One of those TAG things....

I’m not huge on these tag things. But I enjoyed reading Branda’s. And not too long ago I found something like this that I had filled out in 6th Grade. I’m glad my life hasn't turned out quite like 6th grade Lauren hoped:  25 years old, not married but have 2 Dobermans, be a Lawyer, drive a blue mustang convertible, and play the flute. Awesome life, eh? I have a feeling maybe in 10 years I’ll feel the same way about some things on my new list as do about blue mustang convertibles now.

Eight things I'm Passionate About:

My Sunbeams 

Converting them from their heathenish ways 
and making them still like me during the process 
(at least for now they like rubbing my textured tights and napping in my lap.)

Reading
Anything and Everything: Blogs, Books, Real Simple magazine, 
and sometimes the back issues of salacious things
 like Glamour and Maxium I save from the trash at work.

     Food

Buying it (going grocery shopping is fun! For real), 
cooking it, eating it, reading about. I just love food.

     My Family: 

Dan, Parents & Sisters, Zaza Meowy and Cedric, 
select grandparents aunts/uncles & cousins.

    Education/Work  

In the time I was unemployed and out of school I felt so worthless. 
Sure, some mornings I’m not quite in the mood to get up for 
another day of Botoxing or doing Independent Study philosophy.
 But I need it.  Dare I say I am “passionate” about it.  
Politics/ World Knowledge 

I enjoy arguing with people. And politics is perfect for that.

Being a Good Person  

I love the daily reminders of what an influence 
a good person has on those around them. 
Just one patient being super kind and friendly 
can make my whole day.
I want to be that person for other people.

     Sleeping and Eating. 

  Without 8 hours of sleep and proper feedings
 every 4 hours I start to, as my dad says, "melt".
Dan says I turn into a monster. haha. 

Eight Word/Phrases I use Most often:

So, you were thinking about doing some Botox today?

  What areas were you thinking about for Liposuction?

 Im asking what YOU want for dinner.

We need to raise our hands if we want to talk, little friends.

 Can we go to Pizza Hut instead?

Speak English to me!

Interesting...

You don't even love me.

Eight things I want to Do before I DIE

1) Get my Degree! At least a BA but I’m shooting for a Masters.

2) Have cool kids

3)Learn French and improve my Arabic

 4)Live abroad and utilize said languages

5)Be a good person/wife/mother/sister/daughter 
(and all that entails)

 6) Own a Range Rover, and iPhone, and Frye Boots 
(I’m still shallow.)

 7)Have a nice home that people love to visit

 8)Keep busy till the end and die peacefully and swiftly
 (I have a fear of becoming and invalid in a care center.) 

Eight Places I want to Visit:

1) New York (never been + we could see darling red headed painting niece)

2) Iguaza Falls ( Brazilian/Argentine Border)

 3) Paris (need to learn French first)

4) All of Israel (I want to live in Tel Aviv. Bad)

5) Lebanon/Syria (need to learn more Arabic first)

6) Thailand/Cambodia/Laos 

(to scuba dive and eat their food and ride an elephant like my mom and Kat)

7) Egypt w/ My family 

(But probably not my Dad and Anna. They wouldn’t like it)

 8) St. George. Still best place on Earth

Eight Favorite Restaurants 

1.     Café Rio (my first true love)

2.     Texas Roadhouse

3.  The Cafeteria at the University of Amman

(They serve French Fry Sandwiches covered in Fry Sauce. SO GOOD. and SO BAD.)

4.     The Pie

5.     Charlie Chow’s

6.     Pizza hut

7.     Jack-n- the Box (I know)

8.     PF Changs

Eight Shows I watch:

We don’t have cable, but that doesn’t stop me. But I can’t think of 8.

1.     Glee! Oh how I miss every Thursday having a Glee Party with Dan. He likes it, but won’t admit it.

2.     Dexter (I watch the first two season over and over.)

3.     Arrested Development (all time favorite. Have every episode memorized.)

4.     The News (I watch it at the Gym. Fitness + CNN = nirvana)

5.     Umm I watch Al-Jazzera online sometimes.

6.     We watch a lot of random movies via Netflix watch it Instantly

Eighth Picture from Eighth Album

Branda and I modeling overpriced and oversized Hollister fur. Still have that vest. Still wear that vest. Don't hate. 

