February Happenings + Mardi Gras

February has flown by! Between my birthday (woot woot 24!), Valentines Day, starting a new job and Mardi Gras (which is really a month long party) I feel like I haven't stopped running! Which is great because January dragged on forever over here.

We decided to keep my birthday low key this year, nothing too crazy. Scott took my out to dinner to the Cheesecake Factory and then we did some shopping and I bought a fantastic purse that I'm completely in love with, thanks to mom and dad! Plus Scott bought me the most beautiful bouquet of roses I've ever seen and a little tripod for my phone I've been wanting. He's seriously the best.

For Valentines we wanted to tackle live lobster ourselves. Oh yeah. Steamed those babies up and dipped them in buttah. We came to the conclusion that all though it's extremely easy to steam lobster, it's really hard to steam them to a perfectly cooked state. And by the time you get all the meat out of the claws, it's not hot anymore. There was a lot of clean up involved and some nasty cleaning of the insides when you cut the tail off from the main body as well. It was completely fun and definitely an adventure but I think next time we're going to just opt for the more expensive restaurant lobster that's cooked to perfection!

Now Mardi Gras. I don't even know where to start with that celebration! You really step into a different world out here during Mardi Gras. And I'm completely serious about the month long party.

Here's a very small background from my limited knowledge of this holiday.
-It always falls on Fat Tuesday. This year that day was February 17th.
-It's basically a last hurrah before Lent. (Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die...)
-There were over 60 parades this year that started as early as January 6th.
-Most of the parades are family friendly. Unless of course you wander into the French Quarter at night. But really, you're just asking for it if you do that during Mardi Gras.
-Kids get out of school for the entire week.
-Most businesses take Mardi Gras off as well.
-You're supposed to eat lots and lots of King Cake. King cake is cinnamon-filled dough that's baked in the shape of a hollow circle. Sometimes they are filled with cream cheese or jellies. There are way too many sprinkles on the top and sometimes inside the cake that are the colors of Mardi Gras: green, purple, and gold. There's also a plastic baby Jesus hidden inside the cake. (Do you get it now, "King" cake... baby Jesus.) Whoever gets the baby Jesus gets luck or something, and then has the buy the next king cake. Vicious cycle. People rave about king cake. It's AMAZING. Scott and I never quite got the loving relationship with it that everyone else seems to have going. We'll see if something changes next year.
-You may start off at the parade not caring about cheap plastic beads that are getting thrown at your face, but by the end of the parade you will have been taken over by an alter ego version of yourself who NEEDS the beads and NEEDS the blinking headband and NEEDS the plastic cup and NEEDS the stuffed flower wand thing. Oh yeah, it's like a disease. People go crazy.
-Also, see that ladder box behind me in the picture of the right? You put kids up there so they're higher up and they get thrown loads of stuff. It's the popular place.

-Valentine's gets completely walked over out here. People go crazy with Mardi Gras decorations. I mean, check out this wreath?! It practically smacks you on the face as you walk by the door. And the more gaudy, the better. I've never seen so many tacky wreaths in all my life.

-At the bigger parades these guys on horses pass out doubloons. They're a big deal. You WANT doubloons.

-Everyone on a float is required to wear a mask by law. Don't ask me why, but it just adds to the mystery of everything.

Scott and I went to 4 parades this year. A decent number for a rookie beginner. We went to Mandevilles' Krewe of Eve parade one night, and then the Friday night before Mardi Gras we went down to Uptown New Orleans and saw 3 parades. There's a main parade route down there and you can literally camp out there in one spot all day and watch around 5 parades throughout the day on the weekends. The fun thing about some of the bigger parades down in New Orleans is that they have customized beads and throws. Their beads will have the krewe's symbol on it and they'll have specialized items that go with their theme. 

We had no idea what to do with all the beads we caught so we decided to make a joke of the elk antlers, showing off it's "rack" for some beads! ;)

Sorry for the long post. Mardi Gras really should have had it's own post but I'm too lazy to go back now and make another one. But all in all, I had a blast with Mardi Gras. It's so much fun and there's no way I can adequately describe it to make you understand. You honestly have to experience it in person. So start making plans for next year! Mardi Gras is February 9th!

