A Gaggle of Top Tens

I'm a fan of writing top ten lists, several of which have made appearances in this blog. Mallory has been working for a few months to compile many of my top ten lists into a book that I can pay to have printed. It turned out awesome! I'm so excited to get the first copy. If there are any of you who want a copy, you will have to pay me back for it, but you'll possess an amazing piece of American literature.
The title of the book is "A Gaggle of Top Tens: Musings, Rantings, Ravings, and Generally Bitter Remarks From A Girl Who Should Know Better." It's separated into 4 sections, dealing with life, religion, dating, and marriage. As I was taking a last look at the finished product last night on Mallory's computer, I was reading and kept chuckling to myself. I kept telling Mallory, "I forget that I'm funny."
I'm sure that was only pretty annoying.
And though I comment often on my bitterness, it's really not legitimate. In case any of you actually think I believe in the things I write. But, if you really know me, you already knew that.

Queen of the Variety Show

I love acting. Especially when I get to act like someone completely different from myself, which is often (normally I get cast in the extremely ditzy or ultra seductive wannabe roles).
Therefore, whenever there is a hint of a variety show, I get very excited about the possibilities. It's not that I demand the attention. It's more that I have so much fun organizing skits and performances, that I just want to do several.
Now would be a good time to mention our ward's variety show.
I'm very excited. For those of you who have been in a college ward with me, you'll remember that I am usually in several acts (odds are, you've been in one of them with me. And if your name is Carol Atwater, you've been in almost all of them). Right now, I'm planning three, possibly four acts.
You might think that's a little overkill. However, it's important to note that much of my ultra-involvement stems from a desire to get others involved. One of the acts I'm planning actually features about a dozen people. However, this did get me to reminiscing on the past. Enjoy.
I played a little girl in "Phillip the Hyper Hypo."


Chad was willing to let me make him a rat tail for our New Kids on the Block lip sync. I made it from my own hair.This one started it all, the first New Kids on the Block lip sync to Hangin' Tough. I was Donnie.


One of my favorite characters to portray was Mary Catherine Gallagher. She made appearances in at least 3 variety shows.


Of course, there are several that are not represented. Among them being:
1. A re-enactment of a scene from "Emperor's New Groove."

2. A Spice Girls lip sync

3. A Milli Vanilli lip sync

4. An SNL skit featuring Penelope (the "one upper.")

And so many more.

Top Ten Easter Memories

So, Easter's tomorrow, and I don't really have anything special planned to celebrate it. Jenni and I are singing in our Stake Sacrament meeting, but that's not really a celebration. More of a penalty. But the season has caused me to think on times past and the Easters of my childhood. (Insert the Ghost of Easter Past):

10. Racing Mike and Tina down the stairs to try and find all the Easter eggs. Since I was 8 and they were 16 and 15 respectively, I was clueless as to how much they didn't care about Easter eggs.

9. Making an Easter bunny cake for my "Secret Grandmother" Myrtle Carlin. I love that gal! She would actually write me back notes (even though she didn't know who her "Secret Granddaughter" was at the time. She now knows, so don't worry about letting the cat out of the bag). But yeah, that Easter bunny cake looked awesome.

8. Being amazed (and, to tell you the truth, I'm still somewhat amazed) by the idea of putting those plastic wrappers on eggs and then boiling them to make the plastic shrink and stick to the egg. I want to say that they're called Shrinky Dinks, but I know I'm wrong.

7. Most of the childhood Easters I remember were after Mike and Tina were out of the house and onto having futures and whatnot. But I remember very clearly sitting down, just Mom and I, to dye all the Easter eggs. We made sure to decorate one for everyone in the family (even extended family) so we could deliver them on Easter morning. Good times.

6. This is actually a memory from my mission. Pennsylvania is the only place I've ever seen that takes EVERY single holiday as seriously as most people take Christmas. It was in Pennsylvania (Cannonsburg to be specific) that I first saw Easter trees, which consist of hanging Easter eggs, ribbons, and confetti on all the trees in the front yard.

5. Going to visit Grandma. I can still hear her calling out "Oh my. Don't you look beautiful!" This world needs more grandmas.

4.HAM!!!! Yep, I said it, and now you're salivating. Sucker!

3. The hunt for the perfect Easter dress. I remember there was a particular year where mom and I couldn't find anything. Finally, we found a little dress in a store called "The Hole in the Wall," which was in downtown Oroville, and actually was a hole in the wall.

2. And speaking of the perfect Easter dress, they mostly came from "Miniworld" (I think that was the name of the place). Most of my dresses (up until I was 10 years old) had a crinoline petticoat under them, to help keep that Shirley Temple-esque shape. Why didn't anyone tell my mom those are only cute on girls 5 and under! Shame on all of you Orovillians.

1. And still speaking of dresses, I was able to convince Mom to buy me an Easter dress as recently as last year. Old habits die hard, but thanks Mom, I still love it!

A Tribute to "Flight of the Conchords"

Last Monday night, our ward dyed Easter eggs for Family Home Evening. Struggling to find an idea for an egg that I could really sink my teeth into (and no, that was not an intentional pun), Mallory and I decided to create our favorite characters from HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." For those of you not familiar with the show, I don't recommend it for kids (I would rate it PG-13 for the most part). It's the story of a band from New Zealand trying to make it big in New York. Problem is, the two guys in the band, Bret and Jemaine, have hardly any talent. What makes the show so fun, however, are the music videos that the two guys dream up. Anyway, so you know who each egg is (from left to right):
Murray- Band manager. He insists at taking roll at every band meeting (which they hold in his closet sized office).
Bret- (This egg was made by Mallory) Shy member of the band. Infamous for wearing hideously out of fashion t-shirts and sweaters (the kinds with tigers, unicorns, or kittens on them).
Jemaine- My personal favorite. Jemaine is always trying to get the girl. Usually this is unsuccessful, because the girls are mostly attracted to Bret ("Jemaine's features are too deep set to be considered classically handsome").
Brabra- Brabra (that's how you spell it, and pronounce it) was really only a one timer on the show, but she was played by one of my favorite SNL gals, Kristen Wiig. Her character had an epileptic dog, for which the guys threw a charity fundraiser (featuring strobe lighting and rock music, which caused all the epileptic dogs in the audience to have seizures. You get what kind of show this is, right?)

If you're wondering why the eggs are only drawn on with pencil, it's because I was working with really limited materials at the church. Obviously, if I had my markers, it would have been just this side of amazing.

Don't Worry, It's Just an Old Man Crush

I feel like I've been using this phrase a lot lately. I feel the whole theme goes well with my Top Ten list about why it's cool to date older men.
This particular candidate, for those of you who live your lives without "House," is Hugh Laurie. I first saw him as the disgruntled husband to Charlotte Barton in "Sense and Sensibility." He had dry humor mastered!

Watching him in "House" (a television series about a cantakerous, socially inept doctor) is awesome. I totally think he's attractive. Some might think that I'm strange being attracted to someone who is old enough to be my father. It's probably because my own father is quite a bit older (though that still doesn't stop me from having a crush on Christopher Plummer).
So there you have it: my number one old man crush.

An Ode to a Man I Love (Who I Probably Shouldn't)

So, I'm a 28-year old school teacher. That having been said, there are some men that I totally crush on that I really shouldn't (either due to societal norms or my own moral code). I would like to make this into a recurring segment.
Today, I'd like to focus on my favorite as of today. His name is Gerard Way.
Gerard is the lead singer of the band "My Chemical Romance." The band (labeled as being of the emo genre) really came into the light with their album "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge" (which is also the resting place of my favorite song of all time: "I'm Not OK"). Though their most recent album met with mixed reviews, I absolutely adored it. The craziness started when I saw one of their music videos and fell in love with Gerard.
The idea of me (the aforementioned 28-year-old teacher) crushing on someone who wears makeup and nail polish (and black on black ensembles) is somewhat humorous.
One of the comments I made to Randa (who teaches 6th grade at Aspen) was "I think eye liner is kind of sexy on guys."
Probably why I'm so into theater.

So tune in soon for my next inappropriate crush object.