My Husband: Singer of the Year

As promised, pictures from Adam's night of triumph.
Adam broke Katie and Sterling's rear-view mirror. It was a moment of supreme shock and mirth. The moment when I had to borrow Katie and Sterling's car because our own was stuck in a snowbank 4 minutes before Adam's performance was to start was not of supreme shock and mirth. More terror and panic. I like him.

Celebrity Sighting

Friday, I ran into a person who's blog I stalk who does not actually know that I exist. Exciting, huh? Sister of a little sussy, just returned from New York after Grease closed on Broadway, and ripe out of surgery on her big toe due to an unfortunate altercation with a shower door, sitting in Macaroni Grill as nice as you please. Freaking out ensued, but don't worry, I felt a little sheepish. "Hi, I know you, but you don't know me. You're cool..." Don't worry, I didn't say anything, or try to snap pictures, or get a better look, or try for an autograph (Macaroni Grill provides crayons for this exact purpose, I'm sure). I hope I'm not that pathetic. She looked good, though.

Now, if I can just sight cjane and the kiddlums she's tending (Did I tell you that my sister and I considered trying to find them out trick-or-treating on Halloween? No, we're not creepy).

Ever done this? Run into someone you feel you know intimately because you read their online journal, but then become acutely aware that they have absolutely no idea that you're crawling around on the surface of this planet with them?

...I have no response to this

My bangs have been too long for awhile. En serio. I've been pinning them back, a look I don't mind (shake it up a bit), but Katie and I just decided to trim them today. Maybe trim is the wrong word. Chop. That's the one I was looking for. Things may have gotten a touch out of hand. The result is that I now have to choose between:An attempt at my old style of bangs. Looks weird to me, and things aren't even (which could be fixed, if Katie or I decide to demonstrate anything resembling hair-cuttings skills).I call this style the "Girls with bangs that hang straight down" look. Creative, eh (once again, they're not even and we have issues. Deal)? I've always wanted to be stuff white people like. I might try this, going out on a limb, if I can look like naomi from rockstar diaries. Longshot. Unfortunately, this look also resembles the "Bonnie in Second Grade" look, which just doesn't do it for me. Or I could continue to pin it back for a couple weeks. My grandpa used to say the difference between a good and bad haircut was 3 days. I wish. And another washed out image of me with all hair pulled back instead of the ever-so-attractive-half-dry-and-not-remotely-straight locks previously pictured, because you know you love this. You know it. C'mon, you know it....maybe?.......dang.

So, go vote on what to do with my hair. Now. If I weren't lazy and tired (because of my first ever gym experience - more about this later), I'd set up an actual voting mechanism widget thingamagig in the sidebar. And now you're just thinking about what you're missing.

By the way, these aren't the only options. Shaving the head might just win out.

The Awesome, Amazing, Awe-inspring Ali!

I have made an egregious error. Egregious, I tell ya. In my Christmas post, I was certain I had a picture of every single member of the family. I was wrong. Due to a series of unfortunate events involving Blogger hating me, an extraordinarily important member was omitted: the one, the only, Alison Joan (pronounced Jo-Anne). I am ashamed (name that movie). And here, to remedy the event, I present, not one, but many Ali pics. So, here she is, the queen of the hour, along with many reasons I love her.She has great style. Check out that scarf!A smile is always on her face.

She wears cool hats, both traditional...And un...She likes my husband even when he is strange and odd.Rebellious punk that she is, she makes funny faces and gives Laura bunny ears.
She's a fighter. You just try and get her to give up that bouquet.

Quite a compact little bundle, she fits into my great-grandmother's clothes. In addition, she doesn't protest when I call her funny nicknames, such as Als, Alsison, Ali-Jo, Ali-bug, Ali-boo, etc. She was happy for me when I got married and looked positively spiffing in her jacket. Way to upstage the bride, lil' sis.Her adorable hair. 'Nuff said.More of fashion sense and hair. That girl has style. Have I told you about how creative she is? She makes little artsy things and sells them. Crazy man, that's a marketable skill.Her Mischievous side is quite well developed (This is them decorating our "Just Married" car).She is generous and kind, even tagging along on the boring task of taking bridals. The veil looks nice, eh?A thoughtful gift-giver, she gave Adam and I a gourmet hot chocolate kit. And she sat by me all during Christmas. Thanks, sis.She is smart as a button, and looks great in pajamas.
I like her a lot.

