Way Back When Wednesdays - Automatic Car Doors

Derek and I were lucky enough to visit each other about twice a month during the summer we were engaged.  That probably doesn't sound lucky, but when you think about how we met at BYU in Utah, and we were both from the East Coast (Me - NC, Derek - VA), we felt pretty lucky.  We lived only 5 hours away from each other.

One weekend he came down to visit me, I decided that I would take him to the Outer Banks for the day.  If you haven't been there yet, go!  Those beaches are amazing and so fragile!

Since the drive was about 3 hours, I didn't want to wear my swimming suit the entire ride.  I wore regular clothes and planned on changing once we got there.  When we got to the beach, I realized there weren't any bathrooms or changing rooms nearby, so the obvious choice was to change in the back of the van.  I told Derek to stand outside the van, DON'T PEAK IN, and make sure no one else does either!  He agreed and politely faced the other way... 

Until I accidentally pushed the door opener button.  I had the keys in my hand, and as I was pulling things down, I squeezed the convenient button on the key chain.  Oops!  Derek--thinking I was done changing--started walking over to the opening door.

I was half undressed and panicked.  The closest thing to me to cover myself with was a beach towel, but I couldn't get it unfolded in time.  I laid it across my lap and hoped he wouldn't be able to see anything along the sides.

Now you might be thinking, why didn't she just close the door?!  Well, being a magical, automatic door, comes with one fatal flaw.  You can't really close it until it's finished opening.  So I had to sit there, with a beach towel folded up to the size of a dish towel on my lap, and yell to Derek that I wasn't done and that he'd BETTER NOT COME OVER HERE!

He got the message pretty quickly and only briefly saw me in my predicament.  To this day, he claimes he didn't see anything except a bright red, panicked face!  I really hope that's true! :)

Changing it up!

I am changing it up around here!  Newsworthy Tuesdays are now Top 10 Tuesdays as inspired by Amanda of ohamanda.com!  I was getting sick of the news.  It's all Obama, war, or North Korea.  Over and over again!

So this week's list, Top 10 Pet Names!  I'm a picky person when it comes to pet names.  They can't be too cutesy like "Brownie" or "Whiskers."  They need to be real sounding names.  I like people names for pets, but not names that I'd actually name a child.  That would just be awkward...

1. Willow:  Our current cat's name.  She came with it and it fits her well.  She's kind of wispy like a weeping willow tree.  Plus it's a real person name, but too trendy for me to use for a kid.
   
   
2. Chloe, Zoe:  We had three cats while we were in college, two girls and a boy (named #3).  We liked the idea of rhyming names, but didn't want a Blinky and a Winky.  So we picked the two trendiest names we could think of and they worked!  Those two cats had some serious girl cattitude!
   
   
3. George Washington:  I was reading a book about George Washington and was so impressed with him I named my Siamese kitten after him.  Lame, right?  We didn't actually call him George Washington.  Usually we just called him Georgie.  But that's probably even lamer! :)  But the name did fit him really well.  And he was a really cute cat.
   
   
4. King Charles:  If I ever get a Great Dane (which is my dream and only dog I'll ever consider owning), I will name it King Charles.  Don't know why.  It just popped into my brain as I thought about owning such a HUGE dog!
   
   
5. Kimchi, Gimbap, Sushi, Cham-chi:  While we were preparing to move back to the States from Korea, we planned on getting three kittens ASAP.  We thought of naming them some foreign foods because foreign words rock as pet names, and it would be funny to name kittens after food.  My favorite was Cham-chi.  That means tuna in Korean.
   
   
6. Ko-neko, Koyang-i, Mao: The other idea we had for our three future kittens was the word "cat" in three languages, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.  The only problem was Chinese.  The word for cat in Chinese is Mao, which is spelled and pronounced the same as the communist dictator in English.  It has a different character and tone in Chinese, but no American was going to get that. Not going to work for us, but I still think it would be fun!
   
