Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts

Monday, February 27, 2012

10 cool things about being a secretary

Almost as cool as Maggie [via Detour Magazine]
1. If you purposefully put an extra large selection of paper into the three-hole puncher, you have to use both hands and thus get a good deltoid workout.

2. Important people get so used to your unimportant presence that they will say any important thing in your unimportant presence. So you end up knowing a lot of important things (I am being vague on purpose in order to emphasize the important mystery of my importance).

3. It's so easy to stay hydrated.

4. It's so easy to eat candy (It's really really easy to eat candy).

5. You learn to beat the copier into submission even though you know nothing about technology, but everyone asks you to "fix" the copier and you say well yes, certainly, and since you always do end up "fixing" the copier, everyone sees you as some sort of wizard. Which you're okay with.

6.Pinterest.

oh... that's about it, actually.

love, electric staplers, and spinning around and around and around and around when no one's watching,
Banana

Friday, June 3, 2011

Things we miss about America

For fear of sounding too naive and touristy (and just from plain earnestness), I asked Gracie to help me compile a list of complaints against la vie in La France on our way to Brussels (oops, we may have missed the train by thirty seconds and were in Gare du Nord at 6:30 am, which is not a good time or place to be,  we soon discovered).

Things we miss about America (by Nina and Gracie)


  • Red Robin fries and milkshakes and COOKED hamburger (this will be my first meal back in Provo)
  • Friendliness
  • English.
  • FREE BATHROOMS EVERYWHERE 
  • Being laughed at for being funny or witty or cute. Not just at your own expense. All the time.
  • Mexican food
  • Italian food
  • Busyness
  • Stand up showers!
  • Things open before 10 and after 5 and on Mondays
  • Clean, thick towels (we have since discovered that this is merely an issue with our slightly crazy host mom, not the French as a whole. One time she dragged a giant chain through the dining room and we're not sure why. Also, all her towels are threadbare and smell of mildew and other things)
  • Wearing shorts without causing an uncomfortable ruckus (in Provo, anyway)
  • Laughing, smiling in public
  • No pee (everywhere, always).
  • Big things, like deodorant and Costco muffins (everything in France is mini except Big Gulp-sized generic cologne that looks and smells like urine and lemons)
  • This place. The Pillar House. The girls and boys that make it the happiest place on earth.
 After a suitable period of traipsing around Europe, I think I'll be more than ready to return to my dear ones for some summer fairy magic time.

Things we don't miss about America
being here:


Banana.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Barmaid at the Folies-Bergères

I've never been bored.
not ever.

At least, I've never been this bored.

I've not ever been this bored before.



What I mean to say, of course, is that I love my job.
As a child, I prided myself in the fact that I could play alone for, well, ever, with almost no stimuli but...myself. I had enough fuel (
actually, fuel brings up something of a sore spot right now, as I ran out of gas on a dark rainy highway last night and the man at the gas station [that I had to walk to in the cold, rainy darkness] was so unaccommodating. bother.) in my over-active imagination to last me until bedtime. Or at least until my sister got home so I could terrorize her.
But now, between snotty comments of "I want your job!", "You get paid to surf the web all day!?"
[excuse me, I am not surfing the web, thank you, I am reading the New York Times, you "I play arena football because I can't play real football" imbecile] and "working hard?" I literally have nothing to do for extended periods of time.
And... okay, I'll say it:
I'm afraid my imagination isn't what it used to be.

Eek! I said it! How can I be bored? I've made lists ["How to Improve this Desk," "10 ways to commit suicide using only office supplies," etc.]! I've played games (Granted, "guess what I'm thinking- extreme edition" isn't that fun alone). And yet I can read the symptoms. I'm classically, through-and-through, Jungle Book vultures, watch-Pete-and-Pete re-runs-all-day bored.
bored bored bored.
And so I have no choice but to eat all these blueberry, cinnamon, chocolate chip, pumpkin, and cranberry scones they keep not eating. OH, and the huckleberry cinnamon rolls.
And the cheese danishes.

whoopsies.

NOW I'M BORED AND FAT!

