An Omen of Things to Come

Here's the basic low-down on why I've been a no-show around town lately.

- Went on a semi-annual camping/shooting trip with some of mis amigos to our regular spot just outside of Payson.

- I started and finished all required courses for becoming a licensed real estate agent in just 5 weeks. most people get it done in 8 weeks. I've been a little busy.

- I took a weekend trip up to Provo to visit some friends and old acquaintances up there. Wasn't as cold as I was expecting it to be. However, my 3rd nephew, Carson Daniel Green, was born just hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I got to see him as he was given his first bath. So cute!

- After I finished real estate school, I went on a much needed vacation...to Mexico...on a cruise...for 7 days. Yes, that's right, a whole lotti-freakin'-da week! It was amazing. I will post pictures and all of the details I can remember (it was like being in Shangri-la, some of the details are a little fuzzy) in my next post.

- Now I have to start studying all the real estate materials again to complete the school and state exam. Pray for me that I will pass on the first try.

- I am in a new ward, High Groves, making it the 6th singles ward I have been in since I turned 19. 3 have been just in the past year. Interesting thing is, I've never moved once since I started going to a singles ward. That's Mesa for you!

- I got a new calling in my new ward. I'm now on the FHE committee.

That's basically the basics (as far as I can remember) of what I've been up to. Like I said, my next post will be rather lenghty as it will be an exclusive of my maiden cruise voyage to Mexico.

I hope all of you are doing well and happy.

Back in my geekier days (when I was actually proud of it) I used to subscribe to a daily email of Good Clean Jokes. There's nothing inherently wrong with that except for the fact that I would actually TELL people the joke of the day for that particular day. Sometimes when I tell jokes, it's not always a pretty sight. I used to be really bad and would start laughing before I even got to the punch line. They're not kidding when they say timing is everything. I spent many an awkward moment looking around the group for even a pity laugh. Way to go Shauna-O. Being as it may, I have however saved a few choice emails from back-in-the-day and will share one with you because it should apply to a wide variety of my readers (since I have a plethora of them).

These are all actual statements that have been spotted on t-shirts, signs and various other places:

"Real Men Don't Waste Their Hormones Growing Hair"
(seen on bald man)

"Upon the Advice of My Attorney,
My Shirt Bears No Message at This Time"

"That's It! I'm Calling Grandma!"
(seen on an 8 year old)

"Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I
Wanted to Be When I Grew Up"

"My Husband and I Married for Better or Worse

He Couldn't Do Better and I Couldn't Do Worse"

"My Dog Can Lick Anyone"

"I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts -

Do You Want Fries With That?"

"Party - My Crib - Two A.M."
(On a baby-size shirt)

"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP.
Park elsewhere!"

"The trouble with life is there's no background music."

"Suicidal Blond Kills Twin Sister By Mistake!"

"Two rights do not make a wrong.  They make an airplane."
(if someone gets this one, please clue me in)

"My wild oats have turned to shredded wheat"

"Automobile - A mechanical device that runs up hills
and down people."

"MOP AND GLOW - Floor wax used by Three Mile Island
cleanup team."

"Filthy-Stinking-Rich ...Well, Two Out of Three Ain't  Bad"


"A hangover is the wrath of grapes"


I hope maybe even just one of those was palatable for
you fine readers.

Cheers!

Kuumbo has come to town!

As you probably noticed, I changed my blog look just a lot bit over the past week. I think this one is definitely spunkier and sassy, yet cool and calming. This is not at all a metaphor of me.

It has been months since I've posted anything on here and seeing as it's nigh 2 in the AM, I will make this quick and give you the rough draft of the first portion of my story. Let me warn you that although this may be a story about a giraffe, and stories about animals are generally categorized as children's books, this, however, is probably not a good book for kids, at least sweet innocent ones anyways. This is probably the kind of story that I would have loved when I was younger. It reminds me of the twists in Roald Dahl books ("Esio Trot" was one of my faves).

