Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Snow and Easter

Wow, between the busyness of school and my lack of ideas for something to write about, it's been a while since I blogged. Not that I have anything really special to say now, but oh well.

First off I'd like to ask a question, Who's idea was all this snow anyway?! We didn't even have snow for Christmas. I couldn't go sledding during Christmas break because of the lack of snow. And now when Spring has already "officially" begun and it's almost April we have the biggest snowstorm of the year. It's like the person in charge doesn't even pay attention to the calendar or something.

Secondly, some random Easter notes. This year for Easter my mom tried out some cool, new stuff. She boiled some of our eggs with onion skins to make them dark and then we tried etching a design into the shell. It was pretty cool looking (at least the artistic geniuses, Brent and my mom, made some pretty awesome designs; those of us who lack artistic talent didn't fare so well, my "tulips" ended up looking more like bats then flowers). We also made Easter cookies. The recipe was connected to scriptures about Christ's death and resurrection, and the cookies were hollow in the middle like the tomb. It was nifty.

I also had a good Easter Sunday (in spite of the fact that I ended up playing the organ, speaking, playing for one musical number and directing another one in Sacrament meeting, and teaching a sunday school lesson, as well as directing the music in primary (as usual). While listening to the other speakers the beauty of Christ's atonement and resurrection really hit home for me and I felt such overwhelming love and appreciation for Him. I'm so grateful to know that I can repent and one day be resurrected and return to live with God and my loved ones because of Christ.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Family parties

We have been inundated with family parties of late. We have had at least one family get-together per weekend ever since the last week of February and we have another one this coming weekend. Not that I mind, I like my extended family, and all of the parties have been for a good cause (we've had a lot of family visiting from out-of-state the last little while).

Last night James went with me to a party at my Uncle Jim's house down in Pleasant Grove. There was a lot of family visiting from out of town that I hadn't seen for a while so it was a lot of fun! My Uncle Stan and Uncle Jim are great story tellers and they kept us laughing for the first half hour that we were there. My Aunt Brenda and Uncle Milton were there too. They were like a second set of parents to me as I was growing up and I don't see them very often these days since they now live down in Henryville, so it was great to see them and have them meet James. We also played with my little cousin, Henry, and his balloon. He is adorable--he would throw the balloon up in the air and then grin so wide he looked like a jack-o-lantern. (It was also very endearing to watch James play with Henry). Then just as we were heading out the door Uncle Jim's wife, Stacy, stopped me to ask about school. She has a fun personality and is easy to talk with, so we got side-tracked for another 15 minutes. So we ended up, unintentionally, being the last one's to leave; we didn't get back to Salt Lake until nearly 10:00 pm.

When we got back to James's house, his mom had some delicious, home-made strawberry shortcake for us, so we ate that and talked for a bit before I headed home. It was just an all-around good day! I just love spending time with James ( actually come to think of it, I just love James in general)! I've missed him the last couple of weeks!

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Fun visits and interesting epiphanies

Yesterday my old friend Missy came to visit from South Carolina. I haven't seen her for four or more years so it was pretty exciting. She was practically a member of the family for many years. And my mom basically thinks of her as one of her own daughters, so she was as excited to see her as I was. She could only stay for about an hour and a half, but she will be coming for a few more hours on Friday. There's so much to catch up on we didn't know where to start. I also went and hung out with my friend Amy, whom I have seen for a month or so. It was fun to catch up with her as well.

Then today in devotional at BYU the speaker was speaking about adoption. It was somewhat interesting, but not really something I felt compelled to listen to and I was thinking about the many things I needed to be doing, then suddenly he began expounding a scripture I had been pondering and wondering about just yesterday. In Alma 11, Amulek is talking to Zeezrom about how Christ is the very Eternal Father (vs. 38-39 "Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father? And Amulek said unto him: Yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are). I have always been confused by how Christ can be the Son and the Father. The speaker explained that through Christ's atonement, He paid the price for each of us and thus adopted us. Adoption is a gift of life and a gift of love, and what greater gift of life and love than the Atonement? Through His atonement Christ gave us the gift of eternal life and thus became our Eternal Father. It was quite an epiphany for me.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Reading hair

Eating meals as a family at my house is quite an experience (as anyone who has done so can attest). It's a little like the dinner table conversation in While You Were Sleeping. "These mashed potatoes are soo creamy. . . Robert Romero wasn't tall . . . I never said he was tall, I said he was Italian . . . What kind of girl is Jack's type?"

So anyway, Sunday morning at the breakfast table my brother Robert started "reading" everyone's hair. As his twin brother, Ricky, commented, "Some people read the stars, Rob reads . . . the hair." My hair classified me as a librarian, while Ricky had "band hair," and my brother Andy apparently has "football hair." This was also demonstrated by the way we ate our food. I looked for the "soft spot and used that to cut through my food," whereas Andy "just uses his muscles to attack his food." Rob also declared that it would be necessary to submit James to a "hair test" to see if he and I really are compatible (I guess we'll take care of that when he returns) :) Rob also explained that sometimes you just have to read specific strands to see certain characteristics that you can't read in the hair as a whole. It was hilarious! Rob's randomness keeps us laughing, he's always has some funny, creative sentence coming out of his mouth.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Conference

Today was a long day! I had to be up at 6:00 am (on a Satuday--I think that's sacreligious or something)! I had to be downtown at 8:00 to help out with Association for Mormon Letters conference as part of my internship. It was pretty interesting and kind of fun, but my brain felt like it was going to explode by the end of the day. And my body was shaky from too little food and too much exertion. I'm not used to running up and down stairs, carrying stuff around, and being on my feet for eight hours with very few breaks. I sat in on two of the paper readings about folkelore because I've been looking at doing something like that for my thesis. It was interesting to hear what other people are doing in that arena. I finally left about 4:30 and headed to the mall to grab a quick dinner and a Jamba juice before heading home. And right now I am procrasinating writing three papers, so I guess I'll stop now and go get busy.

Friday, March 04, 2005


Sunset from my front yard Posted by Hello


Sunset from the Sandy Trax station Posted by Hello

Pictures!

I'm excited, I finally saw something beautiful AND remembered I have a new digital camera at the same time. So I'm going to paste some of those.

Other than that, nothing really interesting to report. James is in Hawaii for the next week and a half. I am still in Provo, suddenly realizing that I have some assignments due in the next two days and that I had better get busy!

Speaking of reports, I have a two page, single-spaced report due for my internship this weekend. I'm getting annoyed by the stupid book they are having me read that is totally focused on a human services internship and is thus largely inapplicable to me, since my internship is largely focused on editing and working with documents. Most of the interaction I have with people in regards to this internship are via email, so reading the book is for the most part a waste of time for me. Unfortunately, I have to read it to be able to write the report. Fortunately, as an English undergraduate, I am very good at skimming and reading only the parts neccesary to enable me to write the report. :)