Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Bucket List #79 CHECK.

I made me a Bucket List a little ways back. And last Saturday I was able to knock off #79. 
To shoot at, and hit a clay pigeon.

My family was all vacationing in Bear Lake, as we often do, and we all decided to go shooting, as we have never before done. Both my brothers and their wives came, as well as my younger sister and my wonderful father. We had 8 guns, hundreds of clay pigeons and thousands of bullets.

Basically, in my lack of shooting experience I thought that hitting a clay pigeon would be disastrously difficult. That morning I was anticipating that I would have to practice in vein the whole time and not hit a darn thing. 
To my surprise it was actually a lot easier than I imagined. I hit one on my very first try! 
Rick, my older brother. Bryce, my younger brother, and my Dad. 
I loved yelling PULL. 
I loved playing cleanup and even cleaned up my brother a time or two! 
I loved unloading the bullets to find a large gust of smoke. 
It was one of the more pleasurable activities I've been able to do with my family. 
I'm for sure a fan. 
And with an accuracy of about 75% I gave everyone a surprised run for their money.  


Now, shooting the handgun... well that was another story. A much more difficult one. I'm afraid that my accuracy on that one was about 1%.
Maybe after I start working on #73 I will get a better accuracy percentage. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

Flash Back Fridays. First Computer Experience.

I don't know what prompted this memory but it just came into my head one day. Today I would like to document the first time I ever typed something on the computer. 

This is a pretty standard computer these days, in 2011. 

Sleek and proficient isn't it?
Aah, but t'was not always so. 


This was a pretty decent computer back in the early to mid 90’s. A model similar to the computer I was using in this story.

Onto the memory.
I was in 6th grade typing a book report. The year was 1996. We of course didn’t have a computer at my home {my mother STILL does not have a computer but that is a completely different story} so I had to go to my aunt’s house to use hers. She had to leave to go run some errands so she was unavailable for consultation when I had a question. So, I began to type up my book report. I don’t remember the book I chose to do but I do remember the project I chose to complete. I chose to type up a fictional interview with the author. I was to be “conducting the interview” and I was to come up with questions that I'd like to ask her and I would imagine her responses. So, off I went.
Mind you all, this was my FIRST experience typing on a computer. The only time prior to this that I had even sat in front of a computer was probably in 2nd grade (1992) when my class went to our brand new computer lab in the school and we were taught how to play some kind of pulley game with weights and math and stuff. The computers didn’t even have mice back then. And the screen was black with green letters. But it was a HUGE deal to have a computer lab with a classroom full of computers in our very own school! 
Wow. I get a silly fascination thinking back to those days.
So, I was typing along and I remember that I had no idea how to capitalize a letter except for pushing the “Caps Lock” button. So at the beginning of every sentence I would have to hit Caps Lock, the letter, then Caps Lock again. I remember it being a daunting task. That was also long before Word came out with the wonderful feature that capitalizes the words for you. I don't remember how long my book report was but I'm sure it couldn’t have been more than a page long. It took me about 2 ½ hours to write it… this was also a long time prior to me ever taking a typing class and I had no idea how the keys were organized on a keyboard. It was search and peck for a daunting amount of time.
“Why can't they just be in alphabetical order?” I remember thinking to myself.
The other problem that I remember having was quotation marks. I was typing up a “pretend” interview I was conducting with the author and I knew that everything needed to have quotation marks. There was just one problem. I had no clue of the existence of the shift key and I could not for the life of me figure out how the quotation marks were supposed to show up on the screen. All that was showing up when I pushed the button was an apostrophe. I was seriously stumped.
Too embarrassed to admit that I had no clue how to work the quotation button, and having no aunt around to ask anyways, I decided to just skip them. "Oh well" I thought. My teacher probably won't notice.
Well, book report time comes and I go to the front of the class to present. I hand her my paper to look over and start with my oral report. She asked a couple of quick questions about the paper. Then she asked me why there were no quotation marks on the conversation I was fictitiously having with the author. Of course I was way too embarrassed to admit that I tried but couldn’t figure out how to type them, and that each time I tried to get them to show up I just got an apostrophe, so I simply told her that I forgot about them. And that was embarrassing too. Followed by a lecture and a lesson on the proper uses of quotation marks (as if I didn’t know!) It was quite awkward for me.Cause the entire class knew I'd forgot about the quotations. "Duh Jerilyn, that is like English 101" I am sure they were all thinking.
What a disastrous first experience with typing on a computer.
I figured that would be quite a humorous story to share with my future kiddo’s, since I have a feeling they will be born from the womb ready to program computers and use fancy Ipads and other things that haven’t even been invented yet.
Well future kiddos, your mamma was born right about the same time as the computer was. It was years before a computer was a normal thing to have in a home and she had no idea how to use one until, well basically until she got to college and had to take a computer class.

