Neil Diamond

"There are two types of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't." (What About Bob)


Ok, I admit it...I am a fan.

I haven't always been though. I have had a love-hate relationship with Neil since day one. My mom and her three sisters are what we like to call OBSESSED. When they get together, undoubtedly one of them will bring up how good his butt looks in leather pants, how hot they think his chest hair is (gag!), or how he captured their young hearts back in the 70's. Family parties would not be family parties without blasting a little Neil. My cousins and I grew up with Neil, but we spent our younger years rolling our eyes and making sure our mothers knew how much we hated him.

This past summer, the tables turned a little bit. My extended family caravanned out to Nauvoo to visit my grandma on her mission there. As we traveled, our car load (my sister, brother, brother-in-law, and two cousins) insisted upon listening to Neil Diamond almost the entire way. "Coming to America", "Sweet Caroline" and "Forever in Blue Jeans" became our staples and we practiced them over and over again until we had every word just right. The funny thing was that we had to keep rotating drivers of the vehicle. As my mom got sick of our crazy singing, one of her sisters would substitute in and take her turn until she couldn't stand it anymore either. Upon arrival in Nauvoo, the "sensational six" jumped out of the car and insisted upon performing our Neil concert for Grandma very first thing.

Needless to say, the entire fam is converted to Neil. Yesterday, my cousins and I surprised our moms with Neil Diamond concert tickets for Dec 16, complete with t-shirts, glow-sticks, and the whole bit. I have never seen such excitement in my whole life. The four of them cried, laughed, sang, danced, and reminisced all night long.

I think the only thing missing for their concert experience is a poster that says "Welcome to the family Neil."

And the "biggest dork" award goes to...

Well, I have had a most interesting evening. I sometimes wonder how I make it through life without more damage than I already have. I worked in Draper tonight from 5-7 before getting on the road to come home for Thanksgiving. Obviously because I don't work there very often, I don't know the clients there like I know the ones that I have seen 3,345 times each in Provo. So a man comes in for a visit and in the middle his wife comes in and hands him an infant child. Now, I am just going to be honest here for a moment, this man was probably not in the prime of his 20's (or 30's or 40's for that matter). In other words, he was kind of old. (And I know what some of you are thinking....that he is probably NOT old at all since I supposedly have no ability to judge people's ages. But trust me on this one, he was no youngster!). So our conversation went like this:
K: Oh how cute! Is this your grandson?
(LONG....awkward....pause)
Man: No. This is my SON.
K: Oh...umm...of course...so...cute....(mumbling off)
Not only am I ready to die at this time, but I am kicking myself because this exact experience has happened to me before and at that time, I swore I would never EVER be the cause of such an uncomfortable conversation again. Yeah, right.



I think I am officially the biggest dork alive.

Ode to Kylee

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLEE!!! Welcome to the 20 and over club! For those of you that don't know Kylee, here is your chance to get to know her because she will soon be taking over my bed.

I love you girl!

My favorite Slaw

This post is dedicated to Ronnie:

I hate to admit it, but I despise coleslaw. Actually, I don't have a problem admitting that at all. I have really only had one decent coleslaw in my life and that was last weekend when I was in Boston. It was at this place called "Legal Seafood" and it was the only coleslaw I have ever tasted that didn't make me want to throw it right back up. But it still wasn't my favorite.

My Favorite Flaw

One of my earliest vivid memories happened when I was in kindergarten. I was dressed in a pink and white striped dress, a matching bow in my perfectly curled hair, and white tights to go over my buckled shoes. If appearances were any indication, one would think that I was a delightful, well-behaved little girl. But as we all know, appearances can be deceiving. This particular day, my class was lining up to go to gym. I straggled behind and ended up near the end of the line. Mrs. Sanford urged us all to stand in a straight line and keep our voices down, but I was only vaguely listening to her. Instead, I was thinking about how thrilling it would be to pick up the kid in front of me and throw him to the ground. Jeff, as he was named, was the runt of the class. He seemed half my size, so that made the temptation more than I could handle. Before I could think any further, I had grabbed him around the middle and pitched him to the floor.

From age five on, I think that I have developed as a trademark the inability to see the end result before I say or do something. When I was 12 years old my aunt informed me that my new motto was going to be, "When in doubt, don't shout it out" after I told her friend's son (who I had known for approximately 30 seconds) that he was ugly and that he needed to change his clothes. That motto has served me well for quite a few years now, but I still frequently find myself saying or doing dumb things that I should know better than to do. You'd think that by a certain age, one would not be so dumb. Unfortunately for me (and for you) I still have that problem quite often.

I guess I will just have to pass it off as a characteristic flaw.

"Beverly" II ??

I publicy declare here and now that we need to take another trip to Atlanta. This one should be in, oh, say a year and a half or so. While I was traveling home from Boston today via airplane, about 30 minutes into the five hour flight I had already finished playing two rounds of card Clue, colored 6 pictures, had a snack, and been to the bathroom twice. So while I waited for the movie to start, I decided to take a look at the SKY magazine. Much to my surprise, there was an article that took up half the magazine about one of my favorite places ever, Atlanta.

Partway into the article was a little blurb about the Coke Museum. Now, I know that those of us who were in Atlanta before all pledged our alliance to Coke once and for all after visiting the wonderful world of Coke during our stay. Well, in 2007 they are opening a NEW coke museum that will be twice as large and offer the tour in ten languages! Well, that caught my attention, but after reading the next part, my mind was made up. " Visitors will be able to sample more than 100 international variations of the beverage..." !!!! 100??!?!? Think of the challenge....last time we all thought we were going to die when there were maybe 25 varieties?

Therefore, I am giving you all a year and half to prep yourself for the ultimate challenge of taking on "Beverly" again (Remember Beverly?) and all the other disgusting varieties that they can come up with. Everyone in favor, say 'Aye'!

PS.... I am officially addicted to Biscoff, a delightful cookie that Delta provides in their sky rooms. I ate a whole basket myself and stashed some away in my purse for later. Oh so yummy.

Ironic...

So I have worked for the same company for 18 months and I just got my first raise today. I find this to be frustratingly ironic since I will only be working there for 6 more weeks. Oh well, I guess I should take whatever I can get, huh?