happy leap day!

 today is that magical day, the day that only comes once every four years, when we get a bonus twenty-four hours.

the thing is, because this holiday only occurs quadrennially, it seems no one really knows how we are supposed to celebrate. what does one do on leap day?

luckily, last week's episode of 30 rock answered that question:

 (sorry about the quality--nbc is pretty lame about putting clips on youtube, and it looked weird to put just the video link)

so, today i am wearing blue and yellow, and leap day william is going to trade my tears for candy, because heaven knows i have a lot of tears and i could always use more candy. and hopefully this leap day thing will catch on.

did you also know that the tradition goes that leap day is the day a woman can propose to a man and he can't refuse without giving her some sort of payment in return? in denmark, if a man refused a proposal on leap day, he was required to give the woman twelve pairs of gloves. in some places, a woman intending to propose on this day was supposed to wear a "scarlet petticoat" as a fair warning that she was up to no good. so i should probably take that opportunity; by tradition, i might even get fabric for a new skirt out of it.

today is the day where nothing counts, because real life is for march. so put on your yellow and blue and celebrate leap day!

photographic evidence

carolyn's film returned from the camera shop, so here are some shots from the birthday celebrations last week.

life is a special occasion

i was watching something on hulu one day, as i am wont to do, and i saw an ad for hallmark. i don't remember exactly which version i saw that day, but you'll get the idea from this one.

 

the main thing i am concerned with here is the sentiment at the end: "life is a special occasion." how beautiful is that? this piggybacks on the birthday post i wrote a few days ago. actual special occasions (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries) are awesome, but what about the awesomeness of regular life?

this has been going through my head since i saw that little ol' ad the other day. life is a special occasion! amazing, glorious, exciting, momentous things happen every day, and i want to celebrate those things.

one of my favorite bloggers talked about this idea of celebration late last month. she decided that her theme for the year would be a simple one: parties. parties for explicit reasons, parties for holidays, parties for no reason. just parties, little mini celebrations throughout the year, excuses to decorate and dress up and get together with people you love.

i certainly love parties (though maybe not as much as andrew w.k. does), and i'm going to make this my own theme as much as i can, but i want to find ways to celebrate outside of parties as well. this means sending cards in the mail, maybe heart attacking someone's door to let them know i  care, writing little notes to my friends and family telling them how awesome i think they are, making treats for people, and perhaps a host of other things. the idea is that life is something to be celebrated--goodness, some days getting out of your pajamas constitutes a reason to celebrate.

come celebrate with me?

birthday wishes and traditions

i turned 24 the other day. it was nice, nothing too momentous. but it's weird to say that i'm 24.

at midnight on sunday night, meredith played this gem for me, which has become something of a tradition since meredith's birthday:

then i celebrated the day with lunch at p.f. changs and a couple rounds of mini golf (have i talked about mini golf yet? well, don't you worry, i am going to be a pro mini golfer by the end of this year, what with the amazingness of the pass of all passes and all.). i even had three holes-in-one (hole-in-ones? not sure how it works with this one...), and there was possibly some excessive celebration on the course.

but the best part of my birthday celebration, which extended over a few days, actually, was hearing all of the nice things my friends and family had to say about me. we've always done this in our family, and my friends have a tradition where everyone in the circle says either their first or favorite memory or an admirable quality of the birthday honoree. i'm not really trying to toot my own horn or anything, since my birthday, legitimate toot-your-own-horn day, is over, but it is nice to be recognized and appreciated. i realized/remembered what amazing people i have in my life and how grateful i am for them.

so, one of my birthday wishes is to make other people feel that same way. i know how good it feels to be appreciated, and i don't do that enough for the people i love. i want to tell them more often how great i think they are and how much i love being around them.

that should make the year between now and my next birthday move a little faster, right?

a valentine's day to remember

last year on valentine's day, we had a delicious dinner lit by candles, followed by a long and winding conversation touching on everything from 90s pop music to tractors with broken accelerators reversing in a field. and we called it all a lonely hearts party.

this year, we wanted to have a legitimate party to celebrate love and momentarily forget that we haven't yet found our true ones yet. and goodness, did the ideas flow.

we had a photo booth, with mustaches and lips.

we had love foods: candy, chocolate, cookies, cupcakes, and...pretzels. and more candlelight (not for consumption)

we had hundreds of (black) paper hearts hanging from the ceiling, floating above our kissletoe.

we had slow dancing on the hour, featuring a playlist of some of the best love songs ever:

9:00 "god must have spent a little more time on you"--nsync
10:00 "if you're not the one"--daniel bedingfield (still takes me back to stake dances)
11:00 "everything i do (i do it for you)"--bryan adams
12:00 "all my life"--k-ci and jojo (admittedly, we didn't get to the last two because of tiredness. but they are epic songs nonetheless)

and we had a mailbox making station, so everyone could distribute their valentines.

