Karma police

I am obsessive about putting my name on books and movies, because I don't want them to be borrowed and never returned. So every media I own is signed.

Since we've gotten engaged I've received or bought several movies and books, and on each I just wrote my name because after we're married (in 3 weeks and 1 day!!!) I'll just change it to include the last name (I know, tricksy and nerdy, but I'll explain).

I've learned I'm fairly superstitious about random things. Maybe superstitious isn't the right word, but I am all about karma. And I haven't written my new last name on anything because I'm not married yet and I don't want to irk the karma gods by using that name too soon.

You never cross karma. Never.

And so I now ask you: before you were married did you label things with your married name? Did you sign the return address on envelopes as your married couple name? Any other instance? (Because we all know we practiced our signatures with our new last names. And can I just say, my new last name is really hard to write in cursive and my signature looks lame. So it'll be a printed signature.)

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

In my 28 years I think I've had three white Christmases (Christmi?). This year I went to Todd's family's house in West Jordan, and we very much had a white Christmas. Lots of snow fell Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning, and although it's beautiful, it's so cold and slick. But it was fun to have new snow on Christmas morning.

We drove up to Utah Friday night and hit a storm going up the mountain near Cove Fort (where a raging fire tried to eat me and Lindsay last summer) but we were very lucky in our drive up there. And the drive home yesterday was beautiful and so nice. It's so much easier to drive during daylight, and also to drive south where it only gets warmer.

I am very lucky to be marrying into a great family. It was nice to spend more than a day and a half with them and to see other families' Christmas traditions. Also it was so nice to relax for a few days. I think I might be finally getting over my cold.

And I am so excited because I finished Todd's stocking before Christmas. I feel so crafty. My mom is great and stayed up with me until midnight to finish it. And I'm pretty proud of it (notice the crooked letters--Jen isn't a master sewer, but her goofs have a cool effect).

Todd got me a ceiling fan/light to put in my front room and I am so excited. I don't have any ceiling lights in my front room and have wanted some for 3 years. Yea for Todd. And his parents gave him tools for Christmas, so we're good to go. Todd rocks.

One very cool thing about getting married three weeks after Christmas is people have an easy wishlist for us, and we were very fortunate to get some great gifts. We really do have awesome families.

OH, and at his parents house on Saturday we watched the Las Vegas Bowl game. Go Cougs. That was such a great ending to what was actually a really bad showing by BYU. I now know another random football play--take the knee! Sheesh.


And of course, here's the requisite Jen's Random Picture of the Trip picture, taken through the windshield of my car, just north of St. George.

My artsy pictures from Europe

Sometimes I like taking pictures that are random but that totally appeal to me. Here are my favorites.

You're so cold keep your hand in mine (or, the Madrid entry)

Europe was cold. Very cold. My nerves were so not ready for it. And you know the saying, "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain"? I believe they're talking about Madrid. It rained every day we were there. But rain makes for beautiful pictures.

We first went to Madrid to get my sister, who had spent the semester in a city near Madrid. Spain was wonderful, probably because Whit had been there for a bit so she showed us some of her favorite places.

Spanish people are beautiful. And they dress spectacularly well. I felt very much unworthy to stand near them on the metro, in my flat sneakers (all the women wear heels. It's incredible and I am sure so bad for their legs and joints and stuff). Also they wear the cutest decorated tights with boots and skirts. I loved that look.

We spent five days in Madrid. The first day we walked around Alcala, the city where Whit stayed. It's beautiful and old. The architecture is phenomenal. Alcala is the city where Cervantes, the man who wrote Don Quixote, was born. I do not love Don Quixote, but it is a famous story, so I'm writing about it.

One of my favorite things about all the cities we visited is how close all the buildings are along the streets, with the buildings rising on either sides of the streets. I know we have cities like that in the US, but not out west, and I think it's awesome.

We toured Madrid for two days. I was amazed to watch people drive past these amazing old buildings like they're nothing, because they see them every day. The buildings are spectacular. I loved European architecture.

We went to the Prado, a famous museum (more on my art non-appreciation in the next post). They had a lot of religious art, which I find to be so weird and kinda depressing.

One night we ate at what the Guinness World Records says is the oldest functioning restaurant in the world, the Botin restaurant. It opened in the early 1700s. The architecture was beautiful, the food was good, and the atmosphere was really great.

We toured the Royal Palace of Madrid (el Palacio Real de Madrid). I really enjoyed the castles and palaces in Europe. If I ever get to go back to Europe, I'd love to do just a castle tour. The palace in Spain isn't the official home for the royals, but they still hold state functions there. The palace was cold--I don't know how those royals kept their royal bums warm.

Next to the palace is a cathedral that was finished in 1994--it was interesting to me to have this fairly new cathedral next to an old palace. I'm naive but I never thought about how cathedrals might still be built today. The ceilings on that cathedral were very bright colors--it reminded me of the Ukranian eggs my mom paints. Unfortunately it was overcast so I couldn't get a good picture of the colors (not that cathedrals are very bright anyway).

We also got outside Madrid to a city called Segovia. It's about an hour and a half drive from Madrid (or something. I wasn't driving and get really car sick, so I stared ahead and ate my yummy bread. Mmm, European bread was fantastic). Segovia has a castle that we got to tour and I greatly enjoyed it, especially to see the rooms as they used to look. We got to climb to the top of the castle, and it's amazing how well situated it is because you can see a long distance in all directions. Which I know is the purpose of castles, but it was still neat to see. In Segovia there is a very long aqueduct that was built before the Colosseum. And apparently the aqueduct brought the water uphill. Which I do not understand but find fascinating. I don't know how they built it, but it is a really cool piece of architecture. I very much enjoyed Segovia.

We also got to see the temple in Madrid, which was of course beautiful. I love the little touches that make each temple individual.

In Madrid we stayed in an apartment (we stayed in apartments in all three cities), which was really fun because we were far from the tourist centers, so we got to see what it was like to live there. Like that the elevator can't/won't fit more than three or four people. We took the stairs a lot.

We took the metro everywhere and I got very used to hearing "El proximo estacion . . . " announcing the next station. It was very nice of them to announce the next station, because using the metros was surprisingly confusing for me.

I don't speak Spanish very well, but I at least didn't feel completely lost in Spain (like, say, in France). I enjoyed the country, the people, and the food--Spanish tortillas are fantastic. We did have a bit of trouble getting into Spain, but after we caught another flight and left from Philadelphia instead of Chicago, it was ok. Except our bags went to Spain on the earlier flight and got a bit lost (we found them in the airport's lost and found. Except Kelsey's bag, which went to Mexico. Because . . . they speak Spanish too? So random).