1. When did you most recently (or most memorably) repair (or temporarily fix) an article of clothing? I let mom do that lol
2. When were you most recently somewhat annoyed by your own forgetfulness? Most days, I feel like haha..too many things stored in my brain :P
3. What are some of your favorite words to use in place of curse words? Heck, jeez, etc
4. How was your week? The beginning was stressful, but it got somewhat better at the end
5. Among items on your to-do list, which could you take care of right now, with minimal effort? I could do laundry, but I really don't want to get up right now LOL

Today at the bookstore started slow, then got really busy in the afternoon (it's Free Book Friday for kids, for one). The customers keep saying how great it looks and thank us for our hard work, so nice! Some people from the other programs came to help shelve books, so I sorted them and they shelved them..we should have done that from the beginning, way more effective! We hired someone new called Morgan (one of my favorite names!), and when I gave her a stack I told her what genre it was and she would say "you got it, boss!" haha. She's as cool as her name. :D I love how much the Fairbanks community supports us!

Yay, Drew Lynch finally posted a video from his Santa Fe show!

His interactions with the interpreters was one of the best parts of the show, especially when she signed his stutter! It added a unique element to the show, and I imagine Brad was having a great time too lol. It's ok, Drew, I'm short too! :P (I LOVE the blue lights on the curtains, it reminds me of the Northern Lights!

( 30. What concert do you really want to go to? )

I realized I'd never taken a video of Abby trilling, so here's one!

She's very talkative and trills all the time haha..so cute! (Unless I'm trying to sleep. :P) When mom saw her in my lap earlier she said "aw, mother and kitty!" Haha nice :P

Yesterday at work I did over $800 all on my own (it would have been over $1000 if there hadn't been discounts and fees and stuff). It was tiring but awesome and satisfying lol

( dec 7-8 )

Yesterday was grandma's funeral. The night before, we found a bunch of pictures and taped them to a couple poster boards to display by her casket, which looked great! The girls all wore blue and one or two of grandma's necklaces (and in my case, one of her curtains haha!). We gathered 30 minutes before the funeral to look at grandma one last time and to say our goodbyes. The chapel it was held in was GORGEOUS, the stained glass was so pretty! It took me a few minutes to be able to go up and look at grandma laying there, and could only look for a couple seconds at once. That's only the second time I've ever seen a (human) dead body. *shivers* A few of grandma and Julie's friends came, a couple who I met a couple years ago when grandma lived in the other nursing home (we had lunch together). The reverend's service was nice..mom and I wrote him a little something in honor of grandma so we wouldn't have to go up and speak haha. Gina went up to speak (she arrived the day before, and is staying at the same hotel we are), and said things like "Jordan, grandma will be with you when you find another job. Joelle and Jessalyn, she'll be there at your wedding. Heather, she'll be there when you're choosing what book you want to read, and when you pick out new curtains!" OMG haha! Nicee. :P After the service, the funeral professionals (undertakers??) closed the casket and we walked behind them while they led the casket through the mausoleum to her last resting spot. I'd never been in a mausoleum before (that I know of), and always pictured them as dark, but it was the complete opposite! It was pretty nice. Grandma's spot is outside and overlooks the trees. They had to use a lift since the spot was at the top. I hope her spirit is happy there!
( more here )

Tomorrow, I fly back to Fairbanks. I'm always sad to leave family, but we'll make sure to still have reunions! It'll be great seeing Abby again, and going back to work lol. Hopefully the roads aren't still messed up from the storm. I'll post the rest of the pictures when I get back home, but here's the video of the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" karaoke!

Super fun! I love Julie's "microphone" haha

24. How Do You Celebrate Your Birthday? I go out to eat with my family and eat cake!

25. When Have You Failed? What Did You Learn From It? Many times..math tests in school for one. I had to study hard so I could barely pass LOL

26. What Activities Make You Feel Most Alive? Being in front of glaciers, being able to let loose like last night, etc

1. Do you cook regularly or does someone else cook for you? I use a microwave and others cook for me
2. Which are you better at making: sweet or savory foods? Not sure, I haven't cooked enough to know lol
3. If you had to work as a chef in a restaurant of your choice, which restaurant would best complement your current culinary skills? What culinary skills?? Haha
4. What is a cooking tip that you know, but other people generally aren’t aware of? No idea
5. Do you have a recipe you would like to share? No. Wow, this Friday five makes me look lame LOL

Here's an awesome Les Mis parody I found!

I don't necessarily like that kind of music, but it's perfect here..it's so well done! I especially like the "I dreamed a dream" and "alone alone/I'm on my own" parts (how did they find someone who looks so much like the actress who played Eponine??). It must have been fun to film lol. I'd like to write a parody, but I've been too lazy so far haha..I have funny ideas in my head though :P

On Monday it reached -40 here for the first time since December 2022. That kind of cold makes it feel like your face is going to freeze and break off haha. It's definitely gotten warmer here over the years, so we're kinda wimpy when it gets that cold now LOL. It's supposed to stay cold next week too..fun :P

( pokemon update )

OMG they found the wreck of the Endurance!! That is SO cool!! Amazing how well preserved it is too! I wonder what cool things they'll find when surveying the area lol

If this is the end of LJ, it's been great this past 18 years! I've met so many great people, and I'm glad I'll still see you here on Dreamwidth <3

( 9. Do you still seek out new music? What is the best way to discover new music? )

Today's trivia: Quebec City is the only walled-in city and one of the oldest cities in North America

I had a lot of fun with this survey haha. I even said "post" successfully!! :D Any ideas for other videos I should do?

