Monday's Music

Monday's Music

Monday's Music

Monday's Music

BMT

Nov. 14, 2001

Dear Journal, 

     My older sister Heather's bone marrow is not making the blood cells. So she has to have a bone marrow transplant. My family went to the hospital on Monday. We each had to have a blood test. Who ever had the same bone marrow as Heather would give some away to Heather. We got my test result back and Amie's. Amie is not a match but the test says that I'm a perfect match! I'm going in today just to make sure that I have everything Heather needs. The first thoughts I had in my mind were "I'm so happy" and at the same time scared. But I know that everything will go well. 

Nov. 14, 2001

Dear Journal,

     Natalie and Nathan are not a match but they match each other. I am the only one who has the same as Heather. We went to the hospital today, me and my mom. We found out a lot about Heather. Heather is going to lose her hair but it will grow back. She might not be able to have children. I went and got more blood taken out of me today. It hurt more then on Monday. I will have to be checked out tomorrow at 12:00. I have to go back up to the hospital. But I'm glad I can still do Manilla Magic and be a soloist. But a bad thing is that Heather will have to live close by the hospital for a while. I feel really sad for Heather. 

Nov. 15, 2001

Dear Journal,

     Today I got checked out again to the hospital. All they did with me was a normal check up. Like eye sight, hearing, breathing and so on. Today I found out that I'm going have an I.V. on my hand when they do the bone marrow transplant. They put me to sleep and then put a needle in my hand with a tube around it. After they have it all in they take the needle out and leave the tube in. When I wake up I'll be in the recovering room. I won't feel like eating much because they also put my stomach to sleep. The hospital gave me a doll to do I.V. on it to understand more. It was fun. When I do the bone marrow transplant Heather and I will have a bone marrow birthday! So Heather and I will have two birthdays a year! I also get to watch my bone marrow go into Heather. 

Nov. 26, 2001

Dear Journal,

     Today I'm going in for surgery. I got to stay at a hotel with my mom and dad. We had to leave the hotel at 5:00 in the morning that day. When we got there we had to get checked in. Then they did a regular check up. I had to get in some hospital pajamas. While I was in the waiting room I had to take some medicine. It was gross! then I got on a wheelchair bed. Then they took me to the operating room. They made me breath into a mask which made me to go sleep. When I woke up I was in a recovery room with  my mom. They wouldn't let me go up and see Heather until I went to the bathroom. When I went up to Heather I got to ride in a wheelchair. I saw my bone marrow in one of those plastic bags. It looked more like a red-ish orange-ish color compared to blood. I thought it would look like yellow-ish green-ish color. When the nurses came in two of them were carrying stuff. I thought it was going to be for Heather and I and I was right! I got a quilt, a beanie baby bear, a balloon, and a poster that said, "Megan you're super, thank you!" Heather gave me a shirt and some long pink pants. They were so cute! Heather got most of the same stuff as me except her poster said, "Happy BMT Birthday Heather!" The BMT stands for bone marrow transplant. 

     Five million is a good number to give away in stem cells from bone marrow. I gave away nine and a half million! Almost double! Now Heather and I can't share a room. We have to get the room downstairs finished before Heather gets home. I miss her. 

I love you Heather. I'm grateful for your example to me. I'm grateful for the bond that we have not only from sisterhood, but also from this experience and opportunity that I had to serve you. I would do it all over again any day. 

*****

For more details check out these posts from Heather from years past...

2008

2009

2010

2011

Monday's Music

Portrait Found

Hey there, remember this story about my Paris boyfriend? Well, I was in a cleaning mood last night so I attacked a couple shelves in my closet and I found the beloved and "oh so close to likeness" portrait from my french artist. It's a keeper. 

Monday's Music

A Biography

A few things from the book I'm reading right now, Go Forward With Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley.

Some quotes about Gordon B. Hinckley's father...

"Father was not interested in the mysteries of the Kingdom. The thing that characterized his religion was its application to everyday life. He had little use for religion that did not register in one's life, that did not manifest itself in his behavior. He never regarded religion as a cloak that could be laid off and put on at one's convenience..."

"I think I have never seen as good a man as he was. He preached the loudest by practice and the least by noise or talk of any man I ever knew."

.......

Gordon's childhood...

"All of the pruning, year after year, yielded an important lesson that embedded itself in Gordon's subconscious: the quality of fruit picked in September is determined by the way the trees are shaped and trimmed in February."

