Well, that wrap-up was more serious than I expected.

This is a list of things that have been sitting in the bottom of my bookmarks folder or the bottom of my Google Reader because I liked them when I first saw them but for different reasons than I like most things on the internet and therefore I didn't quite know what to do with them. So now I am collecting them into one post on my own blog so I can relieve the stress of wondering where the heck I should save them. 

Most of these are sappy. Don't say I didn't warn you.

(1) From a bookmark of my cousin's friend's tumblr:

slaughterhouse90210:

“Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.”
― Philip Roth, The Human Stain

(2)

This video was posted on the BYU webpage once when I was still in high school, and I watched it and loved it and forgot about it. When I saw this link on someone's tumblr last week (I forget whose!), I fell in love all over again.

(3) From Dani's tumblr:

Love this cuz I was raised on these two characters!! Never would have put them together, but isn't this just perfect?

(4)

I absolutely love this blogger, Elise. Her's is my current favorite blog of ever--inspiring in so many ways!--and I want to be Elise when I grow up. Her husband serves in the military, and she recently wrote a blog post about missing him. It struck a chord.

And I know I'll continue to pour my heart and all my thoughts into hand-written letters and email. But it's so far from the same. It's so far from in-person. It's so far from normal to have your favorite person on the other side of the world. And some days it's just horrible. Certainly not the worst case scenario - or even close - but still immensely difficult.

I realize that I am not married to the boy I miss every day, and I recognize that he is not on the other side of the world, and I recognize that he is not often in harm's way, and so really Elise and I don't have that much in common here. BUT this post says many of the things I've thought while he's been gone and describes many of the things I expect to feel when he gets back. It's nice to hear it put eloquently and from a different, non-missionary perspective. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I'm not the only person in the world who doesn't have all the people I love right near me all the time, and that other people have similar situations/struggles/feelings.

Anyway, now you should go read the whole post because it will take you about 3 minutes. And then read her whole blog because suddenly you will feel motivated and able to finish every project you ever start. And then report back to me because I will gladly have entire conversations with you about how inspiring she is.

(5) These are all from Ruth's tumblr.

Adorable!

Not to be mysterious or anything, but this is totally true.
Plus, I love C. S. Lewis.

This has been haunting me since I read it.

So there you have it, ladies and gents. Five solid pieces of evidence that I sometimes get sentimental and nostalgic and sappy. For any who don't know me really well, this is kind of a big deal since I am a girl who often avoids real emotion wherever possible. [Now that I think about it, even people who know me pretty well may not know this.] It is much easier for me to blow things off as artsy and idealistic and irrelevant to my life than to let in a thought and feel a feeling and have that moment of vulnerability. I think we are all like that sometimes, right? But I'm slowly learning that those moments which briefly expose the heart and soul are what change a person over time, and I'm trying to end my days of being forever tough-skinned. 

I leave you with this idea from my choir director, Sister Applonie: "We all rely on the artists of our culture to remind us to feel." If that's the case, then I think these are each pretty good pieces of art.

The end.