Today a customer came in and asked "do you know who the author of The Worst Journey in the World is?" and I about DIED. I was completely shocked (my eyes must have been as big as saucers!) and was like "Apsley Cherry-Garrard!! That's my favorite book!!" His wife was like "wooow" haha. We talked about other polar exploration books too. I was so happy and kept smiling about it after they left :D

( 13. Have you ever been to a drive-in theater? )

Today's trivia: Parts of the Great Wall of China were made with sticky rice. The sticky rice mortar bound the bricks together so tightly that in many places weeds still cannot grow

1. When did you last give (or serve) something you cooked to someone not in your residence? Uhhh..a long time ago LOL
2. When did someone — not a restaurant or takeout spot or housemate! — last prepare a dish for you? Last week?
3. When did you last reach out to someone who could use some company? Hmm..not sure..
4. When did someone last reach out to you for similar reasons? Not sure lol
5. How good a listener are you when someone needs to talk it out? I'm a very good listener, or try to be anyway lol

This is my new favorite song:

Mom put it on last week on the drive home from Murphy Dome, and I LOVE IT. I was melting the whole time haha. I only remembered to Google it yesterday and found the video, which made it even better..I melted even more when I saw this guy:

*swoons* Such great voices! I had to Google the lyrics because I was like "what the heck is a Christian toggera??" but it's actually "a Chríost, déan trócaire" haha. I know nothing about that language (Irish? Gaelic?), but it sounds cool. :D Damian McGinty, the younger guy, was only 14 in this video..wow!

( sept. 2-3 )

I'm back with another video! They are pretty fun lol, except for that awful word..yikes. D: I definitely try multiple takes, but then I get tired and sound worse haha. I kept this one because I liked how I recited from Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Hope it was enjoyable lol. Here is the meme, if you'd like to do it!

Instructions:
Your name and/or username
Where you're from
The following words: Aunt, Roof, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting Image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught, Orange, Coffee, direction, naturally, aluminium and herbs.

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Random passage

Next journal entries are from my 8th grade English journal! A lot of it was boring school notes, but ( here are entries that might be interesting! )

21. What is the last thing you cooked? Hmm..chili maybe?

22. If you could live in a fictional world, which would it be? Hogwarts or somewhere in Lord of the Rings might be cool..though Narnia would be cool too! Hard question haha

I recently discovered the comedian Drew Lynch..he was hit in the throat by a softball (ouch!!) when he was younger, and now has a stutter because of that. He was on America's Got Talent in 2015..he could barely say anything then without stuttering, but he turned that into a strength, and incorporated that into his comedy. I'm not a huge fan of stand-up comedy, but he is SO funny!! I especially loved this line: "I have the hardest time at the drive-thru, because you gotta say the order fast and you're talking into an intercom, I don't know why I work there!" OMG SO funny, I love how he can laugh at himself, like I do with autism ("man, I'm being so autistic today!!" Haha). It's definitely better to laugh at yourself than get depressed about it, and he does it so well! He was very brave, I want to die when I stutter haha (the other day I tried saying "mesmerized," but instead said "mem-mem-mem-mem"! Yikes! I hate when it comes out of nowhere lol). I love his laugh and how he laughs at himself, and just seems to have so much fun! He got all the way to the final round too, and got second place..so awesome!

I found this one pretty funny too:

This was 2019, you can see how much he's improved! I love people with disabilities being brave enough to get out there and do awesome things! He's very good at improv too, like someone from the audience will say something he'll find amusing, and go off of that and not miss a beat. I'm glad he decided to go on AGT, and show us his humor! Awesome and inspirational and such a cool guy :D

Yesterday was the Midnight Sun Festival, which was canceled last year because of covid. I went with mom, Ryan and Jo. They made it smaller, and crammed everything on one street, a parking lot and the plaza, which was super annoying, because it was very crowded..you think they would have spread things out more since there were less vendors, but that would have made too much sense LOL. I visited that coin/bookstore of course, which I hadn't been to in a long time, and found a super cool book from the 1800s about sledging on glaciers..definitely a treasure! They took a lot of Candy's books and postcards to sell after she died (she was a huge collector of vintage Alaska things and had a garage sale for years), and had to grab a couple postcards too (not that I don't have a ton of them already :P). We had milkshakes, but the lines for the regular foods were SO long and we didn't want to wait forever in that crazy crowded space, so we went to a restaurant and ordered pizza. OMG..that was probably the most disgusting pizza any of us had ever eaten. It was like they poured a vat of fake cheese over the pizza..it had a weird, rubbery texture that stuck to the roof of your mouth. SO gross!! (It tasted worse as it cooled off too.) We wished we had stood in line instead! We laughed about it afterwards, might as well find the humor in it lol. We won't get pizza there again though :P

( june 19-20 )

I've been told by various people that Flower Mound (the town I lived in in Texas, I haven't been there since 2009) has changed a lot and that I wouldn't recognize it. I wanted to see for myself, and found this video on YouTube:

WHOA, they are ABSOLUTELY right..besides the actual flower mound (at the very beginning and end), Grapevine Lake and the Gaylord Texan, I didn't recognize ANYTHING. It looks like it's gotten super fancy..a Riverwalk, wow! I love the name "The Hound Mound" for the dog park haha. It would be interesting to go back, but VERY weird too. When my family moved there in 1990, there was hardly anything..crazy. I'm glad that Bari's is still there, it was one of my favorite restaurants!

Happy birthday, Cherry!! <3

( 2. International Stop Spam Day: Do you get more spam than regular emails? )