Volunteering

I thought finding a job was going to be really easy for me out here. In my mind I was going to immediately get a job at the sports medicine and orthopedic clinic that's literally three minutes up the road from where we live. It was going to be great. It turns out that my job field is very limited up here, not a lot of jobs, and many of the places want an x-ray tech who is also certified in CT and has worked at least three years. I had only worked a year and a half with my license before we moved. And in order for me to do CT I would have to go back to school and probably commute an hour to go to a teaching hospital.

I'm done with school. I payed off all of my school loans over a year ago. I don't like CT. 

I never heard back from any other job I applied to. I even applied to random stores like Barnes and Noble and Hobby Lobby but I'm over qualified. 

I took the job hunt pretty hard. I felt like I was suddenly a worthless tech who no one wanted. They didn't know me but they knew enough apparently to not want me. 

I finally decided to just start doing some volunteer work at a hospital to help keep me busy and maybe get a foot in the door. 

Best idea ever.

I chose to help out on a couple of the patient floors answering the phone, patient call lights, helping out where I can and also working on the comfort cart. Oh yeah. I take this cart around to every single patient and pass out coffee, tea, juices or water. It's actually really fun and people here in the south are the best. "No thank you sugar." "Thanks so much sweety!" "Oh thank you baby." They really do call everyone and anyone things like that. 

I was also introduced to the radiology manager on my first day who told me to bring her my resume and she would look into things for me. There's a hiring freeze right now though at that hospital which is a bummer but she totally gave me a hug when I gave her my resume. That's how friendly people are here!

Now I should have realized this but for some reason it didn't cross my mind, but all of the volunteers are at least 70 years old. And then there's me, little young looking me who they all think is 18. The old volunteer men like to make the joke that I brought down the average age of the group to 50 now. I've had a couple doctors even do double takes at me, they have a confused look, "Wait, why isn't your hair grey?! Why are you volunteering? You're not 80!" They're normally really impressed actually when I tell them I'm keeping myself busy with volunteering until I can find a job. Just the other day I had a surgeon sitting by me and we went through the routine about why I was volunteering and how I'm a certified rad tech when suddenly he pulls out his prescription pad and writes me a "letter" of recommendation to take to another hospital! It blew me away! He also told me he was going to talk to the radiology manager again for me.  I'm grateful for kind people like that in this world. 

I took his prescription to the other hospital and talked to the HR department. They only have an opening for an MRI job so no luck there. But I'll keep looking. The HR girl was completely confused about the prescription letter of recommendation. haha It was so great. I doubt she's ever seen anything like that! 

I don't know when or if a job will come out of all this, but I'm enjoying my time volunteering. It's good to socialize with all these people of different backgrounds. I love the southern black women, all of their "mmhmmm!" It's just fun to make some friends. My favorite is an old lady named Margaret who is a volunteer and trained me on the comfort cart. She's a retired nurse from England. Her mother was a nurse as well and a midwife! (If you've seen the tv show Call the Midwife, then you know that I was dying to find out that her mother was one of those women!) She's a hoot and her England accent is the best thing to find in the deep south. I love it.

Anyways, I'm glad things are happening the way they are. I know it wasn't how I wanted but guess what? Heavenly Father knows way more then I do! So I'll just keep going along with his plan.

Why Write?

With not having a job right now I was running out of things to do to keep me busy during the day. A good friend told me to try out calligraphy, and can I just say that I'm so grateful I did! Calligraphy is amazing and addicting. It has a way of calming you and sucking you in. It's the same feeling I get when I do embroidery. I'm focused in on this simple task, be it a stitch or a stroke, that everything else fades away and I become relaxed. I just write, or I just sew and nothing else matters.

I came across this video though and thought I would share.

Why Write?

Now if you don't have 16 minutes to just sit down and watch this TED clip, then scroll a little further. But really, you should watch it.



