Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The One That Ended Up Rambling, So There is No Title

Here's the deal, folks.
Once I finally get my butt into gear and actually work out for once, I absolutely ADORE it.
Before, during and after all feel wonderful. Mild pain, but in an excellent sort of way.
So the question I pose to you.
Why in the world don't I do it consistently?
I'm really really good at finding excuses to not, but then when I do, I feel so much better about everything.
It is a stress reliever. Even after just one workout, I feel much more confident and prettier. It's just great.
My p.e classes for the semester started today. I'm taking zumba, and oh my lands people, I'm in LOVE. It's going to kick my trash (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). I'm also taking flag football. Add in a little country dancing every week, and I'm telling ya, this is it. This is the semester to kick myself into gear.

I'm not one of those girls who obsesses over calories and cardio (obviously). For the most part I'm fine with how I look/feel, but the last few months (particularly last semester) were hard... Really hard actually.

I always kind of scoffed the people who claimed "season depression" as the root of their problems.
Turns out it's a real thing.
By February of this year, I was miserable.
I was tired. Tired of school, snow, cold and stress.
I lived life very much day-to-day, going to school, work, meetings, then just coming home and crawling in bed to watch of movie or something while I pretended to study.
I would randomly burst into tears and I usually am not the type to do that.
I was just feeling very blah about life.
Everyone was super busy and living their own crazy lives, so I had no one to really do anything with.
I was just mad at the world and I didn't know why.
The winter didn't seem like it was ever going to end.

The semester finally ended, and I was sure it would all be fixed right away, but then there was all sorts of drama the week after finals.

Summer was really good for me.
I got a break. I got some sunshine.
Then school started again. And that night before, I decided it was going to be different. I knew there were things I wanted to change so I'm going to make that happen.

ps. I love my internship. Greatest thing ever, and I know I've made the right career choice.
Also. I get to see some old dear friends tomorrow and I can't even wait. I haven't seen either of them in like 3 years. Not ok!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Do You Hear the People Sing?


K seriously. Does that give you chills, or what?

You guys, it's kind of ridiculous how much I can't stop watching this. 
I've watched the whole show 3 times in the last 5 days.
I can't help it.
It's incredible.

I went to YouTube in search of one song the other day, and instead happened upon the entire 25th Anniversary concert. 
incredible

Seriously. Go watch it. You won't regret it. 
It's always been one of my favorite shows, but this performance is unreal. 
p.s, yes, that is Nick Jonas playing Marius... who knew!? 
This Javert is brilliant.
And then at the end, the original 1985 cast comes out to sing with them (as you saw in that clip up there). 

The entire time I either had chills or tears or some combination going on.
For real though, from Empty Chairs at Empty Tables til the end, I'm just one sobbing mess.

I'm going to go watch again until I fall asleep. 
Enjoy yourselves. And feel free to sing along. No one will mind. 

Friday, August 19, 2011

3 Years Later... A Nashville Recap



Remember that I time I went to Nashville?
Oh hey, yeah, that happened.

the view from our hotel room on the 24th floor

Just like I promised, here's the blog post about it all.
I had a hard time deciding the best way to do it.
Day by day?
But I decided to go more by topic...

Conference
We'll start here, because after all, that was the point of the trip.
CASE/ASAP is an organization for Student Alumni Associations, Ambassadors and student philanthropy groups. There were around 600 college students there from universities all over the country, including many I'd never heard of.
We definitely clicked the most with the kids from the University of Utah (a few of whom we already knew), and the boys from the University of Rhode Island (I'd never met anyone from RI before!)
The days were filled with keynote speakers, breakout sessions, all that good conference kind of stuff.

Food
This might be the greatest thing ever. I definitely fell in love with southern food and culture while I was there. Everything they eat is very comforting and homey. Most of it is fried. Drinks are served in Mason jars. Love. Our adviser has a friend who lives in Nashville and she took us to this FABULOUS restaurant called SouthernBred. YUM! I seriously wish tea wasn't against the Word of Wisdom because sweet tea is kind of a big deal in the south.
Did you know fried green tomatoes are a real thing? Not just from a book/movie. And guess what? I ATE THEM! (if you know me, you know that's a big deal because I hate tomatoes.) They were great! They didn't taste like real tomatoes. And they were fried. And dipped in a yummy ranch sauce. Both things that make things better. I ate a bite of catfish too! (that's another big deal). Seriously, everything I ate was sooo good. Pretty sure I ate my weight in awesomeness those few days.

A Crazy Coincidence
Let me introduce you to our new friends Tyler and Ashlyn. We met these guys on our flight from Atlanta to Nashville. We overheard a bit of their conversation talking about Zion's bank, and a future in Logan. That caught our attention so we started talking to them. They are from Tooele and Tyler is planning on being an Aggie when he's done with high school and his mission. We assumed those few minutes would be our only time with them. However, the next day we ran into them down by the river. We met their aunt and uncle that they were visiting and they told us all about living in Nashville... Surely that was going to be it, right? Wrong. Two days later, we're at a concert, and lo and behold, who has the seats right next to us? That's right, the Cahoon's! Crazy things happen... 

Fun Things
Obviously this is the best part. There were so many fun things to do in Nashville!
Our hotel was right downtown, just a couple of blocks from all the stuff going on.

