Way to go, kiddo! Way. to. go. *slow clap*

Okay. I know I already posted today, but this is good. Some of you may not know quite how to appreciate this, but lend me your ear. :)

American Idol started last night, and for those who somehow don't know how much I love that show, uhhmmm...I love it. It was highly entertaining and I'm sooo excited for the real competition to begin!

However, I found something even cooler today. Okay, actually, my boss pointed it out to me. He knows how much I watch that show - we enjoy talking about the high points the next day. Anyway. Last night, this darling 16-year-old boy from Taylorsville, UT made it through to "hollywood." Super, right? Good for him. BUT THEN, today at work, my boss told me about THIS:

http://abrandnewyear.lds.org/index.html#/watch/

Use that link (or copy and paste...whatever it takes) and then click on the 3rd video down on the right. It' s called "Say Yes"...it'll say that over on the left of the screen. Wait through the talking, and when the song starts, he's the second boy to start singing!! And he's great!

As big of a fan as I am of American Idol, I think things like this are far, far better. Better in the sense that it gets kids involved and excited, and it gives them all a chance to share their talents and their testimonies in a way that is thrilling!! Any performer can tell you how exhilarating it is to be able to really share like that. It is a beautiful thing!!

Anyway. I just thought that was great. Over and out.

P.S. If you have the time, you should check out the other videos, too. The first video, with Elder Holland, is super.

And speaking of Elder Holland...his devotional at BYU yesterday (1/13/2009) was incredible. No text is available yet, but as soon as it is, I'll post it. It's one for the history books, I'd say. But even better would be actually watching it. I'd highly recommend either one.

****If you want to listen to it, click here.

Christmas and Miracles

Okay. Christmas. Yes, I know it's January. But let's pretend it's not. Let's pretend it's December 29th. That'd be a more acceptable date. Okay, maybe we'd have to pretend it's January 2nd. Yes. January 2, 2009.

1. Alaina came and stayed with me the night of the 22nd while she did some training before she left for Mexico after just having come home from Russia - while I finished up a last half-day of work, and then we hit the road. It felt so good to be going home!
   
2. Christmas was bee-yoo-tee-ful. Full of games and good food and time with the family. It always amazes me how much everyone changes even in just one year. But even though everyone is changing, there's still that comfort of being home - and that same feeling is there every year.
   
3. My grandparents live just around the corner from us, and each year, they get lights put on the giant fir tree in front of their house; complete with giant star at the top. It's the most beautiful sight, and one of my favorite things every December. People in our neighborhood love it too...and it's my grandparent's "gift" to the neighborhood. Totally better than the brownies and candies. But those can keep comin' too... :)
   
4. Yes, that is a picture of my mother right after she put her face straight into the bowl of muddy buddies. :)
5. New Years was fun. But we were so ridiculously tired at midnight!!! As you can see. Although...watching "Wait until Dark" after watching the ball drop (which I find lame, by the way...) sure woke me up!
   
6. Okay. The Christmas miracle. This doesn't belong in a list.

The day after Christmas, I left a family party a few hours early to make it to the Bountiful Temple to a session with one of the girls I served with in Nauvoo. She and one of the guys I served with in Nauvoo were getting married in Nauvoo the next week, but their reception and all other Utah things were that night and the next day. She had invited me to go to the temple with them that night, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. But the weather was not so good that night - the roads were terrible.
However, I was optimistic, and just planned to leave two hours before the session would start - giving me a whole extra hour and fifteen minutes to battle the roads. Just in case. To say the going was rough would be an understatement. The session was supposed to start at 7:00 p.m., and at 6:45 p.m., I finally saw the temple from the freeway. For anyone familiar with the area, you'll know that from about the time you see the temple from the freeway (coming from the north) it still takes a good 7-10 minutes or so just to get to the exit and get into Bountiful. Let alone get up the mountain to the temple, park, go into the temple, get changed, and be seated all by 7:00.
I saw the temple and started to cry a little because I knew there was no way I would make the session. But remember the part where I had been driving for almost two hours at this point? Just to be there? I couldn't just give up! So I prayed really really hard and told Heavenly Father how important it was to me to be there, and begged Him to just...somehow...and I had no idea how...but somehow help me to make it to that session. I said it didn't matter if it somehow got delayed, or if I hit all green lights, or if somehow the roads would magically clear, or could he just slow time down a little bit? ...whatever. I finished the prayer, and I started crying a little bit. But then I told myself I just needed to focus and give Heavenly Father a chance to help me out.
Anyway. I know this might sound silly, but within seconds of that prayer, the roads were suddenly clear. I could drive at a normal freeway speed again. (I had been driving about 30 mph the whole time. TORTURE!) I made it to the exit, and drove into Bountiful...and really...hit every single green light all the way from the freeway up the mountain. I only ever had to stop at a few stop signs, and no one was ever coming in either direction. I drove straight up there, and parked in the parking lot underneath - and glanced at my clock, glowing 6:59. REALLY. I didn't even stop to think about possibly missing the session. It was just too close!!! I ran to the front doors, walked as quickly as was reverently possible, got changed like lightning, and went up to the first nice little temple lady standing at the corner, and glanced at the clock on the wall. 7:01 p.m. Then I turned to the lady and started to ask her if I had missed the 7:00 session, or if she thought I could make it....but I couldn't hardly get the words out of my mouth...I just broke down in tears. I couldn't even stop crying long enough to ask my question!! AH! Looking back now, I'm sure she must have thought I was so silly! But I just couldn't bear the thought of actually missing it and being so close. She told me she thought I probably had - you know - since the sessions usually start on time. Odd. But she told me she'd check.

Not two seconds after she left my side, another lady was right next to me and told me to run with her. Really. RUN. I made it into that session - just as they were about to close the doors. I sat in my seat, and my friend turned around just as I saw her, with the biggest smile on her face, and her fiance, also a wonderful friend of mine, turned at about the same time with the same grin on his face. That's when the tears really started. I knew Heavenly Father had answered my prayer, and that it had not only been important to me to be there, but it had been important to them as well - and He knew that. It's really so small, but I know I never would have made it from that bend on the freeway with the temple still a tiny speck on the mountain to sitting in my seat in only 15 minutes.

The reception and everything else was absolutely beautiful, and they were so happy and beautiful together! But the part I will never forget about their wedding was my little Christmas miracle in getting there. I'd have to say it was probably the best Christmas present ever given to me - besides the obvious one of the birth of the Savior. I know my little miracle was so small, and may seem so insignificant in the grand scheme of everything...but I really learned that night that even the little things are important, and Heavenly Father knows about all of them. I knew that before, but I guess I learned it all over again, and that lesson is a little dearer to me now because of that experience.

The end. :)

*Crafty Dreams*

I just spent the last twenty minutes or so looking at this craft blog:

http://payperiodprojects.blogspot.com/

That's it. I'm quitting my job to become a crafty mother. Now I all I need is a husband and a few kids. Or just one. (child. uh...and husband. *ahem* One husband, children could be from 1-6 or so in number.) Whatever. Oh, and the craft supplies. So a budget for such things. That would also help. ;)

Thanks to Ashley, one of the girls I visit teach, I suddenly have an intense desire to make "fabulous crayons"by melting all my extra, broken crayons together. Hellllloooooo...that's an almost pointless project unless I have little tykes running around who need un-broken crayons. (I say almost because I do like to color, and it would be fun...hmmmm...) Also, I can't make a princessy tutu for myself. (Okay, I could, but it's no fun unless I have at least one little girl to dance around in matching tutus to the Nutcracker music.) Not that I do that. Very often. Or at all. Kreiky.

*heavy sigh* I'm just sayin'. And now it's back to my real life. Errr...work. My job. :)

(Also, I can already hear those of you who do have children out there laughing at my seemingly naive belief(s) that my children will be really into making these crafts with me, or that I'll even have time to do these things with all the changing of diapers, messes, laundry, mealtimes, etc. Fine. *laugh* I take it as a challenge. Or...aw, just let me be, okay?! Dream snatchers.)

100 things about {me}

1. I used to hide books and a flashlight under my pillow so I could read instead of going to sleep when it was "lights out."
2. I may or may not have done this clear until I graduated from high school.
3. I started baby-sitting when I was 8 years old, and did it almost every friday night until I graduated from high school. This was cool until about the time I turned 14.
   
4. However, it allowed my parents to go on a date every friday night.
   
5. It also allowed us to be WITHOUT our parents every friday night. :)
6. I used to make my brothers watch Anne of Green Gables. Frequently. They hated it. I didn't care.
   
7. I LOVE torturing my brother Daniel. Waaaay too much fun. :)
8. I love jeans.
9. And sweatshirts.
10. My dream job dress-code includes various combinations of #8 and #9.
11. I actually thought that job would exist in my future. :)
12. I also used to want to be a high school choir teacher.
13. Confession: sometimes, when I'm sitting quietly in church, I have visions of suddenly standing up and bursting into song. In these visions, I am always well-received and everyone is blown away/in awe of my extreme talent. :}
14. I used to play "Wizard of Oz" with my childhood friends. I was always Dorothy (of course), I had sparkly purple jelly-shoes, I had a stuffed dog with a purple sash tied around his neck for dragging purposes, and a basket. My friends and I would always run away screaming, "AH! IT'S THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST!!" whenever my mom came out the front door to tell me it was time to come in. :} She hated it.
    
15. My mom has thrown away two (count them: TWO) entertainment loves of my life: The movie "Sleeping Beauty" (because she hated Maleficent...and I watched it multiple times a day. I was a child, and I'm still suffering from the sorrow.) AND she threw away my first N'SYNC cd because I secretly bought it. aka: without her permission. I was 13. When I found out, I went and dug it back out. No shame whatsoever.
16. I never like the color pink when I was younger. I would avoid it. On purpose. Green or blue was always better. I hated that everyone thought I should love pink just because I was a girl.
17. Speaking of pink, though; I had a favorite item when I was little that was pink. It was a pink, plastic barbie suitcase with little purple slider latches to keep it closed. I actually used this whenever possible.
18. I avoid sports like the plague.
19. Because, as much as I would like to be coordinated, I am NOT.
20. Dates that include any kind of sport are my worst personal nightmare.
21. The only "sporty" date I ever enjoyed was rock climbing. And I only enjoyed it a.) after the fact, and b.) because the boy was really cute.
22. This same scenario will not work with any other sport. Guaranteed. No matter how cute the boy is.
    
23. I love homemade bread more than anything else in the world.
24. I want a sewing machine.
25. I taught myself how to sight-read by reading different parts of the hymns every day after school for almost a year when I was a sophomore in high school.
26. I played the violin for 4 years. Just enough time to get pretty good. Then I quit.
    
27. One of my very good friends came from an intense orchestra rivalry. Intense because he kept "challenging" me for first chair. Rivalry because he only won ONCE. Friend years later only because I quit orchestra after our director decided to quit having challenges and I got disgusted. Hahahahha. Probably the only time in my life i have ever been truly competitive.
    
28. Choir is the main thing that helped me survive high school. Okay, that and Sister Burt and Alaina Nelson. But choir saved me. I'm convinced.
    
29. I get tired of things pretty soon after I get a really good grasp of them. This could be good in the sense that I instantly pick something else I want to be good at, but bad in the sense that I don't continue on in that particular skill. I know it doesn't make any sense. I'm working on it.
    
30. I recently discovered a GIANT pet peeve of mine. But I can't talk about it because I've concluded it's not very nice. But seriously - ARGH!!!!!
31. While I don't have dating commitment fears (...at least I don't think I do...) I DO have life/thing commitment fears. BIG ones. I value my freedom. ie: graduate school, careers, monthly payments, etc. scare the crap out of me.
    
32. I learned how to ski when I was 8 years old.
33. While learning to ski, I have a distinct memory of standing (in my skis) with my class of about 10 kids, listening to our ski instructor, and suddenly moving forward, being unable to stop, and crashing into the "teens learning how to ski" class just down the hill from my small kid class. I wanted to die.
34. I don't love ice cream. 2 or 3 spoon fulls is more than enough for me. I also don't like plain chocolate like hershey's kisses or just plain hershey's bars. They need to have nuts or caramel in them. Unless the chocolate is European. Then it must be plain. :)
    
35. I used to hate pizza because it had tomato sauce on it, and I HATED tomatoes.
36. During my senior year of college, my roommate and I started a quest to learn to like our least favorite foods. We chose each others. Hers was olives, and mine was tomatoes. Ugh. However, I prevailed, and no longer pick tomatoes off my salads or sandwiches. This is HUGE progress, people.
    
