5 Things I Love About Summer

Is it summer yet? I know many are spring and fall kind of people, but I've always loved summer. I don't love the too-hot temperatures, or the vast amounts of skin people feel they need to show when the sun comes out, but I love the feeling of summer. Everything seems more relaxed. Here, then, are 5 things I love about summer, in no particular order:

1. Warm nights. I love hanging out outside on a warm summer night. I love that it doesn't get dark until 9:30 or 10:00. It may be screaming hot outside, but when it finally cools off for the night it's a pleasant thing.

2. Wearing shorts! I LOVE wearing shorts. Turns out my legs just want to be free. I can't wait to put on my shorts after work after suffering through a day in pants.

3. Summer activities. Is there anything better than a rodeo/demolition derby/outdoor concert? I love the activities that only come in the summer.

4. Vacation time. Summer vacations are the best. With my 9/80 schedule, Memorial Day, and vacation time, I'm currently in the midst of a 6-week period in which I haven't worked a full 5-day week. Now I just need to figure out where I'm going next!

5. Food. I get so sick of eating grapefruits, oranges, and bananas in the winter because nothing's in season. Give me some strawberries, asparagus, peaches, and pineapple! I also give you fresh corn on the cob.

Bonus: the smell of chlorine. To me, chlorine is the smell of summer. I love it.

What did I miss?

Favorite AI Performance

American Idol was pretty underwhelming for me this season. However, I absolutely loved it when Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox performed this duet on the show and it was my favorite performance of the year. I immediately downloaded it from iTunes. Check it out!

Who Knew?

The other day, I made the mistake of touching a hot skillet. Apparently when you do that...you get burned. Luckily, my sister-in-law Lisa told me if I dipped my fingers in honey for about 20 minutes, the pain would go away and not come back. And wouldn't you know it, it worked! I never knew about this little home remedy.

Cure-iosity

I have had the hiccups for the last 6 minutes and 20 seconds! I am performing my usual trick of holding my breath for as long as possible, but they have not departed as of yet. (If I suddenly trail off without completing my post, it means I have passed out). I have faith that they will soon leave, because holding my breath has been the best cure I have found for this particular ailment.

But have you noticed that whenever you have the hiccups, people will immediately jump in and tell you what they do to stop hiccups, and all of these alleged cures are completely ridiculous? I'm sure we've all heard them: Eat a teaspoon of sugar, yank on your tongue, drink water upside down (which is dangerous--I almost drowned!), and my personal favorite, having them scared out of you. Have you ever had a roomful of people leaping out at you yelling, "Booo!" at various intervals? Scary! And, why are hiccups so special? Why don't we have weird home remedies for high blood pressure, broken limbs and whooping cough? But seriously, does anyone have a good hiccup cure? I'm about to resort to attempting to scare myself to get rid of them!

Favorite App

One of my very favorite phone Apps is "Shazam". Have you ever been somewhere and heard a song playing and wondered what it was or who was singing it??? Me too. So, with this App I can just hold my phone up to the song and it will identify it for me. And then, for the impulsive and must-have shopper that I am, it conveniently lets me purchase from iTunes right away as well. Brilliant. I may have been known to recently be seen holding my phone up to the speakers in Kohl's. Some of my latest discoveries are: "Release Me" by Agnes (the fun dance mix), "Leave Right Now" by Will Young, "I Will Love Again" by Lara Fabian (that I already owned and had forgotten about until I heard the song), "Kiss a Girl" by Keith Urban and "Bounce" by Sarah Connor. Good times.

The Saddest Thing Ever

One of my...ahem, talents is the ability I have to fall asleep anywhere. Today, I was getting ready to go out for a run. I sat down on my ottoman to put my shoes on. I started to rest my head in my hands...and I fell asleep. For a half-hour! Sitting upright on an ottoman, in my gym clothes. If that's not the saddest thing, I don't know what is.

My TV Crushes

I have several TV crushes . . . guys that I just look forward to watching on TV.

Tonight, I am just giddy waiting for the new dances by Maks and Erin . . . love Maks and I hope they can beat Derek and Nicole. Come on, it could happen, right? I just love his confident dancing and attitude. I may actually cast a vote tonight just to be sure.

Ray Barone . . . the main character on Everybody Loves Raymond. I never watched this show when it was on in primetime, but I have now discovered it on TV Land and record it when I just want something random to watch. I find myself absolutely laughing out loud and I'm totally surprised at how much I love this show.



