For sleeping (or crying?)

Mmmmmmm this song is so soothing. So sad, but so soothing.

Don't worry, I am perfectly happy, just going through music that I want available to me on an upcoming long car ride. This is on the list. It's a good list.

Aaand just like that, Alyssa has posted yet another Sara Bareilles song on her blog. Hands up if you're surprised? 

No one. Aight. That's cool.

Happy Monday evening!

Search the Book

There are many verses of scripture that have become favorites as I've searched the Book of Mormon, but today I'll just share one lil favorite of mine.

It is found in 2 Nephi 25:26, and it says:

"And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."

I love the idea of recording my life. I keep a journal and I write this blog and I Instagram stuff every now and then because keeping a record of life in this moment is important to me. The things I think, the things I like, the things I dislike, the people I'm with--all these are likely to change as time passes, and I want to look back to see what and how and why they changed. It helps me see and appreciate progress in all its forms. 

I'm thankful for the records kept by generations past, both ancient and close to home. I can learn reading from the stories of others just as much as I can learn from remembering my own story. This is a large part of my love for the Book of Mormon.

What I love to read and record the very most, however, are stories which include miracles and testimonies of Christ. I believe that everyone can find miracles if they keep their eyes open. I want to watch for and record those miracles, attributing them to their true source as a testimony for my posterity. (You think I'm kidding when I mention that my blog is for posterity, but I'm only kidding by about 5%.) I have felt the power of Christ's atonement in my life. I want to record that feeling and those life changes, "that [my] children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." This is important. Of all that I love to record, this is the most important. 

I hope that my children and grandchildren will be able to say from reading my writings that I did talk of, rejoice in, and preach of Christ at every opportunity I could find.





Idea and prompt from this missionary Facebook group.  

Memoir of a reunion

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Joseph coming home from his mission. Since I never wrote on this lil blog about that day specifically (this post was as close as I got), I thought I'd share a brief memoir.


On June 26, 2013, I woke up feeling a little excited and a lot nervous. Despite planning ahead a couple weeks, I had no guarantee that any of my coworkers could take my shift so that I could meet the Facers in time to head to the airport. I also had no guarantee that my head and my heart both wanted me to head to the airport, so my poor, torn self was almost (ALMOST) grateful for the excuse to stay in Provo.

I wanted to see him, but I didn't know if I wanted to marry him. I did know that he wanted to marry me. This caused stress.

I worked very absent-mindedly for half of my morning shift, until with approximately two minutes to spare, my lovely coworker walked in the door to cover for me. I bolted outta there and sped to the Facers, arriving just in time to leave for the airport. What a relief?

I remember very little about anything else until the moment when we saw him walking right at us. And all I really remember about that very first moment of seeing him, in person, for the first time in two years, is that I couldn't not smile about it. 

He let me know far in advance that he had promised himself that he would abide by his mission rules until his actual release, which meant I would not get any airport hug. What he did not let me know was that I would also get very limited amounts of airport eye contact. I thought I was the one feeling nervous, but I suppose he had a right to feel nervous as well. This was about as close as I got to him for nearly all our airport time:

But I assure you I was trying to get closer.

Anyway, we can probably fast forward through the car ride to Aunt Betsy's (where we sat far apart, of course) and even through the awkward reunions which happened at the beginning of the celebratory picnic. These chunks of time were filled with catching up on both ends. He told stories, we told stories, back and forth.

The most significant part of that day for me was when he had finally been released from his calling as a missionary and could finally allow himself to acknowledge me. I was just eating a sandwich and talking to Grandma, and suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder that could not have belonged to anyone else. 

And that hand is the best thing my shoulder has ever felt, before or since that day. It was, surprisingly, a better moment than the hug which followed immediately after. The hug was public: his whole family was watching by that point. But the hand on the shoulder--that was one of those magical instances where you don't see the significance coming. It was quiet and soft and firm and screaming, all at once, and it mattered. That darn hug I had dreamed about for two years paled severely in comparison to the first touch I had never even imagined.

