Pure Joy.

This is a music video my friends made last summer. I have no idea how it took me so long to see it. But I am obsessed with it. 4 white boys at BYU breakin it down to "Africa" by Toto? Yes please.

Victory's Within the Mile

Today marks a special victory for me, as I sit here typing this in all my sweaty glory.

Did I finish the 30 day shred?

Psh. No. I actually need to start that over. Anyway. Back to my victory.

Am I the same size I was when I graduated high school?

Nope. Right now I'm actually 2 dress sizes curvier than that. But thanks for asking.

Did I win the lottery?

Nope.
Enough of this. What is this victory, you ask?

Today I ran a mile. And I did it in a little over 8 minutes. Give or take a half a block, and adding in the times I had to jog in place to wait to cross the street. No stopping. No walking. Just running.  I am officially in better cardiovascular shape than I have ever been in my entire life. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y. I beat my previous best mile time ever by almost a minute. And that time was from the 8th grade. And I definitely stopped to walk at least three times during that run.

1 mile. 8 minutes. No stopping.

Booyah.

A special Thanks to:

•  Jillian Michaels, for building my endurance and *almost* making me cry during work outs.
• Jay-Z and Rihanna (But not Kanye West) For performing the song "Run this Town" on my Ipod over and over. (Kanye's verse is vulgar. I start the song over when he starts singing.)
• The sun, for not setting until I was safely home
• My wonderful shoes and socks
• Papa Booth, from whom I have inherited the dreaded sweaty-back syndrome

Now that I've run a mile without stopping... I feel like I can actually start truthfully telling people that I 'go running'. And that makes me feel fancy.

Winter Phenomena

Some funny things happen in the winter. And when I say funny, what I really mean is puzzling. And when I say puzzling, I mean that they are super annoying.

Phenomenon Numero Uno: Arctic Nose Bleeds

I am not a person who has ever really been prone to nose bleeds. The only nosebleed I can remember from my childhood wasn't even a real one. I just wiped my nose with the back of my hand while we were watching some movie about dragons that we had rented from "the Warehouse" and I remember actually being excited that my nose was bleeding. But when I ran to get a tissue, it stopped. Boring.

Cue the dry and wintry death breezes that blow though Provo.

It really doesn't make sense to me why it happens, but my little nose just takes personal offense when the temperature dips below 20. Ouchy Arctic nose bleeds. Curse you, father winter.

Phenomenon Number 2: Reduced Headphone Malleability

Has anyone else noticed that when it's really frigid outside, the cords to your headphones become stiff and weird and all of sudden it feels like your ear buds are attached to two long white sticks? Because I sure have. And then, the ear buds start falling out of your ears and its really hard to put them back in correctly when you have gloves on. Bahhhhh. Hate. I hate crunchy cords. It's just so strange to me. Water freezes. I understand that. Most liquids turn to solids at some point when their temperature drops low enough. But wire and plastic? If it's that cold outside, I don't think I should be required to subject myself to possible bodily solidification. I'm 70 % water. It's dangerous out there.

Phenomenon Number 3: Temperature Sensitive Motivation

When it dips below 10 degrees, I lose any shred of will I may have previously possessed to venture outside. School and work and EVEN GETTING FOOD becomes a burden. I love grocery shopping. Love it. But when it's cold out, my cupboards become pitifully bare. I turn into a winter hermit. I would LOVE to be able to hibernate. Like a bear. Honestly, if my house started burning down and it was below 10 degrees outside, I would think twice before evacuating my apartment. At least deadly fire is warm.

Phenomenon Number 4: Poky Nose Hairs

I really do not like it when I try taking a deep cleansing breath, only to have my nostrils pricked by a thousand tiny frozen nose hairs. And then they unfreeze upon exhale. Poky. Not poky. Poky. Not poky. Hate.

Phenomenon Number 5: Cookie Cravings

When its cold I like to eat cookies. I usually make a half batch... which is approximately 24 cookies, and then I consume at least 3/4 of them by myself within 2 days. I have to stop myself from stocking up on chocolate chips on the off chance that I have driven the horrible journey (3 blocks) to the grocery store. It's a constant battle. But I am getting gooooood at making cookies. I seriously could eat chocolate chip cookies for the rest of my life and never tire of them. Never.

I'll update this or post again when I recognize any new patterns of strangeness that have something to do with the winter time.

Lars Vargas

I went to Las Vegas. It was sooo warm and wonderfu and there was sun and hotness and grass and palm trees. Here are some of the highlights:

Gelato in the catacombs of the Bellagio

Hard Rock Cafe.... best chicken sandwich I have ever eaten in my LIFE.

The water show.

The "fire" show.

NOT ONCE being annoyed by my vacation-mates.

Staying at a friend's house for free!

Shopping.

75 freaking degrees.

Driving around with the windows down.

Walking around inside the sparkly casinos where the nasty-nast porn-hander-outers can't get you.

Visiting the Hoover Dam.

Getting burped on by an extremely intoxicated lesbian.

Jack in the Box tacos.... They are just so wrong that they are right.

I tried on a 5 carat diamond ring at Tiffany's. It was real. The price tag said $313,000.00 Yowsa!

Seeing a ridiculous amount of vanity plates.... My favorite/least favorite.... There was a pink bug with a plate that said "BARBIES" ..... What the freak?

