite frightened and headed in the opposite direction every time he saw me for the rest of the day.

That time I almost choked on a piece of Lemon Chicken at Chef Chao's and didn't want anyone to notice.  After finally clearing my throat, I looked up with watery eyes to find an in-law staring at me concernedly.

That time I wet my pants in first grade because the freaking student teacher wouldn't let me go to the freaking bathroom.  (I spent the next four years of elementary school trying to live down that humiliation.  Luckily for me, the other kids' memories didn't serve them very well.)

That time my brother-in-law found me taking a video of the ants running around the round-about at the Concord Campus of Cal State East Bay after I got out of class.  (In my defense, there were seriously millions of them just running around and around with no particular purpose, and I found it rather fascinating.)

The Roommate Influence

Having lived with roommates for the past six years, I have come to wonder about the kind of impact these wonderful girls have had on me.  I am a slightly different person than I was six years ago. Okay, maybe the change has been a tad bit more than slight.  I'm not as quiet as I used to be.  It's probably a little bit easier to get me irritated now than previously.  Surprisingly, I'm actually more dramatic now than I was in high school.  Most of these changes have probably come about through my interaction with female roommates.  Perhaps the biggest impact my roommates have had on me over the years is best observed in my speech patterns.  It's a well-known fact that when you live with someone over a long period of time, you tend to pick up on some of their behavior.  For example, I once worked with someone who had a limp and, after four months of working with her, I found that I walked with a slight limp whenever I walked beside her.  Weird, right?  The same thing can be said for speech.  There are certain phrases that people employ more than others in their daily speech patterns and, because of their frequent use, they stand out for the rest of us to pick up. I have incorporated many of these phrases into my own speech. 

Here are a few examples.  I'll have to omit some of these little gems as I'm not entirely sure how appropriate they are for the general populace. ;)

"I'm so bitter!" - This phrase is particularly useful when someone has really and truly deprived you of something fantastic or has insulted you beyond words.

"MY LIFE!" - This phrase is applicable in so many scenarios.  If you just managed to figure out a crazy formula on Microsoft Excel, you can proudly and happily exclaim, "My life!"  If you're annoyed that Microsoft Office always auto-corrects when you don't want it to, you'll find that shouting, "MY LIFE!" into your empty bedroom tends to quell your frustration.  If you're irritated that the only guys you ever seem to attract are the odd ducks, you can say, "My life," in a whiny voice.  Really, this is such a great phrase.  It is by far the best and most far-reaching one I've picked up.

"I'm so in love with him!" - Yeah...this is a sentence that doesn't always mean exactly what it sounds like.  It can but not always.  My old roommates (and I) will sometimes throw this out during any stage of the dating/relationship process, ranging from the initial meeting to married life itself.  When this phrase is adopted during the initial phases of flirtation/dating, it's just a girl saying she is interested in a guy in a completely over-the-top and dramatic way.  Saying you're in love with someone just makes the hum-drum single life seem more interesting and exciting.

"Stop. Just stop."  If someone is engaging in supremely annoying activity and you are experiencing mounting levels of frustration due to this person's behavior, employ this phrase when complaining about it to your friends.  For example, "Man, I have this really weird stalker and I can't go to a single regional church activity without him finding me and giving me random notes.  Everywhere I go, there he is.  Every time I change my direction to avoid him, he changes his so he will run into me anyway. Doesn't this guy get it?  I mean, really?  Stop. Just sto-op."

"Crapnaggit!" - This exclamation doesn't require too much explanation other than it's just an edgier way of saying "dagnabbit."  It's for those moments when you're particularly peeved but not peeved enough to swear.

"Dude!" - This is a word I never EVER said in high school.  My prim-and-proper, quiet little self wouldn't allow it.  Now I find myself saying, "Listen, dude," "You're driving like an idiot, dude,"  "Dude, I can't believe you just did that!" all the time.  I don't overuse it like some people do, but I definitely say it more than I want to.

"I look like Satan right now." - For those moments when you wake up, look in the mirror, and wonder how the heck your hair got so frazzled during the night.  For those moments when you just worked out and you are hotter than Hades (in a bad way).  For those moments when you get emotional during an inspirational scene in a movie and later find black streaks of mascara all around your eyes.  (Other variations I've heard while roaming the halls of previous apartments include, "I look like Satan's wife," or "I look like death.")

This is what I have coined The Roommate Influence.  When you live in such close proximity with others, the buck never stops with you.  Supposedly, I have passed along a few things myself, like "I'll be honest," and "I almost died."  So if you have the option of choosing your roommates, choose wisely.  In six years, you could be a completely different person.  :)

3 Signs You Are Still Young

I turn 24 in a couple of months.  I felt old when I turned 23 but 24 seems...even older.  Imagine that.  Most of my roommates and friends got married when they were 20.  Some of them have kids.  A few of them have two children already.  People I used to babysit are now in the singles' ward with me or on missions.  I feel old sometimes.  Before everyone over the age of 25 who may be reading this rolls their eyes and quits reading, let me assure you that I know I'm really not that old.  In fact, a number of things have happened in the last few months to remind me of just how young I am.