Sorry, Als, I really didn't mean to leave you out.

Sheryl Crow and I are tight

After reading an article on the Freakonomics blog about surviving a plane crash, they linked me to a survivor quiz. Apparently I'm a realist. "You know that life is hard so you face facts and do whatever is efficient and effective to achieve your goals." Sheryl Crow is also a realist. I don't particularly care for Sheryl Crow. I hope that doesn't affect my chances of survival. Apparently Colin Powell's Survival type is also realist. Hmmm. My favorite parts were the options that involved helping out other people (which I ignored) and the ones that suggested that God would save you. Not that I don't believe in God. Because I do. I also believe he wants you to figure things out for yourself. Because that makes sense.

I'm a scaredy-cat, among other things

Before my famed blogging career began, I wondered how people did it. How do they open themselves up to the world, sharing the good with the bad, their highs and lows, the horrendous pictures next to the lovely ones. I admired their courage. I admired their honesty. So, in a moment of courage and honesty (heretofore undisplayed on this blog - I've been lying all along! *evil cackle*) I have a confession.

It's my husband's birthday today. My wonderful, amazing, perfect Adam's birthday.

...and I don't have a present for him.

In a few hours, I will post the glowing, congratulatory "You've reached two dozen years old!" post that Adam will roll his eyes at, but right now, I wallow in my lack of gift-giving skills.

It's not like I haven't thought about what to give him for weeks. Even before Christmas it loomed in the back of my mind (does that make sense? I think not, but it stays. *evil cackle*), the fact that less than a month later I would need another token of my wifely love. More presents.

I've never been good at it. I don't know how to give good gifts. It might be the procrastination. It might be the pressure to get something he'd like that I also thought about and shows my affection without being expensive or cheesy. It might be the lack of creative bones in me (econ major, hello). It might be the intimidation after the best gift ever, received by myself at Christmas. It could be a lot of things. That doesn't erase the facts.

I DON'T HAVE A PRESENT FOR MY HUSBAND ON HIS BIRTHDAY!

So here's the deal. I had one idea, but they're out of print. And I had another idea, and they're closed. I had two other ideas, and they were lame. And then there was that other idea, and the price tag didn't fit. And I had TWO other ideas that are now shipping to the apartment, but they're not HERE!

So...I don't have a gift. I'm going to go give it one more try. Wish me luck. And, any advice on how to give good gifts? What do you give your significant other?

On a side-note, it took me forever to make all the sizes look correct on this post. Why is that? Why are you buggy, Blogger?

And it STILL doesn't look right!

DJ it up

In fulfilling my duties at my illustrious radio job today, I may have implied on-air that Robert Schumann sold out to the man.

I wonder if we'll get any emails about that.

I bet there's a wonderful, sweet, kind old lady out there who secretly harbors fond admiration for the dashing Robert Schumann, is affronted both that I would accuse the man of such a horrendous act and that I would even bring him into contact with the terminology and base culture of today's severely misguided society. She's going to get up in arms about it. Pitchforks (or knitting needles) may be utilized for quite the opposite of their intended purpose. Maybe I was wrong about the wonderful, sweet and kind.

The holiday festivities

It's January, so I think a holiday post is more than overdue. Here's Christmas with my family. Note the 4 nerf guns Christian got, the look on Laura's face after opening her cell phone, and the picture Adam's going to make me delete.

Singer of the Year

Adam was just named BYU's Singer of the Year, after a week-long competition. He sang so well! Congrats, love! I will post pictures soon.

Life comes at you fast...

Due to some Essential Life Changes (as opposed to New Year's Resolutions), Adam and I have found ourselves with less time to kill on the computer, which means less time to blog. Or maybe I've just been slacking. Entirely possible. But, look at me, back in game here.

