Words with Friends

My father in law and I have become involved in a heated competition of Words with Friends. It' actually been a great little thing that my father in law and I can do together. If you need a little in-law bonding, I suggest a random app game to bring you together...or farther apart...I guess it depends on how competitive you are.

Covers

One thing I really love about You Tube is new music artists. I really like acoustic covers of old or even new songs and I feel like I find great new covers every week. So in honor of my music cover obsession. Here is my find of the week.
Crazy In Love, Beyonce Cover by: Daniela Andrade

facebook and church

I was just called into one of my dream callings as a Laurel Advisor. I love it already! One thing that I wanted to make sure when I was called is that I learned the girls names fast and got to know them as soon as possible. Before facebook or as I endearingly call it, Facespace, this would've just been on Sunday and mutual night. However, I live in the age of the glorious "get to know you" device that is Facebook. Because of our Ward Young Women group, and their profiles, I got to know a little bit about all 13 of them in just a week! thank you Facespace, thank you

Sorry I can't teach today, my Ipad died

I love the access technology gives us to resources that we otherwise wouldn't have. Just on my little ipad mini I have access to every manual, general conference, hymn, and so many other resources. It's so helpful to be able to use these resources when teaching. You can take them with you and really use a lot of media based things like videos and images to make a lesson more entertaining and interactive. The only problem is battery power. As I was creating my lesson from Young Womens this week, I thought, I'm just going to leave my lesson plan on my ipad and use that. Now that I'm a day away from my lesson I CANNOT do it! I have to have a hard copy. It's not that I don't trust my ipad.....but I don't trust my ipad. 

Christmas? Is That YOU?

I ALWAYS try to resist Christmas until Thanksgiving. I always tell myself there is no way I will get into Christmas before then. and then BAM someone turns on Harry Connick Jr's Christmas Album and it's OVER. More than anything that gets me in the holiday spirit it's the music! (well...and the snow of course) It's the most amazing thing how music brings such a feeling to you. So many good memories are associated with Christmas Music! I'm just a big fan of Christmas, and I am shamelessly celebrating before thanksgiving.

Halloween Media

This Halloween my husband and I decided to through a murder mystery party. We bought just a simple box set murder mystery on Amazon. It came with booklets for each character, invitations, and a CD that you listen to at certain parts of the game. I think this kind of thing is the perfect form of media. It was fun and entertaining, but it also forced as to be social and active all night. It used just the right amount of media without consuming the evening with staring at a screen.

I highly recommend it.

 

 

And for your viewing pleasure here is a picture of Marilyn Merlot and Otto VanSchnapps, in the flesh

p.s. ignore the fake cigarettes, some things are just necessary for character development.

Good and Bad of Women and Media

Our last class was eye opening and inspiring for me. It made me realize how much the media really does influence my life. But it's the KINDS of media that I use that can influence me for good rather than degrading myself and feeling worthless. I shamelessly cried the first time I saw this music video and I thought the message was so powerful and beautiful. Go Colbie 

Peace and Music

So I work at the MOA store on campus. For the year I've worked here it has been very quiet. There was never any music going on anywhere and I never realized how dreadful that was until we got music in the store. We usually just have soft piano or jazz music playing in the store but it makes a world of a difference. It makes the store more inviting and more relaxed. No more eerie silence :)!!!

Game Day

One of my favorite forms of media are GAMES! especially football games. 

There is something about being part of a fan base. You feel so connected to people you don't know when you root for the same team. Though everything has should be in moderation I think watching sports together is a great family activity and something that brings people close together.

Life In Color - a little share of happiness

I think everyone needs a happy song to listen to before they take a test. If you don't have one, I'll let you borrow mine...

Something about One Republic helps my mood when the day has just become to long, so this song is my go to.

Pics or it didn't happen

The beautiful world of Pinterest introduced me to this meme and I thought to myself "how true, how true." Why does this feel so true though? I guess with social media we just have this crazy desire to make sure everyone knows we're having a good time. So do we just use Instagram as a way to get approval, or do we really think that the internet will be missing out if we don't share the above average tacos we consumed. I think it's fine to feel a little popular if I got 120 likes on my photo, but I just hope that my self esteem doesn't depend on it. 