   
7. Hamu and Hamu:  In Korea we had three hamsters.  Two were identical in everway (except for gender, but we didn't know that until they had 7 babies), so we named them Hamu and Hamu--the shortened Korean word for hamsters.
   
   
8. Yuki:  Our third hamster was all white.  We named her Yuki because "yuki" means "snow" in Japanese and it's a real Japanese name. 
   
   
9. Shouka:  On a recent episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8, they got two puppies, one of which they named Shouka.  I really like that name!  They named the puppy after a security guard they met in Hawaii.  A huge security guard.  Appropriate because the puppies they got were German Shepherds.
   
   
10. Rika: My friend Andrea also has a German Shepherd.  Her name is Rika.  I like it because it sounds like a German name.  And it's just fun to say!

What are some of your favorite pet names?  What's your current pet's name?

Wordles

Idaho Cheneys Wordle




A Wordle of foxnews.com's news today (click on the image to see it larger)




A Wordle of CNN.com's news today (click on the image to see it larger)




Have you done a wordle before?  They're fun!  Check out wordles here ...

Friday Finds: A Link Round-up

Why Not?, Scribbit.  My favorite part was, "I have only done this once before."

How You Can Fire Up Your Friends to Hear the Gospel, Meridian Magazine.  An interesting read.  I had never thought of sharing the Gospel in this way.  You can apply the idea in this article to a lot of other situations as well.

How to Blog, Part 3: All About Writing, Blissfully Domestic.  Great tips for how to write on a blog!  I liked how she said throw out all the rules of writing you learned in High School.

3 Pack Face Stamp Emotional Rubber Stamp, Japan Trend Shop.  Found these beauties from an Asian blog I read.  They're... interesting?  I might be tempted to buy a set.

Why Do the Japanese Love Waterproof Phones?, PCMag.com.  I always love to hear about cultural differences, especially ones with Japan.  And I really, really, REALLY want a Japanese style tub.

Here it is, late at night, and I can't sleep!  I don't even remember the last time I felt like I couldn't sleep and actually got out of bed, came downstairs and got on the computer!  I thought I was tired, but guess not...

Another random thought.  My cat is so cute!  As I'm sitting here typing, she's standing up next to me and pawing my elbow.  It's like she's trying to get my attention or something! :)

Thankful Thursday - The Rain

This week, I've really struggled with being thankful for rain.  Which is weird because rain is usually my favorite type of weather next to partly cloudy in the upper 60's.

But this week, it's been difficult.  It's been rainy off and on all week.  And again, that's usually not a problem--my hair and skin do best in humid weather--but this week both my husband and brother were trying to do outdoor work!

It totally ruined Derek's Tuesday.  He had about 5 jobs that day and at least 4 of them were halted by the rain.  PJ was trying to do some aeration work.  He couldn't really even go door to door because of the weather.

And the worst part was the rain would fall like crazy, then the skies would clear look sunny and blue.  So they'd go back out again only to be stopped again by another insane shower.

This post is turning out to be more of a Complaining Thursday rather than a Thankful Thursday.  I guess the point is, even though the rain isn't helping us any, it is helping somebody.  Mostly farmers.  They're who I've been thinking of all through the rain.  Without rain, no crops.  And without crops, no food.  And I'm thankful for food, so this week, I'm thankful for rain.

Really, I am! :)

Photo courtesy of wikipedia.org.

Way Back When Wednesday - Making Rocks

I did a lot of weird things when I was a kid.  One time in about 2nd grade, my friend and I decided that we would make rocks.  I had heard somewhere that rocks are just made out of dirt and time, so we decided that that we would get some dirt and stick it together with water.  That worked alright for us so we put them on some cement in the sun to dry.

A few hours later we went back to check on our "rocks" to see their progress.  They looked nice and solid so we tried to pick them up.  Unfortunately, they crumbled between our fingers.  I was so disappointed!  I thought we did everything right.  I guess we forgot about pressure and millions of years! :)