Monday, June 29, 2009

Vandetta

Yes I realize that I misspelled that-it was on purpose as a pun. It's a pun because I think i have some kind of subconscious vendetta against our family's old white van. The only two mishaps i've had (while i was the driver) are involving the van. The first time I was backing out of a driveway in pecan grove and it wasn't a smooth drive way but had this drop-off or something and I scraped the bottom part of the front bumper. Then, just this morning, i'm backing out of the driveway alongside the van in the new car and I swear I had plenty of room, looked away for a second and partly because the music was on and partly because it's such a tight quite car inside I didn't notice the front left rear veiw mirror rubbing along the side of the van. It left a long black line a long the van-though it'll come off-already did once i started rubbing, but left a lil' smaller than a quarter black mark on the edge of the rear view mirror. ARGH! Or Maybe I just have issues with "backing out" which I guess it's better to be more accident prone backing up than going forward-tend to do that a lot more.
What is it with me and this van-mom echoed my sentiments, i dont' care so much about the van as I do the new car.

In other news, what's with a celeb dying every day? Ed McMan, Farah Fawcett (sp?), Michael Jackson, and now Billy Mays (oxy-clean guy). My theory is that there is some type of twisted terrorist plot where every day a celebrity will die until we figure out who the terrorist is and give him a reality tv show called: celebrity hunter.

just a guess.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

2009 Best Sellers

this will be a random and spiradic blog entry so don't expect any building climaxes or over-all themes cause you're not gettin any.

First thought: I have started reading the Lord of the Rings again (and no, I have not read this a hundred times like I'm sure many of you are thinking-only once before the films came out and once after so this makes it my third.) I like to reread books-in fact I remember someone saying that if you really loved literature you would not use: "i've already read it" as an excuse not to. anywho, i just like waiting long enough so that it's like i'm reading it for the first time again cause i don't remember a whole lot. As I was randomly fanning through the pages of this monster something caught my eye and I turned back to page 580 only to find a Alf Garnet face smiling back up at me. (it's a long story) but I'm totally leaving it in there cause I know in another 5-10 years when I read it again it will make me smile and think back to those crazy prank-ridden days of R22 and F6. i'll take a picture of it if I ever happen to remember while reading it.

second thought: i heard a song by carolina liar on the radio that I really liked (lyrics below):

Wait, I'm wrong
Should have done better than this
Please, I'll be strong
I'm finding it hard to resist
So show me what I'm looking for

CHORUS
Save me, I'm lost
Oh lord, I've been waiting for you
I'll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for…oh lord

Don't let go
I've wanted this far too long
Mistakes become regrets
I've learned to love abuse
Please show me what I'm looking for

CHORUS
Save me, I'm lost
Oh lord, I've been waiting for you
I'll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for…

i just like the part when just he and the choir come in at the chorus-cool stuff.

Third random thought: i've been wanting some new reading material and looked at the best sellers list and judging by the synopsis picked out the ones that I thought had potential. If any of you have read any of these or have any suggestions please leave comments!
1. horse Soldiers
2. the shack
3. my sister's keeper
4. city of thieves (actually about an area in my mission)
5. the alchemist
6. the last lecture
7. ender's game (i've heard about this from multiple people for years and apparently the guy is a member and also wrote plays etc-even on his mission. info thanks to the random lady at the primary activity who was holding a big fat book written by him).
any suggestions?

Fourth random thought: so my older brother was in maryland to give input on something. I say something not because it isn't important, but because we don't know and in fact i don't even think he knew when they asked him to-such is the life of an intelligence soldier. The guy in taken was in the intelligence business...so if Eric ever has any girls they will be well protected but it could back fire and no guys will be brave enough to ask them out....I mean you think my dad is intimidating??? just wait til you see those quaking knees as eric casually plays with his gun.
That would be the most frusterating thing having a husband who did "government stuff" and you never knew where or what etc....not that I need to know but it would just be hard to be as supportive/know how to comfort/give advice etc. cause he couldn't talk to you about it. I mean, we only think it's cool cause we can follow them around in the movies and see what they do etc. So I guess what i'm saying is, if i end up with a super secret agent of the government I'll just have to do that stuff too so I can be in his lil world of secrecy. Which, I think I could totally do because A. I know russian (apparenlty this would be helpful...) B. I do NOT look the type and therefore could infiltrate and get inside...stuff.
see? it'd work.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Taken

.....Oh
....My
......Sweet
....Goodness.......

I have not been completely blown away by a movie like that since before my mission. *whistle* that was AMAZING! I mean, seriously any girl would really like ths movie-unless she had an aversion to the violence, because other wise you are just screaming at liam nielson to go harder and faster. Such efficiency, and cool-headedness. The best line in the film:
"apologize to your wife for me." (after he shoots this guy's wife in the arm to get him to talk.)