The medical loving side of me caught on to this research he mentioned... Here are the notes:

-He took a cognitive psychology class and studied how handwriting helps develop the brain. During the different tactile movements of doing handwriting, the brain is engaged in more areas and the information is ingrained into the brain. The same was not found to be true with typing however, which does not involve the same type of differential tactile movements.
-Handwriting was also found to be incredibly helpful in small children who were learning to read. By forming the individual letters they had a deeper understanding of the anatomy of each one, and were therefore able to recognize it when it came time to read it on the page.
-Cursive was found to be even more beneficial to the brain. Researchers and scientists have done brain scans on children learning cursive and found that the different parts of the brain engaged are similar to those that adults typically use for writing and higher reasoning. The screen went blank when the kids were doing typing because it didn't involve the same type of tactile movement.

Interesting right?! I love learning about how amazing the body is and how things effect each other.

Here's another article for you:

Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter

I think it was in high school that I decided I wanted to start writing in cursive more. (I'll have to check my journal for sure though.) I had to do a google search for the cursive alphabet for some of the letters I had forgotten from elementary school. Cursive became my primary handwriting for my journal and remains still. I love cursive. It's so fun and fast and beautiful.

If all of this hasn't inspired you to take a second look at your handwriting then I don't know what will. It's never to late to try something new. Start with cursive and just a normal pen or pencil. I think knowing cursive beforehand has been helpful with picking up calligraphy. And then try some calligraphy. I'm excited to really study it out and practice. I find myself looking at billboards now and imagining the direction that the strokes would need to go to produce the thick/thin look of the letters. Pathetic I know but whatever. It happens!

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."

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.

Math Doodling

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. 

World Superbike Races

Can you see me at a motorcycle race? Well I went Memorial Day! Yup, the big World Superbike Championship that was held at Miller Motorsports Park. It was fantastic and so much fun! Lucky me I just happened to be the next person Steve talked to after his brother ditched out leaving him with an extra ticket. :) Woot woot to me! Steve is awesome for taking me. He had to basically explain everything. I had no clue about this environment or sport. But don't worry, I started catching on in the end. 

They had a motorcycle set up at the angle that the riders take the turns. Crazy low! I felt like I was going to fall off.  

Steve and I getting majorly sunburned. 

They had this Dodge SRT-8 Charger with a professional driver that would take you drifting around this little track they set up. 

And this is my face while drifting. Hahaha I don't know what happened with my hair but it was a ton of fun.

That had this fantastic lemonade there. So yummy. 

Anyways, it was a really fun new experience for me. I'm glad I was able to go. The sunburn was worth it!

Facing Fears

I've been facing a few fears lately, and whether it's been by choice or force that really doesn't matter right now. At least I'm moving forward right?!

In my schooling we finally moved past using fake arms to practice IV's and we practiced on each other. My first tries were partially successful, not entirely... but at least I was sticking a real vein. After that I boosted my self esteem with some easy veins provided by a couple guy friends. Fear faced. (For the time being, until I have to practice on a patient.)

I've been feeling more comfortable in the O.R. lately. I was perfectly fine Saturday during our extremely long femur case, but then I had one of those moments where the mother bird pushes her baby out of the nest so it can finally learn how to fly on it's own. I got pushed up to Endoscopy to do the ERCP exam ON MY OWN. I hate this exam. Mostly because I can't understand a word the doctor says (accent plus mumbling = complete confusion) and the atmosphere tends to get stressful quite quickly. There were only 2 techs working that day and then me, a student. One tech was covering the O.R. case and the other was out doing portables, so while I'm holding down tech hall doing E.R. exams, lovely Endo calls letting me know they're ready for me to come for the ERCP. I kind of died inside. But I went up and I did the exam all by myself. Fear faced. (With grateful help from the nurses working in on the case.)

So I had a bit of pushing out of the nest moments this past week but I'm grateful for them. It's a terrifying but nice way to see where you're at. I think I'm doing all right.

Cake Making

If you don't already know this about me then just understand that sometimes I look at something and decide that I could probably do that if I tried. So I do. Example. Example. Example. Example. Example. Example.
Guess what I've gotten my hands into now?
Cake Decorating.
Yup.