Eight People I Tag:

This is the hardest section. I barely know Eight people. And some people passionately hate these things. Dare I say abhor them. So do it if you want, I’d love to learn more about you.  But if you don't want to and hate me for suggesting it, thats cool too. And who knows, maybe 10 yrs from now it will be funny to look back on. 

1. Rebecca

2. Leana

3. Aimee

4. Jenni

5. Stacie

6. Haylee

7. Jane

8. Danielle

I love Commercialism

 I think I’ve already established my money saving prowess. I have the best of intentions, and really try to budget, but I suck at it. Latest penny pinching tip: So I have 9 different things to mail, and 30 minutes before I have to bring Dan his PT clothes and get to my Zumba class. And I’ll be darned if I am late AND retarded looking at my Zumba class. So I hurry off to the post office. I have a few things to mail that I hadn’t boxed. The Post Office was really small and I could only see one size of box, too large for my stuff, but decided they would have to do. So I get everything taped up and addressed, doing good on time. Get up to mail my stuff, the dude scans everything and puts it in different bins, and then gives me my total. $60! So those big boxes are apparently “flat rate boxes.” Doesn’t matter that I had like 2 ounces of stuff in them and were going all the way to Utah. They were each $10 bucks a pop. Yeah, note to self: DON’T USE THE FLAT RATE BOXES.  

 We had the pleasure this holiday weekend of entertaining our first guests here at “MEALY MONTEREY ADVENTURES (MMA).” Dan’s parents came for a visit! I still had to work Friday, so Dan took over tour guide duties. A trip to the aquarium as well as a visit to Marina Dunes and the gathering of the following treasures constituted Friday’s activities:

Saturday we went on a tour of Point Sur lighthouse. This was a one time thing. Subsequent “MEALY MONTEREY ADVENTURES” will not include said THREE HOUR TOUR. I get ADD just blogging about that tour. I mean, lighthouse = cool. Awesome scenery = cool. Three hours of non-interesting facts and following slow people = so not cool.

 We enjoyed getting to spend time w/ Dan’s parents and hope they enjoyed their MMA.  Want your own MMA? Of course you do! How could you not? Just drive the 13 hrs from Utah, we take care of the rest.

On to Sunday: I love Valentines day. It’s so unabashedly commercial. There’s no “real meaning of Valentines” or “ a reason for the season” that you have to feel guilty about not really remembering.

We got an awesome Valentine from our niece. Really, is there anything cuter than a little red headed baby painting her own Valentines? (The answer is No.) Richard & Denise were actually going to visit her this weekend, but their flights got cancelled due to the crazy east coast storms. So we were their second choice. Totally understandable, that baby is way cooler than us.

 V-day started out when Dan made me blueberry heart shaped pancakes. Delicious. And you know how I love to photography my food.

 Being that it was Sunday, we did a Sabbath Kosher dinner at home instead of our traditional Pizza Hut. It was still fancy, we ate on REAL plates (not paper), and busted out some champagne glasses and candle stick holders that we got for our wedding and surprisingly rarely use. There was even RED meat involved that I touched (albeit with protective gloves.) 

Nothing says “I LOVE YOU” like a shoot ‘em up video game and a box of candy. I think See’s candies are gross, and thus in my mind they are cheap. THIS IS NOT SO. It wasn’t until I had already loaded a box full that I learned that they are in fact kinda pricey, and the stupid heart shaped box alone is $5. Lauren The Money Saver strikes again!

I was the recipient of flowers! (non-roses per my request) jazzy valentine socks, and a dazzling earring necklace set. Good job Dan! It was a successful awesomely commercial holiday. 

Huzzah and happy valentines to all!

Straight Up Cursed

I am fairly certain I am cursed. Explanation: Thursday night I’m at the gym, doing my thing on an elliptical. I go to change the song on Dan’s iPod (I haven’t owned my own iPod in 5 years) and then somehow the iPod falls out of the cup holder. No big deal. Hop off the elliptical to retrieve the iPod off the ground. Except, its not on the ground. I lay on my stomach, look all around. Move the elliptical. Look around all the surrounding ellipticals. Look behind the row of bikes. Scour the entire cardio room. A man even tipped my machine upside down for me (it wasn’t long before several people were aiding me in my quest – super embarrassing). No avail.