But seriously, if I were in trouble forget james bond, forget jason bourne, forget even jack bauer (i know) but seriously...just get me this dad.

anyway....man i'm still geekin' out about it and i need to go to sleep.

As a man thinketh...

" Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil-the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be....Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiation.
Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, this constant weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can select the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can select the calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, loyalty, nobility-make them vitally active in his character-and by these qualities he will constantly affect the world."

and on virtue:

"A famous artist said he would never allow himself to look at an inferior drawing or painting, to do anything low or demoralizing, lest familiarity with it should taint his own ideal and thus be communicated to his brush."

"sow a thought, reap an act;
sow an act, reap a habit;
sow a habit, reap a character;
sow a character, reap an eternal destiny."

Saturday, June 20, 2009

so cute! (soviet's version of pooh) actually very telling about their culture and visits 8)

"yah doch boga!" (i am a daughter of God)

some girls kept saying this really loud to everyone after my class-haha

I helped out at a stake primary activity today. It was pretty cute/fun. They had three different missionaries who served in mandarin speaking and spanish speaking
(and of course russian) speaking missions. Ironically I was the only one that served outside of the states. We each had a room to set up and talked about our mission/cultures/experiences/and how the kids could do missionary work etc.
It was pretty fun but sooo tiring. The first group was just a handful of kids with no adults so they were pretty vocal with pertinant questions like: do you know i have a dog? and I saw a movie last night!
The first one dragged by and i rushed out of nerves and so i spent the last seven minutes teaching them russian-haha.
The rest of the groups went a lot better though-the kids actually answered the quesitons and got into all the stuff i had to show them-some of them weren't half bad at the russian either. It was fun for me cause i got back into my missionary wardrobe and wore my winter coat and boots etc-it was so hot tho, thank goodness for the AC.
Then at the very end we bore our testimonies in our mission language infront of all the kids. It was well put together and a cute idea I think. I think they had relay races with packing a suitcase in another room too.
My voice got so tired though, trying to speak loud enough for everyone to hear etc. and doing it over and over again.
I'm really greaful when I get to share about my mission though and get that chance to look back and remember the interesting differences. I had a picture of the Russian winnie the pooh and all th kids were all so shocked when i told them who it was- "why does he look so weird??" hahaha where were they when the russians were giving me a hard time about our winnie the pooh? haha I still remember we were eating after FHE at a member's and she had a BUNCH of friends over and they were making fun of our winnie the pooh and how no bear is that color/looks like that etc. and how did he look like that and I said cause he ate so much honey. well, they found this hilarious and laughed so hard-i thought it was good rationalization on my part but i'll give it to them-their's is really funny.

Friday, June 19, 2009

last night packing


"my baby's all grown up and savin' china"

crazy, crazy stuff. Dad and Steve flew out early this morning for Utah. It's amazing how quiet a house can get. Yesterday we went out and ate at Lopez's and it was really good mexican food! Some of the highlights of the evening include: me absent- mindedly dipping my chip into Steve's sprite instead of the salsa and Steve's reciting of an incident when someone called him a couple years ago and said hey it''s your cousin-whoever, and Steve (not knowing mom's side and thinking to himself i think i have a cousin named such and such) began talking with them etc. They asked him where his mom was and he answered she's in utah. Utah?? why is she in Utah? uh...well her mother passed away...WHAT?! What's your name again?! Stephen. Stephen who?! Stephen Richards. Oh....I think I have the wrong number. click. hahahaha See? if we had a super close tight knit extended family we would miss out on fun experiences like that.
Afterwards me and Steve caught a flick: terminator salvation. Ya know, at first I was weary of it just because I've never been a terminator fan etc, but I was pleasantly surprised. Of course it looked AMAZING and still I was surprised to find that there was no random and pointless love scene, there wasn't gore cause well...they're robots, and it was just really entertaining with a few nods back to the original with lines like: come with me if you want to live and i'll be back-though you hardly caught them because without the famous accent they aren't even the same lines.
Anywho, I really liked it and a big plus when we were buying the tickets it was only 13 dollars.......how is that even possible?! At first I just figured-o they gave us the student rate but steve said that that is 9 dollars. I'm not questioning it but it was pretty sweet.
It's weird to think of Steve has out of the house now. I mean, my whole life Steve was always at the house-when I'd come home for breaks etc. it's like he was a part of the picture i made of "home" in my head but now he's not here anymore so it feels really weird and almost less like home. I mean, it feels the most like home when all the kids are under the same roof so by those standards it hasn't felt quite like home to me in a very long time. Growing up is interesting.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

