Skipping Meetings, the Target Challenge, and Basses

 Yesterday we skipped all our meetings and caught up on a lot of things on our list. The day before I hit a wall. I was just SO DONE with the schedule here - breakfast is too early/too far away to get up for so I eat fruit snacks for breakfast, wake up to a blazingly hot room even though it's only 70 degrees outside, go to a meeting that starts at 9, go to lunch in the dining hall, go to another meeting, go to dinner at 6:00, blah blah blah! I couldn't handle it anymore. We broke the dining hall routine and ate at a Mexican restaurant called 3 Margaritas. We only got 2 margaritas. It actually took us 3 different restaurants to find a family Mexican restaurant with "the menu." I hope you know what I'm talking about. If you're a regular at Casa Grande you will know what I mean.

So, yesterday we skipped everything. Apparently we didn't miss much, because it was mostly a repeat of one of our new staff training days. We couldn't sleep in because it was too hot, but we chilled in the morning. Whit played Roller Coaster Tycoon and I did pictures and blogged. I have a free shutterfly album that I have to use before August 1 so I am getting started on my Colorado album. We ate lunch for free at the dining hall and then set out to cross things off our list.

The first thing was the Target Challenge. A few weeks ago we went to Target to buy 7 things. I went pretty quickly, but Whit complained at the end at how long it took (it took maybe 15 or 20 minutes). I was flabbergasted because I couldn't imagine going any faster!! I mean, I only stopped to look at like 3 things that we hadn't come for. Whit explained that when he goes somewhere, he wants to be in and out just like that. There are two levels of speed for him - 1 is Fast. You go in, find everything, and leave. 2 is Efficient, which is even faster than fast. This is when you go in and nothing stands in your way. You find everything fast and there isn't a long checkout line or a random person that gets in your way. He said that with the stuff we got, he could have gotten it in 8 minutes if he was fast, or 5 or 6 minutes if he was with someone (like Curfman) or by himself and was efficient. So I challenged him. I made a list of 7 items that were similar to what we had gotten. A couple of tricky items and a couple of things you had to make a decision on. They were: a laundry basket, new pens, q-tips, rubber bands, a pillow, and candy. Since we finally had some free time, I challenged Whit to a race against the clock. He looked at the list a few minutes beforehand, and walked at a normal pace. And not kidding, from the front door to the checkout line he was back within 6 minutes exactly!! I was amazed. I had to go to the bathroom and it was in the back of the store instead of the front and I just made it back in time for him to finish! Ridiculous. So now I understand more how he gets frustrated even when I think we're going fast. One day we're going to go in and I'm going to follow him around to apprentice how to do things efficiently. Not that I want to though, Target is too fun to browse around! By the way, we had fun putting everything back. And then took some time to actually buy things! Haha.

 After Target we went to the music store and checked out the basses. Whit is really serious about me learning to play the bass! I think it's hilarious but I love it. I have lots of ideas, so I kind of think of learning to play the bass as just another idea, but Whit really wants to play an instrument again, and he thinks that I would love bass and it's pretty easy to learn. I hope he keeps encouraging me with it because if he does I will definitely do it! So I held a bass for the first time and laughed but also loved it! Whit played it a bit too and we were laughing trying to do slap. We looked up tabs online and Whit caught on pretty fast because of his knowledge of guitar, but I skimmed through a book first to learn the basics. Then when I was ready I started trying to fingerpick Harry Hood (my fave Phish song). It sounded okay, but I couldn't exactly figure out the rhythm, so Whit started to play the guitar for me. As soon as he started playing I knew exactly how to play the bassline! It was magical. It was really fun that it worked like that. Normally I play the melody (violin, piano, guitar) and if you want to learn a song you can easily figure out the rhythm. Generally I don't just know how the bassline goes in a song though, so it was awesome that when I heard the melody I could easily figure out how to play along with it. So I might be in the market for a bass! Hahah. I actually bought a book for piano about Funk theory. Yep. My plan is to understand music theory a little better (starting with piano is a good idea because I already know it a little and I don't have a bass yet), and this book is supposed to give you a good foundation for improv. I can't wait! I'm excited about having something else to learn now in addition to photography. I have been wanting to study language for a couple of years too so we'll see if that will come next. ;)

After the music store we hung out by this lake that we have driven by a lot. It has a breathtaking view of the mountains behind it. We laid down and read for a little while and then I walked around and practiced finding cool angles to take pictures from. I also finally took pictures of our rings since our photographer forgot to do that on our wedding day! (See above.)

 We made it back in time for free dinner at the dining hall (yay). On the way in we saw this TRIPLE RAINBOW!! But seriously, at first we were like "double rainbow all the way" and then Whit noticed "it's starting to look like a triple rainbow!!" And we looked closer and the bottom rainbow had like two sets of colors. The other day we saw just one rainbow like that. Never seen anything like that before, or a double rainbow, so this was very exciting. It was also hilarious that we were standing there reciting all the lines from the youtube video with all the people walking into the dining hall.

Then later on that night we watched the NEVERENDING STORY!! I saw it at Target for 5 bucks and we bought it because Whit has been wanting to see it - he had never seen it and everyone was telling him how trippy it is. This is surely one of my favorite movies from growing up, and now that we watched it again it is going down as one of my all-time favorite movies. It's so deep and imaginative, which is very much my personality and what I admire. From the nothing to the wise turtle(s) to the sphinxes to the realm of Fantasia, it's full of abstract, thought-provoking concepts.