I am an addict. I'll freely admit it. I enjoy, like, adore, and even love the perfection that is a bagel. So much so, in fact, that I would spend our entire food budget on bagels and cream cheese if by so doing I wouldn't cause Adam to howl in protest. He hasn't seen the light yet. However, he is wonderful and amazing. Especially today. Using his masterful cooking skills, Adam made bagels. Homemade, delightfully chewy, warm and steaming bagels. We thought the recipe would be hard. It wasn't. We thought they'd be small. They weren't. We thought something would go wrong. It didn't. I'm in heaven.Slather on some cream cheese and I'm good to go.

*By the way, the first picture is before they baked. We see sesame seed, poppyseed, and cinnamon sugar bagels.
**Be careful, these are pretty hefty. As Adam said, "That's no snack. I've got to go lie down for awhile."

So, opinions. I'm a die-hard salty bagel girl. None of this sweetness and strawberry cream cheese junk for me. Adam, on the other hand, thinks strawberry cream cheese is da bomb diggity and would be more than happy to slather it on a cinnamon sugar bagel. Blech. What do you like?

My new baby

This is what all the fuss was about.
Isn't she pretty? Adam is the best husband on the planet.

When we're rich and famous...

...and Adam is an internationally renowned opera singer, he's going to wear these to a performance. Really swanky tux, overall stunning appearance, made even more perfect by these cufflinks:How can we even contain the awesomeness? They're from an etsy shop, and I found them from a blog, but I don't remember which one.

Those poor reindeer

I've been thinking about holiday traditions (now who on earth does that around Christmas?). It occurred to me that my siblings and I were awful cruel as children, although we hope it was unwitting. For years, every Christmas eve, we would leave out a plate of cookies for Santa. One year, however, it occurred to us that Santa wasn't the one doing all the work. Those poor reindeer had to carry a sleigh around, while flying, and Santa just kept getting fatter as the night went on! Why aren't we feeding them instead? So, in addition to Santa's cookies (can't risk offending the big guy), we would leave 9 bowls of carrots out, one for each reindeer, with the expectation that they would have disappeared by the time we awoke. Next morning, sure enough, the cookies would be all but gone, as well as the carrots. Some of the bowls had the remains of a few of the vegetables, suggesting that they left in a hurry and couldn't quite finish. Clearly, the reindeer appreciated our thoughtfulness. Sometimes Santa even left a note thanking us for feeding his poor steeds.
The question is, did my parents actually eat all those carrots? Because if so, dang it. I'm sorry. Like I said, we were cruel children.


(my guess is they just went back in the fridge)

*image from schlerplotti.typepad.com, but they got it from somewhere, which got it from somewhere, which got it from somewhere...which got it from the movie . Man, I love that flick.

Mystified

This evening, in tearing apart my apartment, searching for a Christmas gift purchased over the summer and then stashed somewhere safe, I discovered a box of shoes, just my size, which I have no recollection of buying. I was kind of excited. Then I tried them on and realization dawned. The box contains two shoes, but both of them are right.

Does anyone know of someone who could use them?

A quirk, not a quark

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

As promised, an Adam oddity coming right up.

Every once in a while, you'll be talking to Adam, when he'll break eye contact and instead look closely at a spot on your face, squint a little, look confused, or concerned, or something, and then snap out of it and return to normal conversation. It's not a tic, or a spasm, he just likes to bug people by driving them a little bit insane. It works on me. In fact, you might say that it sends me bonkers. After that, I can't focus, or talk. My hands go to my face, convinced that there's a horribly disfiguring blot or something (yes, I'm vain like that). I have to go find a mirror.

I'll try to capture this on film so you can have a visual. To tell the truth, I did try to find an image online that somehow conveys the disquieting nature of this look, but what do you google for that? Concerned looking closely? Faces looking confused? Not so much.

