Bit of Ivory

Valentine’s Day for those of you out there with a significant other, and Single Awareness Day for those without. I, unfortunately but not surprisingly, fall in the latter category. Oh well. I’m not bitter about it this year, unlike past years. Valentine’s Day is expensive. Besides, I have all the flowers I want (even if I had to buy them myself), all the chocolates I want (ditto), and I still have a date tomorrow, even if it is with someone I’m not really interested in snogging. So all is well with the world.

I’ve got a ward dance tonight, so hopefully that will be fun, and until then there’s cleaning to do for cleaning checks tomorrow. I’m also going to take a trip to the mall with my roomie to get her some nice sparkly rhinestone jewlery for Preference. I already bought myself a nice sparkly necklace with matching sparkly earrings. They’ll look lovely with my silver elbow gloves and clear plastic shoes. This is the first time I’ve been to a formal dance where my hair is long enought to put it up, so maybe I’ll buy some sparkly barrettes or some such thing as well. And I must try to remember my Triple Swing. ‘Cause Josh can dance, I’m telling you!

Corsages and boutonnieres were great. We made a rose boutonniere, a carnation boutonniere, a daisy mum boutonniere, and a 3-rose corsage. All mine are white so I can actually use them at the dance. I might end up pulling my corsage apart for hair flowers, though. So I should take pictures now, I guess.

Next week is going to be a nightmare. I’ve got two tests to take on either Tuesday or Wednesday– one–Pearl of Great Price–that will probably take me half an hour, one–Jane Austen– that will probably take me an hour and a half. The bad thing is that I’m working on Tuesday night so I can have Wednesday night off to perform with my social dance class in the dance lab. So I can’t take it either night. Plus, because of the President’s day holiday, Monday classes will be held on Tuesday. Luckily my PoGP class is on Monday and Wednesday, and my teacher canceled class so we can go take the test. So I guess I’ll be doing that. Then, after my 1:00 class, I’ll have a two hour break where I’ll probably take my Austen test. I don’t like the idea of taking two tests in one day a single bit, but what can I do?

I guess I have one more option. Because the Tuesday classes are canceled, the Tuesday floral design labs have to be canceled as well, which means the Thursday labs have to be canceled too. The PoGP test actually has a late day on Thursday. So if I just can’t take the test on Tuesday, I suppose I can pay $4.25 and take it on Thursday when I normally have my lab.

Yuck.

I have a date to Preference! Josh said he’d be delighted. So I guess I’m going. And since Josh can dance (and I mean dance) I’m sure I’ll have a delightful time.

Jen and I are going to make boutonieres for our group. We are also making corsages, but all of the guys have insisted on buying them for us, so I guess I’ll have to save my corsage for another occasion.

Our teacher said that those who are actually going to the dance will have first pick on which colors they want, and that they’re going to sell all the extra flowers for “less than wholesale” during my lab, which means I can buy some to put in my hair as well.

Hee! Now I’m excited!

I got official confirmation yesterday for the Nimbus panel, so I decided to find out a little bit more about where my esteemed panelists are from.

Two of the panelists are from California Baptist University, which is affiliated with the California Southern Baptist Convention. One panelist is from Biola University, which is a private Christian university that teaches Evangelical Christianity. The last panelist is from Taylor University College, a Christian University and Seminary in Alberta, Canada.

Then there’s me, from Brigham Young University, affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Oh, yes. This is going to be fun.

So the other day I was working at the desk in the library, and there was a patron at one of the two copy machines that are just opposite the desk. He must have been there for an hour already, as he had a gigantic stack of books next to him on his right, and was continually taking more out of the crate on his left. He was also listening to music on some headphones. At first I was just slightly irritated at his monopolizing the copier for so long.

But then he started to SING.

Loudly.

Not a whole song, just random little snatches of whatever song he was listening to at the time.

The first time he did it, I hoped he would realize his mistake and stop.

But he did it again.

And again.

Until finally I had to go up and ask him to stop singing because he was disturbing the other patrons.

Sheesh.

BYU’s Preference dance is coming up next weekend, and my sisters and roommate all decided they wanted to go– and they want me to come as well. I don’t really have anyone particular I want to ask, but there’s a guy I knew from high school who’s a great dancer and who I’d have fun with– but I didn’t want to ask Josh until I was sure I had something to wear. You see, although all my old formals are completely modest, I wasn’t sure if they’d work with my garments. Sure enough, when I tried them on last night, all the necks were slightly too wide. I’d have to pin quite a bit to make sure nothing was showing. This was slightly discouraging, but since most of the winter formals are on sale at the moment, we decided to go shopping.

After 3 hours of shopping, I found one. It’s the one formal I might have bought even at full price– I’ve wanted it forever. It’s dark blue, velvet on top, satin on bottom with an organza overskirt and bow. Guess how much I paid for it?

$32.50.

Can’t beat that with a stick.

Now, let’s hope that Josh can come. . .

Because of the eucalyptus oil that I can’t get off of them. Yes, it was another floral design lab today. My gift basket is lovely. Pics coming up. For the flowers in the vase, I wanted to do Ravenclaw blue, but unfortunately that idea didn’t pan out. Everything that was in the blue-spectrum looked really purple to me, especially the filler flowers. So instead I went for Hogwarts colors. I have a dark blue Ravenclaw iris, a yellow Hufflepuff rose, a red Gryffindor carnation, a couple of sprigs of spiral eucalyptus and lots of leatherleaf fern to supply the Slytherin green, with a bit of baby’s breath for filler (which, incidentally, is a primary color scheme, also known as a foundation color scheme, also known as a triadic color scheme). It looks lovely next to my hardbound copy of Sorcerer’s Stone, SS DVD, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Penelope Clearwater doll, Hogwarts CD case, cobalt blue glass and brass inkwell, quill, and wand.

Coming up next week: corsages and butonieres.

So yesterday I mentioned my Penelope Clearwater Barbie doll to some co-workers, and for some odd reason we started to talk about ’80s toys. I think it was because we’re trying to scope out the perfect Ken doll to be Draco Malfoy. Anyway, I was suddenly reminded of a whole bunch of ’80s toys I had completely forgotten.

We started out with He-Man and She-Ra. I went on eBay, and you can get She-Ra’s Crystal Castle Playset and a bunch of other action figures. I had a She-Ra doll, and a few of her friends, although I was never special enough to have the Crystal Castle. Anyway, from She-Ra we went on to Wuzzles (I had a Bumblelion), Jem and the Holograms (I had a Jem doll– she was slighly bigger than Barbie, so unfortunately their clothes were not interchangable), Rainbow Brite (I had one of her too!). A few websearches remind me of toys I haven’t thought about in years like Moondreamers (I had a Sparky Dreamer doll), Sweet Secrets (I think I had one, but I remember them mostly because a girl on my street had a bunch, and by playing with them we became best friends) and even Rose Petal Place (I had a Rose Petal– she smelled like roses).

Some of our old perennial favorites are availiable again, like Care Bears and Pound Puppies Cabbage Patch Kids and Popples. I’ve found Care Bears everywhere, although there’s no sign of any Care Bear Cousins as of yet (which is sad, I love my Tenderheart Lamb). Toys R Us is now exclusively selling new Cabbage Patch dolls who lookjust like the originals, right down to the yarn hair and adoptablility– except that now, of course, you can adopt them online. Remeber when they came out with Cabbage Patches that had silky Barbie-like hair? They were Cornsilk Cabbage Patches. I never had one of those, but I still have my only Cabbage Patch. Her name is Jessica, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten her middle name. Lisa and Laura had twins– Jacynth Francois (called J.C.) and Myra Thea. Hee.

Anyway, I know many of you were children of the ’80s as well. 80s Children.com is a great place to reminisce, as is Yesterdayland (Oh my heck! I had the Sesame Street lunchbox pictured on the left, except mine had a green handle and trimmings). Enjoy, my friends.

I think I’ll go home this weekend and play our Atari.

This is good news.

Pics will come later, but I have to blog now.

My roommate just gave me and my sisters our Christmas presents. Now that I see what they are, I know why it took so long.

Back at the beginning of January, Jen came in and said “your Christmas presents aren’t done yet, but here’s a little part of them–” and handed us these tiny little Hogwarts scarves. Of course, that got us quite curious. We now know why they were so little.

Jen made us Hogwarts Barbies!

Mine is Penelope Clearwater. She has a robe, a gray pleated skirt, a white blouse, a wand, a book (that looks suspiciously like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), and a Prefect Badge! All in a box with “Penelope Clearwater” and quotes about Ravenclaw on it. Lisa got a Hannah Abbot and Laura got a Katie Bell– Kaite has a broom!

She still needs to finish the ties and the sweaters and put little house crests on the robes, but they’re so cute! As soon as they’re all done, I’ll post pics. You guys have got to see all the work she did.