The thing got sucked into a black hole. I barely scraped by in Physics class, but I’m working out the equations to explain it. It’s the only plausible answer. Now poor Dan is out an iPod (containing lots of irreplaceable music) and I’m now known as the Crazy iPod loser at the Gym.

Dan, though sad at the loss was pretty nice about the whole situation, though he’s sure it was just an elaborate plot to justify me getting an iPhone. I’ve been coveting them for a while now. I just know that if I had one I would be happy, forever. There has gotta be an app that guarantees that.

Just when I’m positive I’m cursed, the universe throws me a bone. The doctor I work for is super generous. He has taken Dan and I out to dinner several times to the fanciest restaurants in Monterey (which are seriously fancy.) There’s no other way we’d be dining at five star restaurants and ordering $50 plates that include foie gras or crème fraiche. Saturday I got another chance to pretend to be rich and fancy.

We have a patient that owns a really popular boutique in Carmel, and instead of paying her bills at our office, she adds it to an “account” at her store. So Natalie (my co-worker) and I got to go cash in on the Doctor’s account at the boutique. Holy cats, a plain white tank top in that store: $120. It was amazing getting designer clothes for free, but at the same time I kept thinking how many iPhones I could buy with all that clothes money…

Because Dan and I are such die-hard football fans (read: we didn’t know who was playing) we decided the Super-Bowl called for the purchase of a charcoal grill.

We (I did the prep, Dan actually grilled) made some Grilled Pizzas. Bit of a learning curve at the beginning, but we got them down. Unfortunately our beloved Colts (we choose them cause everyone else there was cheering for the Saints), lost. See! More proof I’m cursed – I single handedly brought Peyton Manning down.
The only thing to do when cursed? Eat. It makes one feel better. Then brings on a new curse of not fitting in your jeans. Some new things I made this week that I’d actually make again:

These Pancakes with this Syrup/Carmel

And these Cookies!

Keep Calm and Carry On, or have a cupcake!

My posts of late have somewhat of a downer. We still wait with bated breath to hear what the next year holds for us. But fear not. I just had a wonderful no-work week. And despite that this week was filled with fog and rain that usually smothers my serotonin levels, I have nothing but happy things to share.

I’ve wanted to go to the exercise classes at the base gym for a long time, but I’m a big fat chicken – with good reason. A person with no coordination, rhythm and athletic ability should not showcase said problems in a class setting. But I finally decided to pretend like a normal human and go with two friends from my ward.

First up: Spinning. I was worried about this one – I can’t ride a bike. The last time I tried to ride a bike was a year ago. Kat hopped on one and I foolishly decided to follow. I wobbled about a block from our house and tipped over into a Yucca plant. With a bloodied ear I vowed to never again ride an effing bike. Luckily the spinning bikes are stationary and downright impossible to tip over into succulent plants. I was still pretty spazey – the only one in the class to get personalized pointers as I moved my hips all crazy. Class kicked my butt! It added insult to injury that the instructor is a darling 6 month pregnant lady – she’s hard core and quite possibly my new hero.

It is funny that I wasted so much energy worrying about looking stupid at spin when what I should have really feared is ZUMBA. I am way too white and uncoordinated to hip swivel and shimmy it up. That being said, it was a really fun, and a really good workout.

I spend way way too much time reading blogs . So on my no work week I decided to try to get in some reading of actual books. I first read “The Hunger Games.” It’s a good Young Adult (you know, Twilight type) read – big font, quick pace, 200 pages.

Then I decided to read the polar opposite, “Atlas Shrugged.” Atlas Shrugged is one of the books that I’ve always wanted to be able to say I’ve read, but couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Tiny font, tons of font, and 1,000 pages. Still reading it. But its going to be so worth it when during philosophical debates on the ethics of Capitalism I can chime in, “Well ya know, Ayn Rand raises a lot of good points in that…” This is so going to happen. Often.

