Sara Smith's Conscience

I pulled a prank 3 years ago.  A prank that will go down in infamy for how awesome it was.  Recently the prankee decided to blog about it and in the process got some crucial details wrong.  So, I'm here to set the record straight.

I guess I can't really take full credit for my prank.  That goes to the boy who stole my phone and put himself in as "my conscience".   That was about as much as he did, and I quickly discovered that he was the perpetrator.  Being the copy cat I am I of course decided to do the same thing to an unknowing victim, but make it ten times better.

I had the perfect victim, Cassidy's roommate Sara.  Since she was Cassidy's roommate, we'd easily be able to get my number into her phone under the name My Conscience, AND Cassidy would easily be able to update me on her activity.  We covered our tracks well.  I had no voicemail set up, and we didn't foresee Sara ever asking for my number.

The day after we planted the name in her phone was Sunday.  Cassidy provided me with the description of one of Sara's favorite dresses and I went to work.

My Conscience: I really think you should wear the short sleeved red dress today.  It looks great on you!

Sara:  Um.. who is this, and how do you know about my dress

My Conscience:  I'm your conscience and as your conscience I know all about your life.  

Sara:  How did you get into my phone?  Who is this?  And anyway, I was really wanting to wear the blue and black dress today.  

My Conscience:  No you should stick with the red dress.  I promise, it'll attract the boys.

Immediately after receiving this text Sara tried to call me multiple times.

Sara: Why aren't you answering?!

My Conscience:  You can't actually talk to your conscience on the phone!  Do you think you have special privileges or something.  If you need something you can just text me.  Consider yourself lucky that you can even do that.

Sara: Tell me who this is!  You are so weird.

Sara then preceded to check if her roommates was the perpetrator, which of course they weren't.

That night I went and hung out with Cassidy, Sara, and a couple of boys in their ward.  While she was talking to a boy, I again decided to reach out to her.

My Conscience:  Did you know that your blushing right now?  

At this point Sara freaked out, and told everyone in the room.  The blinds were open so they looked outside to see if someone could be looking in the window.  Sara decided to call the number again, but my phone was on vibrate in my pocket and I was able to evade being caught.

Throughout the week Cassidy would text me and tell me some of the things that Sara was doing, and I would then text her.  Midweek I had what I thought was the greatest epiphany ever.  I should create a facebook page for dear Sara Smith's Conscience!  So that's exactly what I did.  Nothing like bombarding her through as much social media as possible to get her to freak out.  I'm fairly confident I accomplished my designs.

My first post after adding over 100 of her friends was:

Little did I know she had actually been debating going to class that day.  Turns out I was really getting ESP in regards to her thoughts.  

Once Sara caught wind of this page she really started to freak out.

As an explanation for the post directly above, I got her birth date wrong and put it for 6 days after her actual birthday.  

Sara continued to try her best to figure out who I was for 2 months by calling me or asking around to see if any  I think sometime around the one month mark she decided to just embrace the situation she was in realizing that she had a reliable friend who would always respond with some fairly decent advice.  She began to randomly text me and ask me for my sound advice.

Sara: Who should I date?

My Conscience: Jimmer Fredette (Keep in mind this was WAY before he was famous and still known as the back-up point guard.)

Sara:  (After looking Jimmer's picture up)  Ooh he is cute I approve.  How would you suggest I go about dating him?

My Conscience:  Well since you work for BYU broadcasting you should try and swing an interview for him.  

Several hours later

Sara:  Ooh, ooh look at the moon it's so beautiful!

My Conscience: What is it with you people and the moon?

I'd say that things were going pretty great at this point and I was feeling pretty good about my skills as a conscience.  Then one day while hanging out and laughing with some friends, my sister called me and told me that her boy had broken up with her.   Completely distracted by all that was happening, I picked up my phone when it rang again and distractedly answered the phone.  Suddenly I was being verbally attacked by a man who worked for the so called BYU police because the owner of this phone had broken some rule on campus (the details of the conversation are a bit hazy).  Since I wasn't even a BYU student I was notably confused and couldn't understand what on earth I'd done to invoke their wrath.  When they asked me my name I easily complied and told them who I was.  This was met by whoopings on the other line followed by Sara coming on the line to call me a stinker and all sorts of demeaning names.  Dismayed that my rouse had been found out in such a way , I cut the conversation short using the excuse that I had to rush to the side of  my dear sister.

Needless to say Cassidy and I were a bit downhearted that night.  Admittedly, her night was a bit worse, but hey, she went on to marry that same guy so it wasn't that bad of an ending for her.  And I ended up with bragging rights for a creative prank that landed me a friend instead of an enemy.

