I Voted

So, you know those "I voted" stickers you get after you've voted? I'm just curious, do you guys wear those? Isn't it kind of like bragging or giving a guilt trip to those who haven't voted? That's what I've always thought. Today, when the lady handed me mine, she said "here's your badge of honor." I thought about that a bit and realized that that was really true. It is a badge of honor and it's sad that those who go and do their duty as Americans have to be honored for doing such, even if that honor is just a little sticker. Well, I attached my sticker to my sweater and I hope it will remind those who see it to go vote too.

I Love Halloween!

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I love Halloween! All the scary movies come out, the weather starts turning cool and, as Kate wrote in a recent letter to me, it's the start of good things to come. I also really love dressing up. Always have. Don't you remember when I wrote about it before?

Today was such a beautiful and rather warm day. When I got home from my art class, I took the dogs out in the sun and set to work carving pumpkins. I thouroughly cleaned out 4 pumpkins with the intention of carving some incredible scenes into them. I started carving a haunted house, but got frustrated and sick of carving. My mom turned it into a "B" and carved "O's" in 2 of the other pumpkins. I decided I could handle carving a face and the result is the photo above. Not too bad I guess. We only had about 10 trick-or-treaters. I think our hill is too much work for a little piece of candy. These kids need to strap on the roller blades like I did. I collected so much more candy wearing those, but I think they're out of style now.

Last night, I went to a Halloween party and dressed in Emily's fairy costume (thanks Emily!). I must say the wings were a challenge though. There were a lot of people there and I think I hit just about everyone I passed with the wings. There were some really cool costumes. People are really creative. I think I need to be more creative next year. Unfortunately, the cops came to break up the party around midnight. I guess we were a bit too loud, or maybe it's just all the old people in Holladay who like their quiet little town.

Well, tomorrow is November. I can't believe it. I'm already looking forward to turkey! Happy Halloween!

A spooky story

Since I was a little girl, I've loved hearing and telling ghost stories. I don't know what it is. I don't know if I even believe in ghosts or paranormal activity. I guess I just like getting scared from the possibility. Why? I don't know, but I know I'm not the only one. Why else would all the haunted houses that pop up in the month of October be so successful if people didn't like getting scared?

I was talking to some friends who had gone on one of those Salt Lake City ghost tours. They were telling me some of the stories they were told and so I went online to find out a little more. I found another pretty spooky story that I'd thought I'd share. It takes place only 2 years ago at the Pioneer Memorial Museum downtown.

On October 10, 2007 Utah Capitol State Police saw an image on the monitors which come from the Pioneer Memorial Museum. One of the officers actually took a photo of the image in the monitor, and gave the photo to the museum. The monitors are in the Utah Capitol building and the images come from the cameras in the museum a few blocks away. State Police watch the monitors and respond if there appears to be an intruder.


The image appeared four times over an 8 day period and always appeared between about 11:00 PM and 3:00 AM. During these hours the museum is closed and empty, no one is inside except cleaning or maintenance. During this 8 day period the motion detectors in the museum were set off several times, and the image appeared 4 times. The ghostly image appeared without setting off motion detectors sometimes, other times motion detectors went off without showing the image. Each time the image was seen, it looked like the same person and the image always persisted for several minutes. Capitol State Police are the security for the museum, so they sent Officers to investigate and found the museum secure each time they saw unusual images or motion detectors went off.

In an interesting side story, the museum director speculates that she may know who it is in the image. 20 years ago a sampler was stolen from the museum. A museum staffer recognized the sampler recently listed for sale on eBay. That staffer contacted eBay and sent documentation that the item was stolen. eBay contacted the seller whose family had purchased the sampler in good faith years earlier. They immediately returned the sampler to Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

During the interval of the images appearing to the State Police and the return of the sampler, a Custodian reported that on one night, he saw a young lady who was dressed in black and sitting on a bench in the museum foyer. The custodian explained that the museum was closed and she must leave. He unlocked and opened the front door for her. She never spoke, but arose and walked out the door, but not down the steps! The girl floated above the steps and sidewalk until she disappeared!

I don't know if this is true, but I've always kind of wanted to experience paranormal activity. It would probably scare the crap out of me, but I'd have the best story to tell! So now I want to know, have any of you seen a ghost, heard a voice, anything? Let me know and have a happy Halloween!

Self Portrait

Well, I said I'd share some of my art, so here it is. This was my first, and so far only, attempt at a self portrait. I'm hoping I'll start moving more quickly because I have big plans. I've been playing around with gesso, watercolors and prisma colored pencils and that's just on one painting! I'm also working on a special drawing, but I won't be posting that one for a while.

A Good Read

For the longest time, when I'd go to the bookstore, I'd shy away from the Young Adult section. I always wanted to go take a look, but for some reason I felt that even looking at the books, let alone buying them, would make me seem like an immature, unsophisticated little girl or some such thing. Kate quite likes this genre of book, so I started reading some of hers. Easy reading? yes. Deep literary works? probably not, but some of the stories are so intriguing. That's the case with this book, "The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins. Both my sisters read this book so I finally decided to see what it was all about.