Things mostly turned normal after that. We ate, we took pictures, we bought him an iPhone (veeery important, you know), and we chillaxed with the fam. I do believe he brought up the marriage question that day? The next day? So my nervousness was very warranted, people!

But the rest of that is probably a story for another time. 


I lovelovelove this Joseph boy. I am thankful every day for the mission he served, the experiences he had, the lessons he learned, and the man he became because of all that. I am also thankful for the equivalent experiences, lessons, etc. that I went through while he was gone. As wonderful as it was to reunite, I don't think either of us would ever trade those "best two years" for anything. 

It just might be true that absence makes the heart grow fonder...but let's not test it again, k babe?

K.

Dress your tech!

There is something wonderful on the world wide web that you may want to know about. I have no clue how I first came across interweb gem, but I have become a serious repeat customer ever since, and I just want to share it with you all. 

It's Bri Emery's weekly DRESS YOUR TECH feature over on her blog, and it mostly just involves lovely free pictures to use as your computer/laptop/tablet/phone backgrounds. 

I recently started feeling a wee bit tired of my laptop backgrounds, which was probably justified since they've been there since 2011, and I recently got a new phone, for which apparently nothing but galaxy backgrounds existed. I've always felt weird about having pictures of people I love as my background images (I can't explain it so don't ask why), so pretty much all of my own background resources were exhausted. Sooooo on my reading day last week, I went through all the archives of DRESS YOUR TECH and found my very favorites.

My phone now looks like this:

And my desktop now cycles through these:

It's such a simple way to feel a little uplift, but this sure did the trick for me. If you, too, are in need of a happy little change, head on over to DRESS YOUR TECH and get yourself something pretty. I did mention that these are all freebies, right??

I love when artists share their talents online because I really just don't have a knack for this sorta stuff. I really really love when they share their stuff for free because my lack of visual arts talent means that I can appreciate the value of pretty visuals in my life (grass is always greener...), but I can't create them on my own! Waaaahhhh I'm a baby. It could be a harsh irony, but thanks to these folks, it doesn't have to be, so that's nice of them.

Go forth! Dress your tech! And holler if you have any other sources up your little sleeves.

On a related note: I used to download these freebies from Becky Higgins (scroll all the way to the bottom of the page) on my old phone for backgrounds and I loved them, in case you want some more small-device-specific backgrounds.

First day of summer

Today marks the start of my real summer for this year. Like, my summer that does not involve school and homework. Like, now the party can begin. It's kind of ironic that it's two days after the summer solstice, am I right? You could say that's a solid metaphor for my life: always about 2 minutes or hours or days late. Or whatever.

Anyway, I start this summer with sore muscles, dry hands, and a rumbly stomach because this weekend was kinda cray cray. A good kind of cray cray, but still.

I spent the majority of my Saturday helping to clean the home of my wonderfully sweet visiting teachee, who was on the verge of going into labor with her first baby all day long. Superwoman much? Um, yes. We cleaned to get their house ready for new tenants because, of course, they are moving before this baby comes. She's planning on a home birth not at this perfectly cleaned house, however, and I just think those freshly bleached walls would sure be helpful if baby decided to come before the week's out. I'm just saying...being born in the cleanest home in town sounds like the next best thing after a hospital.

So that all contributed to the sore muscles and dry hands. 

And the rumbly stomach? That is a result of a) the cherries, b) the flu, or c) the bleach inhalation. If it's the cherries, it's because forthelove I just can't eat less than a wholestinkinlot when they're fresh off the tree. If it's the flu, I thank my niece and nephew and I know it'll pass quickly. If it's the bleach...well, I really don't think that's a thing, but I've learned from watching House lately that one can never rule out toxins, even if the tox screen is clean. (Did that sound official? Is this TMI?)

Oh! I also made my first yeast bread (!) in my own kitchen (!!) and it turned out preeetty yummy. Cinnamon rolls are always yummy, though, so I think I'll try again tonight with pizza dough and see if I get good results yet again. Pizza must be more difficult because it's not covered in sugar and frosting, right?

So like I said, it was kind of a crazy weekend, but a good one. I'm ready for this mental change of seasons because that always means new goals and new projects and new motivation and whatnot. I'll be writing myself a formal list later this week (maybe a little bit like this manifesto?) since that always keeps me more on track, and as usual, there's a chance I might share it with y'all. Accountability and stuff. (Cuz that worked so well last summer...)

In the meantime, anyone have any great summer goals or plans or projects or whatnot that they want to share? Or books to read! Yeah, sure, I'll throw that on the list of things to share. I'm always on the hunt for good new books during this, the laziest of seasons.

Happy summer, folks!

Stuff I learn 4

:: I finally had to learn how to change a flat tire this last week. There were no extreme circumstances involved, thank goodness, and now I won't just break down and cry if I ever need to pull over to change one myself. At least, I hope that won't happen... In any case, it's good news that I know this new skill.

:: Time and distance become equivalent terms when you are trying to see things really far away. This is because light takes time to travel to our eyes from wherever it originates. If an object is millions of lightyears away, it takes millions of years for that light to reach our eyes. Meanwhile, however, that object is morphing and growing and getting older, so it no longer looks anything like what we finally get to see. Thus, we look back in time when we look far away. Distance = time.

:: All of Star Wars takes place in one galaxy's worth of space. 

:: Berries smell like you expect them to if you just wash them and stick them in a food container for a while. I always thought artificial flavors/smells/whatever must be based on fiction because no blueberry in its little holey plastic thing smells like blueberry muffins. BUT I have been pleasantly surprised all week as I have brought my berries to work as a snack and discovered wonderfully summery aromas coming out of my Tupperware. I also learned from a friend recently that apparently concord grapes taste just like artificial grape flavoring. Maybe that should go the other way around. Oh well. I'm just saying that it's nice to know that my fruit snack flavors weren't just arbitrarily decided at some uncertain point in the past.

Berry sale!

The best lunch in the world

We were talking about food, right? Let's keep talking about food. Food is good.

As a little girl, one of my favorite family traditions was the annual birthday sleepover at Grammie's house. It meant scrapbooking, shopping, movie-watching...and bean burritos. Gram made the best bean burritos--no question--and they were always my dinner request for birthday weekend.

In recent years, I've eaten lots of bean burritos because they are super cheap and super easy. It's one of my staples, and I'm fortunate that Joe likes them also so that I can avoid making a real dinner every now and then. 

I used to think putting salsa on top of these burritos counted as a veggie for my 5-a-day, but in a recent effort to eat more veggies for realsies, I have learned what putting veggies on a bean burrito can really do for it. So without further ado, please enjoy this wannabe recipe for the quickest and most delicious at-home burrito in the world.

Actually, I have more ado. A quick word on refried beans: in my experience, refried beans are not a product where you should buy the store brand, but fat free versions of name brands are usually yum (of the ones I've tried). Okay okay okay, I'll just say it--no Western Family beans! They are much too thick and they lack flavor. Sorry, WF.

Anyway, spread some of those fancy refried beans on a tortilla. Cut two slices of cheddar cheese and line them up along the center of the tortilla. Fold the tortilla into thirds around that cheese strip and flip the whole thing over so that it's seam-side-down. Nuke it in the microwave for a minute or so, just long enough for the cheese to melt. Start chopping veggies! Quick, you only have one minute.

Now comes the fun part. Start with a little bit of sour cream and spread it all up and down that burrito. Then add a leaf or two of finely chopped lettuce, which should stay put nicely on the sour cream top. Put some tomato on there, and don't be ashamed of eating the whole thing. Add some onion, or green onion, or whatever. And avocado! Don't forget the avocado!! Then, sprinkle (?) just a bit of salsa on top for a flavor boost, and you're all set.

If you're me, you'll want a nice glass of milk with that. If you're Joseph, you'll want ranch or BBQ (on the burrito, not in a glass). Also if you are Joseph, you may put yours together in the reverse order: pile everything on and then fold it all up. Either way is fine, see?

And then just enjoy cuz really, man, this lunch is the best one in the world. 

Cost: about $1.20
Prep time: about 5 minutes
Yum factor: 10
Fill factor: also 10 (for me.) (It's a 5 for Joseph, who usually eats two of these.)