Random Happenings

There's been a lot of crazy things that have happened in the past 4 days.  And by crazy I mean things that are actually worth telling a story about.  Sometimes you just go weeks without having any worthy stories to tell!  Since I couldn't just choose one I decided to highlight all of them.

-I can finally cross getting a black eye off of my bucket list!  This may have happened several weeks ago but I haven't mentioned it yet.  The sad part was that nobody could even tell I had a black eye.  I'd get right up close to show them and then they'd say, "Ah yes I can kind of see it."  They probably just said that to get me out of their bubble.

-The boss woman came in last Friday with two very dead looking plants.  She asked me to save them for her because I'm the plant whisperer.  I had no idea I had such a reputation.  I also learned that I will pretty much do anything if called the master of it - excluding fridge cleaning and drain clearing.

-Saturday night found me babysitting of the nieces.  Whilst babysitting, one of these darling nieces decided it'd be funny to chuck a golf ball at my head when she was only a foot away.  There's still a bump on my forehead.  Maybe it's because I don't yet have kids but I thought it was hilarious.  Also, who has a golf ball in their play box?  I'm looking at you JD and McCall.

-Later that night I ended up in my house sewing,watching the last Harry Potter movie by myself.. and sobbing.  Sobbing for all those characters dying that I hold so dear to my heart.  Best part was texting my roommate, Lora and having her respond with, "Don't do it alone!" It's good to know someone understands my HP fanaticism.  Speaking of Lora, we occasionally have arguments about what constitutes a real dinner.  Yesterday she said, "You know garlic croutons just don't cut it for a dinner.  They actually made me nauseated."  Then she followed that up today by saying she was disappointed we weren't going to the movie until later since the popcorn from the movie theater was going to be her dinner.  The fact that she and her horrible eating habits are leaving me in 2 days is almost too much to bear.

-My makeup somehow slipped out of my hand this morning.  The result: makeup in my hair, all over my sweater, on my pants, and on the floor.  How does that happen?  Did I mention my sweater was white?  Then I got to work and found out that we were supposed to wear black today for the mock funeral party we are having for the retirement of a program.  Kind of uncanny that I ended up changing into a black sweater unknowingly, isn't it?

-The craziness of the morning continue when I got into work and saw out of the corner of my eye some sort of movement.  When I looked, there was a full fledged mouse scurrying off my desk and onto the floor.  A MOUSE!  On MY desk!  I was in shock. I mean what do you do when you see a mouse?  You can't smash it, and it's probably not the best idea to try and catch it.  I just ended up praying that it would run away, and what do you know it ran out of my room and into another office.  Take that coworkers!
There you have it.  I hope you enjoyed my hodge podge of stories.  You're welcome.

Blickenstaff's is the Place to Be

I've always been a fan of Blickenstaff's toy store.  Just take a look at this magical place.

Every time I go I seem to find some crazy new toy or game that I suddenly find absolutely necessary to have.  Naturally, I jump at any chance I get to go to this store.  A few weeks back I heard tell from my awesome SIL Makana that you can have FHE at Blickenstaff's and they'll let you play any game you want for free.  Free people!  Being the mother of 19 rowdy children (don't even ask me how I keep them all straight), I was thrilled to think of the prospects of introducing them all to the magicalness that is Blickenstaff's.  When it was time to gather for FHE, only two of children were present, effectively vaulting themselves to a two way tie for the honor of being my favorite child.  The rest of the 17 will be punished with coal in their stockings for such naughty behavior.  

I digress.  Despite the low turnout, we still had a blast.  We got a worker by the name of Travis to teach us how to play Tenzi, and SpotIt.  We also played with some random contraption that I didn't catch the name of.  Travis was a good sport and really made our experience wonderful.  I think he may have even had more fun than we did.  Yours truly was the champ of SpotIt (hopefully none there will find my blog and dispute that claim).  After playing these rousing games we retired to the outside of the store to check out the lights, listen to the amazing violinist playing, and say hi to our dear friend Santa. 

I may or may not have slipped a $50 bill to good old Santa while sitting on his lap, telling him to promise my favorite children whatever they wanted for Christmas.  

Thanks to Makana for the great idea and thank you Blickenstaff's for being so hospitable.  You can check them out on the web here or on there FB page here.

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

The other day I was at institute and our teacher told us of a service opportunity for the people affected by Sandy.  One of my teacher's friends in Delaware was collecting homemade Christmas ornaments to give to families that she had known while growing up in New York.  Being an FHE mom in my ward I realized that I could use this as my activity and force all my children in my group to be serviceable.   Double bonus!