Without further ado, I give you the first tid bit of the story of Kuumbo, The Spotless Giraffe:


One day, on the grassy flat lands of Africa, a giraffe was born. As you may very well know, this is not an uncommon event in nature. Babies are born every day. What makes this newborn giraffe so special that I would deign write about him? Nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. Nothing as in the little fella had no spots. Never before had anything like this happened in the whole history of all giraffe-dom. Not even in the time when the trend among them was to get themselves so caked in mud, none of them could tell their mother from their cousin (they did this because they thought it was an entertaining thing to do, much like going to a masquerade ball. Giraffes love playing games with each other. This, however, caused some serious problems whenever their herd leader tried to give orders to the rest of the group. They all thought it was someone else pretending to be the leader so nothing ever got done. Needless to say, this fad only lasted a few years). The fact of the matter was this: a giraffe without spots is no giraffe at all.

There's two things that giraffes pride themselves on most in the world. First is their long necks, then their spots. This little baby's parents both had beautiful long necks and wonderful spots shaped like stars. When his parents realized that Kuumbo, which means "blank canvas", had not spots, his mother went into hysterics while is father hung his head in shame.

"What do we do?!?! What do we do?!" Jiihare screamed. "I don't know, I just don't know." Blaa muttered while shaking his head.

A few minutes passed in the same shameful manner, neither coming up with anything more intelligible to say. Finally, Blaa turned to Jiihare and he said, "The herd will be expecting a very beautiful calf. We CANNOT show them this....Kuumbo." He said with disgust. "We will just leave him, return to the herd and tell them it didn't work out."

Jiihare's breathing started to become more regular and her heart slowed down to a calmer beat. She regained a little bit more composure as this suggestion of Blaa's echoed in her mind. Finally she said, "Alright, excellent idea."

I will tell you something now which may come as a shock (or possibly not after what you just read); giraffes are not the most loving parents in the animal kingdom. Like koala bears, they look cute, but their not as nice as they appear.


Ok, there's the tragic beginning to this sad tale. Please please please please, constructive criticisms are greatly welcomed and desired. I still haven't figured out where I want the story to go at this juncture. I hope that you liked it just the tiniest bit though. Um, so yeah. And here is also the first picture of Kuumbo I made for this story.

Oh and to give an update on myself (this is for you Big10) I graduated! Yay! That's right folks, you're eyes aren't deceiving you. I finished my last every (or so my bank account hopes) class at ASU last week and now I'm official. I guess it's on to growing up eh? Meh, maybe a few months down the road.

Werx part 2

So FINALLY I put the pen to the paper to map out the adventure of my new little friend, Kuumbo the giraffe. I was sitting at a very unusual clarinet performance last night and felt inspired by the music. I normally wouldn't admit that the sounds the performer was making would be music, it sounded more like he just barely learned to play it that day (I guess that's how it's supposed to sound. Apparently he's been perfecting that technique for the past decade. Go figure!). Anywho, it sounded like the perfect "noise" to accompany the setting that my stories will be taking place in. I'm so excited to get this going! I'm still trying to enlist my sisters help in layering the image I've drawn, but I promise, he's going to be adorable.

In the mean time, I do have something else to offer for your ocular pleasure. Again, it is the product of having to sit through another concert at school. (Just so you know, I don't waste all my time and money going to concerts I don't really pay attention to. It's a requirement for my degree. I have to attend 12 "approved" concerts throughout the semester. Most of them are classical performances by guest artists, but some of them are more "modern" in taste and therefore less easy to fall asleep to.) This concert was part of a Bass festival at ASU and it was "jazz night". I have one observation that I will offer about Jazz Musicians: They have no sense of time. I don't mean that they don't have rhythm (they have that in barrels and heaps). Just that they get so caught up in the music they forget that people, like myself, have short attention spans and that after playing a passage after so many times, if you don't have a great idea next, just end the $%@^ song! Sheesh. These songs only take up 1 page of music but these people drag it out to the equivalent of 47 pages. I'm not against jazz music, don't get me wrong at all. It's just there comes a point in the song when all they're doing is just beating a dead horse.

OK, now I'm really going to get started on the goods for today. While being subjected to this, I realized some things about different genre's of music. I'm going to compare/contrast, classical, jazz, and rock audiences. I got a kick out if it. I hope you do too.

Classical
-Audiences
-Smell good, shower daily

-Do not clap until entire song, including all movements, are finished

- Musicians
- Wear all black

- Best all around tone and intonation

-Both
- Hold completely still during entire show, even while clapping


Jazz
-Audiences
-smell REALLY good, superb taste in cologne

-Clap or yell after every solo and at end of song

-Musicians
- Wear all black

- Best at sight reading and improvisation

-Both
- Bob their heads like they have a twitch, tap their toes


Rock
-Audiences
-Don't remember when they last showered. What's cologne?