"Over time, Gordon developed a familiarity with good books and came to appreciate what his parents valued - literature and history, learning and education. Years later he concurred with Emerson, who, when asked which of all the books he had read had most affected his life, said that he could no more remember the books he had read than the meals he had eaten, but that they had made him."

.......

"There is nothing that dulls a personality so much as a negative outlook."

Monday's Music

Homework Time

I'm Sailing!

Remember how my dad planned out a bunch of fun things for his birthday to do as a family? Well, the sailing on the Great Salt Lake didn't actually fully happen because the weather was too windy. So we rescheduled and ended up going last Thursday. It was perfect, gorgeous weather. And Tyler was able to come as well which was fantastic and lots of fun. 

Apparently Tyler is wearing boat shoes...

Natalie got a hand at steering the boat!

And so did I!

Monday's Music

Monday's Music

Chalked that Block

Do you remember when I decided to give myself a little push? Earlier this summer after being a volunteer for the chalk art festival up in Salt Lake I decided I wanted to add "participate in a chalk art festival as an artist" to my bucket list. But I was planning on that festival which wouldn't happen until next year. I would have a nice lovely year to practice and slowly talk myself into participating. And then a wonderful friend sent a message to me about Chalk the Block happening at Riverwoods in a month. She told me I had to sign up. 

My stomach seriously dropped and the nervousness set in. 

See, I love doing my chalk art every summer on the sidewalk that lays to the side of my house. It's secluded, and no one can really see me chalking, and if my drawing completely sucks then that's fine because no one can see it anyways. 

But participating in a festival where you expand the size of your drawing, where people are constantly walking by and watching you. Where everyone can see your work... and if you end up making a disaster  good luck hiding it. 

But at the same time, I really wanted this experience. So I hurried and paid the entrance fee before I could turn back. 

And I'm so glad I did. 

Seven hours later and I'm done!

It really was such a fun and different experience. Thankfully I was tucked away in a corner and all the artists around me weren't there on Friday so I felt mostly alone. There weren't a lot of spectators either so I was able to get lost in my chalk. 

It was hard chalking in the parking lot. The surface was bumpy (as can see in image above.... it gave my picture weird texture) and it took a lot of chalk layers and rubbing in to cover the surface. 

A sweet little side bonus was that I got my picture in the Daily Herald! (well, I don't know about the actual printed paper but it was online!) 

I also got incredibly dirty. Black feet, black all up the outside of my legs from sitting on that parking lot. I took a lunch break and walked over to Subway and this cute lady behind me asked if I was one of the artists, to which I replied, yes. She then told me she could tell because I had chalk all up my leg...

I really was such a mess. 

But it was one of those things that you're almost proud to show off because it meant you just accomplished something worthy of that black tar. 

The chalk art festival went on into Saturday as well. I chalked all day Friday and finished so that I could go back Saturday and just meander around and enjoy the other artwork.  

Side note: My thighs have never ever been as sore as they were the following few days after chalking. I seriously could not walk normal and don't even ask me about stairs. It was awful. 

But it was completely worth it! And I'm so glad I was able to have the opportunity. I don't want it to be a once in a lifetime thing though, I want to continue to push myself and participate in more festivals down the road. I want to increase this talent. And my thigh strength. 

Swinging Music

It's Happening

Be there.

Monday's Music

Brainiac

Did any of you happen to see this article the other day? (17 year old girl builds artificial 'brain' to detect breast cancer) The title alone blows me away let alone her simple matter of fact statement, "I taught the computer how to diagnose breast cancer."

I don't know about you but I was no where near building neural networks when I was in 7th grade. And as much as I feel like a complete failure after reading articles like these, I still love reading all about them. Smart, talented little prodigy kids are awesome. They blow my mind.

Here's a link to her project summary, if you feel like delving a little further.

Top 50

I came across this website today that has the Top 50 'Pictures of the day for 2012'. It's fantastic. Let me just share with you some of my favorites.

Sorry I had a really hard time limiting how many pictures I wanted to share from this collection. I love some of the titles they gave to the pictures on the website. But here's the site for the Top 50 'Pictures of the day from 2011'. Enjoy!

Math Doodling

Monday's Music

Radio Hit Wonder (and I seriously wonder...)

We watch the Today Show at the hospital in the mornings and some mornings they show a live performance from a popular artist. Today's artists was the band Train.
Enjoy. (If you can get past his awful flat tone right from the first measure.)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm sorry but I feel like if you have a career as a singer you should sound the same whether you are heard on the radio or during a live performance. Why are most of our popular radio hits coming from people who can't actually sing? It just all seems a little backward to me.

To make up for posting that awful singing I'll make it up to you with some fantastic songs from Jason Mraz's Live On Earth concert. Enjoy. (For real.)

Drip Drip Drop

Art for a rainy day.

Blog Help

So I've been playing around with my blog lately, changing things here and there. I'm sure you can tell but I can't figure out for the life of me how to get my beloved title picture right! (Yes the bone tissue picture.) The picture doesn't go all the way across and so it just ends and then there's a nice chunk of white space where the picture didn't extend to. Help anyone?

Life of Pi

In theaters November 21st.

I honestly love this book. I know some people find the book questionable but I love to idea of using your imagination to help you overcome a problem, a tragedy, a loss. It's the same in the movie The Fall, where they tell a story and in the story they find their way to overcoming their problems. It's the same in Chocolat, where the little girl has an imaginary pet kangaroo with a bad leg that keeps her company as she moves constantly with her mom. Only when they finally settle and put down roots does her pet kangaroo recover and hop away. 

I'm not sure how the movie will turn out. It looks promising so far. I'm definitely going to see it. 

Monday's Music

Book List Extended

I know I already have a nice long lists of books to read but I can't help myself when I find an idea for a new reading list. I found this list online today... Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. There's no way that I can't not work on this now. I'm in the process of reading the Count of Monte Cristo right now so there's one for her list. I think next I'll delve into Alice in Wonderland. I got that book for Natalie for her birthday and I've been dying to read it. Don't you love birthday gifts that you can use too. So great.
Happy Reading!

Paddle Boarding

I tried out stand up paddle boarding today and had such a great time. The water felt fantastic, the weather was perfect and it just felt good to be out in the lake floating/paddling around. Those paddle boards are huge so we cruised around the whole time with two people on each. We tried so hard to get all four of us standing on one but it never happened without us all falling into the lake. But we did manage three people however for a small duration of time. I don't know why but I just completely loved doing this! I recommend trying it out. You might want to look for deals though with the paddle boards but it's still just a fun new thing to try out no matter what. 

Pushing Myself

Okay, I did it. I signed up and payed the money so I have to go through with this! No backing out now. Time for some sketching and chalking.
www.chalktheblock.net

Monday's Music

Monday's music, posted on Tuesday.

I've been MIA for the past month, sorry. And I've completely forgotten about my music posts. So we'll try this again.

A Paris Boyfriend

Can you believe that it has been three years since my trip to Europe? My oh my how time flies. Well this post is by request. I've brought up this story a time or two to some friends but here are the full details plus pictures. 

My Paris Artist Boyfriend

July 11, 2009 

Today was a trip through Paris. We went to the Sacre Coeur Basilica which is incredible and has one of the best views of Paris in my opinion. Walking around the streets behind the basilica Angel and I got cornered by a couple of artists. I did not for one bit care to have my picture drawn. I had better things to spend my money on. I can't even begin to explain how persistent these artists were. They were sweet talking their way all over the place, "We want to draw pretty ladies! Come let us draw you!" We tried pulling the "we don't have enough money" card but then they responded with "Didn't your father send you with money?" (Back story, Angel's dad basically deserted her family and is in Malaysia and she's never seen him...) So Angel tells them she doesn't have a dad and gets herself a discounted price for the drawing. I however had no such story to tell so no discounted price for me! 

Angel definitely had the better artist as far as skills go but mine made up for it by being absolutely ridiculous. (So the rest of this might sound completely creepy but it was honestly hysterical. Just add a french accent and enjoy.) The whole time while drawing me he made comments about how beautiful I was. "Oh your'e so yummy I just want to bite you, give me your arm, or your hand!" I seriously didn't know what to do with myself. So I asked him how long he'd been an artist and he told me he'd been a musician before. Which is great and all but I thought he said 'magician'. He goes, "No! Not magician, but I do magic in bed!... Oh sorry I forgot you are Mormon - don't know anything about the sex stuff." I was dying and probably red in the face. 

He finished my drawing and took me over to the other artist exclaiming, "Check out my new girlfriend! Don't we look good together?!"

I had to get a picture with him obviously. After a story like that how could I not?! He told me I could grab his ___ during the picture, (insert laugh here because you really don't know how to respond to that except to just laugh at how ridiculous this all is.) And then he gave me a kiss on the forehead. My drawing wasn't even that great and I have no idea where it even is right now but it was completely worth it. If only just for the story. 