1. At the bus stop the other day, I got into a conversation with a total stranger.  We watched a hawk swoop down from a nearby tree limb and pick up some unsuspecting critter on the ground.  Somehow this little observation of the circle of life got us onto the topic of horses.  She lives on a farm out in Oakley and has raised horses since she was a little girl.  Her favorite horse, the one she has had since she was in her 20s, is getting on in years and starting to slow down.  When I asked how old the horse was, she replied that it was 25-years-old.  I don't know much about horses or their average lifespans but I figured that 25 was fairly old for a horse.  "Wow, that's an old horse!  Older than me!"  The lady kind of chuckled and then starting reminiscing about her younger days.  That's when I realized that if you are younger than the oldest horse, you are still young.
2. We had a meeting about health insurance at work about a month and a half ago.  As we sat in the conference room, a projection of all the employees' names and birthdays appeared on the wall.  1955, 1960, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1977...1989.  Yeah, I got quite a few comments about being the baby of the office...and how I wasn't even alive when Reagan was president...and how I am the same age or younger than some of my coworkers' children.  I chose not to bring up the fact that when I make oldies playlists on iTunes or Spotify, Journey songs go in there right alongside the tunes of Simon and Garfunkle and the Beatles.  If your earliest memory is after 1990 (heck, if your earliest memory is after 1980), you are still young.
3. When I turned 23 in Provo, I felt like a dinosaur.  Many of the girls in my ward were four years younger than me and still in their giggly, boy-crazy stage.  When I moved back to California and went to church for the first time, I found that I was in the middle of my ward's age spectrum and actually closer to the bottom than to the top.  When you are rubbing shoulders with people in your singles' ward who graduated from high school seven to ten years before you did, you are still young.

(DISCLAIMER: If your situation does not fit any of the above criteria, that does not mean that you are not young.  It just means you are older than me. :) )

Unusually Chipper

Today started out like any other day.  I showered, got dressed, ate breakfast, got my lunch together, dried my hair, brushed my teeth, and headed off to work in the usual fashion.  I sat down in my seat at the front desk, turned on my computer, checked my work email, and took care of the usual morning duties.  While sorting through some of the documents in the scan folder that needed to be filed, David walked in to the office.  I said what I thought was my usual morning greeting and then looked up to find David staring at me.  "You seem unusually chipper this morning," he said.

Somewhat bewildered by this, I brushed it off and proceeded to do my work.  Like every other day, I plugged my earphones into my computer, turned on Spotify, chose one of the playlists I've created for myself, then put an ear bud into my right ear, leaving one ear unhindered should someone ask me to do something or if the phone should ring.  After a few minutes, I realized I was swaying back and forth in my chair and snapping my fingers to the beat of Frank Sinatra's At Long Last Love.  Standing in front of the microwave, I was humming to myself while waiting for my food to heat up.  I walked down the hall to the server room with a little more spring in my step than normal.  David was right.  I was a little more chipper than usual.

What could account for this change?  I thought to myself, "Well, you are almost over a really bad cold.  The fact that you can breathe again would make anyone happy, right?"  While I was happy that I could take a deep breath in without doubling over in a coughing fit, I didn't think that was the reason I was unusually chipper.  I thought to myself, "It's Friday.  You can go home tonight and read a book or watch a movie late into the night and then sleep in tomorrow morning."  While the thought of a Friday night snuggled up on my bed reading topped off with a decent night's sleep sounded awesome albeit pathetic and anti-social, I didn't feel that this was the reason I was especially happy.

You know how they say people get depressed during the winter?  I've always thought that was kind of ridiculous.  How can the weather affect someone's mood?  Heck, people must be really emotionally unstable if they can't handle a few clouds in the sky.  Being the vain, prideful person that I am, I have always thought myself above such moodiness.  Well, as it turns out, a key part of the definition of being female is being moody and I, unfortunately, am not immune to this weakness.

With this realization came the answer to my question.  The reason I was unusually content today probably lies in the fact that as I was walking to the bus stop yesterday after work, I could smell the scent of the blossoms in the trees.  I looked into the distance and admired the contrast between the green of the rolling hills and the blue of the infinite sky.  I even welcomed the sound of the bees buzzing among the flowers as I walked along the pathway.

When I reached the bus stop, I struck up a friendly conversation with a total stranger.  I let a desperate-looking young mother go ahead of me in the check-out line at the grocery store.  I couldn't stop smiling as I walked to my apartment, watching the color of the sky change as the sun went down behind the hills.  Who knew the coming of spring could have such an impact on me? 

I have been sufficiently humbled.  I freely admit that I am yet another moody female :)