I really, really like this guy named Adam

...in case you haven't figured that out yet. However, sometimes he thinks that I only post his oddities on this blog, instead of all his good parts. As I've discovered some quirks of his that are too good not to post, I'm getting on his good side by writing a glowing description of the love-of-my-life before I get to the fun stuff.
I'm a fan of the blog Cupcakes take the Cake, although they publish somewhere in the ballpark of 803 posts a day, which is overwhelming for my already over-stressed brain. This might seem out-of-character for me, since baking has never been a strong point, but eating is, so it's all good. Some of their photos just make me drool. On last Monday, the 15th of December (or maybe the Ides of December. Does that work?), they announced National Cupcake Day. What's not to love? I mentioned it to Adam, with a proposition for cupcake-making later in the day, but with finals and everything, we didn't get around to it (did I mention that last week was not so good? Finals=bleh). The next day was a rough one for me, lots of stressors, and my Econ finals approaching were filling me with an unshakeable feeling of impending doom. Adam went on an essentials-only shopping trip, which turned out to be a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, cupcake liners, and chocolate frosting. "Why don't we make some of those cupcakes? It's a day late, but they should still count." Isn't he sweet? I think I'll keep him.

Discovery

I just learned how to post-date a post. Therefore, this post was written on Saturday, and it will not appear until Sunday, which is pretty spiffy.

Recently, my younger, morally-opposed-to-blogging, brother, Steven, berated me for not posting enough. Apparently, the least I can do for my "die-hard fans" like him (his words, not mine), is post more often. The problem is that I don't have anything to write, or I've forgotten what I was going to write by the time I snag a few minutes to pour thoughts onto the computer screen (you didn't think this was anything but a stream-of-consciousness blog, did you?) in a somewhat comprehensible form, or that I think it's too boring to post without pictures too often, etc., etc. My sister, Katie, described me as a sporadic blogger, meaning that I post a lot when I choose to, but in between it's just crickets. So, instead of posting multiple random thoughts at a time, maybe from this point on I will just post-date any posts beyond one that I write at a time, and then you guys will think that I'm all on top of things and doing the daily posting thing (haha, suckers!).

Update on Secrets

Remember this post? I found out what it was that Adam was plotting. My Christmas present! Months early! Now, it seems, the thing that he was scheming about has found its way to the virtually non-existent pile of presents under our tree (that we got yesterday because Katie and Sterling went to California and gave us theirs! HUZZAH!) with my name on it. And I'm still going crazy. En serio. He keeps giving me little hints. Here's what I know about this gift:

• According to Adam, it will be the best present I've ever gotten, with the possible exception of my engagement ring/wedding ring.
• It will make me want to have children (??? (by the way, I do want kids)).
• You can buy it on Ebay (I have never spent much time on Ebay, so I originally thought this was more of a hint than it actually is. Bonnie: "But you can't buy, say, a piano on ebay!" Adam: "Yes you can." Bonnie: "Oh. Dang."
• There are new and old versions of this gift.
• It is not made of titanium, and is breakable.

I just don't know what to make of it. Without the last hint (just today), I thought...a trip to Disneyland? You know, there's the old Disneyland, but then there's California Adventure, which is new. I just... don't know.


*image from stillsearching.wordpress.com

So on top of things

I'm not the most organized person in the world. Seriously. As a result, it's 5 days before Christmas and I have barely started my Christmas shopping. Even Adam's presents aren't all bought (or they haven't arrived. Crossing my fingers!). Slackface am I. If you read this blog and know that I'm supposed to give you a gift in a few days time, just write a quick suggestion in the comments. Wouldn't that be nice?P.S. Remind me to tell you about the 12 days of Christmas.

*image from www.aolcdn.com

Seasonal Sounds

The feeling that Christmas is coming never hits until finals are over. This year, that wasn't until 10:00 am yesterday (read: Having 7am finals on the last two days of the week is a royal pain). But now it's here, and I'm loving it.

