This is my Grammie:

Today is her birthday.

1) She never failed to express her love. 

2) She forgave everyone for everything, every time.

3) She was a trooper. Seriously.

4) She showed me that it is best to be happiest when you're with your family. We're all stuck together anyway, right?

5) She had incredible self-control. 

6) She appreciated the talents of others, and she let you know when she thought you had some.

7) If she was anything, she was selfless. Well, determined also, but mostly selfless.

8) She invested emotionally in everything I chose to do and always followed up.

9) She was the closest to perfection in this life I have ever witnessed.

10) She's the person I write down when asked, "Who is your hero?"

This was a hard list to keep to 10. I could go to 1000.

Never in my life have I encountered another human being who as Christlike as Gram. 

I can't wait to see her again.

I love you Grammie!

I am ill.

When I type and capitalize the word "ill" in Arial, it looks like a Roman numeral 3. Look: Ill.

So anyways, I've caught a bug. 

I've wanted to rip my nose off my face for about 48 hours now. 

Unfortunately, it turns out it's actually easier to just leave it attached. 

Whatever. 

If I don't get a proper sneeze out before I go to sleep, I'll feel like there's no closure to my day. 

The good news is this: I went to Texas Roadhouse with the padres today.

I ate an entire day's worth of Weight Watchers points in solely ROLLS. Then I ate real food.

Our server was cute cuz he was new to the whole "waiter" thing. 

...no, we did not leave with his number.

We also went to Coldstone. 

How's that for a splurge of a day?

#somuchfoodIthoughtI'dexplode

(I'll be honest: I don't understand hash tags.)

Heard a new joke this weekend.

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Well it's a pretty obscure number, you've probably never heard of it...

Ha, I love it. 

Ok, that's enough for now. Just felt like I needed a random post because I've been a little too organized lately. 

Picture:

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Embarrassing

This is a follow-up story to my last post. 


I ate my apple between classes yesterday. Then I went to the bathroom real quick before choir. I'm in a women's choir. This means the bathroom kind of explodes with girls right before choir begins. Because why go to choir on time when you can stop for a quick potty break first? 


Anyway, I walked into the packed bathroom to wait in line with probably 5 other girls, passing 2 girls on the way in. When I got to a point where I could see myself in the mirror, I took a look real quick (because I'm vain, ok?) and lo and behold! There was a tiny chunk of apple on the tip of my nose. 


It looked like a booger. 


I lol'd. 
And then I promptly flicked it right off.


Only one other girl really saw what I was laughing at, and she gave a little pity laugh. To everyone else, I probably looked like I was laughing at and flicking my boogers in a public bathroom. And to the 2 girls I passed on the way in, I probably looked just plain disgusting. 


Man, what a proud moment. Possibly my finest hour.


Moral: don't eat apples. Like, ever. 


The end.

Apples and dominoes.

Yesterday was a lovely day. Please allow me to record it for posterity:


First off, you should know that I do not like eating plain apples. I will drink all the apple juice in the world, and I love apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers, but plain apples just do not float my boat.


(There's a valid history behind this dislike, but it will be shared another time.)


Now, I teach piano on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. On Tuesdays, my first lesson is with my newest student, whom I quite enjoy teaching. She answers all my questions and asks plenty of her own, so we are well on our way to teacher-student friendship. Adorbs. 


Yesterday, this student rose to the position of "favorite student" within the first 10 seconds of her lesson. When I answered the door, she handed me an apple. Confused at first, I asked jokingly, "Oh, is this an apple for the teacher?" She smiled real big and replied that it indeed was! 


Ok, tell me that's not the cutest thing ever. I don't even like apples, and it's the cutest thing ever. I'm technically not a real teacher (yet), and I'm already getting apples from students! So in love with this. I vow to eat this apple. (And now I've said "apple" so many times that it sounds weird in my head.)

Part two of yesterday's goodness was my evening with Jen. She was in a wonderful mood, and we played dominoes. Check it out: 

They're maybe a little wonky, but Jen just likes to match the colors, so eliminating "wonky" is at the very bottom of our domino to-do list. Usually breaking all the normal rules of dominoes is right at the top of that same list. It's fine. 


When I was trying to take these pictures, Jen ran to grab her own camera, and we both took pictures of the dominoes.She kept saying, "Smile, dominoes! Say cheese!" which I thought was absolutely hilarious. It is impossible to not love this girl. 

Ok, that was my great day yesterday. There were a million other little things, but these are the two of which I have pictures, so they made blog status. Thanks for listening. 
(PS: these were both kairos moments, if you were wondering. I'm still loving that as well.)

Look What's Cookin

I recently finished earning my Personal Progress medallion. (I know, I know...I should have finished long ago. I promise I was anxiously engaged in good causes, just not in recording those causes.) My final project was to organize Mom's seventeen million recipes--give or take a few--into one huge binder. This involved sorting, cutting, gluing, printing, writing, and, well, organizing for far longer than the minimum 10 hours. BUT it is now finished, and Mom loves it! Heck, I love it too. I've already claimed inheriting it someday.

Behold, the recipe binder that is bigger than I am:

Personalized tabs in Mom's favorite font

Super classy section dividers

Cut and paste at its finest

Real quick, I'd like to give a shout-out to my favorite recipe in the book: buttery soft pretzels! This recipe served us well for years of delivering fresh cinnamon pretzels to ward members every Sunday. If you look closely you can see calculations for the perfect ratio of salt, oil, flour, etc, as well as huge grease spots covering half the page. These are the signs of a well-loved recipe. In fact, we have this recipe down to a science, so holler if you ever want homemade pretzels!

And thus I finished Personal Progress. It's a big deal, and I'm relieved and proud to be DONE. 

Two tickets from today:

Yes, I breathed the same air as Brian Regan today. 

(By which I mean: we were in the same room at the same time.)

My good friend Brett suddenly had an extra ticket, so he invited me last minute. 

Brian was seriously so hilarious. I laughed myself to tears.

What a lovely day today has been!

Also: riding Trax is a very educational experience.

Also: I got me some Costa for dinner.

Also: I am sorry for the excessive amount of colons in this post.

Also: good night.

Kairos

Some frivolity:

Currently listening to my new Daughtry album. 
It's totes mainstream, but it reminds me of that one missionary, so I'm totes in love. 
Happy birthday to me!


I think I want to TA for American Heritage in the nearest possible future. 
(I know "TA" is not actually a verb.)
Because, hello, I want to be a teacher. What better way to do so than to practice on unsuspecting freshmen?


I think I also want to try out the BYU Jerusalem Center someday. 
It would be good for me. 
Not to mention that it would add a boatload of interesting stories to this here bloggy blog.

Some seriousness:

Yesterday I ran into a friend in the Maeser building and we chatted when I was supposed to be doing matrices. 
My math homework was turned in late. Who cares.


I recently read a blog post, "Don't Carpe Diem," where I learned about chronos and kairos. 
Two Greek words for time. One used to represent actual minute-to-minute, day-to-day time (chronos), and the other for special time, stand-still-moment time, God's time (kairos).


Today I started pointing out kairos moments to myself. It's healthy. I found at least three.
My personal motto for this semester is, "Remember to wonder."
Life is beautiful when you look at it this way. Everything is suddenly magical.
I am so in love with this perspective.

God is real and loves and knows me. He cares about what I care about. He provides all I need and so much more.
Tonight has been one endless kairos moment while I've realized the abundance in my life.

"Sincerely giving thanks unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God's love. May we cultivate in our hearts an attitude of gratitude." 

-President Thomas S. Monson-


Amen to that.

Family Vacation: Disneyland Edition

WARNING: Too-many-pictures-to-count in your near future. You have been told.


Once upon a time, we went to Disneyland for a seriously magical week full of really long lines.  It was wonderful, which means a lot from an impatient girl who hates to travel. 

Check it out!

Day 1 looked a little like this (plus night one at the beginning):

Space Mountain...longest line all week

I MET RAPUNZEL

My dad's stronger than your dad.

Carousel photography experiment

Father's favorite

Day two was more like this: 

Matchy matchy!

Indiana Jones

More experimental photography...

Mother's favorite

Feliz Navidad to anyone I might know in Mexico

Back cabin of the Monorail...cooler than you might think

I love my family.

And day three was all:

Jenna's frogs

Favorite daughter, say what?

We like old stuff, and pennies.

World of Color=amazing

Day four:

Yikes-o

Happy Christmas Harry

(Dramatic ocean picture)

Favorite, forever and ever

They weren't allowed to do fireworks all week, but a miracle happened on the last night. Glory hallelujah!

Seriously, this trip made dreams come true. You can tell Disney I said that because maybe we'll get a free trip. Sorry for the picture overload, but really I'm not because I warned you at the get-go. But it was a ton, I know. (Confession: this was only 8% of the pictures I took. Oops.) Anyway, you should all go to Disneyland real quick and then blog about it so I can see. 

Thanks Mom and Dad for the trip!

FROSTY

Do you happen to know how difficult it is to sort through 7 million Disneyland pictures and narrow them down to one cohesive blog post? OK, well, it's tough. I have a renewed admiration for any blogger who blogs these events for reals. (The pictures are coming soon, since I know you're all at the edge of your seats...) 


Anyway, in the meantime, I have a quick story to share. 


Once upon a time, my dad was super awesome and got this thing for a buck:

And now, I get free Frosties for the year of 2012. In case you don't know, these are my go-to treat when I need something quick and cold and chocolate and cheap. It happens more often than I would care to admit.. But this little tag benefits The Adoption Exchange, so I can feel good about it! Win-win, I tell you.


If you like anything at Wendy's, you should go get one. Seriously. One dollar. Free Frosties. What more could you ever ask for in all the world? Nothing. (OK, maybe world peace, but we will discuss that another time.)


Thanks, Dad! You know me well.

Annual Attractive Face Competition, 2011

And the grand prize winner is: