Appreciation #4

This week's appreciation goes out to my dear friend Kaedi Fehlberg. We became friends shortly after I moved to NYC about four years ago. Without ever knowing it, she has helped me through my good and bad days. She was with me the night that I first fell for my husband Doug, she was there on our wedding day, and she has been there after everyone of my doctor appointments these past months. She lives about a block away from my doctors office so I would go cry on her shoulders before having to take the bus and two subways home. Every time that I showed up at your home she had cookies, lunch, and a smile that always made me feel better. I look up to her in every way and always inspire to be more like her.

Who do you appreciate this week?

Project Runway is so fierce

Last night we had a fierce Project Runway finale party and we all looked fabulous


Kim brought the couture made Rice Krispies Treat.


Meredith made a cake with the writing "Make it Work"


Quoting our dear Tim Gunn (Doll brought by Ryan)


The night had to, of course, start off with a competition of the designers (thanks to Ryan). Each team had ten minutes to design and fit their models only using newspaper and tape. Flowing that was the fashion show (the video will be coming shortly). We all know that "either you are in or you are out" and team fierce won. Way to go Reagan, Meredith, and Tamara.


All of us were getting nervous at the end thinking that, oh my gosh could Rami really win...No!! Seeing Christian lose his confidence was mind blowing, he was starting to cry. Seeing him almost cry made all of us (well some of us) want to cry for him. Christian, we were thinking, you can do it, you have to win. Just when we couldn't take it any longer we hear Heidi Klum announce, "Christian, you are the WINNER." Yeahs and claps were heard though out the room. Christian was himself again quickly when soon after was asked "Can you believe that this just happened?" and he replied with "Yeah".


Way to go Christian, you are so fierce. Don't be surprise if a girl named Reagan comes knocking on your door just to give you a hug.

You can see more pictures of the night at Hall Photos

Roll Call

I wanted to do a few shout outs to people/things that have affected me lately:

First, to running. It's been months since I've run pain free and while my hip still hurts after a few miles it feels so good to be back on the road. I don't think I can overstate how much I enjoy running and am glad I was able to compete for so long. And also giving me an excuse to wear short shorts and spandex as well as shave my legs. I'm forever indebted to the sport.

Tone Loc recently turned 42. If Funky Cold Medina doesn't do it for you , well, I don't know why you're reading this blog. Seriously though, think about some of his lines:
This is the 80's and I'm down with the ladies
My threads are fresh and I'm looking def yo was up with L-O-C.
He embodied everything that was good about 80's rap even though he only had two big songs. And he was in Ace Ventura which was a staple in our house growing up. For some reason my mom wouldn't let us buy it but we rented it so many times we paid for it several times over. One of my favorite memories of my brother Matt is doing a better impression of Ace than the actor in a show we saw in Florida. I don't know if he was embarrassed or in disbelief that a 14 year old kid showed up in front of dozens of tourists. At this point I'll also shoutout Matt for inspiring me to take the GMAT by rocking it and forcing me to bring my A-game.

My cousin Jon who took us to the MoMA for the design and the elastic mind exhibit. Jon moved to the city a few years ago. Before that he lived in North Dakota and for the first couple years he was here I saw him more often when he was in ND than when he lived here. I'm glad we got that figured out and we now see him and Kayte (not that it's always a package deal, for now) more regularly.

KROQ who is finally streaming online so I can listen to Kevin and Bean during the day now. Growing up, these guy were so hilarious. We would sit in the car before seminary waiting for them to finish their segments. I'm sure our teachers are thrilled to hear that.

Jeff, Caitlin, and Tracy for various reasons. As a group they visited Tamara a couple times last week which she really appreciated. I didn't know they were allowing travel so freely between Brooklyn, the UWS, and the heights but I guess I was wrong. I'm going to highlight Jeff because 1) He just got into a master's program at Northwestern and though we'll miss him, this is huge 2) He introduced to the following things that have changed my life (a list within a list) a) Daft Punk's 2007 alive b) scrabulous, which he routinely humiliates me at and 3) and any time spent with the Mulcocks is 100% guaranteed a good time.

Wilbon from PTI for recovering from his heart issues and not forcing me to listen to LeBatard or Adande any more.

Tamara wants to shoutout our bud Carl for making sure that we never have to lose a board/card game we play with him, Brett Favre for helping her win her football fantasy league (let's not talk about it), and Christa for sending her customized M&Ms.

I want to say good riddance to Sam Cassell for quitting on the Clips. I understand where he was coming from but it's a sad day to be a Clippers fan. In advance of tonights results I'm saying goodbye to Hillary. She won't quit after this, but she'll be essentially eliminated and anything else she does will divide her party.

I'm also saying good riddance to my infrequent posting and will be back more regularly.

MoMA

This past weekend we went to the MoMA Museum with Doug's cousin John Bennion and his girlfriend Kayte Williams.

We went to the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit and found it very odd and interesting and the same time. The odd part was seeing what we could look like in the future.

We found this very interesting and the pictures don't do it justice. The first picture is showing what happens when you play chess and all the different choices you can make in just one move. The second picture is showing the activity of all the airplanes in the sky at one time. Both of these exhibits were continuing to change, we thought that it was pretty cool. There is much more to experience, but you need to go see it for yourself.

All and all it was a great time with a little culture, family bonding, and of course great food.
We went to get burgers at the Parker Meridien Hotel...yum.

Appreciation #3

This week's appreciation goes out to my little buddy Warren Dix. He came to visit us in the city last year and filled our home with sunshine (and throw-up). Last month he sent us two Valentines surprises, one as an e-card and another in the mail. What more could a girl ask for?

Who do you appreciate this week?

There's an M&M in everyone

Here is the M&M in me, what do you look like?

For anyone that really knows me, you would know that I love chocolate, especially plain milk chocolate M&M's. Our love affair started when I was about three years old and being potty trained. Every time that I went in the toilet, I got a hand full of M&M's from my mom. I quickly learned (thanks to my big brothers) that if I just flushed the toilet and went and told mom, I could still get a hand full of M&M's. I am feeling a little guilty lately because I have been cheating on the milk chocolate for the dark. I have gone to the dark side, as the ads would say.

Our love affair has lasted through out the years because lets face it; Mr. M&M has always been there for me. Through all my break-ups, accomplishments, birthdays, lazy days, rainy days and through all the good and the bad. He never made me feel bad about myself and never judged me when I eat a whole bag. I have a system to eating M&M's. I like to eat them two at a time with the colors matching and always leaving the green for last. This is because you can make wishes on the green:) My dad used to like to mess up my system on purpose and I was always not very pleased. Doug is well aware of our relationship and is okay with it; he will often use M&M's to cheer me up. What a great and smart man that Doug is, don't fight it, go with it.

Anyway, I bring this up because once again, Mr. M&M has been there for me thanks to my sister-in-law Christa Hall. This morning I received a package in the mail. When I opened it up I found four bags of yummy, delicious M&M's. The best part was that they were blue and pink and all of them were labeled "Knocked Up Soon" and "Be Happy". That Christa is so awesome and always knows what to do to make me smile.



I also have to mention that in the past two weeks, our dear friend Caitlin has brought me dark chocolate M&M's twice to cheer me up and it was just what the doctor ordered. (This link is to her husband Jeff's blog because Caitlin feels that she is too cool to have one on her own).

I hope that everyone has been as fortunate as I have to have such a great food companion, if so, feel free to give them a shout out.

Singles Wards

I've been trying to form this post for awhile and I still don't feel awesome about it but I got nothing else right now.

I've been in the bishopric of the singles ward for a year now. At first it was a bit weird. Lots of the people are older than me, I was friends with lots of them before, and three were in my freshman ward. Most are probably more mature than me. Fortunately, I didn't date any of them. But I've really enjoyed the experience. Matt Cope went so far as to say the singles ward is way cooler than the family ward. (I'm going to have to hedge his assessment since he has such a small sampling pool. He doesn't play ball or Halo with the EQ and I can count on two fingers the number of social activities I've seen him at outside of his home.) I think the main reason I've been so well received is because I brought Tamara so she and her friends can sit in the back and stand in the hallways and talk. And to play matchmaker. Whatever it takes though.

One of my good friends in DC, Summer, just got engaged and we were talking about singles vs. married wards. We've both spent a fair amount of time in singles wards in some capacity. Now, the following comments are made in regards to singles ward, not student wards. These are wards with people who have finished their undergrad or are over 25. Basically, people who are working. There are only a few places where there are large concentrations of these wards-NYC, Boston, DC, LA, etc. The general (there are always exceptions which is why I said general as opposed to some definitive term) feeling was that people in singles ward are a bit more diligent than in family wards-callings, showing up to help at moves, HT/VT, etc. I think the reason is single people have a big goal in mind-getting married-that helps them focus on doing the right things. After that a certain amount of being comfortable ensues. Whether or not they are diligent for the right reasons is a topic for another discussion. I think at some point (or perhaps several) in life people have an epiphany and realize where the gospel needs to be in their life and this changes but from 25-35 years old I think this is generally true. Summer and I briefly talked about what we need to do to avoid that and there weren't any revolutionary ideas but I think being aware of it is a start. Always having something to work on is important. I don't think it's because people have kids because this is also true for guys without kids. And seriously, is there ever a Saturday where you really want to help someone move? I don't know anybody who wakes up and says, Man, I wish there were someone moving today.