Every year, my great-grandma Casper has her Christmas party a few days before the actual holiday, so that all members of her posterity don't have to choose between it and other holiday festivities. Last night, we attended. The party is the same every year. Same menu. Same program. Same people, just older, and possibly with different significant others. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. I still don't know how Grandma Casper and Grandma Barnett (with the help of Grandpa Barnett) manage to make enough food to feed us all. This year, the guest list had 1 great-grandma, 2 grandparents, 5 of their 6 children, 2 spouses, 20 of their 21 grandchildren, 2 spouses, and 1 boyfriend. I don't even want to add all those up. We eat in shifts because there simply is not enough space to fit us all.And then the real fun begins. Grandma Barnett is incredibly well-versed in all things classical music. She taught (and continues to teach) all her grandchildren piano lessons, and encouraged our parents to get us involved in other instrumental activities as well. We have the makings of a family orchestra, although some (or all of us) are not very good, and haven't touched our instruments in years. Instead of acting out the nativity story every year, Grandma has put together a musical program, with readings of scripture by the grandkids. The orchestra sits in the kitchen, competing for space and attention, and the few remaining attendees sit in the living room, listening through the open folding door (what do you call that thing? It's like what covers a baptismal font).

Highlights of this year's Christmas program:

• Rachel (the youngest grandchild) singing "plug my ears" at the top of her lungs while performing said act through the first few numbers.
• Clark echoing Steven's scripture reading through his trombone.
• My aunt Kathleen attempting to keep the tempo up using a banana baton.
• Clark, during his turn at the piano, choosing his own speed and leaving the orchestra in the dust, as well as laughing too hard to play.
• My Dad describing his version of hell: making you play in the family orchestra.
• Clark reading his scripture in some sort of accent, prounouncing mother as "mahtheh" and myrh as "Muh."

And a good time was had by all.
*image from neatorama.cachefly.net

Back off, girls!

Adam sang in church today and was AWESOME. I'm not even biased, I promise. It was so good, in fact, that all the men in our ward are having to work a little harder to keep their wives interested. Just kidding, but after church, a woman in our ward told us that during his performance, the guy from the couple next to them had leaned over to her husband and said, "Joe, you better step it up. All the women in the ward are going to be leaving their husbands for him. Heck, I'm thinking of leaving my wife for him."

Conversation following Katie's trip to my bathroom

Katie: "Bonnie, you have fancy shampoo.
Bonnie: I beg to differ. Adam has fancy shampoo.
Adam: Lies, we got that for our wedding.
Bonnie: Not that shampoo, the shampoo I found in one of your boxes. You take good care of your hair.
Adam: Oh, that? I probably stole that from my mom or something.
Bonnie: Really?
Adam: Maybe.
Katie: It's one hundred percent vegan.

I laughed. Maybe you had to be there.

Note to self

Starting a 10 page paper at midnight and finishing it 10 minutes before your class starts at noon is not a desirable way to live your life.

Bleary-eyed does not even begin to describe me right now.

Date Night

One of the great things about marriage is that you get to spend a lot of time together. For example, for our Friday night date, we went up to the Utah Symphony's performance of Mozart's Requiem. Adam's got a thing for Requiems. In an interesting juxtaposition, we came home and finished out our evening mopping up tainted water in our bathroom due to an unfortunate toilet overflow. Family. Isn't it about time?

How much do you value your life?

Adam says that if he had to choose between dying of starvation and cannibalizing, he would cannibalize. I find this horrifying. However, if he had to choose between dying of starvation and eating me (his wife), it would be a slightly more difficult to decide.

Discuss.

You may not like him, but try out this photo-essay.

Wow.

Okay, my blog-spurt is over. Maybe I'll post more tomorrow.

Keep clicking "Show More Images."

I was made for a life of leisure

I had a fabulous Thanksgiving break.

My recipe for perfect vacations:
Forget about school and work.
Just have fun.
Eat three scrumptious Thanksgiving dinners.

There are drawbacks to this perfection, namely arriving back in the real world with an annoying bump, made the more jarring by the extra pounds you gained from all the stuffing.

Based on the eats, Adam and I decided that certain recipes are necessary for our health and happiness (or maybe just the happiness):
My grandma's stuffing
My great-grandma's cranberry sauce
The infamous orange rolls (that take over your kitchen in a gigantic sticky gooiness)
Josie's key-lime pie
Brined turkey
Linda's experimental stuffing

I slacked and didn't take any pictures, not even of the fun Thanksgiving day with guitar hero at our cabin, but other people did. Maybe I'll post them. No promises.

