Praia do Futuro

Praia do Futuro is one of my favorite swimming beaches in the world because there is virtually no animal life there so you can swim shark and stinky fish smell free. It is great. Plus, it is only a few minutes from my parents' house. It's not the most picturesque beach in their mission but it is still one of our favorites. My mom and I went a couple of times so we could work on our tans/patchy sunburns and our bodyboarding skills. It is a great beach for bodyboarding, surfing, kite surfing, wind surfing, etc. Here's the beach... Here's the beach looking in the other direction...

Here's a picture I took of my mom bodyboarding...

And here's a picture my mom took of me bodyboarding...

If you look closely you can see my hand in the upper left hand corner. In my mom's defense though it was my camera she was taking the picture with so she might not have been too familiar with how to run it. And, I'm secretly glad that she missed me in the picture because I'm not nearly as cute while bodyboarding as my mom is.

Oh, and my mom isn't a horrible missionary...she, unlike the younger missionaries, is allowed to go swimming. Lucky.

What the what the?

I just rated my blog and it came out as PG. It said that it was PG because my blog had the word "pain" three times, the word "torture" two times, and the word "breast" one time. WOW, pain, torture, and breast are probably the least of my blog's problems.

SO, parents beware "some material [on my blog] may not be suitable for children." Actually, if I self rated my blog I would put it at a PG-13 for content and for all those coded swear words (H&!!, $h!t, @$$, etc.) that I use at times.

Oh, and as a side note, the word "breast" is on my blog because I have a link to my friends "breast" cancer website...so maybe I'm not so horrible after all.

And now my blog is even worse because the word "pain" is now on my blog five, make that six times. The word "torture" is now on my blog four, oh make that five times now that I mention it again. And the word "breast" is now found on my blog six times. Oops.

What is your blog rated?

I haven't been blogging lately because...

1. I'm kind of feeling lazy. 2. I haven't felt like blogging. 3. I've been working on piecing this (see picture below) piecer of a quilt. Now it is pieced and I can live in peace. One of my great-grandpas or somebody used to say, "I just don't understand why women take perfectly good pieces of fabric, cut them all up, and then sew them back together." I'm with you grandpa (or whoever said that), I'm with you. Piecing quilts is a pain. It might be a few years before I tackle another quilting project, if ever. Besides, who will want my quilts when I'm dead and gone anyway? They'll probably just end up at DI. Sad. The end.

SURPRISE!

Thanks to everyone (especially Grandma Fern) for keeping my surprise visit to Brazil a secret from my mom and dad. Even though so many people knew that I was planning on making a surprise visit to Brazil for my mom's birthday my parents didn't find out until I got there. So good job everyone. So why just four days home and then gone again? Well, I wanted to get to Brazil for my mom's birthday (but I couldn't because they only fly to Fortaleza a few times a week but I got there the next day) and I figured that by leaving for Brazil just four days after getting back into the US from Africa that I'd for sure be able to surprise my parents because who would be crazy enough to get back from a 40 plus hour journey home from Africa only to do laundry, celebrate the 4th of July, and fill up the suitcases again to head to Brazil? I was pretty sure that they wouldn't suspect a thing and I was right. I arrived in Fortaleza at about 6:30 in the morning on July 9th. After going through immigration and breezing through customs I grabbed a taxi and headed to my parents' house. Luckily I'm familiar enough with the city to know if the taxi driver was straying off the path to my parents' house and heading to a wooded area to kill me. Plus the taxi driver didn't seem like the rob and kill type so I knew I'd arrive safely to my parents' house and I did, so I tipped the driver for not killing me. I figured that it was the least I could do. I was a little worried about getting past the security guards at the front of their apartment building. I had a whole little thing written out about how my parents live in the building and I was trying to surprise my mom for her birthday but I didn't end up needing to use it. All I got out was "Meus Pais..." which means "My parents..." and then I was going to say "My parents live here" blah blah but after I said "My parents" they opened the gate, let me in, and helped me carry my luggage right up to my parents' door. I guess the security guards knew which house I'd be visiting since my parents are the only foreigners in the building and I guess they thought it would be easier to just let me in and take me up to the door rather than try to communicate with me, and I was glad. So I get up to the door and ring the doorbell and...NOTHING. Not a sound. I rang it a few more times. 'SHOOT,' I thought to myself, 'my plan has been foiled.' I knew that my parents weren't out of town and I thought that 7:30 in the morning would for sure be early enough that they wouldn't have gone anywhere. I guess I was wrong. Stupid me for trying to surprise them. So I sat there in the hallway sweating and thinking about where I could leave all my luggage while I went somewhere to call them on their cell phones when I hear the elevator start to move and I'm thinking to myself 'please be my parents, please be my parents.' And luckily the elevator did stop on their floor. And since there are only two apartments on each floor I just took the chance that it was my parents in the elevator and not their next door neighbors and as soon as the elevator stopped completely I opened up the swinging door thing that covers up the elevator door and said "Heeeeey!" Luckily it was my mom but I think I scared her as much as surprised her though. It took her a minute to figure out what was going on. You know when you see someone that you know but it is out of context of where you expect to see them and it is kind of weird? Well, that's how it was. My mom had gone out early to grab a few groceries and got back just in time. This is a re-enactment of how my mom looked when she came out of the elevator. Where, you ask, was my dad? Let's just say eating breakfast, not fully clothed, and thinking that the person ringing the bell was just one of their neighbors (and ignoring the door bell) because really people who don't live in the building can't come right to your door without calling you from the front gate and recieving permission to come up...usually that is. Unless you are their American, non-Portuguese fluent daughter, and the security guard somewhat recognizes you from the last time you visited. Anyway, it all turned out okay as I got into the house only about 5 minutes after arriving, and I didn't completely give my mom a heart attack. Even if I did scare her she was fast to forgive when I started pulling out all the loot I brought them. The usual candy (including Junior Mints, peanut butter m&m's, Hot Tamales, licorice, Skittles, Almond Joy, Butterfinger, etc), as well as tortillas, tomato juice, tortilla chips, rice crispies, marshmallows, dill pickles, Campbell's soup, etc. And this time I even showed up with... fresh blueberries and raspberries,

