what's in a name?

at one point in my life,
i loved all things east of here.

asians, being free, nyc, d.c.,
i loved the east coast,
the pace, the people,
the access to information and good ethnic food.
and i loved the idea that i might someday
occupy that land of wonderment more permanently...

as some of you know,
i used to call this domain
"west coast girl - east coast world"

well,
not that i chose not to love my east coast life,
or asians for that matter,

but things started to heat up in az for me.
and so i stayed.

i have to admit,
i am one, happy, west coast girl

~meg

side note: in case you are interested,

a "blog interview" site interviewed me recently.

feel free to read it here.
and rate/vote if you feel so inclined...

two things on this fine day of celebrating green

one,

i heart all things green.
there, i have said it.

i am scottish even.
went to the highland games and everything,
but i love march
and wear green every day to celebrate my love for it.

[2]
i would also like to speak of my boldness to
venture forth in the style world...

this weekend i shopped with my sister
and did something i thought i would never do:
i bought some leggings

now before you get all crazytown on me,
let me explain:

i hated leggings.
i hated that they come from the eighties,
i hated that i secretly love them but
never thought they would be cute on such a body as my own...
(those skinny chicks always seem to pull off that crap)

yesterday,
i put them on with a cute little black-n-white dress
and some serious fun flats,
walked out of the door with a tinge of nervousness
[like the day i ran our of the house in capris and bobbed hair for the first time
on the last day of 8th grade.]

[side note: i should explain that i remain conflicted
about most legging-use. many are guilty of misuse,
especially if they are metallic or something...]

my employees validated me,
and i wished my more style-prone friends
(e.g. linz, rose, calli...) could have seen it...

all the while, i feared husband's reaction...
i have practically preached the legging negligence at our house.

i am proud to report:
he loved them.

welcome, meg.
glad to have you back in the
"who-the-hell-cares-what-you-wear" world.


and happy st. patty's to ya'all

i will be wearing green and taking my green cupcakes to school.
i feel like it's my birthday.
no, it's better.

isn't it about..... time?

seriously, you can't watch it all,
but you have to see how she looks...

glad she's gone, but man, she looks good!

and if you missed it, go watch it still...

they're in DC!!!


loved it.

and now i officially like everyone living at the ranch,
save perhaps jillian's fake psychology sessions...

highlights

dear blog,
i wanted to repent for being neglectful....

here are some weekly highlights:


· had a meltdown because of my suspicious recent weight gain
and my inability to make it stop last week,
then listened to a talk on saturday morning that reminded me not to care.
and i cried:

"He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God’s love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked."
-Dieter F. Uchtdorf

· spent the night playing house and watchin the niece so another one could come.
i like playing mom.

· baby Chantelle Lorraine Moffat was born at 5:11 on 10.5.2009.
7 pounds, 9 ounces of adorable joy.


· yesterday i was listening to my talk radio podcasts on my phone,
cause i have culture,
and heard that obamanation won himself a nobel "piece"
for "capturing the world's attention" and "inspiring hope"
where is michael jackson's piece then?
ironically, i just lost hope in the nobel peace prize...
11 days? you gave the man 11 days to be in office
before nominating the man for changing the world?!
...don't get me started...

· my coworker who never does anything for anyone else,
helped a student at 5:05.... (after his shift!).
he declared, "today will go down in history!"
a breakthrough that makes me smile.

· after not feeling so awesome for the past few days,
and coming home a groggy hot mess everyday,
i got into the car after work yesterday,
rolled the windows down,
blasted some tunes,
and sang along.
smiling the whole way.
a surge of happiness for no reason except that God loves me.

· then we played with some cute friends
long overdue!
ate good food,
laughed a lot,
and went home with smiles on our faces.

today?

today i have 2 years of homework to do...
and i have about 100 blogs left to read...
and groceries to purchase....
and a gym i should visit...
a baby i need to play with...
and a husband to spend ample time with slash go make breakfast for like now...


so far, i'm O for 6.

you wanna know somethin pathetic slash fun?

this post right here,
the one you are currently reading,

it may or may not be
#300!!

[this is proof i need to get a life and stop blogging...]


in honor of the day,
i leave you with a few of my favorites.



moms say the darndest things

He gave me a swing

how we roll

thoughts from an airplane

i suck at sleeping

a too-personal love story

on air


its been a good time so far,
• west coast girl•

[formerly, west-coast-girl-east-coast-world]

forever a west coast girl now,
and happy bout it.


happy date night to you all!

(try the little urban spoon hoohah and go someplace fun!)
its over there ••••>

our new arrival...

welcome home, baby mac, 

welcome home.

this may have been the first night i got to bed first.

cc is so happy to be a mac daddy.

which is good because cross-platform marriages

could be potentially harmful.

thanks for converting, babe.

...just in time for school in 3 weeks- agh!

thank you america, finally...

next week will be incredible because we got it right this time.

we were so happy for evan.
they tried so hard to say the white guy couldn't hack it.
i mean, brandon's solo was beyond incredible...

and jeanine and kayla will be a fun match.

one of the top two will win it though.

i hope its jeanine, personally.
[now that janette, the real winner, is gone...sigh]


so thank you,
you've totally redeemed yourself, america.
unlike my horrible day last week,
i shall sleep with a giggly smile on my still dancin face.

selective amnesia

have you ever found yourself in a phase of life,
completely new,
and suddenly you couldn't recall life before?


like when you got to high school.
felt like you were always there,
and that you would never get out.
nothing mattered outside of your high school world...

like college.
never. ended.
and while there, high school was a blur.


i can't remember what it was like to not be a clifford.
i forgot what it felt like to wonder and worry and imagine.
the last few years are hard to pull up.
at least all of the bad stuff feels erased.



and i thank God for the tender mercy that that is.



[clifford people. at the river in payson.]

...just so you keep it open...

i got stoned...

• may 23, 2009 •

rock—on!!!

details. soon to follow...

...phew...

...about a week ago, on the morning of my interview,

i found a little sumpin on my doorstep...

couldn't believe that someone would go through the effort,
or even be this thoughtful...

i nailed the second interview,
snuck past the extensive background check,

and i am now employed!!!

thanks, to the cute/crazy thoughtful guy for giving me the plastered smile all day
that caused me to breeze right on through...

cross one thing off my to-do list this year.
real salaried job: check.


the list of things that i need to purchase
with new said income begins with:

new glasses/contacts,
laptop (member, mine crashed),
photography class,
guitar lessons,
new profesh attire! woo woo!,
eating out at new fun places,
back to spoiling my nieces,
begin to try and get my dad back
for having to take care of me for so long...
THEN, perhaps a new vehicle,
and THEN a new place of residence....

phew.
two tons just kindly flew by...

whelmed. still over it.

why is my life so great right now, honestly?

dancing was bliss.
these girls are hilarious- so fun.

and then, hows about a 3 for 3 sunday?
sitting next to some of my most favorite people in the world,
(i.e. parentals, sister, tom & gail earl...)
those ones that never cease to inspire me with their optimism through all the mud,
a girl can't help but sob a few hours thinking of how seriouslysoblessed life is.
a cathartic day already...

oh- and happy super bowl day!
(aka "the-only-day-for-many-that-we-will-all-pretend-to-care-about-NFL")

ps. uncle tom, you can come play with me anytime you want.
you make my heart happy.
and we are praying for you...

tom leaned over after the meeting and asked,
"you wouldn't happen to have 3.5 million dollars would you?"
i about wet my new dress...

now THAT's so Paul Blart!

today i was shooting some headshots down in Santan
and i saw the man himself...
(hope i don't see him go over 7mph)

and yes, i totally want a segway
and yes you can tour dc in groups on segways...
awesome.

happy tuesday to you all!!

mine has already been fabulous due to a great
(but far too short) lunch date,
a foto shoot,
some gingersnap making time with brother,
and some one-on-one kennabug time...

...and we haven't even done biggest loser yet!

this week on (my) tv...

biggest loser, yes, i stayed up till 2 to watch the DVRed episode.

two words: in. tents.

that joelle girl has got to go. no one likes you or your snotty friend back home.

and quite frankry... jerry is my favorite, but i am glad he got to spend the rest of the time with his wife. cutest old man ever. couldn't be more proud.

a new show e-rob just got me hooked on:
friday night lights

donelle and i have needed shows to get us going and this has been a good one...

we decided it is basically like a football soap opera.  and therefore my new guilty pleasure.

oh and of course we caught american idol.  it is going to be a good season i think. and because God is good to us, he invented DVR which means we don't have to suffer through both hours of the awful embarrassment that is the squaking auditionees. i really would not be able to do that...

wow. i really have not watched this much tv in all my life combined, i swear. 

no i don't. well, sometimes i do... damn.  that doesn't count...

and maybe i will be watching three episodes of LOST in the next couple of days to get set for the 21st... 

look what my life has become!

no don't.  its actually quite depressing.  

the good news is i really am having fun in my transitory state.

joy in the journey member? 

clear eyes. full hearts. can't lose.

one man's pivot is another man's wingwo

a friend of mine always says:
things that don't change, stay the same.
i like that.

and i like that it means that
every time i get back home
i can count on spending some QT
with some dear manfriends of mine
that always have stuff going on:
new girls (or not), new jobs (or not),
usually new music or places to eat...
new songs they can play
to impress me (and always do...)

i have one crazy friend (we'll call him paul) that needed a *wingwo (only he calls them a "pivot") to go with him to church. unbeknown to me, we had a practice-run of my newly appointed role earlier in the week when we went out to lunch...

paul and i sat down to eat at pei wei where the tables are almost uncomfortably close to strangers. after checking out the girl adjacent to me, he announced that she is really hot... oh good. time to perk up, i thought.

he made a few more comments about how he wanted so badly to talk to her but didn't know what to say...etc. and i got an idea. i went to open my fortune cookie and squeezed the bag till it popped. of course, it made the girl and her mother jump/squeal and then paul started in... he was a champ. flirted up a storm and made the girl laugh. flattered the mom...

i thought, sweet, i totally started that! it was like starting a clap-a-long with a cheesy country song at a concert... "hey, see that? i started that... i did! (looking around for validation...)

then i made my mistake. she asked me, "is this your man?" (in my head, i was thinking, tell her no! no, he is free and willing to date you... in fact he's interested!) so i answered, "me? no. not at all... in fact, on our first date i was sure to tell him that!" oh no! i suck as a wingwo! objective #1 is to build him up... make him look awesome so she totally wants what i got! dag.

after the conversation got back to paul and i, he reprimanded me... and i knew i had failed... he picked it up of course by flirtatiously asking the the girl, "are you trying to find out if i'm single?" she loved it. totally blushed. he gave me a 6 out of 10. right, i know. like a D. good thing Ds still get degrees...

so on my next outing, i was determined to do better. i went to church with paul, straightened his tie, sat and chatted and laughed (not fabricated laughing of course...) and then i was supposed to be right by him when he wanted said girl to see him with what he called "eye candy" (i think the term alone convinced me of the unpaid position). yeah- missed that opportunity cause i was a bit distracted. then i was supposed to announce myself as a visitor in RS and say, "i'm 'just visiting' paul" i was suddenly too embarrassed to stand at all! if i coulda gotten that far i mighta said what i was supposed to!! again, he told me i failed. you're right, i know... exactly the reason i don't sky dive...

on the other hand, when out on a lunch date with my other paul friend, we ended up at Shar's (yes, that would be a cooking supply store where Shar teaches free cooking classes and feeds you. can you say awesome?). paul is into canning these days (naturally..) and so we went to check out the place, but the class was on pressure cookers. (so of course we stayed!) they made the newbies introduce themselves so he raised his hand and said our names. shar smiled and said, "oh, a husband and wife team?" "no," he said, "but someday!" all the ladies and the one other male in the room looked back and smiled like we were seriouslysoblessed...

we sat like we always would, an arm around and whispering how much we loved this and how cute shar is... the whole time...

his bishop's wife texted him a day or two later and said, "hope you enjoyed the pressure cooking class... and are you engaged?!" ha!

i would say that was a successful wingwo moment....


*wingwo: a chick a guy will bring with him to a social outing
to make him seem cooler to other chicks.
generally she is just friends with the guy and knows
she is mainly there to help him get some attention....

oh- and side note: there is a new poll on the right to check out
(for those who have reader).
as well as a peek into my little homemade etsy shop on the left.
soon to feature some askthebooth aprons...

documented.

for a while there, 

we were not all that sure we would be able to claim we graduated... 

except that i have proof...

it finally posted and we (donelle & i) 

both have degrees!!

...seconds after we declared this, 

peg walked in with celebratory bubbly...

hilarious.

doesn't get more official than that...