"I love Whitney"

So I think I am like Lucy from I love Lucy. Not in the fact that I walk around in cute dresses, heels and manage to keep great food on the table but more in a..."the famous chocolate factory episode" kind of way. All the crazy random stuff that happens to her that isn't necessarily her fault-just bad luck, and with me it always happens in relation to house keeping
For example there's the infamous potato bomb of summer 2005 (i poked that thing so full of holes).
the amazing lazor thin cookies of Rostov.
also the mushy brown goo that was supposed to be brownies-of rostov
and tonight I was waiting for courtney to come home (i was baby sitting) and decided to wash her dishes/clean her kitchen etc. cause it always puts me in a good mood etc. and everything is looking great and clean when bubbles start spilling out of the dishwasher onto the floor. Talk about your I love Lucy moments-I can just see her scrambling on the floor trying to stuff it back in but it comes out twice as fast, getting all messy and the audience roaring...but of course it wasnt' that bad and with a lil drainage and the help of Court once home, all was put right. I swear, I am cursed over at their house-something always goes awry (sp?) like the whole daisy eating a cat incident....sheesh, and yet they still have me back.

Who ever I end up with better be open to some adventure cause our kitchen is prolly gonna resemble a battle field and hopefully he isn't jumpy around lound bangs...

I guess that's what I get for complaining that I'm bored and there's nothing to do.

In other better news I got word from a couple in my church that has a scholarship for girls going to byu and I got all 5Gs of it!!! THAT is SUCH a HUGE blessing!!! I feel very greatful and if I get any other scholarships from BYU I'll be really set.
Speaking of...my bro is heading off Friday for BYU-CRAZY!!! It's gonna be so quiet around here...I mean, it's fine, but I could always count on him to appreciate and watch things like arrested development with and stupid yet funny things with-now i'm on my own. It'll be fun to have him up there though.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

"what about you toots?"

That was the line that left my dad gasping for air and crying with laughter. shrug, I don't get it either but he's one of those people where if he's laughing hard-it's hard not to laugh too.
I think I am finally getting everything on to my new computer which is exciting though it wasn't smooth all the way-note to self: i still hate technology. I figured it out tho-it's just imperfect because man made it (and no i don't mean that as a sexist comment, man as in mankind). Anyway, the only thing that is really bugging me is I had a program on my old computer called finale notepad which is just a simple program used to notate music etc and I paid ten bucks to download the most recent version and it's not working so all of the old files that i wrote on that old program can't be listened to etc. until i get this version working.
yikes, i'm boring myself-sorry about that, i'm going to bed.

p.s. I've found different projects this summer to keep me occupied-one of which is coming up with ideas wiht my dad for new games that we can copyright and sell. One is kind of like "scene it" only for broadway-it'll be called on broadway and there will be different categories whether it's clips of songs or scenes etc of different broadway shows/trivia etc. Then we came up with another game which surprisingly hasn't been done yet-at least to my knowledge- where it's just different movie quotes and you get so many points depending on whether you can guess the movie, more if u guess the character, the actor's real name etc.
yea i know, this summer is gonna be a blast-all of this only came up because whether he hums something or i do we can always say what it's from.
nighty night.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

wow, so the tornado alley visited my blog today ;)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

life is beautiful

ok so I was sitting here thinking about how i'm using my time before I head back to school and all of the crazy busy times that I'm sure are waiting for me. I realized that this could be an amazing summer-it just takes a lil effort on my part. I can't just hang with the group that comes up with fun outings to do and tag along because...I am the group.

So i started looking up stuff do to around Houston-especially like the museums etc. Like for example there's an exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science of the Terracota warriors all the way from china-that's crazy! I remember learning about them in humanities of asia, it's too cool. also, I've never been to the observatory that's an hour out-huge telescops where you can see saturn's rings, the milky way, etc. I've also started looking at the 2009 best sellers list. I've always loved reading and it wouldn't be strange to find me in my room reading on any given afternoon growing up. i've just read everything that I own and haven't put forth the effort in keeping up with what's new and good out there. I mean, there is soooo many great books and I know I'll never read them all but sheesh, why not try? If I don't I know when I'm insanely busy with x ammount of kids and I look back at this wide open free summer I'll be kicking myself for not having read etc when I had the chance.