- Yell along with singer during entire song

-Musicians
- Wear all black

- Don't care about tone or intonation, just play

-Both
- Look like they're having an epileptic seizure, that's why there's Paramedics at all of the shows

The End

I'm sure there's other observations that I could make based on my concert attendance experiences, but I thought these were pretty funny and almost entirely true too!

In the 'werx'

I've been thinking about what kinds of other epic posts I can put up here. My friend and I were sitting in church last week and she, being a sufferer of ADD, could not sit still, so I told her to draw a giraffe. From that I gave it a name, a story and that's what my next post after this one is going to be about. Don't think I've forgotten, it's just taking me a while to draw the character and stylize it correctly. Tonight I plan on doing some color rendering on it and you all will soon be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors.

I hope you all are well with school and that you're not having to run around like a chicken with it's legs cut off yet. Yes, I did mean to type legs instead of head. I think it's a much better descriptor of what stress does. ;-)

The usual new years update

Yes, like all those people who send out "what's gone on in our family for the past year and you wouldn't really know this unless you have actually talked to or seen us in the past year" letters that often are included in Christmas cards, I too will give all of you, who I am sure have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for my next post, an update about myself. My friend, Mindy P., did something similar to this and I'm going to copy her idea. Some of this will be true, most of it won't, and some things I wish were true but haven't happened yet. So, in the spirit of those letters we love so much, I will also write one as if it were coming from my "family":

Hello Friends and Family!

We hope you had a fantastic holiday and hope that this
letter finds you in good health and spirits! Things around here have been so busy that we were a little remiss in getting these letters out in time for Christmas, but we still figured you'd like to start your year reading about how we're doing.

My husband, James, just finished law school at ASU. We're so proud of this accomplishment. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of time for him to take a break from school though since he will be taking the bar exam next month. He has been working for the District Attorney and will be promoted after we find the results from the bar exam in a few months. We know he will do a great job on the test! He is also serving as executive secretary in our ward and enjoys his opportunity to serve.

In October, I helped to start up a charity organization called "The Cinderella Project" where we collect donations of formal gowns to give to underprivileged young women so they can attend high school dances. It has been a roller coaster but once we get further along in it, I know we'll be able to help out more girls in the area. Like James, I too will be graduating from ASU in May with a bachelors in interdisciplinary studies in business and music. This degree has been a long time coming and my last semester I will spend interning for LuckyMan Productions, a.k.a. The Marquee Theatre in Tempe. This was my ideal intern site and can't wait to get started there.

Little Jaxon is not so little anymore, he turned 4 this year and is turning out to be a great help to his momma. He just loves to take care of his younger brother and makes sure that there's never a dull moment in the house. Jaxon would like you to know that "Trains are my favorite thing in the whole world." What a goofball (like his dad)! Jaxon also was a very good boy this year so Santa gave him a skateboard for Christmas. Not a day has gone by since that he hasn't begged and pleaded to go outside and play on it. His daddy keeps the video camera ready and films our "future Tony Hawk" in action. Boys will be boys.

Conrad is 2 now and certainly makes sure we remember that. He loves to play with our dog, Pilot, and the two of them are sometimes inseparable. He also loves to help mommy fold clothes and vacum the house. Like his mommy, he is a very musical little boy and is almost always singing a song of his own.

This space will be filled in next year for our next little one who is due in June. We don't know if it will be a boy or a girl, but the older brothers are very excited for its arrival, as are we.

We hope that things are going well for all of you. God bless!

Love,

James, Shauna, Jaxon, Conrad and (insert baby's name here) Marsden

The boys on the 4th of July. They love America!

Shauna and James at a Halloween "Hairspray" party. Isn't he dashing!

Now back to reality, but I must admit, wow! That was a lot of fun to write! Man, I'm going to have to remember that when some of these things actually start coming true. Really though, I hope all of you are well, drop me a line, or a comment, or a dime, anytime.

Cheers!

Everybody Else

Hey fellow rockers! So I took my younger sisters to their first real rock concert tonight. It was epic in many ways. But mostly because of the band we went to see. They're called Everybody Else, and I gotta be honest, they're not like all those rinky dink run-of-the-mill bands that are overflowing on MySpace. They have a rock sound that I can only think of describing like so: a poppy sort of rock with the chilled air of a surfer but groovin' enough to dance to and not care about what anyone thinks about you at the time because you totally get lost while listening to the singers smooth voice and the perfectly complimenting harmony vocals while at the same time having a solid bass and jiving drum beats. Did that do justice? I think not. But I loved it so much, I think I'm going to go on a mini-road trip to see them again tomorrow night in Tucson, not kidding. So check them out, I promise you won't be disappointed. Everyone that I've introduced Everybody Else to (a little confusing? take a breath) has loved them almost instantaneously, and you will too! http://www.myspace.com/everybodyelse "In Memoriam" and "Born To Do" are my faves.

Heartbreak Hotel Part Uno

(Yes, this is another post from my MySpace, and it's the prequal to the blog just below, lucky you!)

I know that isn't an original phrase, "Heartbreak Hotel", But it's a great backdrop to start from.

I was helping out a friend a while ago by being the shoulder she leaned on. Listening to her doubts, dissapointments, and sorrows caused mine to surface as well. Her and I talked about pains of the heart. I don't mean like a heart attack or anything physical like that. But have you ever been ... so lonely, so ... afraid that you'll never find anyone to be with? When you come to the realization that all your relationships, or lack thereof (like mine...maybe), leading up to this point have been for nothing. And that you'll spend the rest of your life in the fear of growing old by yourself, living by yourself, and dying by yourself. It's at this point that your heart not only hurts metaphorically, but it really starts to hurt physically. Then you get this pit in your stomach, kind of like the sensation you get when you're on a roller coaster and you start to go down the first big hill, almost a free fall, but not the pleasant rush of adreneline. It's the realization that all of your doubts, fears, and nightmares may just come true.

That's just a brief description of the way my friend and I were feeling. What brought us to that point, you ask? Excellent question, I like to call it "the epidemic of a million little heartbreaks". It starts when you meet someone, it could be at a party, school, through another friend, etc. (Despite what people may say, first impressions do count.) The impression you get from this person is that they are pretty special. So you start to develop a tiny little interest in them. Yeah, they're kinda cute, they seem funny, and intelligent, and you would really like to get to know them better. So you talk to them for 20 min. or more, but at the end of the conversation no numbers were exchanged, no "hey we should hang out"'s even though several times during the convo you drop hints of "I could show you how to improve your bowling curve" or " I'd like to learn how to do (enter whatever it is they were just saying they were really good at)". What?!?! You tried your darndest to be charming, appealing, and downright alluring and they don't want to get to know you further?! Yeah, that's a little hearbreak right there. There's many ways they can happen.

Why do they happen to me and why am I so bothered by it? Well, I guess it boils down to a few things One is, I know who I am, I think I'm pretty cool, why doesn't anyone else. Another is that although I'm no Rebecca Romjin, Nicole Kidman, or Selma Hayek in terms of physique, I know I'm not hideous looking, I actually think I'm kinda cute, especially my eyes (not to be too vain). Another can be blamed on girls who have come before me and played games with a guys head so much that they can't tell up from down and then they don't even want to let you near them for fear of being played with again.

Anyways, enough of that. I hate feeling this way. I hate writing about feeling this way because I'm getting a little twinge of depression. Ergo, to sum it all up, this song, by John Mayer puts into words a fairly accurate account of my thoughts and feelings.

Love Song For No One by John Mayer

Staying home alone on a Friday
Flat on the floor looking back
On old love
Or lack thereof
After all the crushes are faded
And all my wishful thinking was wrong
I'm jaded
I hate it

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
Get here

Searching all my days just to find you
I'm not sure who I'm looking for
I'll know it
When I see you
Until then, I'll hide in my bedroom
Staying up all night just to write
A love song for no one

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here

I could have met you in a sandbox
I could have passed you on the sidewalk
Could I have missed my chance
And watched you walk away?
Oh no way

I could have met you in a sandbox
I could have passed you on the sidewalk
Could I have missed my chance
And watched you walk away?

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
I'm so tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
You'll be so good
You'll be so good for me