A case of two spreads

I present exhibit A for your examination:

It seems like an ordinary little tub of butter, right?  WRONG.  This little sucker almost killed me this morning------let me explain.

I woke up a little later than usual this morning, took a shower, and went downstairs to eat breakfast and do some reading at the kitchen table.  Nobody else was home since I got up about an hour later than usual.  I put my bread in the toaster, poured my glass of milk, and went to the fridge to get butter to put on my toast.  I had just enough butter left in my tub for one piece of toast.  But, I remembered that I had seen a little container of butter in the butter shelf on the door of the fridge so I figured that I would just use that.  When I opened it, I saw that somebody else had already used some of it and I figured that it was just some butter that somebody got with take-out so I was certain that nobody would mind if I used it.  I put it on the other piece of toast and went to sit down at the table.  I started eating the piece of toast with my butter on it starting with the crust first and then eating the inside (that is how I always eat toast- it's just a habit from when I was a kid).  Then I got to this piece of toast.  I began to eat the crust off and noticed that the butter tasted kind of minty.  I figured that it was just some kind of flavored butter- you know, like honey butter or cinnamon butter- I had never heard of mint butter before, but I'm sure it could be out there somewhere.  After my second bite, my mouth started to tingle and pretty soon I couldn't feel anything.  I immediately threw the toast down and started freaking out.  This was no ordinary mint butter! 

 

I thought that I had eaten some rancid butter.  The first thing that popped into my mind was that I had just eaten botulism ( I know that this is a completely ridiculous idea, but I wasn't thinking very rationally). I had absolutely no idea what had happened.  I started drinking lots of milk in hopes that I could flush the invading culprit out of my system and out of my mouth, but by this time my entire mouth was numb.  I figured that there was nothing I could do about it, so I went to work and thought that if it got horrible there, I could go to the clinic.   

Well, we had a meeting first thing at work so I sat there, not being able to feel my mouth, and couldn't wait to ask Amanda if she knew that we had rancid minty flavored butter in our fridge.  After the meeting, we walked back to our desks- by this time I was regaining feeling in my mouth- and I asked her if she knew anything about the rancid minty butter on the butter shelf in the fridge.  She looked straight at me and said, "Brittany, that isn't butter.  That is my numbing cream for my laser hair removal!!"  I almost died.  I ate her numbing cream.  No wonder it was minty. No wonder I couldn't feel ANYTHING in my mouth for 3 hours.  Can you IMAGINE what would have happened if I had eaten any more.  I only had 2 tiny bites of the crust part- I didn't even eat anything with that much "mint butter" on it.  Heavens.  I could have numbed my whole self- AGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!  Needless to say, the whole office was rolling about this one today.  This was definitely not a breakfast choice that I would suggest to any of you!!

This is the mastermind behind the whole "putting numbing cream that looks like butter on the butter shelf" scheme- Amanda.

Happy Birthday

In honor of  my favorite state's birthday yesterday, I thought I'd give a little shout-out to the official state neckwear.  Many of you may not know that the bolo tie is the official neckwear of the great state of Arizona.


 On Valentines Day we not only get to celebrate love, but also everything that we love about the best state of all.  Growing up, we did some random coloring projects and craft projects in class for Valentines day, but I remember doing more stuff for Arizona's birthday and our teachers telling us that our state was so special because we became a state on Valentines day.  I even remember the year, 1912, because it was so drilled into us.  I had always known that we had a state "neckwear" and I always knew it was the bolo tie, but I never stopped to think if anyone else had a state neckwear.  Maybe they wear scarves in Alaska or leis in Hawaii- I don't know.  So to celebrate Arizona's birth, I searched and found some other fun facts about my favorite state that I'd like to share.  

• In Arizona, it is against the law for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs.
• We have an official state fossil- petrified wood.
• It is against the law to refuse to give a person a glass of water in Arizona.
• If you are being attacked by a burglar, you are only allowed to defend yourself with the weapon that the other person is using.  You better get good at getting it from them.
• Hunting camels is prohibited- this is obviously a big problem.
• Any misdemeanor committed while wearing a red mask is considered a felony.
• The original London Bridge is in Arizona.  A man paid to have it shipped over brick by brick.
• In Tombstone, it is illegal for men and women to have more than one missing tooth visible while smiling.
• The best preserved meteor crater is found in Arizona near Winslow.
• In Mohave County, anyone caught stealing soap must wash himself with it until the soap is all gone.
• We have more parks and national monuments than any other state.
• AZ contains over 60% of all of the wildlife species found in North America.
• AZ has more boat owners per capita than any other state- go figure
• In Tucson, it is illegal for women to wear pants.  Their jails are filled to the brim with crazy pants-wearing feminists.
• AZ has been known to have both the hottest and coldest recorded temperatures in the country on the same day.
• AND last but not least, Arizona is smarter than all other states because they don't randomly move their clocks around twice a year and confuse everyone because of daylight savings.