I made my first attempt cake yesterday night/today.

Crumb coating. 

I didn't have the right size of coupler but I didn't realize that until it was already in the bag with frosting... So duck tape came into the rescue to help me with the piping. 

Are you slightly impressed? 

I feel good about this being my first decorative cake. Granted the frosting is kind of messy looking, but this was my very first time piping frosting. 

I found the idea for the decorating here and decided that since those flowers are pretty forgiving, it would be a good first attempt idea.

Frosting recipe was a Buttercream Icing which was really good. But the recipe hardly makes any. Of course I used a ton for the flowers but with one batch it wasn't enough for the filling and crumb coating, let alone adding all the flowers on top.

The cake was a Hersey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake recipe which was really good and moist. I obviously didn't use their chocolate frosting but I think it turned out well in the end.

It was a really fun experiment! I would love to take some classes though, just the basics so I'm not stumbling around like a chicken with its' head cut off. There are so many details!! What kind of cake? What kind of filling? What frosting? Colored? What decorations? If you want the flowers to harden then it's one recipe, if you want them to soften up then it's another. What freaking frosting recipe is good?! What tip to use for piping? Remember how painting is a complete art and science all it's own? Cooking decorative cakes is exactly the same way. There is so much that goes into planning a cake.

Portrait Painting

People surprise me.
Steve is one of the techs at the hospital that works graveyard shifts. He's older, a grandpa actually with 15 grandchildren. But he's also so nice and helpful when I work the swing shifts. The other night he brought in some of his paintings that he did in Zions National Park and also a portrait of his son. Blown away. That's what I was. It was like he was a double agent living this night life of x-ray tech while painting the days away. He teaches an art class in Provo. He told me that he's always looking for models to come in for his class to paint. (Portraits mind you.) I was immediately interested for reasons that I wasn't quite sure of at the time. It sounded like a new opportunity to do something (slightly strange) that I had never done before. If anything, I would most likely just get an intriguing story from it.

The class is held above a cozy little art shop on the corner of Center Street and Freedom Boulevard in Provo. The tables were splattered with paint and easels were stacked in the corner. There were only a few of us. I'm guessing the other students were intimidated by the idea of painting a portrait so they didn't show up. I don't blame them.

It's amazing and humbling to find out how much you really don't know about something. For one, the beginning process of painting a picture. The questions and preparations astound me. Lighting? Plain white canvas or painted canvas? Colors to use? Method? Sketch with pencil or paint? Placement on the canvas?

Steve likes to prepare all of his colors first. It's a mathematical equation mixing those colors. It's a science, an art. Understanding color and then being able to see it takes skill I don't understand and can't explain.

I feel like I can hardly describe in an adequate way the learning I gained just by being a model for this small art class. I wish people would take more time to understand the complexities and skills of other hobbies and trades. There is so much that goes on under the surface of everything we do. I'm starting to understand that with my x-ray program. Especially with my physics class in learning how exactly x-rays are made, how they interact with matter, with film. How kVp and mAs affect the type of x-rays you're producing. There's so much more then just pushing a button. There's anatomy, understanding body placement and positioning, physics and pathology.

I want to learn and understand everyday. I want to try out new experiences. That's what I loved so much about being a portrait model for this art class - the opportunity to be around something I don't understand, to see the process. It was a new experience. One that most people have never done. (Of course everyone I told about modeling for an art class looked at me weird with that I-hope-you're-modeling-nude look.)
But it gave me an appreciation. One: for the people capable of such art and two: for the opportunity that people have to enjoy the arts. John Adams once said, "I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

Grandpa's Bonsais

In this next bonsai Grandpa tried to imitate nature by having a branch that was dead from maybe getting struck by lightning. He talked about how we all have our own scars that stay with us throughout our life, but they are also what make us unique and ourselves. 

Redirecting branches.

You can see all the precise pruning that has been done on this tree in order to keep the shape.

This is the tree that came to my grandpa half dead.

We Are All Bonsai Trees

I learned a little something today and I've decided that God is a Bonsai gardener. 