So I have a growing list of books that seem interesting-especially My sister's Keeper which is coming out soon in theatres. I've already saw the trailer and remember it looked REALLY good (google it now) and randomly enough I remembered a song I heard during the trailer that I really liked and found it. For your listening pleasure it's on my playlist-last song: life is beautiful. I really like this group-they sound really familiar to me, shrug.
so anyway...
I also want to buy the huge bubba book of 501 russian verbs or whatever it is and start brushing up.
I only wish Steve were here through the summer so we could do some of this stuff all together, but it's ok it'll still be a great summer.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Whit's Tip of the Day

go to dearelder.com and check out some of the dear john's (oh my gosh it made me ashamed to be a girl!) but some are just down right hilarious/ridiculous.

Monday, June 8, 2009

take you there

I did it- "king's to me" (which movie?)
Pirates of Penzance came in today and it was perfect! I surprised dad with it and we watched it for FHE....aww so good...
I restarted my daily work-outs which I'm going to do everyday because...well...i don't have an excuse not to. As meagan would say: it hurts so good.

so I started checking the plain white T's out and despite my brother's objections i kinda like em'. I haven't heard much but the ones i like are: hey there Delilah )sp?), 1,2,3,4, and take you there. I just like the mellowness of them. Esp. hey there...i dunno, it just seems like a song a boyfriend could actually write for his girlfriend and of course i like the thought of her boyfriend thinking of her enough to write a song for her even though they're not together.

in other words i've started reading the miracle of forgiveness tho i'm a lil nervous. People say that it's really good but you feel real guilty by the end. Oh well, it's good for ya right?

I wish we could request the general subjects of our dreams. I mean, I wouldn't want to decide exactly what it would be cause that's what makes them so cool that they just sort of spring out of your conscious and tell you something sometimes about yourself but...i wouldn't mind having dreams with old friends in them-get to see them again etc. In the past i've tried to sway what my dreams would be about by thinking really hard of the thing before falling asleep but it never worked in fact more often than not i didn't have any dreams at all.

OH! I almost forgot-so I have realized that I can totally use my youthfulness to benefit myself today. I got a random call from Austin about some charity that they wanted me to pledge so much money every year and depending on my mood sometimes i don't hang up right away. So this was one of those times and I said: well I'll have to ask my parents if that's ok and he hesitated and asked me how old I was and I just said, well I'm still living at home with my parents and he seemed pretty confused by that and finally i asked him if they were on the web so my parents could make sure it was ok, haha. Now you have to admit it-that's slightly more fun than hanging up right away.


now we're back to the beginning
it's just a feeling and no one knows yet.
but just because they can't feel it too
doesn't mean that you have to forget
let you memories grow stronger and stronger
til they're before your eyes
you'll come back when they call you
no need to say goodbye.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

C.H.U.D. -cheetuh hunting under-dwellers

This has been a great couple of days. Grandpa Richards and Colleen came to visit on Wednesday for Steve's graduation on Friday. I mixed it up the past few days at work scanning and shredding documents at work which I actually enjoyed. I don't know what that says about me-shredding things....but I guess I like to feel like I'm getting rid of the unnecessary and cleaning out/de-cluttering etc. It's very cleansing...which brings me to something that wasn't very cleansing-steve's graduation. Heck, I didn't even want to go to my own-why would i want to go to steve's? I have to give them credit tho-500+ students in lil over an hour isn't bad. tho the perk this time being i didn't have to dress up and i was able to finish angels and demons-an ok book but after the movie it was boring to read cause it was all fresh in my mind/ nothing new.
So after the graduation that night after playing some games people scatter going to bed etc and throughout the games dad kept leaving to talk on the phone which used to be normal when he was bishop but now as nursery teacher it doesn't quite add up. Then later Steve came into my room and asked: do you know if anything is going on? cause dad left and i heard mom saying on the phone she'd keep me up and then mom came into my room and tried to have some deep conversation with me...
hahahaha i laughed so hard. So the surprise that they were trying too hard to hide was our oldest brother, eric, came down for the weekend from fort cambell which is cool cause we haven't seen him in awhile.
Today Tim (our cousin) and his wife Lisa and their three kids came over to play at the local pool and then we all went over to ALlison's (our other cousin) house for dinner. There was a bunch of us there like a mini family reunion. I especially liked it because with a few acceptions it was all the family that i know the best.

After dinner they pulled out this huge blow up watter slide/wading pool. If they'd only filled it up more I would have totally gone down it. Then we came back and played balderdash: thus my title.
Crazy to think that none of us are in "school" any more.

I recommend David Hopkins the "Spelling Song" i would put it on my playlist but they don't have it.
"you make me sad."

Friday, June 5, 2009

lost

Can you believe this story about the french airline plane going down over the atlantic? And how they found debris but it wasn't from that plane...man. It's eerie-next thing you know they are going to "find" a ship at the bottom of the ocean but it actually won't be the real one. The real one will be on some island running from the others. It's just creepy...