As you can guess, I enjoyed it immensely and thought I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't embarrassed to traverse the Young Adult section at Barnes and Noble. I'm too lazy to write a summary, but I want to include one I read on my friend's blog. You'll be intrigued! Oh, and it's a trilogy. I'm starting the second book tonight.

The former countries of North America have been run down by disease, famine, and war, until they dissolved completely. In their place, the Capitol with 13 surrounding districts took power. For a while all was calm, but then District 13 rose up and tried to rebel. The Capitol crushed them, of course, and peace returned but the Capitol, determined to remind the remaining 12 districts that they are powerless, institutes the annual Hunger Games.

Each year, the names of all the boys and girls ages 12-18 are put into a drawing and one boy and one girl from each district are selected to go fight in the Hunger Games. The 12 girls and 12 boys fight to the death until only one remains. The whole thing is televised and required viewing for all the districts.

Katniss lives in District 12, one of the poorer districts, and she spends much of her time hunting since she is responsible for feeding her family following her father’s death in a coalmine seven years earlier. She has also put her name into the drawing extra times in exchange for extra rations of food (as many in her district do); the number of times your name is entered also increases each year – 1 for the year you are 12, 2 the year you’re 13 and so on, so she knows her chances of getting her name drawn are fairly good. Instead she is stunned when her younger sister, Prim, is chosen instead – after all her name was only in the pool once.

Determined to avoid the fate of watching her sister murdered on television, Katniss volunteers to go in her place. To add to the injury, the boy who is chosen from the district is her same age, Peeta, the son of the baker, who, after her father’s death, risked his mother’s wrath to give her two loaves of bread. She has always liked him and felt in his debt, but now they will be mortal enemies in the Hunger Games arena.

Newport Beach

My parents and I flew to LA last Friday because Emily had just started her 2-week vacation and we all wanted to do something. On Saturday, we drove down to Newport Beach where we rented a condo at the Marriott. On Sunday, we enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon at the beach in Newport Beach. I swam in the surprisingly warm ocean until a larger wave came and threw me against the ocean floor and left me with 2 rug burned knees. We grilled steaks that night and I got everyone to watch a scary movie.

On Monday we went to Laguna Beach and then went over to Balboa Island where we got frozen bananas and Balboa bars. We also took our car over the little ferry. Tuesday morning, my mom and I went the the Newport Temple. It was only about 8 minutes away from where we were staying. It is a beautiful temple and it's the first of the smaller temples that I've seen.

The weather was amazing and I will always love any vacation that involves the beach. It's going to be hard to go back to Utah, especially since I've heard that it got kind of cold there. But I love the Fall too, so I guess it'll be okay.

In Your Dreams

I was reading an article online about dreams and what they mean. I've read about dreams before and I've always found it interesting. I don't usually remember my dreams, but what I do remember is really bizarre. Like last night. I dreamed that I was singing "America the Beautiful" with another woman. It was really beautiful. I could actually hear the music! I had an amazing voice that I wish were real and I was harmonizing with the woman. You may be thinking that that's not too strange. Well, how about that I was the woman's hostage and she had a man with her who was going to kill me after we sang? I can't remember what happened after that. I do remember being scared and running through a parking garage with an unknown guy. So what does this mean? I have no idea, but I thought I'd share some of the things I learned from the article.

Falling
Have you ever had a dream where you're tripping and you stumble, or even fall off a cliff or something and then you jerk awake? I hate that! Here's what it may mean: "If you fall from a high place, you could fear you are failing, or falling from a position or status. If you trip and fall, you might be thinking you are taking a misstep in life, and need to rethink your plans. It can be that you are generally feeling insecure. But, always look to your life to see in what area you feel insecure, and this may present itself in the dream."

Flying
I've had a few dreams where I was actually flying. It was an incredible feeling. One time I was on a bike. I've never seen "E.T." but I'm sure that the famous silhouette of the kid on the bike with the moon behind had some influence on my dream. So what does flying mean? "Flying dreams are about independence and gaining freedom over self-doubt and insecurity. These dreams show you are experiencing greater control over life, growing and overcoming personal doubt."

Being Chased
I once had a dream where I was being chased by a witch in a grocery store. In another dream, I was being chased by a shark in a swimming pool. I was very interested in learning the meaning of this. "This sort of dream can occur when there is something upsetting that you are dealing with and is causing anxiety. Are you running away from it? Look at who is chasing you. Are you getting away or not? Maybe you need to figure out how to deal with someone who is being aggressive with you, and you have been avoiding it, so it is coming up in your dream. If it is some dark shadowy thing that is chasing you, that could be a past experience or trauma trying to come up to the surface."

Recurring Dreams
I've never had a recurring dream that I know of, but I've heard of people who have. I've always thought they must be some kind of warning. The analysis supports that thought. "These are important to take note of as something in your life is trying to get your attention so you can understand it. These dreams provide an important message about your life situation over which you may not have control. You may need to address habitual ways in which you deal with your internal or external world and then the dream may change or stop entirely."

A lot of people can't remember their dreams. I usually don't remember anything about my dreams. I've heard that if you keep a notebook by your bed and write down everything you remember the minute you wake up, you'll start remembering your dreams and some people even learn to control their dreams. I've always wanted to try this. I may not learn anything, but I'm sure I'd have some good stories! If you want to read the full article, you can click here.