The world needs a little bit of sunshine.  So that is why I'm here!  Just think, if the whole world decorated their letters the way I decorate mine, every body would be so much happier!  The little desk lady* at the Idaho Transportation Department will have a great day when she opens my driver license extension that is covered with flower stickers.  Lucky her.

*For your information, I am not stereotyping.  It just so happens that most of the time little desk people are ladies.  And I am just trying to be personable and descriptive here.

It sure rains here a lot.  And they say that this spring has been the warmest and driest in years.  Weird.  But on the bright side, there was this fabulous storm the other day.  It poured and thundered and lightninged, all while the sun was shining.  Strange.  But very cool.  So I went out on the front porch to enjoy it.  I am pretty sure that I was the only living thing outside.  Nobody else seemed to care.  Then this GLORIOUS rainbow came out, so I took a picture (even though taking pictures of rainbows is kind of like taking a picture of the Loch Ness Monster - it just never actually turns out as convincing as it is in real life).  I was probably the only person in the greater Portland area taking a picture of the rainbow.  This all just goes to show that you can take even the most MARVELOUS things for granite or even marble if you are around them too much.  So, in order to avoid this trap in my own life, I ate my delicious hot dog even slower for dinner that night, and turned my electric blanket up one extra notch before I went to bed.  I don't want to live a stony life is all.

I also made this scrumptious vegetarian stew the other day.  Katie gave me the recipe.  It was A+.  And since I have a camera, and since I was stewing, and since I have nothing better to do, I took pictures.  Besides, that is what blogger girlies do when they cook new things.  So here are the pics.  Long story short: the more I cooked, the less appealing the food looked.  I kind of wonder who came up with the idea of taking beautiful, bright, colorful vegetables and cooking, mixing, and seasoning them all up until they were a soggy, brown, lumpy mess.  What were they thinking?  But like Christopher Columbus sailing the wrong direction to find an exotic land, it worked!  The chili turned out super yummy!  Call Katie if you want the recipe.  Her number is probably 546.982.4973...*

*Did you really think I would give away her number online?  I have no idea whose number this is.  Don't call it.  Or better yet, call it, record the conversation, and then send it to me.  
PS. Click this link to get the recipe.
PPS. Sorry I made that so much work. 

I have this theory. Here it is:  SOME PEOPLE'S CHILDREN ARE RIDICULOUS.  


It is basically a fact.  But sometimes you can't say things are absolute facts, so you have to call them theories.  Which are basically facts by another name.  (Like gravity.  It's a theory, and it is also a fact.  Unless we get some Einstein guy in here to say otherwise.  But Einstein kind of annoys me.  So I'm not counting him.)  


I have some pretty strong evidence for this theory.  Irrefutable, I would say.  Here it is: 


A lady that I know was sitting in her car after work.  She was looking up travel times to possible destinations in her gps.  She was paying no mind to the craziness of the world outside - just enjoying the hot car and maybe a few goldfish snacks.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard a mocking voice from outside the car.  She looked up, out the car window, and saw a girl sitting on a bike, a few feet away.  The girl looked to be about ten.  She was dressed somewhat outlandishly - probably in an effort to annoy her mother.  When the girl saw our lady look at her, the girl started to shout, "GO AWAY!  WE DON'T WANT SMOOCHING IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD!"  


With that she peddled her bike away as fast as her skinny little legs could take her to her jeering friends a couple of houses down.  Then one of her friends climbed on top of the mailbox structure and also shouted at our lady to go away.  Smooching was not acceptable.  Our lady, with a somewhat annoyed expression on her face, continued to search through her gps, although her thoughts kept drifting.  Did those girls even know what smooching was?  Did they think that every time a person sat in a parked car, they were smooching?


A couple of minutes later, the young girl, emboldened by the presumed success of her first attack, came right up to the window again.  She looked in at our lady and started to laugh like a bully.  Was our lady supposed to be intimidated, hurt, or bothered?  It is uncertain.  Whatever the goal of this neighborhood encounter, it certainly proved one thing: SOME PEOPLE'S CHILDREN ARE RIDICULOUS.  


If this is your child, I do not blame you for having her play in the road.  But next time, could you please just make her stick to the backyard?

"Weird people happen.  We just try not to stare."  - S. Smith.  So many locals have told me that Portland makes for great people watching.  I have heard lots of reasons for why that is.  There are stickers and signs everywhere that say: KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD.  All I have to say to that is: YOU ARE.  But I really like it.  I can see myself living here (again).  It is a beautiful place near lots of great scenery.  There are tons of things to do, but it isn't SO HUGE.  Maybe my appreciation for this place makes me weird.  And you reading this makes you weird by association.**  Birds of a feather...


