I’ve had a fabulous Sunday today, which is quite a welcome change from my typical boring, obnoxious, drawn-out, vengeful Sunday. I especially appreciated the change, as I hate spoiling a perfectly nice Sabbath. This Sunday in particular, church was actually rather nice. I was met by the nice young American man I had met on Friday night during the whole ice skating trip, and he kept me highly entertained throughout church. It’s amazing the difference a smiling face can make in any situation, especially when you’re forced to sit pleasantly in church for three hours, decked out and wearing pantyhose.

After church, I came home to find that my sister-in-law, Jen, and my nephew, Max, were visiting for the evening. Mom, Jen, and I played a new game – “Squint” – which I won by a margin of only one point. I was rather surprised, since I was rather distracted the whole time. It was fun, but then again, playing practically any game is fun with Jen around. She gets into the funniest fits of giggles over the smallest of things, and it’s always infectious.

In the midst of the game, though, the nice young American man called to see if I wanted to go walking somewhere to enjoy the lovely day. How could I say no? He came by about an hour later and he took me to a beautiful patch of land that he used to call home about five or six years ago; 25 acres, a pond, a creek, and the most impressive kiddie fort I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, his old home has since been abandoned and is quite run down. The most intriguing thing is that the land is really in a prime location, with houses selling for, I’d guess, around $900,000 in the neighboring lot. I want to know why the owner hasn’t sold and made herself a small fortune.

Either way, he entertained me with stories about his childhood as we walked around the hillsides around the house. I never would have guessed it, but his family owned horses and used to go riding all the time. I was really surprised by this, and also very keen: I’ve been dying to ride a horse in ages, and lately I’ve been soaking up any stories, movies, or fantasies about horseback riding. I’m now positively itching to find a saddle, slap it on a horse, and just ride until my poor body can’t take it anymore.

After he left, I thought I’d sit down to a nice bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for dinner, and watch a nice restful movie. But nope, the people just kept on coming. First was a friend of my parents, who stopped by to visit. Literally five minutes after he left, the Mormon missionaries showed up. 🙂 Once they sat down and I knew they weren’t just passing through, I couldn’t wait anymore, I *had* to eat. So I pulled out a bowl, sat down at the table with them, and ate my cereal. I know the Elders well enough not to be bothered by eating in front of him all by myself. Besides, I wasn’t being rude – I did offer some to them. Honest. We even had a charming conversation about the blessings of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, they just weren’t hungry.

I did set up an appointment to have them over for dinner on Friday though. One Elder and I are in cahoots, trying to convince my Mom to let us all go to Sweetwater Tavern after dinner for some root beer and chocolate waffles. One of the elders has been to Sweetwater before, loved the root beer, but didn’t know about the chocolate waffles. As a fellow chocoholic, he’s eager to try one, and naturally, there’s no way I deny the chance to go to Sweetwater.

Once all the company left and there weren’t any further knocks on the door, I took myself downstairs, laid down on the couch, and proceeded to watch the Oscars. It was just about right for my mindset at that point; I was tired, but blissfully unaware of anything important going on. Thankfully the Oscars didn’t kill my buzz, and I am quite happy to report that The Lord of the Rings won everything they were nominated for. You have no idea how happy that makes me, it just completes the lovely day I’ve had. I’m really happy for the people behind those movies, they deserved every award they received, and furthermore, I believe they deserved a few others that they weren’t nominated for. In particular, it’s a crime that Sean Astin wasn’t honored for his performance as Sam, especially in Return of the King. He was responsible for nearly all of the scenes that moved me to tears. Secondly, Viggo Mortensen deserved a nod for his remarkable portrayal of Aragorn. And most importantly, I can’t believe they got jipped out of a mention in the Cinematography category. The filming of that movie made it a moving work of art, which is what a motion picture should be.

But enough geeky obsession (I already worked all that out with one of the missionaries – we had a long talk about the random characters in Lord of the Rings and thoroughly weirded-out everyone around us.) I think I’d better get some sleep now because I actually have to wake up in the morning to go see my accupuncturist. Ergh, I’m not looking forward to it. My legs are all bruised up from ice skating, and I can’t imagine how horrible that’s going to feel sticking needles right into my black and blue bruises. Seriously, I have a bruise on my right shin that’s bigger than a sand dollar, and a million and one shades of blue, purple, and green. It’s oh so very lovely. So sweet dreams to me, sweet dreams to all those lovely Kiwis responsible for Lord of the Rings, and sweet dreams to all the nice new people I’ve met this weekend.