Anyway just some food for though. I really like our ward and it's awesome having so many people who are diligent and righteous and helping to forward the work around here.

Visitors

Doug and I learned quickly that when you live in NYC, many people want and do come to visit. Don't get us wrong, we love when good friends and family come and we always have fun. We noticed that this year our numbers our down. I wonder if it has anything to do with Doug mentioning in our Christmas letter that 32 weekends of last year we had people staying with us, or is it that we just ran out of friends?

This past week we had some friends and family visiting the city but staying at hotels. We did what we do best, take them out for dinner and dessert.

First was one of Doug's old roommates, Jared (aka The Mexican) and his beautiful wife.

Then Doug and Robyn Ellis came into town with a bunch of friends.

Good times were had by all.

Appreciation #2

My shout out for appreciation this week goes out to my brother James Finck. He has always stood by me through the good and the bad and never wavered his faith in me. I think that he was just as sad as we were for not getting pregnant and probably prayed more then we did.
Besides my husband Doug, James is one of the smartest guys I know. If I was ever on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, he would be my call for a friend life line. His family is adorable and writes a cute blog but you really should check out James Blog if you are interested in politics and controversial points of view. He appreciates a good comment as much as the next guy. He is a professor at University of Texas Pan Am and I am so proud. He is pretty dang funny as well. I love you James, thanks for all that you do.

Being Cool

Many of the financial blogs I read will have posts about the lives bankers, traders, and others who are over payed lead. I won't go into details, but it mostly has to do with how they spend their ca$h money, look down on other people, and can't get enough of themselves. And about how cool all that is. It's kind of an idea that is perpetuated to make everybody feel better about themselves. A lot of people throw up these facades in all walks of life; this just happens to be the one I'm in. I'm sure lawyers have something they tell themselves about the good they do in the world. There's nothing wrong with it because we all know it's a smokescreen but I've been thinking about that a lot. When you apply to grad schools they want you to come in sure and focused of what you want to do next. There are certain career paths that are "cooler" than others. Many don't appeal to me so I've been thinking about what'll really make me happy long term. That may not be cool now, but someday it will be.

I feel many of the things I've done weren't cool at one point but ended up being cool; others were never and never will be cool. Many of these things make us the unique individuals we are. So I wanted to talk about a few things that aren't or weren't generally cool and invite others to add what they think are cool.

Running-In high school, wearing short shorts and running wasn't that cool. We had a great team so that made it a bit cooler, but we still weren't that cool. While wearing short shorts has never become cool, running has become cooler as I get older and people try to find ways to stay in shape. Running is the quickest way to get a workout so many people turn to that. I was way ahead of the game on this one.

Bon Jovi- Tricked you on this one because I don't think he's cool, but Tamara does. It was cool back in the day, but not any more. Tamara lost her voice screaming at his concert. She really wanted to go to his concert this last year and four out of five days I come home from work he's playing in the background.

Halo-Joe Hallmark was embarrassed when his wife invited everyone over for his birthday a year ago to play Halo. He thought we would think he was juvenile and immature. Little did he know everyone had been pining for a chance to play but was too embarrassed to say anything. We not get together semi-regularly and it has been one of the best things to happen to the group of guys that plays.

Clippers-You may find this hard to believe, but there aren't many Clippers' fans out there. When I tell people who I root for, they find it tough to believe. It's most likely due to the futile and embarrassing nature of how the team was run for so many years. They were bandwagon favorite a couple years ago when they made the playoffs but that was quickly abandoned. Whatever, I'm still in.

Sleeping-Nobody really opposes sleeping, but not everybody takes it as seriously as I do. I think it's been an essential part in my life and I don't function well without enough of it. As I pointed out before, I make significant sacrifices to sleep enough.

Dancing to 80's music-Once again, not one of mine but Tamara's. Any 80's song with a beat that comes on and you'll here "When I was in high school, I did a dance to this song. Wanna see it?" It's pretty impressive the amazing number of songs she danced to and how many she remembers.

I was going to list a bunch of things that are generally considered cool but I'm opposed to, but one of the coolest things I ever did prohibits me from doing that. You see, I exist in a hate free zone. There are a few things that we (Dix, my roommates from L46, and I) agreed could be hated on like the 2004 Sacramento Kings, swearing, and Capri pants, but generally speaking we really try not to hate. I don't always do a good job, but we have a special reminder of that now. Anybody who knows me will know what else I oppose.

These are a few of the things I or others think are cool. Feel free to add your own list so we can discuss.