The New American Hero...

With our economy down in the dumps lately, I can't help but feel like an American hero when I spend money. Like I'm taking one for the team every time I grab my American Express. Does anyone else feel that way? Especially when I make a bigger purchase (not just groceries and gas but something a little more like a camera, clothes, plane ticket, etc.) I feel like such a little hero (well heroine I guess). Here's how it plays out in my head... I make a purchase and all of a sudden the bright store lights fade and the spotlight focuses in on me. Suddenly I'm decked out in red, white and blue with an American flag in the background, a sparkler in my hand, and a big cheesy smile on my face with a little bling shining off one of my front teeth. And over the store's loudspeaker an announcer (who for some reason has the same voice as the movie preview guy's voice) says, "Rebecca Batt, an American hero, is attempting to save our country one purchase at a time. Thank you Rebecca for stimulating the world economy by buying that plane ticket (or whatever I just bought)." And then I clasp my hands together and raise my arms up in the air shaking my clasped fists twice over each shoulder in the VICTORY shake and I say, "You're welcome America, you are welcome!" And then I leave the store or log off the Internet in the case of an online purchase and the spotlight fades. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating and dramatizing just a little, but seriously does anyone else feel like they are kind of an awesome person when they spend money as if we weren't in some major recession? Unfortunately, unlike that half black guy who lives in that white house, I cannot just print out whatever amount of money I want to spend. So my heroism cannot go on forever but I will try and do my part. And that brings me to the subject of today's post which is shopping...particularly shopping for clothes. I HATE shopping for clothes because: 1) Your hair gets majorly messed up when you try on clothes and then inevitably (especially in SE Idaho) you run into like 10 people you know and then you feel like you have to explain that your hair is not normally a staticy, frizzy mess as you frantically try to pat it down. 2) Clothes are expensive and then they just get ruined or go out of style. 3) Clothes just don't look cute unless you are like a freaking anorexic...and I, obviously, have overcome anorexia...more than overcome anorexia in fact. Actually I never had it, but you get the point. 4) You often have to try on clothes with other clothes that you have at home and then if the clothes you are trying don't work you have to return them...what a pain! 5) My mom isn't here to do it for me or at least go with me. Just a couple of weeks ago I realized that my reason number 5 for not liking shopping is perhaps my biggest problem lately. I am way dependent on my mom when it comes to clothes shopping. I guess that you just need that one person who will tell you the truth about the clothes you are trying on without completely crushing your self esteem. Moms, sisters, and daughters are the best for this kind of thing. My mom might say something like, "I really don't like that shirt on you...it is just a weird cut and kind of clingy fabric, don't get it." So I know that it wasn't a good shirt to buy and I think that it is the shirt's fault that it doesn't look good...stupid weird cut and clingy fabric...and not maybe my misshapen body and spare tire making the shirt look bad. And if you find something that does look good and you get validation from your special shopper helper that it looks good then the first time you wear that outfit in public you can feel like a million bucks whether or not anyone else gives you a compliment. Buying new clothes is all pretty complicated for me. I need my mom there with me shopping or just to do the shopping for me. Luckily my mom likes to shop and would sometimes just go buy me a bunch of clothes and let me try them on at home and then she'd return the ones I didn't like. Now that's the life. If I ever get really rich I will hire someone to do my shopping for me. In the meantime I've been thinking of starting a club of shopaholics and non-shoppers where the shopaholics do the shopping for the non-shoppers. It would be a win-win situation. The shopaholics would get the need for shopping out of their systems by shopping for others and wouldn't have to spend their own money or go into debt to do so, and the non-shoppers would get cute clothes without having to go shopping. Perfect. Anyway, a few weeks ago I realized that in the 11 months my parents have been in Brazil that the only clothing items I had purchased were: 1) a hoodie from American Eagle 2) an undershirt from Aeropostale 3) a little short sleeved sweater thing from Target That is it. Seriously. Those were my clothing purchases in almost a year! So, due to the fact that my lack of clothing was affecting my social life and my desire to attend church I finally decided that I HAD to force myself to do a little shopping these past few weeks. And today I spent most of the day shopping for clothes to wear this summer which is only complicated by the fact that they have to be Africa friendly clothes. Ahhhhhhhh...I wish we weren't born naked. What a pain. So I just finished torturing myself with SCUBA classes...and by the way, I passed the class and didn't die or anything when we went diving in the big scary lake this past weekend. However, I am SUFFERING from messed up sinuses and a super painful ear ache due to my SCUBA diving. Oh, and I think I have stress induced hives from my SCUBA worries but that's a whole other story. But at least I'm done. I faced my fears and whether or not I ever SCUBA dive again it will be nice to know it is an option and that I'm awesome for facing my biggest fear. Anyway...so now that the SCUBA torture is over I'm now onto torturing myself via shopping. Luckily, no matter what, the longest that torture can last is until Saturday because then I'm off to Africa for five weeks. If I don't have clothes by then I'll just have to buy some bright print with African animals on it and wrap myself and my head in fabric like the Africans do. Hopefully it won't come to that. Stay tuned...