Oh the memories.

I'm linking up to flash back Fridays. 

Flashback Friday is a weekly series on "Hopes and Dreams."  
Each Friday a different memory from Jessi's or John's past is posted.  You are invited to join the fun and record a memory of your own, too, whether it be on your blog, in your journal, in an audio file, etc.  The objective is to foster an appreciation and desire for personal record keeping as we are forming our personal histories.  Also, if you chose to blog your memory, you are invited to link up to our memory (but only if you wanna).  

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Happiness is...

Happiness is...
 Riding. 

Happiness is...
Being with Steve. 


Happiness is...




















Ukraine.


 Happiness is... 
















Knowing that I NEVER have to go back to school. 
{Side note: Happiness is also discovering who I truly am, what my values, ethics and beliefs are, and realizing that social work and me do NOT mix. And with that knowledge comes liberating happiness. I do NOT have to get a job as a social worker just because that is what my degree is in.}
Told ya'll that I hated my degree. I still need to blog more about that.


Happiness is... 











Happiness is... 



 











And the music of Tony Summerhays and Bongo Tami.  















{I've totally got to blog about this place too.}


Happiness is...    
















 Taking care of my body. 
Its such a gift to have a healthy and normally functioning body. It is something I took for granted for 25 years. Once I realized what an amazing gift it is, I no longer want to take it for granted.


Happiness is...
Realizing that my dreams are worth taking the time for. Realizing how to make life wonderful and doing just that.

Linking up to one of my favorites today. The Shine Challenge.



ashlemieux

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

TGIF....

Whats that you say? Its not Friday? 
I know... Just stay with me. 
Just so ya'll know, I spent 2 hours writing this post a couple weeks ago. I stayed up until 2 am. Posted it. Clicked on the edit button cause I had a little type-o that I wanted to fix and Botta Boom Botta Bang it was GONE. Vanished into thin air. And, since I broke my own cardinal rule to NEVER blog something in blogger but into a word document, it truly was gone. I was so ticked I just left it alone. For 3 whole weeks. Now I've decided to be un-ticked on and RE-POST this week's top ten list.
 Today's Top Ten Tuesday comes from the TGIF days.  
Now, I know it is not Friday... 
{Actually it's Tuesday and I am actually participating in my own Tripple T list on my own blog, on the right day. Send in the press. It may never happen again. Kidding, it's going to happen all the time now.} N-E-Ways, back to reality.  
Now, Friday is not what I meant by TGIF. What I really meant was that since it is Tuesday, it is time for Triple T, (Top Ten Tuesday) and the list I have decided to make today comes from my early pre-teen years. 
Remember the TGIF television line-up in the early 90's?
Oh the memories I have of TGIF. I loved TGIF! I remember so many Friday nights my brothers and I fighting over who got to control the channel. My brothers didn't like all the shows that were on so if they were in charge I didn't get to watch Full House or Family Matters. I used to whine and beg them to let me watch all the shows in the line up but they rarely let me. I also remember when it dawned on me to outsmart them. If I got to the television before they did then I had controller rights. You know, the old "I was here first" rule that holds ALL the clout in the world to children. I used to plan on Fridays to come home quickly from school and rush through my homework and get to the television before they did so that I would have the remote rights for the entire line-up. Oh the good old days before TVO.