Music and Nostalgia

Yesterday's class was very powerful and insightful for me. I reflected on the music I listen to and what music really makes me happy. At this point in my life the music that brings me the most joy is the music that is very nostalgic. Songs always have more meaning to me when they bring me back to the time that I first enjoyed them. For example the song that I thought of when I was in class was Everything is Alright by Motion City Soundtrack. I listened to this song daily with my best friend Kristen in Jr.High and High School. It just reminds me of all the fun we had and how pumped and excited about life this song made us.

When it comes to music and nostalgia I think it can have the same effect with sad songs. When I listen to songs that remind me of a time in past that was sad and lonely it can bring back those feelings as well. Music is Powerful and I honestly think it has an influence on our day to day journey.

My Anti Media Moment

I am a huge advocate of TECHNOLOGY. Everything screen, convenience and bright colors is wonderful to me. However, as much as I love technology I also think it's important to have times without it.

This Sunday was one of those moments. 

My whole family gets together on Sunday and we eat dinner and usually end up watching a movie or playing on the wii afterwards. But right after dinner I was playing my guitar for a second and my four year old nephew wanted to help strum my guitar. Then a little bit later he wanted to sing a song. So he started feeding me lyrics about him fighting a monster and my sister and I would sing them as he danced around(which was more kicking and rolling around.) We ended up doing that for almost an hour, or until I felt like my finger were going to fall off. It was a really happy and fun moment with my nephew and I think it was more rewarding than any tv show or game we would've played together.
I also came to find out this week that Steve Jobs former CEO of Apple, didn't like his kids using a lot of technology, they didn't have ipods, and he didn't let them use phones for hardly anything. I found it interesting that one of the kings of technology was so aware of the bad effects it can have on kids.
Read the article HERE

Plants Vs. Zombies Vs. ME

Super Plants fighting off Zombies...how could something so dumb be so fun.

 Let me start off by addressing how much I DO NOT LIKE video games. My husband really likes to play games with his brother but for some reason I hate it. So when I noticed that Plants VS. Zombies had been downloaded to my iPad I thought I would just leave it there for when my husband wanted to play. Well, then one lonely night boredom came..and so did zombie killing. This game is weirdly fun for me. I honestly enjoy playing and if I don't check myself, a couple minutes could turn into a solid hour and a half.
However, really loving this game has made me think a lot about video games in my home when I'm a parent. Do I want my kids downloading tons of games on my iPad and being lost in the internet for hours? This particular game isn't exactly violent, yes it does have pea shooting sprouts and little cherry bombs but it's a lot more wholesome than other games I've seen. By I really honestly don't know if and how it would influence little kids...Maybe by the end of the semester I'll have a good idea.

But They're My Friends

I had way too much time on my hands this summer. 

My husband and I lived in California for the summer while he did an internship. Though I did have some babysitting jobs and little office work here and there, a lot of my time was spent with the cast of Grey's Anatomy.

 Now that we moved back and school has started, frequency of watching episodes is very few, if at all. It's made me reflect a lot on why I actually watch these shows. 

We talked in class about some of the WHY's of watching the media. For me I think Grey's started as a harmless distraction for an hour or a relaxation technique half way through the day. Then once I started to watch it a lot I realized that I thought about these characters more, and their stories created this kind of friendship with me. Now that I have school and don't have time it's almost as if this little friendship I've created is breaking up. It's strange how the media can really become part of our reality. I also find it so interesting how unsatisfying it is to have a friendship with people who don't know you exist. 

Why the Heck am I Watching This

I wasted two precious hours of my life last night...to watch the finale of Bachelor in Paradise.

I think a rule of thumb for watching TV shows should be this:

 If you're ashamed to watch something in a public place, you should probably not watch that thing. 

Anyway, I was sadly sucked into the bachelor phenomena and even the shame of watching it on a
tiny treadmill screen at the gym couldn't stop me. Something about the idiotic metaphors that everyone makes about relationships in their interviews.

Elise "Chris is the Rainbow at the end of this storm"

Or the joy of NOT being 30 something and going on trashy tv to find a date, just makes it so enticing. I spend two hours of my Monday just feeling bad for these people, and at the end I am definitely not a better person because of it. So I have come to the conclusion that shows like this are what I like to call "brain dead" entertainment. After being at school for 12 hours and utilizing my brain to its full capacity (which isn't much to begin with) I just need to turn my brain off and bask in the simplicity of unnecessary televised drama. And that was my Monday.

DISCLAIMER: In no way am I saying this is a good way to live your life, in fact I am saying the opposite. However, it is the choice that I've made, and one day I hope to get out of the shameful suction cup that is ABC reality TV.