Thank you Mr. Spock

When we were little kids we quite often would dress up according to what TV show/movie we were watching or had just watched or act out parts of what we had just seen. I remember running around with a Superman t-shirt and cape on after watching Superman. I remember putting on our Lone Ranger masks when we watched the Lone Ranger. Russell once used a pocket knife to carve a nice big letter Z in his bedroom door after watching Zorro. We did ninja moves on each other after watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We quoted parts from Aladdin over and over. The boys wrapped towels around broomsticks and tried to knock each other off of the trampoline after American Gladiators Came out. We attempted to rap like Will Smith after watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-air ("Chillin out, maxing, and relaxin all cool and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school..." Yes, those lyrics do come from my AMAZING memory.) Etc, etc. Most kids probably do these kind of things...dress up, try out new accents, and mimic what they see on TV or in movies (which is sort of scary considering how many violent/weird/creepy movies there are now.) But one person I know has carried these behaviors into adulthood...well into adulthood. And that person is my brother Lee. I think I knew that Lee was a little different when it came to taking movies/TV to heart when as a high-schooler the boys were downstairs watching ROCKY and Lee pauses the movie, runs upstairs, cracks a couple of eggs into a glass and drinks them raw. And why wouldn't he drink raw eggs?...Rocky did. After we went to see Iron Man last year, Lee spent the rest of the night with either his cell phone or iPod underneath his shirt with the light coming through the shirt to mimic Iron Man's heart and kept saying over and over with his best Iron Man accent, "I am Iron Man. I am Iron Man." Oh, and he did this while we were at DQ getting a little something to eat after the show. When Forrest Gump came out several years ago Lee enjoyed pretending to be Forrest Gump (he even had the same haircut as Forrest). Oh, and yes he liked doing this in public too. One whole family vacation he pretended to be handicapped anytime we were out of the car. And yes, I have pictures to prove this. I'll have to find them and post them someday. If you watch a boxing movie with Lee, expect to get punched afterward. If you watch any movie with a Russian in it, expect to hear the Russian accent for HOURS afterwards. And lots of spy/action type movies have Russians in them because Russians are almost always the bad guys. Actually, anyone with any accent will get mimicked by Lee but after about 2 minutes, no matter what accent Lee's trying to do, it turns into a Russian accent anyway. So I don't even know why it would surprise me that last night when we were all eating dinner after going to see STAR TREK that Lee would take on the Spock character and give me a little lecture that went like this.... "Becca, this fear of SCUBA diving is only because you are thinking like a human. You always let emotion guide your actions and not logic. Do you logically think you are going to drown when you are SCUBA diving?" Me to Lee/Spock: "No, I don't LOGICALLY think that. But when you are in the Aquatic Center feeling like you are drowning you aren't going to stop and think to yourself, 'now I feel like I'm totally drowning, but my logic tells me that I'm not.' Heck no, if you feel like you are drowning you freak out and try to save yourself." Lee/Spock to me: "You need to suppress your human ways and try to take on the Vulcan mindset. Let logic be your guide..." So, I'd just like to say, "Thank you Mr. Spock for reminding me that we humans need to let logic and not just emotion guide our actions...very inspiring, very inspiring." Oh and P.S. for those of you who haven't seen Star Trek yet it is pretty dang good...even if you aren't normally the nerdy Sci-fi type. It is especially good because Spock in the new movie is pretty dang hot...nerdy hot but still hot. Plus sometimes nerdy hot is the best kind of hot there is. And special thanks to Tyler for helping me Spockatize Lee in the picture above. LIVE LONG AND PROSPER everyone. The end.

