Dreams can come true, can't they?

As many of the people closest to me know, I love fast cars.  I have always had a weakness for beautiful cars that have the capacity give you whiplash when you press on the gas pedal.  Unfortunately, I have never had one of those cars.  I don't imagine that I ever will, either.  Actually, there is absolutely no need for me to have a Maserati Granturismo or an Aston Martin Vanquish, I just want to drive them!  I usually don't tell people how much I love cars because people automatically think that I know a ton about them.  I know enough to know what I like and why I like them, but I am definitely not a mechanic and can't tell you how cars work-that is my brother's specialty- so I avoid those conversations.

 

Before Christmas, Amanda was telling me about how her Mom wanted to send her Dad and brothers to the BMW driving school for Christmas.  I started to think that that would be the most amazing present I could get.  I have always dreamed about being a race-car driver.  After that conversation we had a few months ago, I kind of quit thinking about it until I got home from work today. I was driving home and saw Amanda on the road in the lane next to me a little ways up.  I sped up to get next to her and got really excited to be driving faster than I usually do.  In my mind I kept wishing that I was driving a car that could just knock my socks off and beat her.  So, right when I got home I googled "race car driving school".  I found some pretty awesome places.  Unfortunately, there is no way that I could ever afford any of those places right now.  It is like $3,000 a day!!!!!  But I can dream, can't I????  All of this looking tonight has made me really want to become a race-car driver when I grow up.  Hey, I haven't quite figured my life out yet, so why not?  It could be lucrative.  All I can say is that tonight I added 2 new things to my list of things I have to do before I die: 1- drive both an Aston Martin and a Maserati, and 2- take one of those race car driving courses. 

a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.....

Yesterday my roommates and I arrived at church about 15 minutes early.  I had enough time to walk down to the Bishop's office on the other end of the building and get tithing slips for all of us and get back before Sacrament meeting started, so I embarked on the journey.  I made sure to walk really far away from the women's restroom door that swings outwards and has nailed me twice now (in front of tons of people i might add- and it isn't easy to recover from that kind of impact in heels!!!).  I was almost down to the office when everybody began filing out from some meeting that had just ended in there.  One of the counselors in the bishopric walked past me and smiled and proceeded on his course to the chapel.  The next one walked right to me and made eye contact and said, "Hi Melissa".  I replied, "Hello!" and smiled at him.  I figured that it would be more of a hassle to correct him than to just play along and pretend for the moment that I was Melissa.  It was kind of funny to me that he was the one in charge of my calling, but they have tons of names and faces to learn so I just chuckled inside and kind of forgot about it.  Later on after Relief Society it was time to put away the chairs.  My visiting teacher came over to set a time to visit me this month and as we were talking, a girl in our ward walked up behind us and needed to get through.  She said, "excuse me, Melissa".  My visiting teacher's name is Katie and they have known each other for a long time so apparently she was talking to me.  I moved out of the way and let her pass.  As I was walking out of the room to go to the car, someone that I didn't know bumped me and I could have sworn that I heard them say, "sorry Melissa".  Now, I didn't know the girl, and maybe my mind was fixed on it, but I swear that is what I thought I heard.  My roommates had a pretty good chuckle over it when we got to the car and I told them about all 3 incidents.  That is definitely the oddest Sunday that I have ever had.  Yeah, I've been called the wrong name repeatedly and I wouldn't think anything of it if I were called the wrong name 3 times in one day at church.  But, the SAME wrong name- that's kinda strange!

Maybe they are trying to tell me something.  I, being my nerdy self, looked up the origin of the name Melissa on the internet and found out that it means a honey bee in Greek.  But, it can also mean scornful or full of wrath.  Perhaps I just had a horrible scowl on my face all day.  Who knows!  The first famous person named Melissa that is listed on Wikipedia is a professional female wrestler.  Maybe this is the direction I am supposed to take in a career- I don't know.  I think I'll go buy one of those gold necklaces that everyone used to wear when we were in Junior high that has "Brittany" written on it so that it will just take all the hassle out of learning my name.  Better yet, why don't we all just wear them.  I mean, that is how we know what Dogs' names are- we look at their collar- hm, this could be the beginning of something BIG...........