and it was delightful. the valentines i gave out were these:

(apparently you can buy them on ebay...)

aren't they sweet? magic eye, and they came with an awesome poster!

and let's not forget that the night started off with another delicious candlelit dinner of heart-shaped grilled cheese and homemade tomato soup.

the night was lovely and reminded me how many amazing people are in my life. it made me want to tell the people i love that i love and appreciate them way more often than that one day a year. happy love!

whistle while you listen

i've never been much of a whistler. this never bothered me much; i just figured i didn't have the right mouth shape or the innate ability to produce sweet little ditties. but then i started listening to all of these cool songs with whistling.

and then i wanted to become a whistler.

i'm still not perfect; my skills are passable and sometimes unreliable. but the point is that i've gotten better over the last few months as i've been practicing more often, so i think i can expect to get even better and become a whistle-master, right? right.

and now here, for your listening enjoyment, are some of the lovely whistling songs that have caught my fancy ("five years time" might be a repeat, but it's good enough that i'm okay with it) (also, "blood" doesn't technically have any whistling, but it is very whistle-able, so it counts.).

the clothes make the (wo)man

i don't know if i made this up, since a semi-cursory perusal of the internet didn't reveal a quote i could actually cite to this effect, but it's my belief that a good outfit can go a long way toward improving your overall attitude about life.

clearly, i'm not making any revelations here. but, this semester, i resolved, with carolyn, to dress up for class more often. this generally means wearing a dress or skirt to school rather than simply jeans and a blouse, which can, i admit, still be dressy. but the point is that i wanted to feel more dressed up everyday. this usually means that, in a normal week, i at least dress up three days (the days i teach). but it's gotten to be so fun putting together cute outfits that i sometimes wear a skirt or dress on the other days as well.

and you know what i've noticed? i feel so much better about my life when i feel like i look good. obviously putting together an outfit is not the most important thing i do everyday. but it makes a difference when i walk out of the house feeling like i have put together something fairly stylish, something that makes me feel good. i smile more, i feel more confident, i am more ready to face the harsh realities of this thing they call college life.

if i were one of those cool style bloggers, i would have images of my daily outfits to insert here. but i'm not that cool. and i'm not in the mood now to scout around for cool pictures of chic ladies who wear their clothes to the best of their abilities. but hopefully it's enough just to say that i like dressing up and i'm going to keep on doing it.

**full quote from the title of this post: "the clothes make the man. naked people have little or no impact on society." mark twain

a realization at the library

tonight was one of those nights where i needed to get out of the house for a few minutes, and i ended up at the provo city library. i walked through a couple rows of book-lined stacks in the general fiction and eventually wandered into the children's wing. my original thought was to find an i spy book and curl up in a corner for a while.

i picked up i spy:extreme challenger and headed to said corners, but when i reached the comfy cushioned benches i found 1) sawdust-covered vomit and 2) signs that said "this area for reading children only (for security reasons)". obviously i knew i couldn't stick around vomit-absorbing sawdust for long, but i was also bewildered that the provo city library would need to put up such signs. it makes me sad that, apparently, creepy things have crept their way into the children's section of the public library.

i don;t know about you guys, but the library has always been a place where i felt safe and warm (just to be clear, i'm talking about public libraries here--i do not share the same sentiment for the harold b. lee library.). maybe that's because i love books so much, and what could be better than being surrounded by books?

i've always wanted this for my future kids, too. i plan on frequenting the local library and letting them loose on the picture books and then the chapter books and the newbery award winners and then eventually the general adult fiction (with the caution that you need to be very careful what you pick up...). i'm mad that i came to the realization tonight that bad, scary things can happen to kids in libraries. i will never let that happen! libraries are supposed to be one of the few havens left in the world, especially for me.

anyway, i'm not sure what this is. a call to action, maybe? raising awareness? i don't know, but i do know i left the library feeling a little disconcerted tonight, and i did not like it one bit.

february once again

how the heck are we a week into february and i haven't written a blog post about how much i love this month yet? i know i wrote a similar post last february, but i can't resist writing again because i just love this time of year so much.

i mean, already, in just a week, we've had several movie nights, a groundhog day celebration, complete with groundhogs and dirt (a variation on worms and dirt) and a late night trip to the hospital cafeteria, a rousing game of sardines at a very creepy house, an fhe empanada cook-off, and several delicious dinner groups. plus i remembered how much i love crafting and art projects.

and there is more fun to come.

in the meantime, enjoy this video of my friend dancing in the library.