The Wonderful World of Google

I love Google. It honestly has so many cool things that I use everyday, and in a user friendly and familiar format that is easy for non-tech savy people to use.

For example, google maps. Yes, it is good for getting directions and I do use it for that all the time. But I also have built my own maps with the locations of different homeless shelters in L.A. Since I am fairly new to L.A. I would often have no idea how far or even in what direction a shelter was. So I imputed all the addresses into google maps and viola. Now I just look at the map and they are all laid out there for me. Plus I can change the little pinpoint so I can tell by looking at the map what kind of shelter it is.

Another feature I have recently discovered is the google reader. All of you who read blogs should use this (or some other reader...). You type in the web address to things like blogs or news websites and it tells you when there are new items. So you don't have to be continually checking blogs to see if there are any new posts, you just look at the reader page and it tells you what new posts there are for all the blogs y0u frequent.

Some of my other favorites are: gmail, igoogle, blogger, google news, and the good ole google search engine.

Feeding the Homeless

For our Young Women activity this week we made lunches with sandwhiches, water, and some snacks. Then we went to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and passed the lunches out to the homeless. We leaders kind of stood back so the girls could pass out the bags themselves. Each girl had two bags for them to personally hand to the homeless person.

I was so proud of them! At first some of them were really shy and scared but after other girls started giving out their bags they were really into it. Before we started we told them how they could ask politely if the person wanted the bag ("Sir, would you like a free meal this evening? etc.") and they did really well. After a while we did have to tell them not to run at the homeless person full speed once they spotted them, they were just so excited to give out their bags.

Young Women Ideas

I was wondering if I could rack your brains. I am in the Young Women presidency in our ward (Well, actually I am the Young Women presidency in our ward since we only have one young woman, but we combine with another ward who is also pretty small.) and we will be planning our activities for the next year soon. I wanted to hear of some of your favorite activities as young women or ideas that you think would be fun to do with the young women. Thanks!

Success!

Yesterday was crazy busy at work. A lot of days are slow and I will just sit around all morning, but when I get one person they take up my entire morning. Yesterday I came in and had a family waiting for me already. An hour and a half later while I was still working with that family I was informed that I had two more families waiting for me. Half an hour later when I was finishing up with the first family I was told that I had three more families waiting for me in addition to the other two families that had already been waiting half an hour. Unfortunately there was no way I was going to be able to see all those families, even if I hurried. Plus, it's not fair for the families that had been waiting if I hurry them through. I referred the other three families to our downtown office and spent the next few hours with the remaining two families.

What was great about yesterday was for the first time I really feel like I am connecting with the families and meeting their needs. It was really hard for me starting out because I had no idea what resources were out there and which shelter accepted what etc. Now I am familiar with just about every family shelter out there so I know exactly who to call when I get, say, a couple with older kids, or a single mother with a small child.

The Proposal

*If you haven't read the previous post you should before reading this one*

Three years ago today was November 2, 2004, election day. President George W. Bush was running against Senator John Kerry. That day I went and cast my first presidential ballot, in some random BYU building on University Ave. That evening Robert and I were hanging out at my apartment and he leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you want to go make out?”

Now this caught my attention and brought back a memory from when we were first dating. Robert had told me that one of his friends had planned to propose to his future wife, but they were with a big group of friends and he didn’t know how to get her alone. So he asked her (discreetly of course) “Do you want to go make out?” Robert seemed to really get a kick out of that story. So when he leaned over and did the same thing, I immediately was suspicious.

We decided to go for a walk by taking the Provo River Parkway towards Robert’s apartment. He was acting kind of distracted so I definitely knew it was coming. We walked over a bridge and stopped and looked over the river. For some reason we did something very unromantic, we started spitting over the bridge. Then we were talking on the bridge and Robert got down on one knee and proposed. Since he had not had enough time to get a real ring yet, he proposed with a purple CTR ring. I of course said yes and then jumped up and down and hugged him. A few minutes later he let his roommate come out of the bushes who had been secretly filming it and we went back to their apartment to watch the tape and see who had won the election.

