If only the title had warned me...

I got to chapter 5 of "The Dirty Parts of the Bible" before I deleted it off my Kindle. I'm fairly liberal when it comes to artistic content, and it wasn't dirty per se, I've definitely had to put down worse, but it was 1st person narrated by a hormone-driven 20 year old boy. blech. The story itself was pretty interesting and promising, but not enough to put up with the narrators fantasizing and semi-torrid confessions. oh well. I feel like every summer I try to exercise my grown-up-ness and venture into the world of adult books. And every summer it fails. Guess I got it taken care of early this year, at least. Back to young adult and classic novels I go!

between a bob and a hard place

Happy Easter! 


Last Easter found me at my brother Matt's house in Draper. We were lucky enough to be visited by our brother Steve who lives out east, and our brother Dave who lived in Oregon at the time and his wife Kristy. 4 out of 7 siblings is quite a good turnout for us. It was a really fun weekend, we played games, talked, went to a shooting range and shot big guns...a typical Hodgen get together. 

Front L to R: Kristy, Matt, Emily
Back L to R: Dave, Steve

We're not an overwhelmingly photogenic family, but we were all together. It was a lot of fun catching up since we don't reunion much...or ever. 

Let's not forget Jonathan and Jake!

Those are Matt's sons and two of my favorite little guys, who are much bigger now a year later. Also, there is a new little guy in their family who may be my favorite of all (don't tell them!). I don't have a picture on my computer of him but I'll get one. He is 5-month-old Benjamin and I can't get enough of him. I may or may not steal him from his parents every chance I get when I'm there. 

This year I was at Matt's house again, but it was a little more subdued. First of all, the appearance of a new baby in the house tends to make things a little more complicated, no matter how much we love him. Second, we had no other visitors beside myself, and I go there so often I'm not much of a visitor anymore. Third, Terri (Matt's wife) had major surgery a few weeks ago and while she is doing great, she is still recovering. So we had a simple but fun time together and since they had to take a trip up to Idaho today, I came back to Provo Sunday (today) in the morning. Since I left my camera at home, once I get the pictures off of Matt's camera I will post more about my weekend. 

My early return to Provo meant being at an empty house since all my roommates have either moved out or gone home for a while. Not such a bad situation when you have mountains of homework you should be doing, but with the end of finals last week I'm now a free woman!! And while I can't shake the feeling that there is some homework I should be doing and I check my grades every 5 minutes to see if my last few papers have been graded (I mean, come on, It's like my teachers have something better to do or something. Ridiculous.) in truth there is nothing that has to be done before tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. If I had a house full of roommates this would be the best thing that's ever happened to me, but I am aloooooone. Cue the Lord of the Rings marathon (which will be getting it's own post, don't you worry about that!) I have also pulled out the knitting needles and started on a scarf that won't serve a purpose until November when it gets really cold again, so I'm sure it will take me that long to finish it because I can't finish anything unless it's crunch time. 

I bought two books on my Kindle, one that was super cheap: "The Dirty Parts of the Bible," which is supposed to be like "O Brother Where Art Thou?" quirky and adventurous, and came recommended to people who liked "Water for Elephants." I haven't read "Water for Elephants," but I like to consider myself someone who would enjoy it, so I decided "The Dirty Parts of the Bible" was for me. The reviews said it wasn't dirty like the title leads you to believe, and I hope that's the case. Plus I need something to do until I can read the second book...

"City of Fallen Angels," the recently released fourth installment of my current favorite Teen Trash series called "The Mortal Instruments." I'm dying to read it but have made a pact with my friend Bri (http://delynsboutique.blogspot.com/) who is also obsessed that we will wait until we are done with school and she is done taking the Praxis (UVU gets out a week after BYU). But I bought it just to make sure I had it ready when the green light came. 

Mortal Instruments series

I watched a few other movies this weekend that I hadn't seen before:

The King's Speech-Seriously, this movie is so good! the premise sounds like a snoozefest but the actual "Speech" in question takes up only a small portion of the movie. The rest is great characters interacting beautifully with a full and compelling story that moves along quickly. I loved it. And being the good little LDS people that we are, we muted out the scene with the million F words, and the rest of the movie is squeaky clean. I kind of wish we hadn't muted it, because it really is a major plot point and the way it's worked in is in no way offensive (especially with the English accent...always takes things down at least 3 points on the profanity scale). Anyways, highly recommend it!

Country Strong-I do not like country music unless it is sung by Garth Brooks or is played on pop stations and it's just so catchy I can't stop singing it (I'm looking at you, "Need You Now").  I don't always love Gwyneth Paltrow (especially her one-time character that turned into a recurring character that turned into a no-more character on Glee). But I loved this movie. In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about it or talking about it for about 24 hours after I saw it. I felt like the way they depicted various relationships was so fascinating and heart-wrenching, I couldn't get enough of it. And I thought the acting was fabulous, especially Tim McGraw! Who knew! And even though I don't like country music, while it is the premise and the drive for the characters, it is not the focus of the movie, they are. And their voices are all so unique it made for great listening. I want the soundtrack. And this is also the movie I found true love in:

Seriously, how could you pass up a chance to see him?