To cap off the week I had GIRLS NIGHT. Which gave me an excuse to trash our kitchen and make fancy cupcakes. My first batch was a complete failure due to my inability to read a recipe. I blame it on the fact Pandora kept making me listen to Owl City. Owl city makes me want to kill myself … Anyway, in the end success was mine! The night itself was really fun. All the girls brought yummy treats and stayed up talking till 2 am. It was so refreshing to get in some serious girl talk. (I miss certain elements of living w/ sisters and non-crazy college roommates). Dan had the polar opposite: BOYS NIGHT at another house. No delicious handmade goodies, absolutely no talking, and 7 hours of video gaming.

Now that I am Dan’s full time hairstylist with Mad skills I decided to step it up a notch. You know how girls sometimes bring in a picture of a celebrity they want their haircut like? Well Dan did that. Except with a video game character:

In order to give him a Soap Mctavish from Modern Warfare 2 haircut, I had to deviate from the instruction booklet that came with shaver! But owing to my aforementioned mad skills (not), Dan is now sporting a new do.

Escape To Alcatraz

We decided to go on a little trip to San Francisco since A) I'd never been B) Dan had a four day weekend C) I had work off too! We decided to splurge a bit and stay over one night at a hotel.

Being the money saver I am, I booked us this nice hotel room using Priceline for only $50! Except I accidently booked it for the wrong day. So then we ended up going for 2 nights, making it $100. I also found out after booking that there was a $50/night parking fee. Great deal eh?
We started off the next morning with THE BEST CROISSANT OF MY LIFE. Which is saying something. I eat my share of croissants.
We decided to eat them in one of "Frisco's"(I only call it that because I read it is a punishable faux pas) many parks. You will note that Dan is happy. Lauren is not. Lauren slipped and fell in mud in said park and was covered head to toe. Awesome. I was so pissed I refused to let Dan take a picture. I should have. In retrospect it was kinda funny.

We visited the Golden Gate Bridge. Though we were both a bit down, we resisted the urge to jumb. THERE IS HOPE.

We also visited Haight and Ashbury street. Didn't see too many outrageous characters, but a lot of way cool shops such as Amoeba Music.
Lombard Street. Not that cool. But obligatory stop and picture.
China Town!
Fortune cookie factory. Pretty cool. Also, because we are bad people, we bought a bag of "Adult" Chocolate fortune cookies. They were pretty funny. By the time you figured out the poor English on them, they were more funny than dirty. Don't tell my Mom. But she may read this anyway. Sorry Mom.
Probably the coolest part of the trip, ALCATRAZ. We rode this nice little ferry over.
Walked around the Island.
And then took an audio headset narrated tour of the Prison. Dang cool in my opinion.
Nothing like an isolated Island with a troubled past for a romantic picture. Frisco is really awesome. It has the cool big city feel like LA, but cleaner/nicer/safer/gayer haha.

Warning: Lots of Words, No Pictures.

We needed a little getaway, as things have been pretty stressful lately. It was announced that after Dan’s last test, they would be cutting 6 students from the program. So we found out Thursday that Dan was one of the 6. I feel really bad for him as I know how hard he worked and how incredibly frustrating it must be. I felt really confused when I got the news too. Didn’t we fast and pray about the decision to come here and learn Farsi? Didn’t we feel it was the right thing to do? Why would God lead us down a path only to shut us down with disappointment and confusion?

Dan must soon submit to his unit what he wants to do: restart in the same language, or do French. I was at first urging him to do French because A) its only a 6 month language, and I really really want to get back to school B) I think its such a beautiful language, I’ve always wanted to learn it. But Dan has already poured so much into Farsi just to give it up, it’s much more marketable than French as well.

So were kind of at an impasse. I’m worried that if I don’t get back to school soon, I never will. I really miss it too. Dan mentioned to me the idea of me going back for a semester or two while he stays here. But being apart when we have the opportunity to be together seems unwise. We've already been apart so much, and I'm sure there are deployments in our future. But I’m worried that I will get my Bachelors done so late that I won’t be able to go to Grad school at all or establish a career – we want to have kids someday and that puts things on a timetable… No kids anytime soon though!

It’s hard to find a balance of give and take, sacrificing for the greater good, and being unselfish – But I’m thinking that’s the whole point of marriage. Inshallah the coming weeks will be filled with less questions and more answers and reassurance.