A Very Long Post

It looks like my blog is moving up in the world of cyber-socialism. After noticing 3 comments on my last post I suddenly felt motivated to brainstorm a new topic to type away about today. I decided to peruse through all of my previous posts and quickly wished I had not come to that ridiculous decision. There were far too many awkward, sentences and thoughts jotted down that I wanted so badly to delete. However, I am restraining myself because overtime I would end up deleting all of my blog and there goes my journaling goal. My husband found my blog a while back and read the post about walking in a winter wonderland with him, blah, blah, blah. He subtly made fun of it and after reading it again today I realize how sappy, cheesy it sounds. In my head it wasn’t sappy and cheesy but I definitely wrote it in a manner that kind of makes the moment need to be in a teenage chick flick.

Oh well, it was pretty fabulous in real life and not in a lovey dovey way but more in a surreal manner that made me appreciate the winter time for more than just it’s skiing and snowboarding potential. I spent far too many college days at the peak of dawn, shivering, slipping, huffing and puffing, freezing, struggling up steep hills trying to make it to 7 a.m. class on time. Most of the time I was late due to some winter induced accident. I can’t even count how many times my car ended up with a wheel stuck in the sidewalk gutter because I am a mess when it comes to driving in the snow/ice. Good thing there are countless masses of courteous BYU boys that radiate BYUness and often bailed me out. I couldn’t have planned it any better when my car slid into a gutter right in front of an old school Provo house where a well-built dedicated cougar resided. He came wheeling out a massive, bright yellow jack that towered over me. I had no idea jacks came in such an enormous size. Off I dashed to class while he cleaned up my mess. There are SO many assortments of people at BYU to experience and wonder about. I am sure as I ran off he was wondering a lot about me. Anything snow or car related personifies my ditzyness. Oh, the people you meet at BYU. I could write a novel on that topic. I could also write a novel on all of the times an awkward experience occurred that left fellow cougs mentally adding me to their list of peculiar BYU occurrences. I am laughing out loud thinking about some, good times to be had by all!

Moving on, I really got on a very random train of thought that didn’t really document anything of value. Christmas/Holiday (whatever you prefer) break ended 2 days ago. I miss it so much. The past 2 days I have been back at work I have gotten on the district website to count and then recount how many working days are left in the academic year. I think I might make a paper chain for amusement purposes. I did make an amazing discovery though that somehow I missed until now. I get a 2 week Spring Break! I have never had that in my entire life. For that reason alone Tucson is up a couple notches in my book. Christmas involved a lot of traveling this time around. A 17 hour car ride to Idaho made for a long day. We eventually made it there and I got to spend ample time going down memory lane with my in-laws and husband. I have to say that with every visit to Idaho (this being the third) I am always pleasantly surprised. The highlight of a week in Idaho was definitely watching Steve strap on a pair of skis. It was hilarious watching him zoom down the mountain at Bogus Basin in Boise. I don’t think his poles ever touched the ground once. They were merely for show, pointing out from both sides of his body. He mastered zipping down the mountain with crazy speed which usually resulted in a crash. The stopping part and his form were never quite conquered but who really needs those 2 components anyway.
The second favorite highlight of Idaho was waking up around 9 a.m. every morning and having Steve’s grandpa say to me, “Look, she has risen from the dead!” The Reeds are early risers. The majority of my side of the family are far from early risers. Spending the first week with Steve’s family and then transitioning to my family for the second week really showcased this. I think by the end of the two weeks most of the people residing at my parent’s condo in Park City were popping up around 11 a.m. Idaho and Utah were a great break away from everyday life. Aside from all of the driving (about 32 hours) it was relaxing. I guess driving can be categorized as relaxing too when I was sprawled over several seats sleeping most of the time.

I should probably give Utah a shout out too since Idaho got two highlighting moments. Eventually ending up separated from the rest of our massive Fielding pack and skiing on the Jupiter run at Park City with my youngest sister Natalie was pretty memorable. We made our way through some powder, trees, bumpy terrain and had the run all to ourselves. At the end of the run she exclaimed, “That was so fun! I did all of the bumpy parts perfectly and didn’t fall at all! You totally just made me a better snowboarder by taking me on that run." She continued to throw out the line about me making her a better snowboarder a few times later in the day. I have to say I am honored that my presence alone improved her snowboarding ability because other than that I am not sure what I did that helped her improve so drastically.

The 2nd moment to be remembered during the Utah week was during an intense round of board game playing with my parents, Steve and my 2 sisters. If you have played “Settlers of Catan” then you know that you have to be in it for the long hall when you sit down and roll the dice. This game is a long one, at least when I play it is. My mom was trying to block my road work I had been diligently working away on. You earn extra points if you are able to build the longest road on the board. While I was creating this amazing work of art my mom was also attempting to one up me and build a longer road. Our 2 paths were intermingling and I saw an opportunity to block her road for good. I could build a settlement right in the middle of her road. The problem was you need four specific resource cards to do this and I lacked 2 of them. I started bargaining with everyone else trying to trade for those cards. My mom had the 2 cards I needed and at first she was not going to turn them over. Then, I made this outlandish deal with her that on my next turn she could pick 2 of any of my cards she wanted. She jumped at that offer and immediately passed the cards I needed over. Bam, I used those 2 cards to throw a settlement right in the middle of her road and totally destroy her strategy. She was shocked and enraged! She jumped up from the table, threw her cards down, gave my hair a feisty tug and stomped off exclaiming she quit and was done with the game. She was not a happy camper. I was laughing so hard, it was a priceless moment. I rescinded my play because it was fairly sketchy and took back the trading of cards I did with her because she was pretty upset. The reaction made it all worth it. That game made for several heated moments. I must boast and say out of the 4 times I played, I won 2 of them (the 4th round I fell asleep before the game was over or I probably would have won that round too.) Let me tell you, I am an intense gamer.