And a surprise crush . . . to me at least is Bret Michaels. No, I never watched Rock of Love, and I am not a metal band fan, but I do watch Celebrity Apprentice and love it. Bret has grown on me all season as he works on each challenge. He's pretty funny, works hard, is very creative and is able to get along with all personalities. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching him and am glad he is in the finals.

I also love Jeff Probst on Survivor. His questions at the weekly tribal councils are so much fun . . . especially if it is followed by a blindside vote, which is another of my favorite parts.

And, finally, I can't not make a mention of Anderson Cooper. I always enjoy watching him.

How do YOU coil your vacuum cord?

I've lived with my fair share of people over the years. But to my knowledge, I'm one of the only people who does this.

Instead of bending over to loop my vacuum cord around the rungs at the top and bottom of the vacuum, I loop the cord over my arm and toss the entire loop over the vacuum head. Then while most people are getting out their vacuums and stooping unnecessarily, I simply pull out my lovingly coiled cord, drop it on the floor, and I'm ready to go. No stooping, hunching, or bending required.

I do my fair share of things that don't make sense (squeezing from the middle of the toothpaste tube for example), but to me this is a no-brainer.

PS. Is this my most boring post ever? Discuss.

Check, Please

So as I'm returning from the magical land of Happy Valley every day, I sometimes have to get off the freeway due to traffic congestion and accidents (more people I'm going to have to get cars for, right Julie?). This is normally a pain as it adds quite a bit of time to my already ridiculous commute.

I have found that the frontage road by the prison is pretty slick, and the other day, I stumbled upon this hidden gem that totally made my detour worth it:

What's that you ask? Why it's the Hard Times Cafe of course! (The picture is a smidge blurry, as I didn't want to spend too much time near the yard!) Please note that this is on the prison grounds, and is totally staffed by inmates. And, wait for it...it's open to the public! I am totally scared to try this on my own, but will someone with a shiv and a Kevlar vest please, please go with me?

Mother's Day

We had a nice Mother's Day weekend. I think that church is always the hardest part as people talk about their Mom's. We definitely miss ours, but are always grateful for the time that we had with her.

Our sister-in-laws, Lilli and Lisa are awesome mothers to our cute nieces and nephews and we are grateful for them.

Our fantastic Dad always takes great care of us. He wrote us all love notes and gave us each a new cookbook which is the sequel to our all-time favorite book, Favorites - the Ivory Family Cookbook. Everything we try in that book is great. So, after 10 years, the new book, Keeping Up, came out and we are excited to try some great new recipes in this one. Thanks, Dad!

As I came home that night, there was a fun surprise on my porch from one of my cute young women. I'm always torn by the fact that I am not a mother, which just adds to the emotions of this holiday, but then I get something like this from one of my "kids" and I realize that there are lots of ways to mother and it's nice to know that the work we try to do makes a difference.

Say What?

So, I went on an interview this week to one of those places where as soon as you walk in and get the vibe of the office, you know that you should just immediately turn around and walk out. Well . . . I didn't and instead had this little exchange, among many other little treats.

Interviewer: "We are looking for FAT people at this company"

(In my head, are you kidding? They really said that?!?)

Interviewer: "This mean, Flexible, Adaptable, and Trainable"

Yeah, there has got to be a better acronym to express these desired character traits.

And, this FAT person is definitely not going to be working there . . .

All of a Sudden I'm a One-Woman Band (in a minivan)

Today's commute was perfectly normal - me in a 7:00 am stupor - until GNR's "Welcome to the Jungle" came on the radio. Sometimes I'm so tired I don't even remember how I got from Point A to Point B on my commute. But one gritty yell from Axl Rose and I was alert! MAN, I love that song. I immediately started in with drums, chimed in with the falsetto, and even though I had arrived at work before the song finished, I stayed in the car to do an air guitar solo. I would've liked to have seen myself - especially since I was in the minivan I borrowed from Dad while my car is in the shop.