Getting hollered at by the Hookah salesman.

Annnnnnd I consumed an entire jumbo package of cinnnamon bears in less than 24 hours. By myself.

Weekend: Success.

My Goals for 2011

1. Be a nicer person.

The other day (seriously, this JUST dawned on me) I realized that I don't have to like someone to treat them just as kindly as I treat my friends. In fact, I shouldn't have to like someone to be nice to them. By treating others less favorably than I treat my favorite people, it would be a reflection not of that person's level of likeability, but rather a reflection of my lack of tolerance and understanding. Drat.

2. Act like a lady.

I do have the ability to be a classy lady, but sometimes I just need a little reminding. My specific lady-like goals are: to make sure my nails are always painted, wear earrings every day, and refrain from using curse words. Even funny ones.

3. Do things that are hard.

Another recent (but less recent) realization I've had about the purpose of life is that we are supposed to do hard things. Umm....What?! We weren't born to sit back and watch youtube and eat bon bons all day? That is rough, but think about it. Our bodies and minds are actually designed to do hard things. If we force ourselves to do crappy-hard physical activity, our bodies have the infinite capacity to become stronger. Our brains are designed to learn and and retrieve and remember and categorize new information... as much information as we can possibly dream about stuffing in there. And stuffing things into your brain is hard. And I don't think anyone has ever really really maxed out their brain capacity. Double drats.

4. Feel awesome in a bathing suit.

Whatever that entails. I'm not going for a certain size, I'm just looking to get my body into a shape that would make me proud to prance around in a swimsuit. I have spent too many summers ever so carefully moving as to not disturb my thighs into the thunderous jiggles they are prone to exhibit. No more. There will be joyous and jiggle-free prancing this year.

5. Graduate from college.

It's totally happening people. To-tal-ly. It's not just a goal, its a promise. A PROMISE. Kind of a threat. But more.

Golden Opportunity

There is a cute boy in one of my classes. I don't know his name. He sat by me last week.. but the lecture and small class size was not conducive to chit chat. Today, my genius teacher made us all memorize every other class member's name. Yessssssssssss. Shall I commence preliminary facebook stalkage? Why yes, I think I will.

You better get on that...

Dear Universe,

In the next twelve months, I fully expect to meet a bomb.com man who wants to marry me. Who doesn't secretly kiss other girls behind my back. Is that so much to ask for? I think not. You get crackin on your end and I'll get crackin on mine.

Love,

Kristin

So Tell Me About Your Christmas Break? P.S. DO NOT EAT KFC

Most memorable Christmas break ever? Probably.

Let's start with a housemate secretly moving out the day after finals ended. Curious.

Then, lets add a foot of snow to jolly old provo.

Always a pleasure, I got cussed out on my last phone call on my last day of work before Christmas.... (Dec 22nd). Happy Holidays!

The next day, in K-town with the fam, our puppy Lady decided to ingest and then regurgitate what appeared to be a nylon sock.

Commence the unending puppy up-chuck-athon that lasted through Christmas. Lady barfed on me approximately 5 times. And it was hot. As in extremely warm. Not as in attractive. I would say 10% of her barf landed on my person. There was a lot of barfing going on.

After 2 previously unsuccessful vet visits, we decided to take the little darling to the animal ER. On Christmas Day.

I'm feeling a little bit queasy as I write this, so I'm just going to cut to the chase. Lady ate a sock. Part of it got stuck inside her digestional tract. The doctor used a magic wand and fairy dust to make it disappear. And now Lady is all better.


If you have a weak stomach, do not read the next paragraph.

***

Fairy dust my eye. They cut her open. The doctor then proceeded to show me her intestines to explain what the problem was so that we could decide whether to continue operating or put her to sleep. After about 3 minutes of nodding and talking to the doctor calmly while he played with the puppy guts, I half-fainted into a chair. And after being scooted/dragged out of the operating room, threw up into a garbage can. Merry Christmas. But the end result is the same.... Lady seems to be recovering quite nicely.

***

It's now safe to read again.

The last few days have been pretty wonderful. With the puppy barf under control and a few days to just sit around and take a break, I've loved every minute of it.
Can you imagine my Christmas Break getting any better? Oh, it's about to.

Today I drove back down to Provo to get ready for work on Monday and school on Tuesday. After running a few errands, I realized I hadn't really eaten much today. So I decided to treat myself to some KFC. I just like friend chicken okay???!!!!

While I was on my last piece of chicken in my little meal, something weird fell off of the meat onto my napkin. Well. More like two something weirds. I don't know how to say this so I'm just going to say it: (The rest of this blog is not safe for queasy readers.)

There was a chicken "kidney" stuck to one of the pieces in my meal. It looks like a tiny little brain. Literally. Just like one. AND. An unidentified object which looks conspicuously similar to a chicken claw/toe.

Am I kidding right now? No. I am not. I googled "chicken brain in my KFC" and aparently what I found was a chicken kidney, and it is not the first time someone has found one in their KFC. If you are brave enough to find out what it looked like, click here .

Unfortunately, I probably can't sue them because it didn't pose a health risk. But I will never be the same. NEVER.

And I really have no more words.
........

Happy Freaking New Year.