So last Friday, I experienced a sushi bar for the first time.  I had only ever seen them on television.  Although I have had "sushi" before, this was the first time I have tried the real deal.  We just got to take whatever we wanted off the conveyor belt.  Since the area manager I was working with that week was paying, I really got to go for it. 

As it turns out, I really liked it.  I would definitely go again.

Friday night and Saturday I got to stay with Uncle David and Aunt Elaine's family at the Great Wolf Lodge in Centralia, Washington.  It was a lot of fun.  They have such a cute and fun family.  I always like being around them.  The lodge had an indoor water park and lots of other activities to do.  The kids really enjoyed playing this "magical" electronic scavenger hunt game that was there as well.  The lodge was big and full of people.  It was quite a change from the empty house where I spend most of my time!

Today after work, I talked to Katie on the phone for a while.  After I was done with that, I just assumed I would read and do laundry.  But the exact instant we hung up, Malia walked in the door and announced she had something that I would like to see.  I went outside with her and saw her cute little Honda Civic Hybrid with a cute little yellow nylon rope tied to the back of it.  She announced that she was pulling out her nasty juniper shrubs TONIGHT!

What started out as a quick and easy fix to some minor landscaping in her front yard turned out to be quite an ordeal, thanks to chinsy rope, lack of a legitimate shovel, and the ever anchoring roots of the little plants guys.  But two broken ropes (chinsy, remember?), an upgrade to a tie-down strap, lots of engine revving, a running start, hand-clipped roots, and one addition to my bug collection (the second edition disappeared on its way to my room...) later, we got the first shrub out.  See below.

Compared to the first little fella, the second shrub was no problemo.  I championed it from the beginning.  I just went in there with my bare hands and snipped the roots before we even tried to pull it out.  In reality, it was kind of a non-event.  See below again:

When it was all said and done, we planted a couple of new shrubs.  Non-ugly ones.  A Rhodie (Of course. (For those of you who don't know Rhodies, you are clearly not a northwesterner.  They are this big flowering thing that is as common as knuckles.) (That means very common.  Almost everybody has them.)) and a hydrangea.  We also divided her blue fescue (Festuca glauca 'Boulder Blue').  It was grand.  There is still lots to do, but things are looking better.  Malia is having a tree guy come grind a stump by the road tomorrow.  Then, if we can get a hold of a REAL shovel, it will be tree planting time!  Woot!

*This is a special request blog title from my mother.  We were chatting while I was at the mall yesterday and ran into a person of ambiguous gender.  It totally took me off guard for a minute.  Then we had a "Child of God" chat and all was well.  But she liked my initial reaction.
**Blogger is kind of a pain when it comes to formatting.  I struggle with it big time.  So if things are in weird places and have weird spacing, you can blame it on me, or the website, or both.  Your best bet, however, is probably to go with both.  Normally I spend about six years trying to get everything to look decent, but today I am tired, and just don't care.

     This week has been one of many events for me.  Although most of them are small events, they are events, nonetheless.  

     On Monday night, against the greater desires of my heart, I went to my family home evening.  It is held at the church which is about a twenty minute drive.  It is also held as a ward.  I admire those FHE folks who put lots of effort into making it good.  It must be hard to entertain 50 plus young single adults for an hour.  But despite their work, it's not always a blast, and I don't always want to go.  But I went!. And while I was there, I made a couple of new friends.  

     Right off the bat, one of those new friends asked if he could call me Suze instead of Suzanne.  I thought that was pretty forward, since the only people who call me that are people I have shared living space with.  So I just chuckled and didn't really respond.  That's how I deal with lots of situations.  The second guy I met told me that landscape design sounded super duper easy.  Even if he was thinking it, he probably shouldn't have said it.  But I just chuckled (again) and changed the subject.  (I thought of all sorts of witty responses, but I'm not the witty response type, so I kept them to myself...and my diary.)          But alas, Mr. Unimpressed was probably correct.  My job is pretty simple.  Here's a little bite of what I have done this week:

     I have turned this little blase piece of dying turf...

...into this fabulously computer generated specimen of  scrumptious shrubs, dazzling dry creek bed, and bodacious boulders!  But I didn't stop there.  I then worked up a bid, a written description of the work, specs for the plants.  All before my mid-morning snack. 

     Let us not be too hasty in judging Mr. Unimpressed.  He is a nice guy who did end up inviting me to go rock climbing with him and some of our other wardies.  We went on Tuesday night and it was pretty fun.  They are all regulars, but I like to think that I held my own.  In fact, I was so fired up about how I did, that when I started doing my push-ups that night (yes, I am THAT awesome) I got a little too fired up about it and ended up falling flat on my face.  Apparently wall scampering skills do not directly translate over to clapping push-up skills.  Who knew?