Favorite Salad Bar Toppings

Sometimes we go places that have a salad bar and it's always interesting to me what people choose. I grew up with Dad rimming his one-time-through plate with cucumber slices to make essentially a bigger rim on the plate or bowl . . . brilliant . . . so that he could pack more on. Salads have definitely been an acquired taste for me and I much prefer a more goodies to salad ratio. Some of my favorite things are:

* Real roasted turkey at Marie Callendars
* Peanuts on the salad bar wagon at Cowboy Grub
* Real bacon - no tolerance for the imitation stuff
* I also like broccoli, ham, cheese (of course), croutons
* I'm a connoisseur of honey mustard dressing. My favorite was at the now departed ZCMI Tiffin Room, so I'm still on the search for my favorite yummy goodness.

Yeah, my salads aren't what you'd call on the healthy side. The salad is really just a vehicle for the yummy dressing to stick to.

It's also nice when the salad bar places have dessert too . . . like ice cream at the Sizzler and Jason's Deli or the chocolate pudding/mousse at Ruby Tuesday.

What are some of your favorite things to put on your salad? Melinda, who do you think has the best ranch dressing?

Women's Conference

Kristen and I headed to Happy Valley for a day of Women's Conference on Friday. We had several take-aways from the day.

1. It would be nice if the outside ticket booth where you purchase your ticket also was the place that gave you your lanyard to position around your neck to get into the classes. We paid our money, got a blank piece of paper that I could have printed on my own, wrote our own names on our tags and then tried to find a lanyard. Silly us, the box of lanyards was inside the Marriott Center . . . who knew.

2. If you can only go one day, pick Thursday instead of Friday. Not only do you get a nice choice of classes, but they have the Sharing Stations - which I love, service projects to do, special meals and activities in the evening. None of that happens on Friday.

3. Buy a tote bag. I was kind of mocking the Women's Conference 2010 tote bags that many people had purchased, but throughout the day, I saw the wisdom in them. I started out with my rain slicker since it was so rainy, then didn't need it, so I balled it up and put my jacket in my purse (which some would say is almost as big as a tote, but that's totally not the point). It would have fit so much better in a tote. The tote comes with long straps so you can effortlessly sling the bag on your shoulder. Also, it comes in handy after my requisite purchases at the BYU Bookstore, which is one of my favorite stops for sour cherries and chocolate peanuts . . . a BYU tradition . . . among other fun items that I get sucked into getting. Not to mention it would hold the schedule and various other papers you tend to collect. And get this, it even comes with a water bottle. Next time . . . I'm totally getting the tote. Go ahead and mock me.

Me with my beloved sour cherries

Kristen sneaking into the chocolate peanuts that we got for Melinda.

4. Store cans of Coke in my new tote bag. I forget that only Caffeine free Coke is available, which is not acceptable and tasted terrible. I was having cravings by the end of the day. As we waited in line for a class, I heard two girls talking behind me and I thought I clearly heard one of them say, "I got some Mountain Dew". I was so excited that I gasped and was just about ready to whip around and anxiously ask where she found the caffeinated goodness when I luckily clarified with Kristen to make sure what I really heard them say. Sadly, there was no manna nearby and apparently the girl said, "I go to Mountain View". Boo! I may or may not be an addict.

Other than that, Kristen and I had a nice day together and I got to hear from one of my favorite people, Kathy McGregor. Success.

Birthday Week

Once again, I had a great birthday week celebration this year. Birthday week was born a few years ago, and I have to say that it really does help to take the sting out of getting another year older.

Kristen took me to Boondocks, where we initiated the 1st Annual Melinda Bird Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Skee-Ball tourney! Why is skee ball so darn fun? One of the great things about skee ball is that when you're done, you get to turn in your tickets for a sweet prize! We selected these, and are waiting for Kanye to call us to go on tour with him.

Then, on the evening of my birthday, we went to the Mandarin, and discovered that they were having a Dumpling Festival! Not only is dumpling one of my favorite words, but we discovered a whole new set of doughy, pillowy goodness. They were serving 5 new kinds of dumplings, and our favorites were the lemon shrimp and the duck with plum sauce. We learned that they do this every year, so I will be attending the Festival in 2011 for anyone who would like to join me.

Thanks to everyone for making my birthday so fun! But next year, I really would like the husband that I've been requesting for the last 5 years.

The Sound of Summer

I heard it today, the first inkling of summer (nevermind that it was only 50 degrees today). An ice cream truck! That first listen of the season is always a happy thing, isn't it?

But why is it that all ice cream trucks play the same song, and why is that song "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" Of all the songs that the truck could possibly play, this one? Because what I really want to be thinking of when I eat ice cream is...ears. Anyway, weird.