My Grandpa Crosland owns a small army of bonsai trees. They vary from pine, maple, multiple kinds of juniper (buffalo, sargent, and nana), ficus, spruce and elm. Basically you can take any tree and transform it into a bonsai tree with the right pruning. 

Now the tree determines the pruning needed. Some trees grow all summer long, like the junipers, and they need to be cut back a few times a year to keep the shape you want. Some trees only grow in the spring like the pine so you only prune them once a year. 

In order for the tree to develop into the desired shape there are multiple and long steps that need to be taken. First you need to inspect the strength and health of the roots and trunk. My grandpa had a tree that came to him half dead so he had to strictly work on saving the roots for a couple years and then progress from there. Once you have a healthy growing tree the shaping comes from winding wire around the branches so that they will grow in the direction you want them too. You have the start the wire far enough back so that the branch is supported, which typically means from the trunk. When you prune the tree it causes that branch to shoot out more leaves or branches causing the leaves to grow together, giving the desired "cloud look effect". 

The trees must be watered everyday. In the winter you bury the pots in saw dust up to the lowest branch. At first I wondered if you could just bring the trees inside to protect them from the snow but my grandpa replied with, "They need to go through everything else that other trees go through. If you bring them inside they'll die. They won't become strong enough."

Heavenly Father knows exactly what shape we are capable of becoming. Some of us require diligent work first on our roots and trunk. We need to develop a stronger foundation, gain a testimony. Some of us need our branches to be redirected. We have to be wired all the way back to our foundation and then out to the furthest tip of the branch in order to grow in the direction that Heavenly Father wants us to. Some of us get cut back more then others. Some are fine just being pruned once a year. But no matter what, we all need to go through some pruning. Trials are the only way that we get tested and can have better growth. It can take years to get to the desired shape but it's the only way that we can turn into that beautiful bonsai tree that God is shaping. 

That's why I think that God is a bonsai tree gardener. 

Benjamin Franklin

So I've been reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and I am so impressed by this man. Firstly he was raised by a wise father who "liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life." I can only imagine what a huge impact this had on Franklin for he seemed on improving himself for the rest of his life. There was no petty gossip in his teenage life. He made friends with those who among himself, loved reading. They would go into the woods and read aloud to each other and discuss ideas, themes, poetry... I can't even imagine a group of boys in high school reading to each other like that. Too bad though, Franklin makes a good point later saying, "Influence upon the private character, late in life, is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to profession, pursuits and matrimony."

Another quote from him that I thought was very interesting about the religions of that time, "These I esteem'd the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote or confirm morality, serv'd principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."

A few years later Franklin tells about 13 virtues which at that time were necessary and desirable to him. He gives his own definition of what they mean and puts them in a specific order at which to work at attaining them.
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
"Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up... This being acquir'd and establish'd, Silence would be more easy. This and the next Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry freeing me from my remaining debt and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, ect., ect."
Franklin goes on to say, "I was supris'd to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish."

Now can you imagine any leader of this nation right now having this on their mind? I would be shocked and surprised if any of them were striving like this to better themselves.

Anyways, one last quote.
"In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, tho' I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it."

Experimenting

Natalie and I got looking at different hair styles online, (braids were of course included) and we came across this Halo Braid. So I decided to try it out on her. (I am not talented enough to try it on myself.)

It's hard working the braid up the side of someone's head. I'm sure it gets easier as you do it more but for the last couple of years, I've only braided downward. It still turned out pretty good. And that's with Natalie's extremely thin, clean hair. 

 Pretty cool right?!

The second hair style I tried was a combination of multiple things we looked at. Basically, I just tried whatever I wanted. :)

Overall, I'm pleased with how this turned out. It did take all of my bobby pins and I doubt it would be extremely comfortable to wear all day. And it would've been much easier if I had been working with day-old hair. I know, it sounds gross, but hair that has had a day to...get dirty I guess... is so much easier to work with. And Natalie's was not day-old hair. 

But hey, she was a good sport about me shoving bobby pins willy-nilly, ratting, and hair-spraying her hair to death. I enjoyed myself.