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

um...yea

So I thought I would post about some extremely deep and important topics-various hot topics if you will. For example, what's with the lack of variety in juices in America. This is one of those unsung problems because, not unlike communism, the american people are completely unaware of what there is out in the rest of the world. And, ironically enough, it's in former communistic Russia that I learned of how deprived I had been all of my life without even realizing it.

I'd like to think it's because the people realized how much freedom and time they had lost and made up for it quickly (some things were taken too far like orange flavored m&ms, ketchup flavored cheetos and krab flavored lays), but they have made up for it in their juices. I mean seriously, think of all the fruits throughout the world and in America you get: apple, orange, grape, an occasionaly pineapple-SNORE and some vague fruit combo punch but u don't really know what's in it.

In Russia they had any fruit combination you could think of. They had juices with CACTUS in it they had watermelon-not as watery as you'd imagine. strawberry, bannana, kiwi, all berries-some of which we don't have here in america, just on and on. AND some of their juices were sooo thick it was like buying a smoothie or jamba juice in a 2 liter carton-insanely good! O yea! and my other favorite which was a christmas specialty drink that I found in Volgograd: it was grapes, cranberries, and cinammon-drool... If you have been to russia be sure to comment on ur fav juices. My favorite I only found in Taganrog-don't remember the brand name, most likely ukranian but it was strawberry and bannana and it was THICK. sigh.....oh so good. But yea, i feel bad for all those people who don't know what they're missing.

K, next hot topic.....(DISCLAIMER: I'm only 1/2-3/4 serious about the following statements which were made without any serious prior knowledge about the U.N. and politics. I'm making this statement so some UN agents don't come beating down my door but then again...action isn't their strong point so i think i'll be safe ;)

really....what's the deal with the U.N.? In fact what IS the U.N.? Not to belittle the good things they are trying to do but....yea. My take on the U.N. is....after WWII they decided: whoa, hey, we need to unite ourselves so we can protect ourselves from any future world wars and we're tired of fighting so we'll resolve conflicts through treaties/negotiations and make sanctions etc. Are these things good? sure, trying to make people accountable is always good....but um...do they have a plan for when the crazy villian tears up their lil sanction cause....giving them another lil piece of paper or a strong verbal warning/rebuke....not gonna do much. It's like going to school and going up to the bully of the class and giving him a written out statement that his bullying is not tolerated and to please stop. shrug, i appreciate their efforts to peaceably figure things out but....sometimes when the bad guy isnt' going to listen you have to ACT. You have to back up your talk with the walk and I just don't really see that going on. Like with the North Korea thing? Is anyone going to do something about that? cause I don't think more sanctions is really gonna bother them when they've already ignored all of it so far...and of course the world looks to see what America will do.

And thus it brings me to the third hot topic (if you can't tell by now, i'm just babbling trying to pass the time at the office). The Double Standard with the U.S. Yes, the double standard is frustrating me more and more. The fact that we can't win. We go in to fight-people hate us because we are trying to be the "policemen" of the world that is until they are in trouble and suddenly they're looking at us al lil more favorably. When something serious goes down like these nuclear testings in N.Korea, then everyone looks to us to see what we'll do-heaven forbid someone else goes in first and gets their hands dirty and if we dont' go in-then i'm sure they'd all hate us too. I mean Russia is closer and they're huge and powerful, can't they deal with it? haha it's like when ur mom asks you to get or do something and u say: but Steve is closer, i'm all the way over here-have him do it. eh, typical double standard. It's ok tho...everyone needs someone to hate right? so really we're just uniting the rest of the world in their hatred of us. No problem...all in a day's work.
Next time on Whit's hot topics:
weak floss that breaks apart and gets wedged in between ur teeth
current *cough-hideous-cough* prom dress styles
cock fights

whoops...meant this one....oh well-they're all good!

what is there to fear with brave coppers like this?

Monday, June 1, 2009

with cat like tread...

so this past weekend i have had the sudden urge to see an amazing musical that is outstanding musically but also hilarious...yes that is right, i have a cravin' for pirates of pinzance. and if you don't know what i'm talking about or have never heard the music consider yourself shunned and uncultured 8) but have a peak below...soon i'll figure out if i found the right version of it-it's crazy how hard it is to find this movie version of it.
what else happened....steve graduated from seminary (early morning scripture study) this weekend. That ended a 14 year reign of mom and dad enduring seminary-and what does that teach us? don't have big gaps inbetween your children.
I also found out that I'll be getting a scholarship from a member in our stake which is SUCH great news!

a most ingenious paradox