Stuff I learn 2

:: One of the hottest astronomy research topics right now is the search for exoplanets, which are basically just planets orbiting stars other than our sun. They're not easy to find, but just last month, astronomers found an exoplanet orbiting its star at a distance conducive to the existence of liquid water on said planet. Since we all assume that water is the only thing that matters for life (after all, that's how Earth works), this is VERY EXCITING, PEOPLE. This means potential for life beyond Earth, and that means aliens! You heard it here first. 

:: Pie crust! I learned how to make a beautiful pie crust. Things to remember: cold ingredients and no overmixing, of course. But the part nobody ever told me until now is that your crust should have streaks of fat when you roll it out. And make a little tin foil collar for the edges of your pie when you stick it in the oven, so they don't burn. 

:: "A lizard is basically any reptile with four legs and a tail."
:: "Does that include chameleons? and geckos?"
:: "...yes."

According to my Google search, baby chameleons and baby geckos are way cuter than adult chameleons and adult geckos, so I hope you enjoyed these baby pictures. Look! Four legs each! And tails!


Source for image 1 and source for image 2.

Birthday boy

Joseph turns 22 today! Since I am not sure that he'll read this (are you there? Joe??), I will tell you that we are celebrating after work tonight with his favorite Chinese food followed by mint brownies. I will also tell you that he thinks he has all of his presents already, but he does not. I will not tell you anything else on the off chance that he does decide to catch up on blog reading this morning. 

He is a good man and I love him a lot.
Happy birthday, husband.

Stuff I learn

For a few random semesters in college, I've kept a page in the back of my 5-subject notebook and titled it "STUFF I LEARN." Usually this page has come about as a necessity for the devotionals I've attended that have really struck me, or because that one random lecture was better than I expected and so I took notes, or just because I had a great professor who I wanted to mimic in my own teaching years. 

In any case, I found one of these pages while cleaning out some old semester stuff today, and I was suddenly really glad that I had started that page that semester. I needed to read that page again and relearn that stuff. That was good stuff.

Writing stuff down is probably good for the soul. 

So anyway, because I believe in writing stuff down, I am of course going to start using my blog to record some learned stuff every now and then. Maybe regularly? We'll see. For now, here is episode 1 of STUFF I LEARN.


:: Earth's moon is abnormally large, but it's not even close to being the coolest moon in the solar system. Io, Enceladus, and Triton have erupting volcanoes, and Ganymede is, like, huge. If you're into odd-shaped things, most moons are not nice and spherical, like these two that orbit Mars:

Hehe, they crack me up for some reason. And another cool moon fact: Europa, which orbits Jupiter, is the item in the solar system currently most likely to sustain life. Scientists suspect that it hides oceans of water under its top icy layer. However, we're not about to send anyone or anything there to test for bacteria because it turns out the likelihood of finding bacteria and then realizing we sent that bacteria in the first place is far too high. Oh well.

:: Continually vs. continuously. "Continually" means that whatever it describes actually comes and goes. It does so often, perhaps, but it is not really a constant issue. "Continuously," on the other hand, means that whatever it describes really does happen all the time without a break. You would want to say that your flight was in the air continuously for 10 hours (because continually implies a very rough flight...and death). But maybe you describe your cookie eating while on that flight as continual (unless you have found a way to eat cookies without breathing in between bites). 

:: Parmesan cheese enhances the flavors of everything else. If something tastes a little bland, add some parm and behold! it will taste more like whatever it is supposed to taste like.


Anyone else learn anything cool this week??

From the draft archives: "In which I paraphrase a talk"

The tenth commandment is the most difficult for most people to keep. 

In simplified terms, the first four commandments deal with your relationship with God. The next five cover your relationships with other people. And then we have: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's [anything]." Seems like that last one should fall into the same category as numbers 5-9; it involves relationships with other people, right? But then again, it doesn't really involve anyone but you. If you steal or kill or lie, someone else suffers to some degree. If you covet, no one else even has to know. You can covet all the livelong day and the rest of us will be nary the wiser.

Unfortunately, that crucial difference makes this tenth command far more difficult to follow. There are no "covet police" to stop you, no form of public or private discipline. You may not even realize that you're coveting, so self discipline is difficult. 

This is the case for me.

For the most part, I don't have too much of a problem coveting other people's stuff, like cars and houses and iPhones, but I have always had a nasty tendency toward jealousy of others' successes. 

In school, I wanted top scores. In my piano years, I wanted the toughest pieces. In college, I wanted the top scholarship. I don't think it's wrong to want to become the best you can, but I do think it's wrong to feel angry/covetous/discouraged just because someone else is better than you currently are. Today's church speaker asked, "What do you covet?" and then I asked, "When will I let it go?" It might be a lifelong quest, but I'm determined to conquer this green monster. 


[2014 edit: I wrote this in July 2012, but I didn't post it for whatever unfinished reasons. (It's clearly still a little unfinished, but I'm leaving it.) This post begins my thinking publicly through a topic which is very often on my mind. I'm done letting it stew, and I think writing stuff that other people might read is a good way for me to find my opinion in the middle of all that stewing. Here begins the story of conquering that green monster, I think.]

Temple

Woo wedding! Am I ridiculous for still insisting on posting my wedding pictures? Probably, but I'm doing it anyway. 

The pictures taken at the temple are my very favorites. I adore the Salt Lake temple and grounds and atmosphere, but even more than that, I love reminiscing about the sweet spirit we felt that day inside the temple. Joe reminded me often during the speedy wedding planning days that none of it really mattered other than the fact that we would be sealed in the temple, and I so appreciated that. Looking at these temple pictures takes me back to what matters most about my memories of that day: we were blessed to be surrounded by family and friends, and we were blessed to begin our eternal marriage on the right foot.

Aaaaand a shout out to our photographer Amber because I don't know how many times I can say it, but I loveloveloved the quality of her work. She perfectly captured both the sacred beauty of the temple and the fun of having so much family there.

Softie

Maybe I'm just a softie, but my boss sent us this today and I thought it was absolutely adorable:



You can read the brief accompanying article by clicking here. 



Happy Wednesday, folks!!

What I learned when we lived sans internet

In case I haven't talked about it enough already, CONTEXT: 

When Joseph and I got married and moved to Provo in October, we knew that Google Fiber was on its way to town. This meant free internet, which was seriously exciting for poor college students, so we decided to just not sign up with any internet companies until Fiber came. We knew installation would begin in January, but in January, we learned that our area of town would actually have to wait until March. We decided that we could survive three more months of using campus and parental internets. By the time our free internet was finally installed, we had just passed our six monthiversary of internet-free marriage. (Okay, really just of marriage, but I'm talking about the interwebs here.) 

Pretty much our entire neighborhood got their Fiber installed on the same day and it was adorable:

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As I return from the land without wifi, I bear good news: living without constant access to the internet is easier than it sounds! 

I realized that I only need the internet for one thing: homework. And homework can be done on campus if one is willing to ditch all the other things they use the internet for. Alternatively, homework can be done at home, late at night, without the internet, and then taken to campus internet at almost-midnight to turn it in (not recommended)...

I did not need the internet to stay in touch with friends and family. Phone calls, text messages, and visits to Orem did suffice. Instagram, Facebook, and blogging--wonderful though they can be for staying connected--are not necessary.

I did not need the internet to stay current on major events. Not that I bothered to stay particularly current during my internet-free time, but I did suddenly realize the beauty of newspapers. I even read one, once! News videos and whatever is going viral today--good though they may be for current events--are not necessary. 

I did not even need the internet to cook. But I already blogged about this shocking revelation here. 

Basically, it came down to this crucial idea: I did not need the internet to keep up with the world. Nearly all of the purposes for which I normally used the internet were--it turns out--completely optional. I had some ridiculous notion that I needed the internet to function as a human being, and what a joy it was to discover that I actually needed no such thing!

Perhaps even more crucial was this idea: I not need even to keep up with the world. It hurt my little heart for about one week that everyone could go on posting stuff that I would never have the time or means to sit down and read. And then I realized that I was being ridiculous. The world always goes on spinning, with or without me, and that's fine. I don't need all of that, and I'm fine with all of that not needing me. I learned to relish the quiet evenings at home with Joe, the distraction-free writing of school papers...heck, I even learned to relish that sense of falling behind everyone else. It was downright freeing to just cut the worry of "keeping up" completely out of my life, and it helped me with some other major goals I'm working on right now. It was great "me" time, but not in a way that felt self-centered. Does any of this make sense?

Anyway, now that that's all on the table, it has been nice to slip back into internet living in the last month or so. I have especially loved jumping back into blogging (which, as you all know, is strictly for the benefit of my posterity) and back into commenting back and forth with my family. I'm taking the fact that these two things were my instantly most-loved internet privileges as direction for my internet priorities. I do my homework, I keep up with the fam, and I blog what and when I want to; I try to let everything else remain optional. And my goal is to make that mentality last beyond one month of internet living.


Now, the real question: am I being a drama queen because I once lived six months without the internet at my house? You can answer this honestly. I can take it. 

And just for good measure, some inspiring lyrics from Kip: "I love technology. But not as much as you, you see. But I still love technology. Always and forever."

Sharing some love

I think these flowers are lovely. A Tumblr user that I follow posted them today, and I was struck by their summery loveliness. I wanted to know who had created them, so I clicked from Feedly to the actual blog...and found that to be the end of the trail. 

A while back, I read a blog post by another person that I follow (my husband laughs at me for following people I don't know personally...but it's fine, right?), and this situation reminded me of said post. Go read it because it offers an interesting take on "the other side" of a prevalent issue which most of us happily feign ignorance about. But synopsis: Stephanie is a creative and talented designer who found her own photo spread far and wide on Pinterest with no credit given to her, and that hurt (understandably!). 

So anyway, I remembered a little commitment I had made to myself when I read that: "I will do all in my power to not further acceptance of this system that we all silently agree to by no longer reposting without attribution." (Or something like that.) And so I Google Image searched these flowers! It was super easy to drag the image into Google, and then Google found the artist for me in about 3 seconds. 

And I am so so glad that I took those 3 seconds to find Yao Cheng Design. I spent 20 minutes perusing this girl's work, and it is beautiful! I suddenly wished that I had asked her to design our wedding announcements (although I'm not sure that watercolor florals are Joseph's cup of tea as much as they are mine). I also followed her on Instagram cuz I am so all over all things floral. If you, too, want to view some lovely things, go check her out.

I do not post this to brag about what a wonderful citizen I am. I have spent plenty of time reposting without attribution, and I have committed such crimes since declaring my little manifesto (oh the horror!), so I certainly am not a shining beacon of perfection. But the happy discovery I made tonight by looking just a little further into something I really enjoyed felt worth sharing. And I guess it's always good to raise awareness? I'm no artist--that's for sure--but if I were, I would sure appreciate people who insisted on sharing my art appropriately. 

I realize this problem is not world hunger status, but I do think it's at least courtesy and kindness status. Thus, here I am to advocate attribution: Just everyone cite your sources and we'll all be one happy family. Amen.

Discovery: Pandora

Yes, here's the Pandora post.

I've recently made an exciting discovery. It's called "Pandora Internet Radio." Have you ever heard of it??

I have never had very good luck with my Pandora stations. I think this is a direct result of the fact that I have also never had very much patience with them, which stems from very low faith in a computer algorithm's ability to find music for me. For years, I've alternated between Pandora and options that let me choose each song (such as YouTube videos or Spotify's free online player), always feeling simultaneously more enticed by the control and more frustrated by the lack of variety in all things non-Pandora. There was no happy medium!

I know that other people have achieved Pandora happiness because I have witnessed it firsthand. I just have never thought it was possible for me. But then our good friends Trent and Sally played their favorite Pandora station for background music at a game night, and I liked every song. It planted a little seed of faith within me.

Fast forward to my current job, where use of Pandora is allowed and use of YouTube is not. Factor in a reluctant but strong love for hipster music and a severe lack of resources for finding such music beyond Mumford and Sons. Consider that there have been times at work where I have literally had no projects to work on and no homework to do and boredom has set in. Add a dash of coworker persuasion.

Shockingly, all these factors landed me at Pandora! 

But my first attempt at a new station failed miserably. I used Coldplay as my springboard artist because maybe hipsters like them? I diligently liked or disliked every song the station played. I somehow ended up with a station involving zero percent Coldplay and 100 percent weird stuff, within just a few days. And I quit Pandora again cuz ewthatsexactlywhatIalwaysknewandexpected.

But then I realized that I might could achieve a wonderful hipster station if I began with the hipster artist who first got me started on tolerating the genre: Ed Sheeran, of course. And guys, this station has turned out wonderfully! It helps that I realized that liking or disliking literally everything is not always helpful. And it helps that I have been more patient. And it helps that I can now refine it while I'm at home, too. Just lotsa good factors this time around.

Anyway, I decided officially last week that I truly love this station because I was just sitting there, thinking to myself, "Gee, I wish I had a way to get this station to play ___(artist)___" AND THEN PANDORA PLAYED THAT ARTIST. It's happened three times since, and this, guys, this is true Pandora happiness. 

The only problem now is that Pandora offers no easy way to transfer a station you love to the people you love. How difficult can it be to save all my preferences in such a way that I can embed a link on my blog? Then again, I know nothing about such things, so I'm sure it's tough. But whatever the reason for this option's lack of availability, it just means you'll all have to trust me when I say that I have the best Pandora station of them all. 


Anyone else have a Pandora station that they love??

List of thoughts

This is a weird list where almost everything could be its own post, but I couldn't decide which one to write, so I synopsis-ized them all. Happy Sunday evening to me, I suppose!

:: Scheduled blog posting is my new favorite thing. Funnily enough, I always suspected that it might be, but it sounded hard to start. In the overwhelming gratitude for at-home wifi which came with our Google Fiber, I sat down one night and wrote two extra posts beyond the one I wanted to post that night. And that was all it took to start me off on scheduled posting. Lovely lovely lovely.

:: Blendoku is my other new favorite thing. SUCH COLORS.

:: I so appreciate my husband and I don't post about it very often. I feel weird about spouse brags because I am on a quest to "kill the comparison beast" in my life this year, and any form of brag just doesn't lend well to this mentality. But I do appreciate Joe because he does so much for our lil family, and I now wonder if occasional public mentions of this fact are not actually bragging, but just...love. I love him. I love him a lot.

:: My suspicion that our house would be smokin hot during the warm months just as it was during the cold months was completely accurate. Three cheers for windows open! (And three boos for allergies.)

:: I feel ridiculous about this, but we are just now almost done (for reals this time) with our wedding thank yous! I could make a myriad of excuses for the delay, but I just won't. I do realize that courtesy demands a much earlier send-out of these cards than the couple's seventh monthiversary (yikes), but I have to keep telling myself that our gratitude will last forever, so a belated thank you is better than none at all. We really have been so so blessed by the generosity of others, and I don't want the opportunity to recognize that slip by. And bonus: I suddenly have a deep appreciation for the thank you cards I have received for random stuff in my past. 

:: Here is a song that I have come to love (and enjoyed having stuck in my head all weekend) because of Pandora. There might be a post about Pandora in the future because I have not always loved it but now I do, like, a lot. But anyway, this song has a super catchy chorus that also is calming? Maybe that's not an accurate description. If that's not really why I love it, then it's because it reminds me of something from my childhood. It's all hard to pinpoint! Anyway, song:





Hope that everybody's weeks are off to a great start! Everybody in the whole wide world.

Hairs

I cut my hairs this week. (!!) 

I have been growing out my hairs since my junior year of high school. Did you know that I used to have a bob??

Yep, I did. It was the first hair style of my life that I loved. But I realized about halfway through high school that I would someday want long hair for whenever I got married. This realization was followed by a realization that such an event could potentially happen, like, within a few years, maybe, possibly? And growing out one's hairs is not something that happens overnight.

So I started to grow it out. My plan was to grow it as long as I could and then just keep it there so that I could do whatever I wanted whenever my wedding came. If that happened to be decades after high school, so be it, but at least I would have my desired long hair. 

No one warned me that my hairs would grow like a weed (a collective weed) and that I would have long-enough hair waaay before marriage. I loved this stage (basically just the grown-out bob), which came and went circa beginning of 2011:

And then I started getting excited about doing stuff with my hair. Bobs don't let you do much stuff, especially if your hair refuses to curl under any and all circumstances. Grown-out bobs are mostly the same, but you get ponytails thrown into the mix, woo! Thus, when my hair suddenly reached a point that I could braid it, I was excited.

I also became a quick fan of sock buns, once I figured those out. In fact, I fell so much in love with them that I chose a sock bun for my wedding hair! One might say that was an utter waste of my years of growing out these hairs; aaaand they might be right. But I am a firm believer in allowing myself to change my mind, so a sock bun it was, and I loved it to bits and pieces. 

Anyway, all of this is just leading up to this week, when I cut my hairs almost all the way back to a bob. I really wanted to donate it, if I could, but I also wanted to still have enough hair to ponytail it on Saturdays. I've stalled for a while to convince myself that I could accomplish both feats, and I decided I had reached that point sometime during this winter semester. I determined that a post finals cut was the way to go, and now that cut has happened!

I meant to take one of those "before and after" pics at the salon but failed to do so...I'll improvise with this:

See? Long hairs, short hairs. I am still deciding if I like it, but I think it'll grow on me over time. (Get it? Grow on me??) And if not--I'll be back to long hair in about another year and half, so no biggie. 

Hurrah for summer hair!

Spring 2014

New classes. Is that all I even need to say now before you all know what's coming next? Probably. And you'd be right: it's time for those happy little class pre-judgments that kick off every semester.

Food Preparation in the Home :: This class rocks. I promise that I don't choose my college classes based on whether or not I get to take home free stuff every week...but so far I seem to have found most of those classes anyway! It's been said that you can take this class during spring term and never have to cook at home all semester long...cha-chang. Also, the professor is adorable and the homework is easy. Win win win. 

Descriptive Astronomy :: This class also rocks, I think. It is held in the planetarium on campus, which is cool. It covers the whole of the universe in 7 weeks, which is cool. I will have an opportunity to stare at the sun and to learn 50 constellations, which is cool. Let's be honest: I'm only taking this class because I want to learn cool stuff about the night sky. But today I realized that I will also spend a lot of my time marveling at the wonder of the universe, and I'm definitely okay with that. 

Pictures!

These are my semester-start Instagrams, of course. 

(No, that's not like a tradition or anything, but I did it this semester cuz...only two classes.)

Basically, this semester is all set up to be awesome. Here we go, 7 weeks of food and wonder!