and red potatoes and petite peas (for peas and potatoes) a must-have this time of year. They don't have red potatoes here and they have peas but they are the huge, sick, puffy, green-grey, pasty type that the school lunch lady used to yell at me for not eating, and not nice green, sweet, petite peas.

So here I am again, hanging out in Brazil!

P.S. I can never get the spell check thing to work when I'm here, so I apologize in advance for any gross misspellings.

Seriously, what is wrong with America?

Hey everybody...I'm back! After a wonderful five weeks in Africa I'm returning to the world of blogging. And may I just say that Africa needs some MAJOR help when it comes to Internet availability, consistency, and speed. Forget helping slow the spread of AIDS, feeding the malnourished, and peace in Darfur. Africa needs help with Internet! Maybe that can be my calling in life...bringing Internet to all those potential African bloggers who just lack the opportunities that we have when it comes to expressing ourselves via blogging. Anyway, stay tuned for TONS of posts and pictures about Africa. I'll get to it soon. I just got home the night of July 3rd and between celebrating the 4th of July with my family in Idaho, doing laundry, getting my hair cut, and catching up on sleep I haven't yet gotten to blogging until now. And may I just say as a side note that I LOVE IDAHO. It is just such a beautiful and green summer this year. I love the cool evenings, the beautiful sunsets and seeing the fields and fields of crops...not to mention spending time with family and eating super good home cooking. ANYWAY, even though I'm not blogging yet about Africa I do just have to mention something that I observed the other day in the airport. The announcement that people should "Please refrain from smoking or CARRYING LIGHTED CIGARETTES in the airport terminal." I've probably heard that announcement a million times but for some reason it was just so much more funny this time. Maybe it was the lack of sleep on my 40+ hour journey home from Africa or something but I thought to myself, 'SERIOUSLY...do we really have to ask people not to carry lighted cigarettes? What's wrong with America?' I can see somebody though getting busted for smoking and saying, "but security officer I was just carrying a cigarette...I wasn't smoking it." "You and Bill Clinton buddy, you and Bill Clinton," I'd say back. Anyway, stay tuned for some major blogging in the next few days/weeks...

A Word to the LEECHES...

Well, I'm off to Africa on Saturday and since I really should spend tomorrow packing and resting to let my burst eardrums, thanks to SCUBA diving, rest and heal a little I figured I'd put up one last post before I go.

And since the Internet connection where I'll be is said to be spotty at best I can't promise any posts for the next five weeks, although I will try for the sakes of my loyal blog fans, and for myself since I do love blogging, but I can't promise anything. Don't worry though, I will post like mad upon my return.