    While my face was smashed into the carpet of my bedroom, I noticed how clean it was.  And I am one to notice clean carpet.  Trust me.  Anyway, the newly hired house cleaner lady did an awesome job.  I mean, awesome.  When Malia came home, she literally danced through the house in a fancy ball gown, singing as she went.  It was magical.  But how could the house cleaner lady not do an awesome job?  Her name is Hilda.  And Hilda is a house cleaner lady's name, if ever there was one. 

     It was a good thing my carpet was cleaned, because uncleaned carpet makes me depressed.  And I was already sad because my  little friend Natalie moved to Ghana.*  Which is in Africa, if you didn't already know.  (Feel free to refer to this map if you are really struggling.)  And chances are, she might like those happy little Ghananians** better than me and choose to live there forever!  Also, my sister had a birthday, and while I skyped in to celebrate with the family, they mercilessly ate ice cream and cake right in front of me.  So clearly, clean carpet was the only thing holding me together that night.

     Come Saturday, the world got a little brighter.  I slept past 5:15am, which was a treat, and took a less short shower than normal, which was a treasure.  Then I went to Hillsboro's Saturday market.  It was much more country-ish than the Portland market, and lots of fun.  

     Naturally, I had to support the local economy and buy a peach raspberry pie.  And naturally, I smashed it in my bag.  Luckily, it still tasted good.  I ate part of it while skyping with my family today.  To get even, of course.

     After the market, I was doing a little yard work.  While plucking a little stray fescues, I noticed this little guy.  Like a serendipitous four year old, I picked it up, and almost popped it in my mouth.  All the while thinking, "Silly children, how did you not find this Easter egg, so out in the open?"  Then, at the last moment, I remembered that Malia doesn't have children!  Also, there is a bird's nest build on the roof right above that very spot.  Oops!  It was a close call, to be sure.  Had I eaten the egg, the experience would probably have merited its very own blog post.

   What really does, and someday might, merit its own blogpost is the fact that I have finished my first book on the architecture series.  It was the one about the Duomo in Florence.  It was super good, if you are into reading historical works of nonfiction expounding pre-Renaissance architectural triumphs and trials.  It turns out that I am, so I liked it.

    To be quite honest though, my life here does have its drawbacks.  For example, I am forced to drive through this countryside every day.  Every stinkin' flinkin' day.  It's hard.  I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have at least ONE grey building or neon road sign in there?  At least one?  But no.  Just fields of flowers and trees and sky. Bah.

    Jared is much more fortunate than me.  He might be living in the big apple any day now.  Imagine that.  City for as far as the eye can see-across the street.  Anyway,  according to the latest news, the elder is doing alright.  He just recently got to baptize his first family.  Theirs is a sketchy story.  But hey, it's just the means to an end.  And if that end is eternal life, we're happy, right?  He has also had more success teaching new investigators lately.  So we are definitely happy for him.

     That is all for now.  I hope you enjoyed my little stories.  If not, I hope you enjoyed my little pictures.  If not, I hope that you don't tell me about it.  Thanks!

*Pronounces Gah as in Gabarino*** and na as in nasty-wasty.

** I have no idea how to prounounce this word.  Luckily, you are reading with your eyes and not with you mouths... hopefully.

*** Apparently this is not a real word.  I googled it to see if I spelled it correctly, and it doesn't exist.  But, you get the point, and this font size is hard to read, so I will quit typing in it.

When I moved to Portland, my goal was to do something super duper fun every week.  (I think the phrase “super duper” makes at least one guest appearance every blog post.  I have an impressive vocabulary.)  So far, I have done pretty well on this claim.  I’ve:

• ·         Gone to a massive garage sale with dozens of homes.
• ·         Seen the best Japaense Gardens outside of Japan.
• ·         Gotten LOST in downtown Portland, even with a gps.
• ·         Driven all over the place with my job.
• ·         Watched “Grimm,” which takes place in Portland.
• ·         Attended LOTS of ward activities.
• ·         Gotten a library card.
• ·         Purchased an umbrella that matches my swimsuit.
• ·         Made friends in my ward.
• ·         Seen “The Avengers.”
• ·         Walked along the river.
• ·         Attended Portland’s Saturday Market.
• ·         Eaten VooDoo Doughnuts.
• ·         Gone to the temple grounds.
• ·         Hung out with two of my friends from BYU.
• ·         Gone rock climbing.
• ·         Walked along the pier at a different location of the river.
• ·         Enjoyed having a whole house to myself most of the time.
• ·         Sang loudly to the radio with my windows down while in traffic.

Although I am only two and a half weeks into my four month adventure, it feels like I have been here a million years.  My internship is going well.  The boss people are so impressed with my skills that they have asked me to let them step down and take over the whole company.  I’m considering it, but I might miss university life too much.  So, it’s a tossup right now.

The other day I was learning about all of the varieties of hostas when a little wordy commenty chat box thing popped up on my screen.  Woo hoo!  Somebody had something to say to me!  
It turned out that it was Melissa, who was celebrating.  What she had to say basically goes like this:*
Melissa: Yay!  I am so excited! This is the best day of my life!  I feel so fulfilled!  I could not be happier!  Joy is swelling up inside of me and I do not think my body can contain this surge of emotion!  I may burst!  I may not make it!  Do you know why?
Suzy:  Surely not.  Are you engaged?
Melissa: I got the results of my experiments!!!  I never knew a bar graph could make me feel this way!
Suzy: I never knew that either.  I guess that's how I know I'm not a scientist.


*The following conversation may not be verbatim.

I heard from someone once that if you read ten books on a subject then you can officially consider yourself an expert in that subject.  So, with all of this beautiful spare time that I now have, I have decided to become an expert.  I have thought long and hard for many weeks on what to become an expert in.  I have sought advice from several people.  My ideas have ranged from Ghengis Kahn, to the history of Portland, to the Civil War.  However, when I went to the library today and got my library card, I still had no idea.  So I wandered the shelves pondering and poo-pooing topics.  Until I came to architecture...  

I think that deep in my heart, I always knew this would be my topic.  I am in love with the idea of being in love with architecture.  Every time I meet a person who doesn't know what to major in, I tell them architecture.  Too bad BYU doesn't have an architecture program.  That basically makes my advice worthless.  Anyway, I am so proactive, that instead of checking out 10 books on architecture, I got 11.  I looked pretty studious hauling my haul out of there. 

In no particular order, here's what I got.  Some are super exciting to me, some look a little eh.  But I think it will be okay.  I must say that I am excited for the pictures and I am really excited about the Italian one.  I basically owned Brunelleschi's Dome.  Just saying.

1. London: An Architectural History by Anthony Sutcliffe
2. Lost Wright: Frank Lloyd Wright's Vanished Masterpieces by Carla Lind
3. Modern Architecture: The Structures that Shaped the Modern World by Jonathan Glancey
4. The Essential Frank Lloyd Wright by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer
5. Thomas Jefferson Architect by Hugh Howard
6. From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe
7. The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
8. Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King
9. The Look of Architecture by Wiltold Rybczynsk
10. Frank Lloyd Wright by Robert C. Twombly
11. ABC of Architecture by James F. O'Gorman

Of course, Zoey was super excited for the books too.  Bless her little heart. 

And here is a little flashback to the Dome in Florence, Italy.  Or as we experts call it, Il Duomo di Firenze, Italia.

Prego.

When I was a freshman at The Y, I shared a bathroom with five other girls.  It had two showers to accommodate our needs - which was great.  With two people singing in the shower, you can really get some nice harmonies going.  We don't do that dual showering anymore.  Partially because now we only have one shower per bathroom.  But also because we have this!

As you can see, it's see-through.  Which means everyone else can see too... Awkward!

Things are going great here in Hillsboro.  Although everything hasn't gone exactly the way I envisioned, it has gone well.  Yesterday I paid a brief visit to the Nike World Campus.  The company I am with, Pacific Landscape Management, is trying hard to win the bid to manage the campus.  Nike is huge and incredible.  It has a lake, and ball fields, and a pool, and a track, and a different track, and restaurants, and a day care, and a barber shop, and so on.  Mostly, it is beautiful.  I would work there...

I started working on this super cheesy program called Pro Landscape.  It is simple.  You just upload a photo and then paste pictures of stuff on it so that it "looks" like what you are going to make.  Apparently clients really like it.  Whatev.  Anyway, this is what I did.  It only took a couple of minutes, for me, a newbie, to do this.  (Trust me, there are MUCH MORE complicated landscaping computer programs out there.  Trust me.)

Before:

After:

 Before:

 

 After:

I've also started working on figuring and entering bids for small projects like these onto the computer.  So far, there hasn't been anything too rough.  Except for today at the staff meeting, when I experienced the awkwardness of hearing the announcement that an employee will soon be leaving the company.  I thought that meant she was retiring, but judging by the eternal silence following the statement and the whisperings later, I think there is more to the story.  Oh, well.  I guess no one is safe from business competition.  Especially me.  I'm just the intern.