Me, the Masochist

Hello, my name is Becca and I am a masochist. I must be anyway. I mean, seriously, what person with extreme hydrophobia is dumb enough to sign up for a SCUBA diving class? Only a masochistic hydrophobic would do that to them self. Basically here's how SCUBA class goes. You go to the class part and the first thing they do is hand out fliers for special SCUBA divers insurance...you know, in case your lungs blow up and they have to fly you to a hospital. Then the instructor spends the next little while telling you everything that can possibly go wrong while SCUBA diving as well as throwing in a few stories from his job as a search and rescue diver and says stuff like, "the bodies don't stink until you bring them up out of the water." (That was a direct quote from our class.) Then after they thoroughly scare the living #&!! out of you they take you over to the Aquatic Center. And let me just tell you, even entering a public swimming pool as an adult microbiology major takes courage...not to mention the chlorine burning out your retinas. So then you get all your SCUBA gear on and get in the pool and spend the next hour and a half basically, as far as I'm concerned, waterboarding yourself and then you're done until next week. SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS I THINKING? And all this, just to prove to myself for my stupid 30th birthday that I can do anything. And you know, I feel bad that our government waterboarded potential terrorist subjects, but at least those people didn't PAY to get waterboarded...at least it didn't cost them anything to get tortured. Honestly, this is the most cruel thing I have ever done to myself. I couldn't fall asleep forever last night just worrying about our open water dive coming up next week but I just keep telling myself that this masochistic behavior doesn't have to become a hobby...that all I have to do is just do it this once and then I'm free. Then at least I can say, "I HATE SCUBA DIVING" and that feeling will be based upon an informed opinion and won't just be, "I think I would hate SCUBA diving." Now I'm sure some of you are reading this and are thinking what a wimp I am...and I am. I have major problems with having my nose underwater and not plugged...especially deep under water. I can swim just fine because you just get down the breathing pattern and you're fine. Plus, you are close to the surface so you can always come up if you get water in your nose. I actually really liked swimming lessons but had to quit when it came to diving because I absolutely cannot dive or jump under water without my nose plugged and like a nose plugging diver is ever going to get into the Olympics. And so it isn't the actual SCUBA diving that scares me. You are under the water, but your eyes, nose and mouth are covered and all is well. It is the training exercises that you have to do in case something goes wrong under water that are so horrible. The worst one of all is you go down, and take off your mask...so you can't see anything and water is RUSHING up your nose and then instead of bolting to the top and just breathing some air like any normal person would want to do, you have to put your mask back on and then clear out your mask by exhaling through your nose. It is HORRIBLE. It is torture. And seriously, it is basically like waterboarding you pay for because you practice basically drowning yourself and then saving yourself over and over again. Last night by the time we were done I think I swallowed at least 2 gallons of Aquatic center water, which we all know consists of 2 parts water, 4 parts urine, 2 parts chlorine, and 1 part miscellaneous. So yeah, today I'm feeling really great. So, in conclusion, for my 40th birthday challenge I'm going to be nice to myself and make myself learn how to crochet or something a little less scary. The end.

Where should I go for the big 30?

So, as my loyal blog fans and buggy blog leeches know, I'm turning the big 30 this August.

I always told myself that if I was still single at 30 I'd buy myself some Bling-bling if you know what I mean. But as that date is fast approaching and I find myself in a very single state of being I don't really want any bling.

First of all, I don't need to draw any attention to my man hands with bling and second of all I just don't want to buy into the whole De Beers diamond marketing ploy. Thirdly I'd rather spend the money on something more fun like a trip and fourth of all I still haven't given up ALL hope (not for another year or two) that someday someone else (hopefully a half normal, straight, employed or seeking higher education, English-speaking, Mormon male) may want to buy me a little left handed bling if you know what I mean.

So, a trip it is. But I don't know where to go for sure. That's where blog fans and leeches who would like to come out of the leech closet come in. Let me know where you think I should go to celebrate my birthday this year.

The only real requirements I have for this birthday trip is that it be to a foreign country that I have never visited before, that it is a place that is good to visit in August because I want to actually be there on my exact birthday, and that it isn't too incredibly expensive so that I can convince somebody to go with me or if it is expensive that it is safe enough that I'll be okay travelling there alone.

Since the place I go for my birthday has to be somewhere new, here's an updated list of the countries I have already visited so you know which ones not to suggest.

*USA(born and raised) *Australia *Canada(2 times) *United Kingdom(3 times) *Ireland *Israel *Jordan *Egypt *Argentina(2 times) *China/Hong Kong *Guatemala(4 times) *Honduras *Mexico(3 times)*Uruguay *Chile *Peru *Holland(2 times) *Germany *Austria *Czech Republic *Thailand *France(2 times) *Hungary *Slovakia *Poland *Ukraine *Belgium *Ethiopia*Kenya*Portugal*Spain*Morocco

*Paraguay*Brazil (3 times)*Costa Rica*Belize(2 times)*

So take a look at the map and suggest somewhere fun for me to celebrate my 30th birthday. If you are the FIRST person to suggest the country where I end up going, I'll bring you back something special from that place. So suggest away...

May 1st...A day to remember...