One of the girls in my group came up with the idea of making salt clay ornaments.  She brought all the ingredients and some fun Christmas cookie cutters (making my life so very simple).  After watching this beautiful video about the Mormon helping hands to get us in the helping mood, we turned on the Christmas music, and got to work.  This project spanned two nights as we were on a bit of a time crunch with most people having homework to get back to - the first night consisting of making, shape creating, and baking the dough, the second night being the decorating portion.  Personally I think this would be a great activity to do with little children as they were really easy and still an absolute blast to make.

Ingredients:

4 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 1/2 cups water

Christmas cookie cutters (unless you're a pro and can make shapes it by hand)

Directions:

1. Combine ingredients and knead dough for 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Roll dough out flat, and then use the cookie cutters to cut out the ornaments.

3.  Make a small hole for the string using a toothpick (we improvised with cocktail umbrellas because for some reason there were no toothpicks to be found in my house).

4. Bake at 300ºF for about 20-25 or until golden. (Being the scatterbrain I am, I accidentally left the dough in the oven for an extra 15 minutes.  We had a lot of people over for my roommate's birthday and they all started saying.. "Ugh what's that burning smell?"  Realization finally dawned after about five minutes that the smell was probably my ornaments and I ran to the stove to take them out.  I found that they actually looked fine, so apparently there's a lot of room for error in cook time).

5. Paint and decorate as desired.  Acrylic paints work best, and you can use a varnish to make them shiny.  

We didn't have very many people show up the second day for painting due to other responsibilities   Because of this, we weren't able to take as much time on each ornament as we would've liked.  It would've been fun to not only paint, but add other things to the ornaments like tulle or ribbons.  I still think they turned out great.  I mean have you ever seen a cuter snowman?  I submit that you have not.

The Usual I Presume?

I've always wanted to be a regular somewhere.  I think this fantasy comes from the times that I worked at a food establishment.  I'd look forward to the regulars coming in and breaking up the monotony of the day.  We seemed to share some sort of camaraderie as I'd ask them how things were going with their life. It was like we were holding real conversations!  Since then, I have really just wanted to be able to walk into some place, have the worker get a big grin on his or her face when they see me, and start preparing my order without even needing to be told.

Well today I'm proud to say that I became a regular.  Granted this didn't occur at a food establishment, but it was still just as magical.  For the past 6 months I've been going to the temple every Wednesday at the same time.  Although people have recognized me, for some reason the ladies who handed out the clothes never seemed to.  Today, I walked in, and the little old lady serving out those jumpsuits got a smile on her face in recognition.  Then to my surprise, she went and grabbed a jumpsuit without any prompting from me.  It was just as magical as I would have imagined it to be!  It was slightly disappointing to see that she had gotten my my size wrong, but you know, I'd rather be a regular and get the wrong thing, then not be a regular at all.

I can't go back, it's so cold!

There's been quite a bit of watching of the following video lately.  I'm convinced the main reason it's so hilarious to me is the people that I watch/quote it with every single day.  The cold comment also perfectly captures how I feel about going back to my house during the winter.  You may not find it funny, but over here I'm still laughing.

On another note I went to a friend's house to see if she wanted to get a kong cone and found myself, instead, sitting next to her eagerly watching pride and prejudice.  Thirty minutes later there were 4 girls on that tiny couch.  When it was over we may or may not have started it again.. but you can't get me to admit to anything! Alright fine, I have no shame.. Yes, we did start it again.  Unfortunately twenty minutes in I had to leave and go to bed.  Darn responsibility.

Good Old Elementary School Days

This past Monday I had the wonderful opportunity to play ultimate frisbee twice. Twice! In the morning I played because a friend invited me, and at night we played for Family Home Evening. Now I'm not one to complain about everyone being active, but I just have to ask, what's with this game? It really is all the rage here in Provo and I can’t figure out for the life of me why it is such a big thing.   Don't get me wrong, I think it is fun to play every once in awhile, but wouldn't go so far as to play it every chance that I get.  I can't help but wish that others wanted to play other sports. 

In elementary school we had it right.  Certain sports were all the rage for a little while and then we'd move on to the next one. Sidenote, I was the most popular person in second grade due to my skills in rock, paper, scissors. Literally no one could beat me, and don't even ask how that is possible in a game that is part luck. A change in game popularity saw me fall from the top of the totem pole in popularity to near last in mere days. All because my rock, paper, scissors skills were no longer needed ever again.  I blame my lack of friends in elementary school on that.

Anyway I digress. We would rotate from basketball, to kickball, soccer, to tag football, foursquare, to jungle gym playing. The only thing that was always in fashion were the swings.   And here we are with college students from all over the world and the only thing we all will play is ultimate. What's wrong with having options? Maybe I should start a club where we play a different sport every week. We could even sneak in a match of Quidditch or larping one evening.  I've included that definition of what LARP is for those who don't already know.

LARP:  a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions