My Five Minutes of Fame

I was on the History Channel.

Which basically makes me famous. 

It's kind of a cool story that all started with this blog. The History Channel was working on a show called How the States Got Their Shapes. One of their segments was going to be on religion. Mormons moving west and settling in Utah is pretty significant for the states and so they were going to talk about the LDS church. As part of that they wanted to talk about current LDS culture and BYU as a subset of that. One of the people researching for the story found my blog, commented and we had a series of phone interviews. Eventually they came and me and several of my friends [you can see Alyssa and Dan and Alexa in the clip] were interviewed. You can see pictures from that day in this post.

It's worth noting that in the clip we only talk about dating but we also talked about a lot of other things that are unique about BYU and LDS culture. I swear we didn't spend the whole time talking about NCMOs and DTRs.

Anyways, after a lot of waiting the episode premiered on Tuesday! One of the best parts of the night was when Beth called to tell me that her husband who just happened to be watching the History Channel had just seen Rachel Augustus on TV!

Just in case you missed it, my five minutes [literally - it's not long] of fame.

If you want to learn more about the show you can click here. Or if you want to watch the whole episode click here. 

NOTE: The embed and whole episode are linked from hulu which means I'm guessing they will only be available for three weeks. So if you try to click after that and it doesn't work, that's why. 

So, really I'm pretty famous. National [cable] TV and all. 

However, the life of the rich and famous thing hasn't really been working out for me just yet. In the two days since my TV debut,  I've weeded in our garden, changed water [wheel line twice & 4 hand lines], stepped in fresh cow poop [too many to count], lost my irrigation boot in the mud [only once luckily], fed chickens, dogs, cows and a kitten [daily], played vet to a crippled calf [4 times/day], and been gobbled at by annoyed turkeys [always. stupid birds]. 

My Dad says famous or not, I'm still a country girl with chores to do. 

For Memories

I keep my journal a little bit for me. I like being able to go back through and see what I was doing and thinking and how I've changed. But mostly I keep my journal for my children and grandchildren. I've spent hours reading my grandmother's journal. I LOVE it. I love her simple things, her adventures. 

So for memories sake, me as of June 18, 2011. 

1. I HATE bananas. In banana bread and smoothies it's okay but really not my favorite. 

2. I have an irrational fear of walking into a men's restroom instead of a women's restroom. I will check the labels at least 6 or 7 times before walking in. Even in a place where I am SURE which is which. 

3. I love water. Like I'm convinced I should've been a fish. I'd rather be in the water than almost any place else. 

4. Water is my drink of choice. Aubrey calls me a drink snob. I don't love carbonation so pop is rare for me and I think it's a waste of calories to drink juice. I like milk but I've had enough sour run ins that I don't often buy it for myself. 

5. I love paper. Like to craft with or write real letters with. I have a specific part of my budget that is just for paper so that I don't buy it unnecessarily. 

6. I'm obsessively organized. I live by my Franklin Covey planner and I really should be a spokesperson for Google because I love their products: gmail, reader, docs, etc... 

7. I love shoes. I'm in Provo for a week and I have 13 pairs of shoes with me [4 of which I bought yesterday]. I'm not high maintenance. I swear. I just like different shoes for different outfits. 

8. My diploma says Family Life. Really I studied Human Development. But they won't put my emphasis on it. 

9. My favorite color is yellow. Pizza will always be my favorite food. I'd way rather have a sherbet or a sorbet over ice cream. I love blog stalking. I love red rock. I love driving with the windows down and the music blasting. The end. 

Also, for memories sake my mom and I decided I should do senior pictures this year. After 4 years it's about time I had some good pictures of me again. Turns out I don't really look exactly like I did when I graduated from high school. 

So here's a little of me at 21 as a college graduate. 

NOTE: Claire White did my pictures. You can visit her at allthebellesandwhistles.blogspot.com/. You will fall in love with her. And her amazing husband. And their perfect little house. And her darling life. And her incredible art work. I picked nine to share but I could've chosen two dozen others. I LOVE what Claire did. I had so much fun with her and the pictures turned out just gorgeous. 

And I like it that way

Let's talk about country music for just a second. I love it. Adore it.

It regularly can summarize my life quite nicely. 

Take Tracy Byrd for example:

I do like it that way. I like my life.  [Thank you to my Dad, my Mom, my Uncle Scott and Aunt Jodi for making it so I can live the way I do. I have a spoiled life and I'm grateful for what they do for me.]

We go shooting for our branch home evening. 

We go shooting on Friday night. Just because we want to.

It's vanilla root beer. Come on people.

Emily wins the prize for most quoteable of that night:

"Do I have to put my headphones on?"

"I didn't even look. I had my eyes closed."

and

"Wait. Do I have to aim this thing?"

This girl cracks me up.

Also she blogs. Go check her out.

However Aubrey comes in as a close second with:

"I tried in multiple positions and I still couldn't get it."

and

"I'm not your friend or a girl."

I really like this girl. Also. She introduced me too Pterodactyl the movie. So bad it's good.

And let's just take a second to talk about how much I love this girl. 

I've known Jessica since we were like 12. 

She makes me laugh always. ALWAYS. 

She gets me. Better than almost anyone. She knows where I'm coming from and where I want to go. 

We can pick up where we left off no matter how long it's been since we've seen each other. 

She's probably the person I am still closest with from high school. That's saying something.

I adore her. [And just look at this picture. How could I not?]

We have family campfires and roast s'mores. 

And I get to hold a new kitten on my lap. 

The fire pit was my uncle's birthday present. On Sunday when I went down my attire was pearls and irrigation boots. I'm classy like that.

 We go to Succor Creek for branch home evening and get ridiculously excited to take pictures with the Oregon state sign. 

We had hot dogs roasted over the campfire for dinner for this activity. Delicious. Nothing quite like a fire cooked hot dog.

We hike up a steep mountains to caves and slide back down on our bums. 

Let's all take a minute and appreciate Emily's face in this picture. Fantastic. 

In summary: 

I'm from the country and I like it that way.