First of all I have no idea what "quakin' in your boots" from the above picture means. I hope it isn't anything bad. My trusty friend the Urban Dictionary was of no help to me so I apologize ahead of time if it means something nasty to any of you. And if it does, just know that I have no clue...but you should all know that by now. But, I wanted to use it because I thought it was a cool picture and that it raises a good question...WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU HAD NO FEAR? It is kind of an interesting thing to think about. If you seriously had NO fear what would life be like? There really are only three main things in life that I am deathly afraid of... Fear #1: Being found dead, fat and alone, and half eaten by wild dogs. Or dying in my bed and having no one notice that I was gone for so long that I melt (at least partially) into my mattress. I know that this fear sounds crazy but when you are a singleton you think about these kinds of things. Fear #2: Getting killed and chopped into little pieces by a serial killer or by Sasquatch. How can anyone normal not fear this??? and last of all but perhaps my greatest fear ever is... Fear #3: Large bodies of water and all that large bodies of water entail...including: sharks, drowning, finding a bloated dead person in the water, etc, etc. The only real nightmares I had as a kid that I remember all involved the ocean or some big lake. And although my fear may be natural born I would like to take this opportunity to publicly and personally thank my brothers and male cousins for reinforcing my natural fear by constantly tormenting me, grabbing my ankles, and telling me that there were piranhas, sharks, and/or snakes in the water any time we went swimming in a lake as kids. So, because I'm turning the big 30 this summer (which marks the beginning of the end for me) I decided that it was time to try and conquer some of my fears. Because what if I live my whole life and never experience some things just because I am afraid? What if I miss out on super cool stuff? Or what if I die, knowing deep inside that I was a total unadventurous wimp? And since as long as I'm single I can't do much about fear #1 and as long as there are serial killers and Sasquatch in the world I can't do much about #2, I figured that the best place to start was fear #3. And so, on May 1st, 2009 I went to my first SCUBA diving certification class. (I'll tell you more about those classes in future posts because even just taking the class is quite traumatic for me and I'm sure there will be things to share about the class.) But may I just say that for those of you lucky enough to not have fear #3 you may not understand why just taking a SCUBA class would be a big deal. But it is a huge deal for me...it is a step in the right direction to overcoming or at least suppressing my greatest fear. And just taking the class means that I will actually have to SCUBA dive in a large body of water. Great, what was I thinking? Now don't start thinking I'm a wimp...I have been skydiving, I did live in a house with 45 frogs, giant spiders and snakes this past summer, I have been to Africa 3 times, I love roller coasters and crazy scary rides, I've been spelunking in some pretty tight places and haven't freaked out, I'm not afraid of flying, etc., etc. BUT...Fear #3 makes me fear and tremble just thinking about it. So, wish me luck as I scare the living $#!% out of myself by getting SCUBA certified and leave a comment and let me know...What would you do if you had NO fear?

Oops!

So today I had to put my foot in my mouth. This isn't an uncommon occurrence since I often say stupid things due to a little faulty brain wiring. Don't worry...it wasn't as bad as asking a woman when she's due to deliver her baby when she isn't even pregnant or anything. But here's what I said... So, I'm at my cousin David's wedding this weekend and was going through the line at their reception. When I got to Dave and his new wife Liz I gave them a hug and congratulated them. But then that was done and the people in front of me in line weren't moving on. Great. What else can you say to a newly married couple besides congratulations?...especially when you just have a minute and don't have time to get into a real conversation. So I said, "Where are you guys going on your honeymoon...or is it a big secret?" Dave smiles and replies, "Wisconsin." So I start laughing and say, "Haaaaaaaaaaa that's hilarious...what are you guys going to do there...tour a cheese factory or something?" They just laughed back and then the line started to move again and I moved on and I thought to myself, 'well, I guess I'll have to ask someone else where they are really going.' So a few minutes later I asked one of Dave's siblings and guess what?...they are going to Wisconsin on their honeymoon. I guess that's where Dave's new wife is from and so they're going out there for the open house/honeymoon combo. ANYWAY, in my defense, David was smiling and half laughing when he told me they were going to Wisconsin on their honeymoon which made me think it was a little joke and secondly, WHO GOES TO WISCONSIN ON THEIR HONEYMOON ANYWAY? SERIOUSLY.

My blessed nomadic life...

Just for all of you who were worried about me using up all my savings moving a million times and losing sleep over it...probably just my MOM...I just wanted to say that after I wrote my post complaining about the high cost of being a nomad,that things started looking up for me a little. First of all my nice Aunt Ellen offered (well actually her daughter Lucy offered for her) to drive her pickup down to Utah when she comes next weekend and help me move then. Unfortunately, I have to be up in Idaho by the 1st of May (details on why I have to be in Idaho by May 1st coming soon...) and so that didn't quite work out. But then, I decided to call one last rental place and found a truck I could rent that should only end up costing me about 200 bucks...which is much better than 350. But, this place only had a 16 foot truck and not a 10 foot truck (which is all I really needed). So now I have to drive this huge moving van to Idaho today and back tomorrow. It's too bad I don't know anyone who needed to move something from Idaho to Utah tomorrow since I'll be coming back with an empty truck. What a waste! Someone should start a website where you can share moving trucks or something. Anyway, I'm a little scared to drive a moving truck for 8 hours in the next day but what else do you do as a nomadic spinster? So wish me luck for the drive!