Wicked

In high school my English teachers had us read a lot of really boring books, and so I honestly thought that I hated reading. But when my Mom (who worked at the local library) introduced me to the Harry Potter series the summer after my freshman year of college, I rediscovered how fun it is to get lost in a good book. So with the start of a new summer, my search for entertaining literature has begun.



Although I've never actually read "The Wizard of Oz," I just finished reading "Wicked" the other day. I was originally interested in reading this book because I knew that it was adapted into a show on Broadway. It follows the life of the Wicked Witch of the West and thus provides a story that is quite different from what is portrayed in the more classic tale. You see her perspective on the events that come about in Oz and get a clearer picture of the motives for her wicked actions. I thought it was an interesting read, but unfortunately it was also fairly scandalous (so I don't know that I would really recommend it to anyone).

If you've recently (or even not so recently) read a book that you loved, please tell me about it so I can add it to my summer reading list.

Who Are You?

I thought I answered the quiz questions honestly, so I was suprised to find that I was pegged as this Jane Austen heroine. And even after saying that Gwenyth Paltrow would be the best casting choice to portray me in a film or TV movie...

Take the quiz and tell me who you most resemble!

All In a Day's Work

In our second year of traveling to a random city (last year was Rancho Cucamonga, CA), Spencer is once again selling security systems for a few months with the hopes of making lots of dough. While some people are just not interested, others are just downright rude to him. But every once in a while he runs into a family that couldn't be nicer. This happened a few weeks ago at the home of a Philippino family who was getting ready for their daughter's catered birthday party. Not only did they welcome Spencer into their home and buy the monitoring service, but they also invited him to stay for the party! (When he called to tell me about it, he had been at their home for an hour and a half, just eating and talking with them.) The lesson to learn from the story is this: Even you are not interested in whatever a young, handsome door-to-door salesman is offering, at least be nice to him and offer him a drink of water. Chances are that he - and his wife - will greatly appreciate it.

Who wouldn't want to buy an alarm from a stud like this?

Although Spencer is making money and getting a nice tan (at least compared to me, which I guess isn't really that difficult), his work hours are a little crazy (12pm - 10pm). This means we have many opportunities to stay up late watching movies (yes, we're on to movies now since we have finished both seasons four and five of 24) and then plenty of time to sleep in the next morning. I guess I forgot since last summer how boring it is to be home all day without Spencer around, plus I think our apartment complex is a bit scary (mostly because I can hear a man in the apartment next to or below us swear- quite badly- at his wife/daughter/other female target at least once a day). And so I occupy myself by reading, doing pilates videos, checking out real estate in the Cleveland area, and working on my thesis until he gets home late and night when I am all too grateful for the sense of safety and some much needed human interaction.

The Mall of America (MOA for locals):

For those of you who have not yet experienced the pleasures of Minneapolis, here is the only one (the MOA)! Here are a few pictures of some of the cool things that are available there, not including the 50 billion stores and the many resturants and movie theaters. Enjoy!

The MOA continued:

Nicknames

Nicknames are a funny thing. I have had many in my 24 years from family and friends alike, but the one the makes me laugh the most is one given to me by my husband. It is "The Phoenix," in reference to Jean Grey's freaky uncontrollable mutant self in X-Men 3, and is used to describe me in a very particular situation.

Picture this: Spencer and I are watching a movie on our couch late at night. It is a boy movie that I'm not particularly interested in, but at the same time I am too comfortable to want to get up and take out my contacts and brush my teeth. So I simply lay down and intentionally try to fall asleep. When the movie is over, Spencer tries to wake me up to get me to come to bed. Sometimes it works, but on most occasions I say mean things like "Go away" or "Stop bothering me!" He also told me once that I said "Leave me alone Shauna" (the name of my older sister). And so he eventually gives up and goes to bed alone while I sleep on the couch. Granted I usually wake up at like 5am with my contacts uncomfortably suctioned to my eyes and a foul tasting mouth, so I quickly take care of those things and then snuggle up next to him in bed. The next morning when we get up, Spencer tells me something along the lines of "You were totally the Pheonix last night" and I will laugh at the crazy things he reports that I said but have no recollection of.

Do you have a nickname and a funny story as to how you got it? Please share!

The Name Game

Ways that I am different from my 2 older sisters:

• they're average height, I'm tall
• they look more like my dad, I'm the spittin' image of my mom
• they have brown hair, I pretend like mine is dark blonde
• they graduated from Lakeview High, I graduated from Highland High
• they went to Ohio State, I went to BYU

All of us, minus husbands and a few kids

As you can see, I don't fit many of the family patterns, but the name game is the one we've joked about most. When they got married their last names became "Rehl" (pronounced "real") and Gusty, so clearly the last name "Wind" would have been appropriate to complete the phrase. What's more is that my dad is Den, Wendy's husband's real name is Don (even though he's gone by Austin for as long as I've ever known him), and Shauna's husband is Dan. This gives you Den, Don, and Dan, so clearly I would have to marry someone named Din (not likely) or Dun (short for Duncan?) to fit this pattern. And there you have it... we teased that I needed to marry someone named Duncan Wind.

And then came Spencer Bjarnason, my darling husband, but with a name not even close to Duncan Wind. However, shortly after our engagement, I learned that Spencer's siblings had developed a pattern of their own: Clarke married Charlotte and Sarah married Spencer; so as Spencer and Suzy, we fit the "spouse names have the same first letter" pattern. Spencer also later informed me that "Bjarnason" means "son of a bear" in Icelandic, thus I was pleasantly suprised to find that we did at least kind of fit my family's last name pattern to make a phrase that made sense: "Rehl Gusty Son of a Bear."