We spent a lot of time just wandering the streets of the city. There was so much to see! If you walk down the main road all the way to the end, you come to the Chattanooga River. There are boats in the water, a couple awesome bridges, and just across the water is LP Field, where the Tennessee Titans play.

Right in the heart of the city is the street of Broadway. It's far from the Broadway in New York City, though. Rather than theatre after theatre, this Broadway is honkytonk after honkytonk. Each of them have live music going on most of the day and definitely all night. Walking up and down the street was a blast and provided for some excellent people-watching. It reminded me a lot of Vegas, just less slutty.
Along with the bars there are your typical tourist shops and some of the best ice cream I've ever had. Seriously though. Red velvet with Oreos in it? Hello, awesome.

We spent one of the nights at the famous Wildhorse Saloon. They had some decent food, but by far the best night of country dancing I've ever experienced. It was mostly line dances, and all but two of them were brand new to me. They had instructors who would teach a dance every hour or so, but for the most part we just followed a couple of cowboys who knew what they were doing. Seriously, they had a dance for every song. Pretty sure half the time they were making it up as they went. After this, country dancing here in Logan will never be the same! It's always been one of my dreams to line dance in a Nashville bar... Done and done.

While we were there, we had to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I'm a huge country music fan, you know that, so this was another dream come true. It was very Smithsonian-esque, but all centered around country music. It was full of clothes and instruments from different singers. Around every corner a new song was playing. There was a whole exhibit devoted to the legendary Hank Williams Jr. There are two full HUGE walls covered in artists' gold and platinum records. Then of course, the Hall of Fame itself.  Here are a few pics of the awesomeness...


 "hello, I'm Johnny Cash..."


 Elvis' gold Cadillac

the original manuscript to Miranda Lambert's White Liar.

Ok... Ready for the epic conclusion of this trip?


So as soon as we got to Nashville, we heard that Keith Urban was doing a show that weekend. I'd seen Keith live before, and loved it, and was not opposed to going again. However, we'd heard it was a sold out show and the only tickets available online were super expensive and not worth it. By the end of the week, we'd learned that scalping is a legal thing in Tennessee and were told to keep an eye out for tickets that way. We stopped by the arena on our way to dinner that night just to see, but we couldn't talk anyone down lower than $60 a ticket. We went by at 7:22 (for the show that started at 7:30) and still managed to find some tickets! We talked the guy into selling them to us for $45 and we were in!


Jake Owen, who is a sexy, sexy man, was opening for Keith so I was stoked to see him. And really, Keith is an incredible performer and I was thrilled to be getting to see him again. This tour was called "Get Closer" and definitely for a reason. Keith spent a ton of time out in the audience, bringing people up on stage, and really interacting with everyone. He's incredible really.


There was most definitely no better way to conclude this incredible trip.
I fell in love with Music City and can't wait to go back.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Tiny Preview...

Keith Urban (@KeithUrban) from the Nashville show at Bridgestone Arena on 8/6/11!

Get ready... more like, Get Closer... 

I'll be writing all about my INCREDIBLE trip to Nashville tomorrow.
But right now, I'm going to sleep.
Because I have to catch a 7:30 a.m. flight.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Epic Moment of the Day

Once upon a time I was at the airport. 
As I was standing in line at Burger King, a certain man named Jerry Sloan walks past me.
He and I were both on the phone, and not wanting to act like the obnoxious superfan I could have been, I chose not to do anything.
Then as I was walking to the bookstore to pick up a tacky tabloid, as is my flying tradition, I saw him again.
Turns out he's also going to Atlanta, just a couple hours before us.
This time, I got brave. 
(even though my insides were all sorts of nervous and excited.)
I walked past him and said "Hey Coach." and that was all. Then he smiled and said "Hey there, how's it going?"
And then my life was complete.
The end.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

The Things I Ponder Late At Night

Miss Natalie is one of my favorite bloggers ever.
Her posts are hilarious.
She has a handsome husband and a darling baby.
Today, she wrote this post...




And as I commented on her post, I will now spend far too much time thinking about who I am. 
Even in sticking solely to Meg's characters, I have some of the qualities (or strive to have) in many of her characters. 
I have some of the same flaws.
I'm a hopeless romantic.
Nothing would make me happier than a bouquet of daisies or of newly sharpened pencils.
I fall for my best friends. (ie When Harry Met Sally)

I make hasty decisions (like when Kate flies off to France to win Charlie back), but like Kathleen, I can never find the words to say to someone in the moment of spite. And on the rare occasion I do, I immediately regret it. 
I could keep going. I could find the similarities between me, Kate McKay,Kathleen, Anastasia, Sally, Catherine Boyd, Annie, Maggie Rice...


However, when you look closely, I think I'm mostly Annie Reed. 


For one, I'm a journalist. Makes sense. I am not ashamed to admit that I do my share of online stalking (though it's much easier now than it was for her). I sing/talk to the radio when I'm alone (or not). I have my movies that I can quote verbatim, (ironically they are mostly Meg Ryan movies). And let's face it. I don't want to be in love, I want to be in love in a movie...


I'm sure many of you out there won't understand, but thinking about this tonight was absolutely fascinating. 
Who are you?
(it doesn't even have to be a Meg Ryan role, plus if you're a dude that could be weird. But we all have those movies in our lives.)

And now I'm going to put in a Meg movie and fall asleep. 


(also, go read Nat's blog! You'll laugh your head off, and it's all real!)