So, as you can see, I love my home state.  It is the greatest and most wonderful place.  I just had to give a little birthday recognition to good old AZ!!  Here is a link to the "unofficial" state song that I actually know.  I have never heard the ?official" state song.  I remember hearing this all the time when I was little- not this guy singing it, but for some reason I knew the chorus and could sing along- random, I know.  

But, I LOVE AZ!!!!!

I love my dad!

As I was going through the pictures on my phone and trying to delete the random pictures that my little cousins took while I was babysitting them like this one:

I came across a picture that I took over Christmas vacation while I was visiting my parents in Mesa. We were on our way to go to a movie on Christmas afternoon and we had to stop behind an SUV at a stoplight. My dad has this odd habit of reading license plates. He looked at this plate and said, "yugo girl, hm.... she must be from Yugoslavia". My mom and I looked at each other and almost died laughing. It took a while to explain to my dad what "you go girl" means. I don't think he ever got it. For this display of naivety towards popular culture and many more, I love my dad!!

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...........

Birthday Thoughts

I forgot to post on my birthday. I know- I should have written about the past 26 years and what they have meant to me, but I just realized this evening that I forgot to write, so here it is- 4 days late. In honor of my birth 26 years and 4 days ago, I would like to share 3 ruminations from my past week.

1- One thing that I really dislike about living in Provo is the lack of kids around to play with. I have been over at my cousin's house quite a bit since I've been home for Christmas and I absolutely love her kids. They can always make you happy. I really wish I lived closer to them all!

2- My Mom always decides to take "family pictures" without consulting anyone else. AND she never wants to take formal ones. For example- Monday night after the Riggs family Christmas party, she decided that right when we got home, we were going to stand in front of the Christmas tree (her favorite place to take pictures) and take a "family picture". Well, nobody had taken the time to get dressed or do their hair or any of the above- so needless to say, it didn't turn out superb. This isn't the only time, either. This has been a yearly "out-of-the-blue" occurance. She didn't like the ones we did on Monday, so tonight she informed us right before we left Demetria's house that we were going to take a few more. I have given up. This is not to say I don't appreciate my Mom's picture-taking efforts (despite the fact that nobody in our family enjoys being photographed AND my dad never smiles).


3- Finally, I have realized that now that I am 26, I am eligible for about 57% more single jokes than I was previously. (Lucky for me, I think that they are hilarious!) This evening, I was at my cousin's house for Christmas Eve dinner and songs and other great Christmas Eve stuff, and I figured that I had already gotten through all the awesome "Did you get your tuition back?", "Are you just too mean to the boys?", or my personal favorite, "I have a sweet son...He just needs some motivation..." type of awkward conversations on Sunday at my parents' ward or throughout the week, but I was definitely wrong. My cousin's Dad began the questioning while we were finishing dinner. Needless to say, he took pictures of me helping cook Christmas Eve dinner to put on my "resume" which he will distribute to all eligible bachelors in Carlsbad when he returns home and then he will screen them for job security, savings and credit rating along with the run-of-the-mill interrogation. LOVE IT!!! This was actually pretty funny!! We had a good time with it. I do wonder if there is something they see that I don't since I don't seem to worry about it nearly as much as others do. At least we can all have a good laugh. So if you know anybody that needs to be screened to go out with me, send them to Don first! :)

I do love my birthday. It is so close to Christmas, how could anyone not get excited about being able to celebrate their birthday at this fantastic time of year? All in all, I am very happy with where I am in my life and my plans for the next year. I hope that this next year will bring me as much happiness as the last one has!

Christmas Party

Just like every other year, we had our annual Riggs Christmas party last night at my cousin's house. This is the first year that we didn't open presents while we were there. The kids were all having so much fun playing spies and chasing each other around the house that we decided to let them play and we all just sat around and talked. Kaila, my cute little cousin, thought that playing spies was very boyish and therefore decided to hang around with us. She just got baptized a few weeks ago so she is 8. I got to carry her around like I used to do when she was 4 (it was a tad bit harder!). While I was holding her, she started playing with my necklace and asking me questions about it.



Kaila: Where did you get this?
Me: I stole it from my Mom's jewelry box
Kaila: I steal my mommy's jewelry all the time
Me: really??? for some reason I don't think that you do.
Kaila: uh huh! and her shoes too. If I am going to be a princess I have to have beautiful shoes and jewelry!!

That's my kind of girl!! Kaila is the ultimate princess...... We must be related!!