The Story of How Robert and Melarie Ended Up With a 1 1/2 Month Engangement

Three years ago today Robert asked me to marry him. I was thinking about things that happened around that time and thought I would write them down and share with you.

This story starts a couple weeks before November 2. In October of 2004 Robert and I had been dating for about ten months. We had already talked about marriage and thought of it as something that would happen eventually, but not until the next year sometime. Ideally we were thinking April, but I was in my junior year of college and I really wanted to do a foreign field study in the summer of 2005. So we started thinking maybe August after I came home, although logistically we weren’t sure how that would work out, planning a wedding with me in a different country. Either way, we felt a wedding was still far in the future.

Around this time we found out that my dad had been called up for active duty to Iraq. He would be leaving for training that month, remaining in the U.S. until the New Year. Then he would go to Iraq for a year. Well that put a kink in our marriage plans. I wanted my Dad to be there for my wedding, but now that meant waiting until the next December. I was already having doubts about an August wedding because I thought waiting until August felt like forever.

The day before my Dad left for training Robert and I drove up to Camp Williams for the farewell lunch that they had for the soldiers and their families. On the drive there Robert and I were discussing what this meant for our future plans, and I turned to him and said, “Why don’t we just get married this December?” So that’s what got the ball rolling for our short engagement. My Dad would probably be able to come back around Christmas so we could get married a few days before Christmas. We suddenly had a lot of planning to do.

The first time we told anyone what we were thinking was when we were back at my apartment on a weekend evening. My brother Chris was there, as well as a bunch of my roommates. There was a lot of chitchatting among everyone, including Robert and I. We were having our own little conversation at the kitchen table about wedding things, and I asked, “Should we tell people?” After all, they needed to know too if they were going to be at the wedding. So as we sat there at the table we announced that we were going to get married in December. It was kind of out of the blue and everyone was shocked, but very happy.

We still weren’t “officially” engaged however. Robert had not talked to my Dad, had not gotten down on one knee and had not asked me “Will you marry me.” And I had no ring!

Stay tuned for the next installment of Robert and Melarie’s proposal.

Lunch with the Govenor

Yesterday Robert went out to lunch with a bunch of his co-workers for a good-bye party for a co-worker who is leaving. Little did they know that Govenor Schwarzenegger was also in the downtown L.A. area yesterday discussing issues with the fires around L.A. The PWC employees chose the same restaurant that the Govenor chose to eat at for lunch, and they sat pretty close to him.

Halloween is NOT an Excuse to Dress Immodestly

This is my soapbox issue for the month. I was looking at the ads for Halloween costumes and every costume they had for adult women were all skanky, short skirt, hooker shoes outfits. Just because it is Halloween does not mean it is suddenly okay to look like a hooker. What's worse is that this trend is now extending to little girls' costumes. I was reading this article about the costumes out there for little girls, costumes that portray ten year-olds as "sexy maids" etc. The child models in the ads are made-up with heavy makeup and the author speculates were probably told to make their "best sexy gaze." What kind of parent would buy this for their daughter?

Adopt-A-Family

The past month at work has been really busy because we have been signing up families for our Adopt-A-Family program, aka Sub for Santa. Every day I sit down with about ten families and find out a little about them, get their clothes sizes and ask them what things they need and would like for Christmas. It makes me feel so blessed, and so lucky to be born in a family that could afford to buy me new clothes when I was growing up. The number one thing that people ask for is clothes because after paying rent and utilities they barely have enough for food. Clothes and other essentials often get put off for a long time because they are not as important as shelter and food. Occasionally I will get people who are still low-income, but who are not in as dire need and ask for something like a DVD player.
When I ask the mother's what they would like for their household the most common responses are a blender, an iron, a toaster, towels, and blankets.