So, before I let you go, I just have a little special post with my blog leeches in mind. Mostly, this is just a clarification on what a blog leech is because there seems to be some confusion out there in the blogging world about the true definition of a blog leech. And I'm pretty sure I made up that term (so I get to clarify it) and boy has it caught on...please tell me I did make it up...I want to be famous for something.

Just because you don't have a blog doesn't necessarily mean that you are a blog leech. As long as you comment occasionally on the blogs you read YOU ARE NOT A LEECH. You don't have to be an artist to appreciate fine art.

And...even if you do have a blog, but you don't comment on those blogs you do read, then YOU ARE A LEECH.

So, your leechyness or lack thereof is not dependent upon whether or not you blog. It is entirely dependent upon whether or not you comment, at least occasionally, on the blogs you read.

Here's the way I look at it...first of all, if I wanted people that I only know really well to read my blog then I'd make it private. So, I don't care if you are a friend of a friend or someone I knew in high school or my great-Aunt's ex-husband's new wife. If you enjoy regularly reading this blog then please leave a comment occasionally. Even if I don't know you, as long as you aren't a scary weirdo then I don't care if you read my blog and comment.

And if I find out that you do read my blog and don't comment (and I actually know who WAY more of my leeches are then you could ever imagine...I have my sources) then I will think you are a scary, weirdo, stalker who has some crazy fascination with me and my blog. So there.

And really, may I just say that if you regularly read a blog but you don't have something to say regarding every 5th post or even every 10th post then do yourself a favor and LOG OFF YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW AND STOP WASTING YOUR TIME! Because if you aren't interested enough in what you are reading enough to comment at least occasionally then why are you reading these blogs? Don't you leeches have anything else better to do? Just wondering.

And at the same time nobody should feel obligated to comment on every post you read. Sometimes you just read it and you are like, "that was boring," or "that was long," or "good post but I have nothing to say," or maybe you get distracted right before you go to comment. It is okay not to comment EVERY time but it is okay to comment every time too. Whatever you want.

So to those leeches out there (and you know who you are and I probably even know who you are)...take this five weeks that I won't probably be blogging much and go back, look over some of my posts and comment on your favorite one. You have nearly 200 to choose from.

And in conclusion may I just say that...

Peace and love (even to the leeches),

Becca

What kind of a fatty are you?

When you pack on a few what kind of a fatty are you?

Okay, this post is not meant to be mean to any of my loyal blog readers or leeches and I'm not saying that any of us are fat...BUT...come on, don't we all fluctuate in weight a little? I think most adults do. I know I do. So, when I say, "What kind of a fatty are you?" I mean, when you pack on that extra 5 or 10 or 20 + from your norm (even if you were super skinny to start with)...do you get nicer, funnier, meaner, more annoying, etc?

You know how there are supposedly different types of drunks?...funny, annoying, depressed, nice, loud, angry, etc? (Oh, and by the way, I'm a funny drunk. At least the only time I've ever had alcohol, which was on my mission at the house of the counselor in the Bishopric ON ACCIDENT, I think I was SO funny. But my getting accidentally plastered on my mission is a story for another post and another day.)

Well anyway, my new theory is that getting a little chunky has different effects on different people.

Audrey, my cousin/hairdresser/friend/mother of my goddaughter Mia (that's right SUCKERS...I got to be the first one to babysit sweet little Miss Mia making me her honorary Godmother), and I were recently talking about a mutual associate that we have who has recently lost quite a bit of weight. We noticed that when this person is their skinny self they sure are a lot nicer and more personable.

So that got us talking about what happens to us when we pack on a few. And I should know, I'm pretty much at my FAT MAX right now and am hoping to pick up a nice tapeworm on my WAY HOME from Africa.

And I think that when I gain weight I get more funny or at least I'd like to think so. It is totally subconscious. It's like my subconscious self says, "You'd better be dang funny to distract from the fact that you've packed on a few...make people like you by making them laugh...make fun of yourself before someone makes fun of you."

So, you do like the girl in the picture above, and you put the cookies on your shoulder and make everybody laugh while you try to eat them with no hands. And people say, "That Mindy sure isn't much to look at but she's HILARIOUS!"

And this all is totally subconscious of course. You don't even consiously try to be nicer or funnier or whatever...it just happens.

I have another associate and when we were high school aged he was kind of a jerk and then he got married and got the married guy gut and now he's totally HUMBLE and NICE. Like night and day. So maybe getting a little fat isn't all bad.

I have another associate who got all skinny and then turned gay. Weird.

So anyway, packing on weight or losing it can do different things to different people. What does it do to you???