i know. i'm blushing.

If you can feasibly wrap it up in a tortilla, you definitely should. Everything is better when eaten like a burrito.

When I’m old, I’m going to sit in an orange floral armchair in my room at the nursing home, staring out my window at my hummingbird feeding all day long. It’s practically what I do now anyway, minus the orange floral armchair. I’ve become mildly obsessed.

Something I like about Washington is having hummingbirds come to my feeder year round. I took these today while it was snowing.

In the meantime, my hummingbird obsession has rubbed off onto Bryant in a weird way: he’s been sitting here googling the world’s smallest creatures for the past 30 minutes and reporting all his findings to me. It started with the world’s smallest hummingbird, and has since escalated to the smallest bat, the smallest mammal (which happens to be the same bat), the smallest vertebrate (which is a frog), the smallest primate (a lemur), the smallest crocodile (4 feet), the smallest snake (3.8 inches), etc etc. Now he’s reading to me all about honey bees. Maybe we should’ve been zoologists.

I know I never talk much about my religion here, and I’m not really sure I want to change that yet, but I did want to share this funny little tidbit from today…

I was just getting online to create a mormon.org profile for myself (which, to be honest, I’m not completely on board with yet, but I’ve decided to do it anyway because, hey, it can’t hurt).

So I got online, was clicking through, and I skimmed across an interesting line in the Content Submission Agreement. I did a double take.

Additionally, you hereby grant to Intellectual Reserve, Inc. a royalty-free, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable license to use your Submission throughout the universe in perpetuity…

Wow, really? Who knew you could find comedy in a user agreement? Maybe it was because I was reading it with religion on the mind, but I felt… I don’t know… flattered (?) that the Church might want to use my submission in other worlds and worlds to come, throughout all perpetuity, forever and ever amen. I mean wow, right? ;)

But then I did a quick Google search of the phrase “throughout the universe in perpetuity” and found that it’s a phrase being used with increasing frequency in modern media contracts. A Wall Street Journal article calls it “lawyerese going galactic,” and if you want more of a laugh along these lines, check out this blogger‘s proposed phrase that would cover lawyers’ contractual butts even more. …You know, just in case there’s some parallel universe somewhere with a media outlet just waiting to be tapped…

In any and all media, now known or hereafter devised, throughout this and any other universes, whether known, unknown, parallel, intersecting, obtuse or otherwise, throughout space, time and all other dimensions, whether now known or hitherto discovered, in perpetuity, or longer, as the case may be.

Amen.

Alright, back to making my mormon.org profile. Wish me luck gettin’ famous in this world and the next.

…either that or really lowering my standards.

I just consciously drank two-day-old expired milk because, hey, it still tasted okay. And I didn’t think twice about it. Until now, I guess, when I’m clearly thinking about it again. But that doesn’t count.

This is likely the first time I ever willfully consumed anything past its date stamp. It somehow makes me feel more grown up. Is that weird? Maybe it’s just that I’m noticing that I truly am becoming my mother. ;) (Hey Ma! Love ya!)

Of all the random places to find this great poem, I found it hanging in a bathroom stall of a restaurant Bryant and I discovered recently.

Plans like these give you something to look forward to.

After I send an email, regardless of how many times I proof it before hitting send, I always have to go into my sent mail folder and reread the message one last time. I don’t know why, but I can’t help it. I know it’s too late to fix any errors, but I do it anyway. Every time. I think maybe I do this because I figure if my recipient is going to see an error, I want to see it too. Then, at least we BOTH know I’m an idiot.

That’s my running theory anyway.

I woke up this morning and groggily reached out for the clock, wondering how much time I had before I had to get ready for class. “8:52″ the clock said. I was hit with a sudden panic. “I’m so late!” I thought. In a rush of adrenaline I nearly leapt out of bed.

Then slowly, laboriously, the rest of my brain caught up with myself. “Calm down!” my brain said. “Today is Saturday.”

Still feeling mildly confused, but beginning to accept the fact that the weekend had arrived, relief slowly filled me. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Such a strange way to start the day. But thank goodness for Saturdays.

This is a judge-free zone, right?

Good.

So now I’ll tell you the best tasting thing ever.

Butter plus brown sugar, beaten until it’s creamy, right before you add anything else to the cookie dough. I mean really, why even bother with the other ingredients? (Except maybe for the chocolate.)

Delicious.

I’ve been sick since Thanksgiving.  Actually, I’m pretty sure my whole extended family has been sick since Thanksgiving, unless they were sick right before or during Thanksgiving. It seems we had a white elephant exchange at my parent’s house: bring your favorite microbe to pass around. :)

Despite the stress of having to miss work, juggling school, and sitting around coughing out my insides, it is a little bit nice (am I allowed to say this???) to be forced to sit around at home and do nothing.

I’ve slept. A lot. I’ve read two books and started on a third. And if you knew me & my inability to sit through a whole book, you’d know what a great accomplishment that is.

And perhaps most importantly, Bryant and I (he’s sick too, of course) have completely caught up on all of our TV watching. Nothing left in the Hulu queue except some little random bits. Nothing on our Netflix streaming that’s calling our names too loudly.

So what the heck do we do now? This is a call to arms. Please, help a sister out. What shows should we be watching? Old shows, new shows, lay it on me.

In the past year:

• We put everything we own into boxes and moved to Washington.
• We celebrated Christmas in an apartment furnished with nothing but a giant, undecorated Christmas tree and a leaky blow-up mattress. It turned out perfect.
• I went back to school.
• Bryant started a new job (which he loves).
• I started a new job (which I love).
• We hosted dear friends and family from out of town seven times, for a total of 35 days!
• Bryant was hospitalized for a week, and survived.
• We watched New Year’s fireworks at the Space Needle, and we watched 4th of July fireworks over Lake Washington.
• We took trips to North Carolina (and Virginia while we were at it), Utah twice, Colorado twice, and Illinois.
• My 2010 bald eagle sighting count grew to six.
• We experienced the full range of Seattle’s three seasons, which are as follows: [1] three and a half months of sun with 70-degree weather*, [2] eight and a half months of rain, and [3] three days of light snow, when absolutely everything will shut down and your husband will spend seven hours on a bus on a bridge over Lake Washington.
• We got an adorable new niece.
• Bryant managed to squeeze out a year of living in a new state without getting a new driver’s license.
• We found our favorite Indian-food place, Mexican-food place, gelato place, creme-puff place (come on, everyone needs a favorite creme puff place), and we’re still working on the rest.
• We bought some real, grown-up furniture, which will be delivered next weekend, and I can’t wait.
• We had a three-year anniversary, I turned 26, and Bryant’s 32nd is just around the corner.

It’s so odd how all this stuff packs itself into the year without you noticing it. Sometimes, when I’m not thinking, I feel like I’ve wasted so much time and think I must be useless because there are still so many things left to do on my list. But then I take a minute to make a list like this and I realize, life fills itself into the spaces whether you’re aware of it or not. There’s always more to do, but look at how much you’ve done!

2010, thanks for everything. You’ve been very good year.

*except for when it’s more than 70 degrees.