Last movie I watched: Toy Story 3. I hadn't seen it yet and oh my goodness it's so cute! and I thought it was hilarious, I love it when they can put in inoffensive humor for adults in kids movies. It took everything in me to hold it together at the end when Andy is playing with the little girl and the toys, since I was among other adults while I watched it. It was also kind of scary and the baby doll freaked me out. But all in all a great movie.

Ok well I think that's enough for this post. But before I go, let's do a hair check up:

Yep, it's still short. But it's growing! it's a little messy in this picture, but I've got it under control to the point where I'm not self-conscious about it anymore, thank you mr. roundbrush. It will still be a while before it stops resembling a pixie, but I'm on my way. 

Happy Easter, friends!

 

Kickin' It Old School (plus lots more)

I promised myself if I got done with my homework at a reasonable hour I could blog. Well, it's midnight, and that is pretty early for me so here I go!


First, I have lots of little things to say, but let me just throw this out there:


Any guesses as to what this is?

Perhaps it is a science experiment? Or maybe an 18th century sick room scene? You are wrong. This is in fact a picture of my shower this morning. That's right, our hot water is broken so as the rest of my roommates traipsed off to school scummy and unbathed, I whipped out the kettle, large bowl, and measuring cup. I accomplished everything I do in a normal shower, and surprisingly it didn't take much longer, if at all, and I got perfectly clean. I AM A PIONEER WOMAN! or something like that. I was feeling proud of myself and my ingenuity until I found out that the problem isn't getting fixed until tomorrow afternoon, so I will have to repeat my escapades tomorrow morning. My first thought was, "I don't really want to be a pioneer woman!" Pride will get you like that, so be careful.


Next up we have the events of yesterday, Sunday. Woke up to this:

 Yep, Utah's awesome like that. My favorite part was that on Saturday it was 70 degrees. For the most part it has melted, so I will hand that to Utah, snow doesn't stick around for long.


So all weekend long the nastiest, biggest bunch of dirty dishes that you ever did see was taking up residence ALL over our kitchen. Every roommate had an attitude of "I am not doing them this time, that's disgusting." I found myself alone with them on Sunday afternoon so I gave in and went to work...

An  ENTIRE sink full of silverware. Silverware!

My handiwork of first organizing the dirty dishes.

 Anyways, not the most thrilling thing to share, but I feel like there is a misconception out there that girls are clean and that is just simply not the case. 


Also I made delicious cookies as a precursor to my new "no sweets" attitude. I've found that I have become more and more dependent on sugar, specifically chocolate, in order to cope with school. The longer this goes on the grosser I feel, so I'm being bold and making major cut backs. My biggest obstacle right now: I keep forgetting that I set that goal, and nearly slip up. But back to the cookies:

Mmm. It was a tasty send-off to my dessert-free exile.

Now on to the important stuff...the hair.


The real problem at play here is that my hair is way too short in the front/frame of my face and the back/nape of my neck. The rest is all very long and shapeless now. In fact, I kind of look like this guy...

Yep, I am Raggedy Andy. And I feel it.

So I snapped a couple of shots of various hair dos from yesterday and today and I JUST CAN'T MAKE MY HAIR LOOK GOOD! I knew it was going to be hard, but this is ridiculous! My roommate Allyson saw me poking and prodding it for the umpteenth time yesterday and made the comment, "You know, I always thought girls with long hair spent more time on their hair. Now I know that's not true." Thanks Allyson. 

I'm actually glaring at the camera in this one.

 So my issue with this is that it looks alright from the front, and is super unflattering from the back. I took a picture and it's too awful to share. But I'm afraid (and too poor) to get my hair cut and lose all this wonderful growth. I think I might have to though to even it out. It'll set me back a few months. :\

What I ended up with today after my pioneer bath. My camera's
flash is broken, sorry for the darkness. I'd like to refer you to my
adorable and newly cleaned room in the background.

Anyways, I know this isn't the most riveting topic ever to crash the blogosphere, and maybe I'm just a typical vain girl (I just did a major cram session for the second half of the Book of Mormon for an independent study class that is due tomorrow) but my distress is growing. I think because no matter how much effort I put into my makeup, clothes, jewelry, etc., If my hair looks nasty I feel nasty. And all I want is for my hair to look like this:

Disclaimer: I know that I am not Katie Holmes. But the general style.
Note: she is in front of a poster for "Hairspray." Love.

Anyways, that's enough whining from me. Cool things about today:

I actually had a really good day

No poli sci quiz AND we watched "I'm Just a Bill" Schoolhouse Rock style.

Be sure to check out the Family Guy version as well...hilarious.

 

I got a new project at work which has successfully saved my sanity.

My Wednesday research paper got pushed back to next Monday--Bless you Professor Yates

A possibly really good thing happened that I had been scheming and stressing about but I won't go into detail because my blog is not private and it's a primo example of my being creepy. Facebook me if you want more info. 

I got my independent study class done before the deadline so now I believe I won't fail it.

I listened to President Monson's Priesthood talk and it was really good. I heart those guys. 

I got a couple of projects turned in today, so I don't have to worry about them anymore. 

Alright all (and by that, I mean all two or three of you), i'm out. It is most definitely bed time. I would like the add that I know the world will not end because of my hair and that people are still starving everywhere and there are more important things to think about. And it's true, and I am thinking about them. But i'm also thinking about other stuff, like my ridiculous hair :)