Anyway,
Number one on my "How to Improve This Desk" list is, of course, Manet. So, I sometimes get funny looks at the lone picture I have taped up under here at eye level:
If anyone asks about her, I tell them it's a private joke. Which is kind of thrilling, feeling like Manet and I developed some sort of running jest over coffee while we developed the impressionist movement together.

We didn't. But still.
Look at her! Her bored, lonely, stare- trapped, stifled! in alienation- while her dreamy, skewed reflection attends to the swarthy customer in the stove pipe hat. She's just like me.
So we made a deal, her and I. We're going to tough out the shady men over the counter and our lowly days in the dregs of the working class. But these days we spend at our respective "bars" will turn us into...
masterpieces.

That's the deal, anyway.
Unfortunately, it was something of a one-sided conversation. And she doesn't have texting, so...

Hurrah for the winding down of day four! Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane with the girls (mama, grandmama, and aunt suzanemama) for ickle Mindy-cousin's wedding. Still trying to make something of myself. I suppose most things just work one day at a time, don't they?

meh.
Time for a scone.
Banana

Thursday, April 23, 2009

My Faves in Fives

This is fun.
Especially in sacrament meeting.
Filled up pages.

try it.

Daddy 1. belly chuckle 2. blue eyes 3. blues ties 4. cowboy lullabies 5. 3 x 5 cards



Mom 1. hot chocolate 2. Narnia 3. Mumus 4. paper plates 5. dogs




Jenaloo 1. pink 2. summer 3. fresh new books 4. playgrounds 5. The Little Mer
maid








Big Bryce 1.charades 2. grilled cheese sandwiches 3. hobo gloves 4.Hazel 5. She's the Man






I think this will be a series. I think this is fun.
♥ nina (I think)

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Okay.

Sometimes I just feel like a big, mean ole, awful, selfish bore.
Sometimes I am.
Sometimes I realize basically everything I do- all day, every day- is for me! For comfort and justification and instant gratification. It makes me feel heavy. And bothersome.

I'm going to do a little spring cleaning.
Start living for
others.
It's about time.
  • air out and patch relationships
  • dig spiritual habits and goals out of storage
  • scrub and polish for a clean, bright, shiney future
  • mend and organize finances (money stresses me out like nothing else can and I'm not of any use to anyone when it's all I think about)
  • love love love every day and every one in every possible way I can show it
"Three things in human life are important.
The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind.
And the third is to be kind."
-Henry James

And, oh life is beautiful! I miss my warm, sunshiney, healing Hawaii home
but am so happy to be in my chilly, familiar, foresty Washington home.
I love my family so much!

I'm going to be better, kinder, wiser, and more appreciative.
I have so much to appreciate:

List of happies I collected over the last month or two
sherbet skies -knowing I can be better - funny quotes - waking up without an alarm clock - memories - friends: old and new - birds - slip n' slides - feeling intelligent - sunday mornings - -sultry acoustic - Hawaii sun, Hawaii breeze - delicious fragrances: natural and otherwise - self control - I am going to China next year - Iron and Wine - anticipated success - holding hands -sandwiches - France - philosophy - wind - adreneline - stir fry - toast - Tessa Brady - eskimo kisses - performing - sleeping in - serving - wonderful wonders in the mail that are so thoughtful I carry around the package all day -comradery - the future - watching someone else watch the person they love - granola - the future - friends, lovers, family - people in general - acai - sad, droopy, testicular cancer dog friends on the beach - making strangers smile - good grades - self-help books - yoga - spontanaiety - greek architecture - dreams - s'mores - organization - The Zoo - sing-alongs - napping with friends - pretty notebooks, pretty things - sweet, kind, thoughtful boys - lucky number 11 - witty british documentary series - new book smell - listening to Jessica Fenenbock sing and letting it make me cry - love - nutella - being a free bird - Shea Stott - smart people - bunnies. of all kinds.
Love. peace.
-Banana

Carry

I want to carry you
and for you to carry me
the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,
I could hear two people talking quietly
in a rowboat on the far side of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,
then one changed the subject,
and, I swear, they began talking about you.

Billy Collins


that's all, folks

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin