Why?

 

Well the reasons are various and many.

The first time we came out here was (yes, I did live in Richmond for four years but I don’t count it seems how those for years were the first four years of my life) in 2008 when my sister, Kimberly married some dude ;) and stole her from me and replanted her in Va. Fredericksburg to be exact. We fell in love. With everything. The diversity, the endless list of things to do, the foliage, the history, the culture, the fact that it’s not Utah. Oh, I mean, I . . .oh what the hey, I’ll say it: I’m glad to be out of Utah. Of course Utah is not all bad. It’s just not the best fit for us as Team Couturier or as individuals. I’ll spare you all the dirty details. There will be many things that I’ll miss about Utah. Actually, I don’t know if ‘miss’ is the right word. I like that in Utah you always have the mountains to tell you what direction you’re facing. That’s not really enough to keep me in the beehive state. Sometimes it was pretty. I liked the fact that I knew the state well- as in all the cities & neighborhoods-just general knowledge-Ive been researching my can off to get myself familiar with the Cville area. I’m getting there-slowly getting over the fact that I never know what direction I’m in and have to rely entirely on my navigation unit.

Cap’n also fell in love with the University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson is the proud papa of this university and is lovely. The grounds are quite pretty and I’m looking forward to Garden Week there. Apparently it takes place every year and a HUGE to do is made about it. Google some pics of it, you’ll wanna go too. It is a goal of Team Couturier to put Cap’n through law school. UVa’s law program is number 10 in the nation. One has better odds of acceptance if one is a Va resident. So uh, hehe, that’s another reason: to build residency. Not only that but school is cheaper for residents. Even if (heaven forbid because I don’t want to move again until it’s time to buy a house and put down roots) he doesn’t get accepted to UVa’s law program, there are other schools in Va that would be a second choice. A distant second choice. Very distant.

It’s beautiful here. The land is not flat at all. It undulates. You can’t see far ahead on the road because it rolls and twists and turns out of site behind the trees. Old trees. Old trees that still have frequently found civil war bullets and even older arrow heads resting on their roots. I guess Va is known and proud of their wine producing too. Which, whatever, I don’t care about rotten grapes you have to force yourself to get used to, but the vineyards make for some beautiful scenery. Am I using beautiful too much? Alright then, how about: striking, gorgeous, breath taking, enchanting. There’s a pond near home and tonight the frogs were in full concert-fabulous. It’ll be interesting to watch the girls encounter them for the first time. I hope you can’t contract anything from them...ew.

It’s not all fab though. With all the forestry and open country means animals. On the road. Deflated. I’ve found that denial works well in this case. I have to keep my eyes peeled on the road so I don’t look somewhere and get a surprise eye full and I can tell myself it was something else like a cardboard box or carpet. This works famously as long as I don’t look directly at it.  Also: bugs. Fleas and cicadas namely. Hasn’t been a problem yet and the girls ARE protected against that yuck but still. And I dare you to google cicadas. They are perhaps the UGLIEST bug ever. Your text book ugly bug. It could win the position of ugly bug king at the ugly bug ball (thank you Burl Ives). I guess they don’t do anything but make noise. But it’s so much noise that you go outside and sounds like there’s a helicopter on your front porch. There’s BILLIONS of them. I am so not kidding. There are so many it’s reminiscent of the ten plagues or sum’m. They’re not out yet but when they are....plague is a fitting word.

Flies . . . of a butter and dragon sort.

There is a Native American legend that says, "If you have a secret wish, capture a butterfly and whisper your wish to it. Since butterflies cannot speak, your secret is ever safe in their keeping. Release the butterfly, and it will carry your wish to the Great Spirit, who alone knows the thoughts of butterflies. By setting the butterfly free, you are helping to restore the balance of nature, and your wish will surely be granted."

Isn't that the coolest?!

I also once heard that fairies mascarade around as dragonflies in public site. But only to adults. Children still see the real fairy. I was totally on board with this theory until someone said 'adults can't see 'em though. Only sticky-fingered, lound, smelly, 'gimmie all yer food' children can'. What a crock . . . only kids can see 'em. . .make me mad. . . little brats wouldn't know what the . . .

So Much On The Mind. So Little Of Consequence.

Wow. Just drew a blank. Ok then; I'm just gonna ramble:
Had a dream last night that my dad tried to commit suicide and failed. He did manage to blow his hand off though. Cleanly. Gross and how retarded are you?

I went to a cadaver lab recently and found myself absolutely fascinated. More than a lifetime of knowledge to glean & I could only be there for an hour. Suck! There was so much to see and ask and look at and feel and...I will say though, I did find a line I wouldn't cross. That line was holding a severed head-that was cut in half lengthwise while another girl in the class held the other part of the head across the room. Nope. Not gonna do it. I did do other things that though that may seem a little nastier than that to some, so I'll omit that part. Believe me, I didn't want to do it, but the professor actually yelled at me to do it. So. I did. Damn that need to not get in trouble! Anyhoo. I really have been wondering how I could get into this field of work. That is- working with people post mortem. After some online search and calling around I learned that you either need to be a doctor or have a BS degree in something medical. Anything. Just medical. You need to have experience with histology (the study of human tissue) and experience with death. The autopsy assistant that I spoke with today was pleased to answer my questions. Experience with death? How does one get that? He says he prefers that an employees work at a funeral home for a while first. They have hired people in the past who haven't had this experience and have been heartily traumatized their first day on the job. Pay starts at 8 bucks an hour. Yep. BS degree for 8 US dollars an hour. Granted, most people doing this job are premed students so they're more interested in the 'building a resume' and experience part of it. I just want it for the learning. I could never be a doctor. I'm missing a few marbles to be able to do that. But if I still had my shooter... Anyway. The End.




Oh. And I also dreamt last night that I met my favorite actress: Meryl Streep. She was so nice! She hugged me and told Dennis to get some pictures of us. And so we did a photo shoot right there on the tarmak! Best meeting of a celebrity ever.




Don't read The Great Stink by Clare Clark. I thought the reader was supposed to like the main character at least a little bit. Nope. Turns out that the main character in this book in the first chapter is an impotent cutter. You heard me. Not even prostitutes can help this psycho dude out. Buh. . .just don't do it.




But do read Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers. Freaking fascinating. Freaking disgusting, but freaking fascinating all the same. The chapter on Embalming is catalyst enough for a paradigm shift.

Let's keep this short and palatable.

A few years ago I received a Christmas greeting card from one of my favorite people inwhich she kept the family newsletter short and sweet with a top ten list of their family. This is what I attempt to do now for 2009 but with more or less than ten. Ahem:

1. Nancy turned 29 and flipped out. Dennis turned 33 and didn't.

2. Flew to beloved Fredericksburg, Va. to greet a new family member to the world. Promptly got sick there & pretty sure we gave the new bundle RSV. She came out of it beautifully though.

3. Celibrated our ninth year of marriage and best friendhood.

4. Sold the house in a week.

5. Moved to Orem where Dennis found a new full time job, transfered with UPS to work at at night and enrolled full time at UVU in their Aviation Management program. That's right: One full time job. One part time job. And a full load at UVU. They don't call him Captain Fantastic for nothin'.

6. Nancy searched for three months to find a job and when she had given up hope and was sure she was going to end up working at a gas station (really) she landed her ideal job at Remedez: the AVEDA spa in Orem. (Also the best spa in Utah Valley. Really. Look it up in Utah Valley Magazine.)

7. Nancy enrolled at the local tech. school for Medical Assisting and upon google imaging 'carbuncle', isn't sure she want's to go into the medical assisting field.

8. Although living with Nancy's parents, the Couturier's have been blessed to be able to keep their children, Sidney and Maggie; who, by the way, are heartworm free and healthy.

9. After two and a half years NANCY GOT HER BRACES OFF.

10. Found some ooooollllld friends on facebook and have loved catching up with them from the last 20 years.

And last but not least,

11. Nancy cried when she realized she could say "Wow! I haven't spoken with you in twenty years!"

Six is red and is a girl.

This is not a “Whose on second and Whats on third” kind of joke. I’m for realzies. I don’t know if it’s an ADD thing or a Synesthesia thing. But Nancy! What is synesthesia?! Well, beloved readers, I’ll tell you: 1 : a concomitant sensation; especially : a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated2 : the condition marked by the experience of such sensations.
I know. Totally retarded definition. Could you be more vague, Merriam Webster? Basically it’s when I’m writing numbers I get a feeling, or to use Merriams words, ‘sensation’, that the number six is female, is red and is fat but seven and eight are totally into her. And while she’s technically with seven, eight likes to show him (seven) up a lot. Totally lost? Don’t be. It’s rather simple. Each number has a personality and color. This is something that goes on in my head while I am doing fractions, writing down an address or closing out the till at nights- really, whenever I see a number. Apparently I’m not the only person who has this. . .thing. I have a friend who sees this all too. Some of our numbers even match. Like six being a girl. Smithsonian magazine did an article kind of about this stuff a number of years ago but it was on people who when they see colors THEY TASTE STUFF!!! How freakin crazy is that?! This is so top twenty questions I’m going to ask about when I get to heaven. That and I’d like to see in a pile how many bobby pins I went through in my lifetime. . . This is what I think about folks. Frequently Dennis asks me what I’m thinking about. Sometimes I don’t want to tell him.

Anyway. Let me tell you about them.

1. Unisex actually and is usually red. Has a lot of baggage and self worth problems being the lowest number. I wish I was making this up.
2. Yellow. Male. On top of things and is 1’s only friend and 2 is totally ok with it. He’s more than fine to be 1’s keeper.
3. Red. Girl. Really fat. Gets along with everyone. Changes shape a lot. Never know if she’s gonna be like the CEO or the theme park attendant.
4. Light blue. Male. Serious. Nor a real game player. Straight faced. Noble.
5. Dark blue. Male. Also serious. Quiet. But definitely makes a mark. Like he adds something to the room when he’s there. Easy and smart.
6. Red. Girl. And like I said, she is with 7. She has a pear shaped body. Junk in the trunk.
7. Maroon. Male. Has an important job. He’s ‘big league’. He and 9 get along really well and often times work with each other in problems I don’t get. Older. Very masculine.
8. Yellow/grey (weird, I know. But I think we’re far enough past the line of weird that anything goes now. All very Alison in Wonderland, sorta.) Male. He’s a jerk. He’s good at what he does but always lords over 7 that when he’s paired up the 6, they make 48 instead of just 42. Crap like that. Makes 7 feel really bad about himself. Like he can never measure up.
9. Sometimes doesn’t have a color. Sometimes black, sometimes red. Always a dude though. Again, very masculine. Doesn’t get into any of the games that the numbers below him do. His mere presence commands a sort of reverence and cooperation. Couldn’t care less about 6.
10. Black. Male. ALWAYS trying to get into the bigger leagues. After all, he is the first double digit. He’s always looking to 11 and 12 for guidance and advice.
Now it gets tricky.
11. Yellow/Grey. Female. She and 12(Black. Female) are bestys and don’t really care about 10. They’re too busy trying to go out with 14 and 15 who seem so grown up and ‘cool’.
Then we kind of revert back to the beginning. 13:red; 14:light blue. . .Strangely, 20, yes, is yellow, but female. 30’s are red; 40’s are grey. . .
All the other colors that are out there? I don’t know. What happened to green or purple or pink? Why just that small amount of colors? And repeated amounts? And how come grey gets coupled with yellow? How weird is that?!

I am not taking questions at this time.