Barfing Fish

Hi. Last night we were coming home from a free dinner after work, and we decided to check our mail at our apartment complex. As we opened the door to go into the mail room, there was a horrific smell. Suzy yells out, "sick, it smells like dead fish in here." Keep in mind that it was after midnight, so we certainly didn't expect anyone to be around. Wanting to gag, I agreed by saying, "yeah like barfing dead fish." While we were making faces of disgust, Suzy went to open the mailbox. As she was doing so I peeked my head around the corner and there was an old man with a sweaty white t-shirt and really greasy grey hair and a gnarly beard. It was obvious to me that HE was producing the barfalicious smell. We were quite embarrased (even though he wasn't looking in our direction - we know that he heard us), so we jetted out of there. Luckily we are still alive and nobody is hurt. Good times in Minnesota. (ps - the picture to the left is NOT an actual picture of the man we saw. However, it is about the best we could find on the internet)

Therapy Stories

As many of you know, I finished the "internship" part of my master's program this past year, one in a school setting and the other in a hospital setting. I just thought I should post some of the more memorable moments (good and bad) before I forget them, and maybe to make some of you laugh. Sorry that some of them are so long.

1. Most of the caseload I worked with in the school was kids with /r/ and /s/ problems, so I knew the last name "Bjarnason," which is hard for people without articulation issues to pronounce (even though it's not that hard), would be a challenge for the speech kids. So I had them call me Mrs. Bj (as in the letters B and J). On one particular day I was disguising therapy in a game of Go Fish. When it was one student's turn he said, "Mrs. Beej, do you have a sock?"

2. A darling little old man I worked with for a few days would spontaneously burst into song (in fact, very loud songs which usually didn't make sense) and sometimes tell me that he loved me and that I was pretty. Needless to say, I loved him too.

3. In a modified barium swallow study (pictured to the left - basically a live video x-ray of a person chewing and swallowing), the patient was unable to sit upright enough for the x-ray to get a good view of the larynx, so I had to stand behind the patient in a small space enveloped in expensive machinery to hold her up for the entire thing (hopefully my dead sexy lead vest protected me well enough!).

4. One man in particular would always say funny things to me. The day I met him he said, "Man, if I could have a set of teeth like that!" Another day he insisted that I was "...at least 10 feet tall." I assured him that I was only 5'10" but he didn't believe me. On another day, I was wearing gray pants with a pink pin stripe, and he asked me "Where did you get those hot dog pants?" When I asked him if that was a good thing or a bad thing, he assured me it was a good thing. Now, from these brief stories you might think that this patient liked me, but when I was working with him doing some oral motor exercises, one of which required him to hold out a note and then "sing" a-e-i-o-u, he instead sang "a-e-go-to-hell." At least it sounded kind of nice since he was singing it...

5. When giving a language/memory test, I was following the directions on it by starting with a scripted introduction to the patient by saying "Hi, my name is Suzy" and then putting out my hand for the patient to shake hands. Instead, the patient said "I won't do any hand shaking exercises right now." Testing proceeded to go fairly slowly, and when I'd gotten through about 3 sections I could tell the patient was getting irritated by my asking questions that were difficult for him to answer. I decided to do just one more question, which was: Is a shovel for digging or for climbing? By the time I asked this question, he was saying "I don't know why you're pushing me so hard" (which I promise I wasn't) so I took a different approach. I pointed out the pictures of flowers his grandkids had drawn for him and said, "Oh those flowers are beautiful. Do you like to garden?" The conversation progressed, and he then asked me if I liked to garden. I said I didn't really have much experience with it, but my mom was a great gardener and sometimes she would ask me to shovel dirt for her. Then I tried again with the test question, "Hey, do you know if a shovel is for digging or for climbing?" The patient was not happy, so I left to let him rest. Much to our dismay, my supervisor and I discovered that we needed to get some more time with the patient, so about an hour later I went back in to talk to him, hoping that he wouldn't remember me. I reintroduced myself and then started some small talk. It had started snowing outside, so I asked the patient if he ever had to shovel snow (do you see where I'm going with this?). He said he didn't need to because he lived in a condo, but asked if I did. I told him "sometimes" and then threw in, "Do you know if you use a shovel for digging or for climbing?" The patient paused and then said, "Well that's a trick question... both." My days of telemarketing with Spencer made me think I wasn't a very persistent person, but I guess maybe I am :)

Jack Bauer: Our TV Hero

For those of you who have watched at least a few episodes of 24, you know what I'm talking about. This man is a machine, and we can't get enough of this show. We are picking up right where we left off last summer (thanks to Netflix, since there's apparently a shortage of Hollywood Video and Blockbuster stores in MN) with season 4. We abstained from watching season 6 on TV this year because we didn't want it to give away important details of the previous 2 seasons. So here we are, 3 days into having the first 3 disks (with 4 espisodes each), and we have watched 10 episodes. With so many twists and turns in the plot, 24 keeps us wanting more.

On the Move

Well, Spencer and I have successfully moved for the 4th time in less than 2 years of marriage... and we're gearing up for another one about 2 and a half months. Awesome. We have nothing super cool to post right now, but we are going to the Mall of America tonight to watch Spiderman 3. Maybe we'll take our camera so we can give you some cool shots of the inside of the mall (don't worry, we won't try to bootleg a copy of the movie).