Just call that break my two-week Thanksgiving vacation. I wish.

Bizarre dream Sunday morning:

Cruise ship.
In an economics class on the cruise ship.
Really large class in some type of indoor auditorium.
Someone's putting nuts in my hair.
I put the nuts on the floor and pigeons attack me to get at the nuts.
I hate pigeons.
Addendum: I hate pigeons when they're touching me.
Try to escape crazed pigeons by running up steps.
Apparently there's a restaurant in the class.
But no one goes.
They're too busy a) putting nuts in my hair or b) fighting off crazed pigeons.
I try to climb down off back (stern?) of the cruise ship and discover...
It's in space.
If I fall, I'll just keep falling.
Instead, I grab a zipline.
Zipline is hecka long.
It takes me inside the ship, to the set of a movie.
The family that they're filming asks if I'm all right and takes the nuts out of my hair.
The end.















Interpretations, anyone?

*Pigeon picture from here.

Bad Blogger Bonnie

It's been roughly two weeks since my last post. Blogging is an odd thing for me, where something happens, and I think, "I should blog about that," and then I forget what it was, but know it was awesome, so I don't blog, thinking I'll remember and then something else happens, and the same thing happens with that, so that's 2 awesome posts the internet is not graced with and so the cycle continues and I'm stuck in a vortex of not blogging. How's that for a run-on sentence. I'm leaving it. Just to bug you. Moving on.

Things that have happened that I considered blogging about but haven't gotten around to or forgot why they were so awesome to start with.

• Two really gorgeous photo essays I found
• The funeral of a bird. Can I play "Funeral March of a Marionette" even though Skitters/Kapeesch was no such thing?
• Freshman dorm reunion
• Finishing research papers. HUZZAH!
• Cannibalism and child-snatching
  
• Teresa tagged me. I know. I'll get there.
• I've got the makings of a really awesome ice cream post, but it's a daunting task.

But it's late. So these will wait. Right?

By the by...

Congratulations to President Obama!Did you see his acceptance speech? Now, that is what I call inspiring.

Sunday is a special day

This morning (yesterday, technically), late for church as usual, I asked Adam to help put together my bag of church essentials.

What I asked him to include:
Scriptures
Keys
Chapstick

What ended up in the bag:
My Bible (Oh, we're studying the Book of Mormon in Sunday School? Wheps)
Keys
A rape whistle Adam mistook for chapstick.

Well done, love. But thank you for helping out.

During sacrament meeting, after discovering my lack of preparedness for church, the ward primary program was announced. Whispers swept through the congregation. Now seriously, who doesn't love to watch itty-bitty, tone-deaf kidlums try to sing primary songs? The whole meeting was hilarious, in an "oh, how sweet!" kind of way. The funniness was increased by the fact that our primary only consists of 3 kids or so, and only one actually knew the words (or sang them). She liked the microphone quite a bit, and when one of her leaders tried to make it so we could hear one of the other kids, she'd nudge them out of the way until that microphone was all hers again. Oh, kids. Cute.

Love of Reading

I happen to love essays. Not essays I write, or essays for class, but essays that incredibly gifted writers infuse with their wit, sarcasm, and insight. Collections of essays are particularly nice. For example: Virginia Woolf's The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life, or Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. Once, when hanging out at my in-laws house, my husband suggested I read a bit from Gone to New York: Adventures in the City, and I quite enjoyed it. Today, the author visited BYU. Unfortunately, I slept in and missed most of the reading, but caught the end (the Complaints and Lamentations part). So funny. I suspect it would be more funny if I were actually a parent. Anyway, I'm going to have to keep my eye on the authors the English department invites for readings, because that's cool.

Interesting...

The very first blog I ever followed at all was the Freakonomics blog. I feel like the quality of this standard has gone down since then (too many authors, not enough spark), but I still read pretty often. I thought this post was a good one--confirmed what I always suspected.