Not As Cool As The Old Ones

Well, it’s that time again. We’re a atwitter with to do lists and shopping lists. Buy books at overstock.com. Another one from B&N. College ruled paper from wal-mart. Pens from office max. Crayons from Shopko. Well, not crayons. Neither Dennis or I have an art class. Yet. But I did need a pencil box. What? I like having lots of different colored pens and pencils. Makes my notes nicer to look at. Helps me remember better too. I used my red pen yesterday to take notes on Hepatitis B. Red=blood=liver=hepatitis (inflammation of the liver). See how that works? Nice, eh? But let me go back. Back to the part about the pencil box. That’s right. Can I just saw how utterly disappointed I am in the pencil box industry? I will tell you very. Very disappointed. No where can you find the pencil boxes of our childhood. I don’t particularly mean a rainbow bright one. I mean the big clunky cardboard ones. The ones with the flap top-nothing needed to snap shut. If you didn’t want all your treasures falling out you’d simply push the lid in past the front wall of the box. ‘Member? And when you did want to finally open it again, you’d simply turn it upside down and shake the hell out of it, hoping you had enough crap in there heavy enough to shove the lid open again. The inside was always white. At first. Then, with all your many crayons and gross erasers, glue sticks, pencils and pens, eventually it looked and smelled like hell. But man! I loved to organize that thing. I was always so pleased when the length of my sciscors were the perfect fit horizontally or verticall too. Of course if you were a rich kid, you didn’t have one of these. You had something better. You had something pink and plastic and made by Hello Kitty. Bitches. Those things had everything. Built in pencil sharpener? Check. Magnifying glass so you can take your sock and shoe off in the middle of your teacher reading “The Indian in the Cupboard” and stare at the sliver you got in the bottom of your foot last night on the wooden play ground and then get distracted by the wart growing ever so healthily next to the sliver? Yep, magnifying glass too. I’m kidding. Of course. Little blonde girls with Hello Kitty paraphernalia coming out their ears don’t get warts. Duh. Compartment for your eraser (that was also pink and was included)? Check. Note pad slot WITH notepads with the damn cat's face on the paper so that every time you sent a note to someone they knew you were somebody because you had Hello Kitty? Check. Any Hello Kitty item at my school (my last elementary school in Plain City, Utah) was a badge of honor. Gucci for fifth graders. The acceptance offered, the security made, the cozy peaceful nights rest all found in an item emblazoned with a white faced cat sporting a pink bow and whiskers. This was the standard for which you were judged. That, and if you wore guess, gerbaud, or esprit. But we’re talking about desk accessories here today and I frankly don’t care to talk about how many pairs of guess jeans I did have. (It was two, by the way. Because of my sweet cousin, Kirsten sending me a box of clothes one summer. God bless you for that, Babe. You were my ticket into the ‘in’ crowd. For about a week. Once. But that’s a whole other story involving spoiled blonde haired children, purple tights and a girl wearing glasses the size of tea saucers who got me into schloads of trouble.) Anyway. Hello Kitty was where it was at. There was even a Hello Kitty store at our mall. I dared to go in it. Once. Once. And didn’t stay long. For two reasons: One, everything that was in there, I KNEW my parents would NEVER, EVER buy. Way too expensive. Offensively expensive. And two, I didn’t want to be kicked out. What if other patrons or store employees knew that I couldn’t afford this stuff and they’d throw me out? Really? These were the thoughts of a fifth/sixth grader. Seriously! What if they could tell by the way I was dressed or something, or they didn’t recognize me from a ‘I make a lot of money’ parties? And would it go on my ‘record’ that I went into a store of which I could afford nothing? Would background checks be done on me in the future by potential employers or would-be rich friends? Is that why ROSS didn’t hire me last week?
I think I should stop here.



What I wanted:

What I got: except, thankfully, none of my pencil boxes ever had some one else's name on them

What I got today: the only thing available anymore

Things I've Learned From Estheticians

Exfoliate more often: For me anyway. You could be doing it 2 to 3 times a week.

Use masks: You only ever need a thin layer too. Your skin is only going to be in contact with so much of the stuff- don’t waste it.

Don’t rub your eyes!

IF you are going to skip a step in your daily facial treatment regimen, let it be the spritzing of toner. IF.

DO NOT get microderm abrasion! It is SO bad for your skin. It'll even SCAR your face! I've seen it for myself too. If you want to do some sort of peel or resurfacing treatment, go with an all natural one. (Like AVEDA's called Botanical Skin Resurfacing Facial go here to read more about it)

Just because you bring in a picture of the kind of eyebrows you want doesn’t mean you’re going to walk out of the spa/salon with those eyebrows AND THERE IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR THIS: eyebrows are shaped differently from other eyebrows. Some are short or narrow. Some have naturally high arches. If you don’t have much arch to your eyebrows but want a more rounded line, there’s only so much the esthetician can do. Don’t get mad at her because you have a different eyebrow to begin with than the girl in the picture.

And still on the subject of eyebrows: it’s ok to take from the top.

Don’t pull on your eye when you’re putting on your eyeliner.

When getting waxed (anything) it’s best if you don’t come when you’re PMSing because it just hurts more. But if you do go when you’re PMSing (and it’s ok if you do) you can take Tylenol for the pain before you get waxed. Drinking apple juice seems to help too.

When getting bikini waxes, make sure to be very specific in what you want. Every spa/salon is different in what they term an extended bikini is. Some say that is just going in a little more but some places mean that as their brazillian. And the prices vary, vastly.

Just because you have an oily face doesn’t mean you don’t need a moisturizer or that you won’t get just as many wrinkles as anyone else. You are not immune!

You need to moisturize your skin from the inside AND outside. Drinking 64 ounces of water is not going to ensure moisturized skin. Especially in this dry, Utah climate. Moisturizer doesn’t just moisturize either. It protects your skin from A LOT of stuff. Depending on the moisturizer, it defends against all sorts of free radicals, age spots, sun damage, and even losing your body’s own moisture. YOU CANNOT GET ADDICTED TO LOTIONS OR CHAPSTICKS.

Polish get gloopy? Add some fingernail polish remover to it. Just a drop or two into the polish bottle itself.