37. I have terrible vision. I had to get glasses when I was 8. Contacts didn't come 'til I was 16.
    
38. I have only been in love twice in my life. Neither was "big love" (per the movie, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton) but love, nonetheless, I suppose.
    
39. I am incredibly sarcastic. Bad, bad news.
    
40. This usually makes me funny. Unless it doesn't. Which also happens frequently.
    
41. I love awkward situations. :}
42. My fingernails and my hair grows really fast.
    
43. I don't usually like wearing a lot of makeup.
44. I think shopping at the D.I is great fun.
45. My first crush was on a boy in my 7th grade German class. Until he filled my locker full of valentines presents that year; it 100% freaked me out. I was 12. Give me a break.
46. I hate sudoku. Because I hate math.
47. I would rather write a 100-page paper than participate in any form of statistical analysis.
48. Valentines day, 2007, I studied statistics for 9 hours.
49. I got locked in my apartment one time in college because the door-handle broke. A whole bunch of people were coming over to watch American Idol with me and my roommates, and they had to listen from outside the door for a good 20 minutes until we managed to completely rip the doorknob out of the door.
50. I didn't buy a computer until after I graduated from college. Thus, I lived in computer labs all through my undergraduate experience.
51. I love windows. Someday I will have a house with many of them. And I will wash them all myself.
    
52. Clean rooms make me happy. Messy ones irritate me.
    
53. I started out as a music major in college, got more than half-way done and decided to change. Thus, 7 years to bachelors. Yes. Seven. No wonder I have grad school commitment issues...
    
54. Sometimes I really want to get married, and other times (most of the time) I'm really glad I'm not yet! :)
55. If I find someone annoying, I get sarcastic so fast I don't even notice it until at least a good 5 minutes later.
56. I hate Wal-mart. Yet I continue to support it. Ugh.
57. Someday when I do get married and have children, my husband will help change the diapers, be capable of making his own food and getting his own drink, doing his own dishes, an his own laundry. I'm not saying I'm not happy to do these things for him, but when I see husbands (or wives, for that matter) who refuse to do certain things for themselves or for others, it makes me absolutely crazy.
58. Shopping for gifts stresses me out.
59. If I could pick multiple life-paths, I would be an interior decorator, a designer, an opera singer, a recording artist, a writer, a psychologist, an archeologist, a pilot, and a composer. But I'd rather be a mom than any of those things.
    
60. If I could be one comic-book character, I would be Rogue from X-men. I like her hair.
61. While we're on that subject, I think Staci London is secretly Rogue from X-men.
62. I get annoyed with 'know-it-alls.' Probably because I think I know it all. Lol. Yikes.
    
63. I have too many opinions. 90% of them should never be expressed. Hahha.
64. I have an undying love for sushi. It makes me drool just thinking about it.
65. I work with some of the funniest people on the planet.
    
66. Once upon a time, I was friends with a robot who masqueraded as a real boy. He was funny.
67. I like having my own room. I have always shared a room until just last year.
    
68. I have incredible friends that I probably don't deserve. But too late now! :) (uh...I hope...)
    
69. I think the most impressive people are the ones who don't know how impressive they really are.
70. This does not mean I don't value confidence.
71. I'm still trying to decide if I want to commit to grad school. But mostly, I'm scared I won't get IN to grad school, and I can't seem to find a program I loooove and want to have as the subject of my life for the next 2-3 years.
    
72. I should be more confident... :]
73. My singing range used to be almost 4 octaves. Maybe more. I have no idea what it is now. Not that!
74. I wish I would have done study abroad while I was still in college. Anywhere in Europe. Or the orphanages in Romania. Those were always more appealing to me than the ones in Ecuador; though I would have loved to go there as well.
    
75. I have moved to a different apartment about every 9 months since high school.
76. That's a lot of moving. However, it does mean I don't have much junk. I say much because I clearly still have some things I don't really need.
    
77. I become what is best described as "fussy" at about 10 a.m. every day. Hunger strikes. Must. find. food. The rest of the day, I'm fine. It's just that blasted 10 a.m.
78. I can't sleep in past 9:30 a.m. unless I'm sick and on drugs to help me get better.
    
79. I love Italian food more than almost anything. Sushi is a very close second. They might be tied...
80. When it's cold outside, I love going to coffee shops and getting hot chocolate because coffee shops have much better flavor options. 7-11 will do in a bind, however.
    
81. I just mean this in a general sense, but I love boys who drive trucks. love. them. But not the trucks with at that ridiculous lift gear on them. Because..c'mon...who needs a vehicle that takes a ladder to get into it?!
    
82. I hate it when people say "no offense" before they say something rude. Ugh. Yeah, right!
    
83. I really like studying the scriptures. But I should really do it more often.
    
84. I hate money.
85. I love country music, but I hated it until my freshman year of college. But that's because I started college in Idaho. :)
    
86. I wish I were a better friend: I wish I had the time to see every single friend I live by on a daily basis. It frustrates me that I don't.
87. I hate admitting it when I need help.
88. I am really good at changing tires. I can thank my college car's "luck" with crappy tires (a '92 VW Jetta) for that.
    
89. I have at least 12 physical journals full of stuff about my life. That's not including my mission journal, or the two journals I have on my jump drive.
    
90. Wilford Woodruff, consequently, is one of my biggest heroes. I cannot wait to meet him someday.
91. The only thing I have ever won (from a drawing, contest, etc.) was a printer/faxer/scanner/copy machine while I was on a date once. I didn't even have a computer, so, in spite of attempts from my date to claim my prize as his own, I traded it in at the local Staples for an mp-3 player. :} HA!
92. The first movie I remember seeing in a movie theater that wasn't a cartoon was "One Fine Day." I think I was in Jr. High and we had a school movie day at the theater. I remember especially liking it because the kids are watching "The Wizard of Oz" at the end, and that was one of my first favorite movies.
93. My favorite book I have ever owned was a hardbound complete collection of the works of Shakespeare that I had to purchase for a class my sophomore year of college. The pages were like scripture pages, and it had incredible footnotes and vocab explanations on every single page. However, my younger brother borrowed it once a few years later, and it got lost. I remember crying actual tears. (He didn't mean to lose it, though...)
94. When I was born, the gift of a baby blue teddy bear with a wind-up music box inside it was given to my mom/me, and I still have it to this day. He sits up on my bookshelf now, hunched over a bit, and his music-box no longer works. But he's just as old as I am, and I love him. I've always been grateful to the giver of the teddy bear for picking a blue one and not a pink one.
    
95. I have never been one to name my car or any other inanimate object. I guess that's weird because everyone always asks the name of my car, or you might be tempted to ask the name of my baby blue teddy bear: but they don't have names other than "my car" and my "teddy bear" or "little blue bear." While I sincerely apologize to those I may (and have) disappoint(ed), I am not inclined to change. :) Best wishes to you, though, in naming your cars, hammers, dolls, water bottles, and whatever else you would like to name.
    
96. I thoroughly enjoy singing in all languages with the exception of French. Give me German, Italian, or even Russian. Just. not. French.
    
97. My hair was so long (and blonde) in Junior High that I could sit on it. Easily. It has never been that long since; though it did come close after having served as a performing missionary in Nauvoo where we weren't allowed to cut our hair (so it would be long enough for buns and braids, I suppose). It will never be that long again!!!
98. On that note, however, I can never have really short hair. It makes me look sick, and I am not a sick-looking girl. Usually. :}
99. I have never traveled outside the United States. Never ever. :( Someday I will, though.
    
100. If I could choose one thing to drink (besides water of course) out of all the options we have in this world, it would be milk. But none of this skim milk crap people try to tell themselves is milk. That's just white water. 1% is the lowest I will go. Milk. It does a body good.
     

Holy crap. That was a lot of work!!! It took a very long time. (Jess, please read that in your mexican accent.) This list is completely useless. I can't think of one thing it's good for! HAHAH!! And it's not even all-inclusive...though...I don't ever want to write a list like that again!!! Lol. Okay, enough. If you have the time and the desire to do so...please. Write 100 things about {yourself.} Don't worry. That was NOT done all in one sitting. Many, many sittings.