And for a nice walk down memory lane, here is my Top Ten favorite sitcoms from the good ol days. 
In no particular order:
1. Full House
I said no particular order, and while the other 9 can't be ordered by liking per-say, this one can. Full House was my ULTIMATE fave.

And long before I even realized that men existed I had a huge crush on Uncle Jesse. Little did I know what amazing taste in men I would end up having. He still makes me weak in the knees. Mullet and all.

HAVE MERCY!


2. Step-by-Step
I thought this show was HILARIOUS.
And what a cute group of misfits in a step family.
And in my traditional, boy crazy, pre-teen, stage of life cousin Cody was the ultimate hottie.

Reflecting back on this, does anyone else think its hilarious that the dude lived in a van down by the river in the back yard?


3. Family Matters
I know you are all saying it right now: "Did I do that?"
Something about a black nerd that everyone pretended to hate but secretly loved.
Remember that one episode when he stepped into a time machine and came out all Non-Nerd-Bomber-Like and we all did double takes, picked up our jaws off the ground and stopped drooling and never looked at the Urkel the same way again? Ya, me too.


4. Boy Meets World 
I always felt bad for Cory. Having the SAME teacher from grade school all the way through high school {how odd is that?} AND having him for a next door neighbor. He could never escape from Mr. Feeny.
Long before I knew what a woman crush was, and long before I would ever admit to having one, I totally had one on Topanga.  
 She is hot. 


 5. Charles in Charge
It's all I can do not to break right out into song. Meh, gonna do it anyways.
"New Boy in the neighborhood. Lives downstairs and its understood. He's there just to take good care of me, like he's one of the family. Charles in charge of our days and our nights. Charles in charge of wrongs and our rights. And I sing I want Charles in Charge of me."
Oh what I wouldn't give now to have Charles be my babysitter. :) 
Once again, before I even knew that men existed, I sighed heavily at Scott Baio. What a stud muffin. 

 6. Small Wonder
Remember the robot maid slash slave? 
I think its hilarious that they made a slave out of a child sized robot and got away with it.  
Remember how annoying that neighbor girl was? I remember being ticked about that cause she was a red-head and I thought that because she was annoying all red-heads must be annoying. I was worried that I was no exception. 


 7. Mr. Belvedere

Again, in my youth I don't remember much about this show, other than remembering how glad I was that I didn't have to answer to a strict old English butler.  
I also remember how he used to drink lots of tea. And I had no idea what tea was, but I was told by my parents that it was bad for you. Oh the random and scattered memories I have. LOL.
 

 
 8. Out of this World
 This girl had the coolest secret power ever.
See, her mom was human and her dad was an alien. He had to stay in outer space because he couldn't survive on earth or something like that, but because she was the breed of such 2 species, she had secret powers. One of which was to freeze time by holding her fingers together, as pictured above.  
It was gold. Pure gold. This one my brothers and I always agreed on. They loved the idea of freezing time just as much as I did. 
You could be swinging on a star. :)  

 
 9. Who's The Boss?
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Tony Danza is Yummy in this role. I remember SO much about this show. It was iconic in my youth. 


And drum roll please. Coming in at #10 is


 10. Hanging With Mr. Cooper.

Oh man was this show funny. All I remember was that he was a substitute teacher that lived with 2 female roommates and that I loved it all. 
 This was the best video I could come up with. Its stupid Karaoke but it gets the point across. 

There you have it folks. If you are an 80's junkie like me you will swoon over these videos, as I have.If you don't care about the 80's or if you never watched these shows, well... that's just sad. 

And just below the cut:  

11. Perfect Strangers 

Friday, July 1, 2011

Keep Calm and SHINE on...

I have been so inspired by the SHINE project over the past few months. My inspiration was again renewed when I watched this video.
I am certainly tossing some ideas around in my own head and my own community to make some kind of a difference. I have been so blessed with finding the source of and working hard for TRUE happiness and I would like to share that knowledge with anyone who will listen.
Will you go follow the SHINE project? And SHINE ON.


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