Finally A Finished Project

In the past chalk art and I haven't always been on the best of terms. (Example here) But that's okay because every year I get a renewed sense of excitement and determination to make something happen. And I finally finished one of my drawings. 

This is after day one of a little over 2 hours work. (Sorry about the half shade, I forgot to take another picture later.)

And finally, a finished product that I feel good about. Total work time was around 3 1/2 hours. Not too bad compared to how much time I've seen people spend on their drawings at the chalk art festival. 

Yay for finishing projects!

2012 Time Lapse

Time Lapse

Blessing of Fathers

My last post was more on the gloom and downside of life but lucky for me I have been blessed with amazing parents who hear my cry for help and respond. After I had a falling apart cry session to my dad, talking about things I was having a hard time with, the struggles of life and the weight of responsibility he gave me a father's blessing. How grateful I am to have a wonderful loving dad who knows the exact answer to what I need. How also grateful I am for my Heavenly Father who is there to inspire my father as he gave the blessing. I was given needed reassurance about things that I had been struggling with. I felt the love of both of my fathers pouring out on me. I was given strength and ability to continue forward. I was given a boost, a reminder of things I had forgotten.
I see every day how blessed I am to have the parents I do. To have a father who loves me and helps me in every area of life. My dad has opened my eyes to so many aspects of the world that I would have never experienced without him. I have grown in his way of trying new things, developing many diverse hobbies and learning in both ways of educational and spiritual. I have learned to love nature; to enjoy the outdoors. I have learned honest work ethic. I have grown up seeing his passion to serve others. I love my dad. I love that it is Father's Day and we get to take the time to appreciate the work that they do and the influence they have. I love my Heavenly Father as well and I see His hand in my life daily. I have a good life. I have a blessed life. I have a father.

Having a Moment

So I'm officially hired on at the hospital now. I had my new employee orientation today. It's nice to finally be hired on but I'm terribly nervous right now. I'm afraid of the responsibility. Sometimes I feel like I don't want it. I'm scared to be my own tech, to not have someone to hide behind. I feel stressed out. I have so much schooling to work on, tests to study for and papers to write. I feel like I don't have enough time in the day to contact and text everyone that I need to for my ward calling. I feel like I have so much to plan and I don't have any legitimate help. I feel heavy. I feel overloaded. I don't know what I want. I feel unsure about what to do if a different job opportunity presents itself. (Granted that possibility isn't even possible right now since I haven't given him my resume but down the road...). I feel bad about eventually leaving my mall job, about abandoning them. I really like those co workers. I'm frustrated about being placed in the middle of a sticky situation at clinicals. I feel like feelings of frustration for someone else are being deflected to me. I'm tired.
Please just give me summer. Let school be over. I need to be done for right now.
(Sorry for the downer post but like I said in the title, I'm having a moment of feeling completely weak right now. It happens.)

Car Troubles

Well, life got quite interesting this last weekend. My plans were to drive up to Rexburg Saturday morning so I could visit family and friends up there but I never even made it past Salt Lake. I got in a lovely little accident that totaled the car and obviously canceled the trip. Picture this: I'm in the middle lane on the freeway going about 70mph when my back right tire blows. The car started almost fishtailing and at that moment my mind blanked out, the only thing going was my reflexes trying to keep the car in the lane. Well that didn't work for very long because I lost control of the car. It spun around and across the right lanes until I was facing backwards and then the drivers side of the car slammed into the concrete wall. I definitely screamed once I lost control until I hit the wall. Lucky for me I hit right where a lane was starting to appear for an off ramp so I was pretty out of the way of traffic. I also somehow managed to hit a trucks front bumper during my spin. His truck only had a dent, at least that's all he told me. I never saw the front of his truck. But my car was banged up very nicely. The two driver side doors wouldn't open and the hood and trunk were bent up. The front right tire rod was broken as well. But no one was hurt. I was completely fine. I do have a good bruise on the side of my knee and I had a stiff neck the next day but nothing else. I was one lucky girl and I know that Heavenly Father was watching over me. There were a number of miracles and blessings from this whole experience which I won't go into detail about, but I do know that I was protected. I could have flipped, I could have hit more cars, I could have been in the middle of Idaho in a no-man's land area where there are no concrete barriers to stop you. (Just to name a few)

My skid marks across the freeway and into the wall. 

Goodbye little car. You served us well. You won't really be missed because the new car we have is a definite upgrade in my eyes.