back to school

around this time of year, when i see everyone else getting ready for school, i really start to feel like 1) i'm old, and 2) i wish i was in school, too.

school is the best! you're learning new things all the time, you're surrounded by fun people, you're doing productive things (this is debatable, i know. we've all done our fair share of busy work :)), you're working toward a larger goal. and you get to buy and use school supplies for their actual purpose (school...). and you get to buy new back-to-school clothes and nobody questions it because, yeah, you're going back to school.

this longing probably just means that i need to be in a school setting in some way. what is fall without school? not as fun, that's what.

thoughts on thursday

attending a dance party  the other night really reminded me how much i love dance parties. it has been way too long since i've danced with such abandon :) one of the downsides to my sugarhouse life is that there aren't nearly enough dance parties. like, zero, that i know of. dance parties are great, people.

attending a dance party the other night also reminded me why i love provo. so many of my good friends are there, people that i don't see all the time but that really know me. it was good to be back adn have one of those classic provo nights, where you are surrounded by fun people and just living the twentysomething life.

i'm getting worried that being at work is actually making me sick. i feel fine when i'm at home and the first hour or two at work, but then i just start feeling gross--feverish, headachy, weak, dizzy. what the heck? probably what this means is that i just need to go to the doctor and get a real diagnosis for a real problem, but that's a little scarier than thinking that my job is slowly killing me :) so maybe one of these days i'll make it to a qualified physician's office and find out what's really wrong with me.

i started getting birchbox last month, and it's pretty cool so far. each month they send you samples of various beauty and health products to try. then if you want to buy the full-size version, you can find it on the website. i don't plan on buying a ton of the full-size products, because some of them are definitely higher end than i need, but it's fun trying out new products. this month i got a mini nail polish, black eyeliner, and a delish granola bar with maple syrup and pumpkin seeds. awesome, right?


a couple weeks ago, i bought if you wait, london grammar's debut album. i'm OBSESSED with it. wikipedia describes it as "trip-hop", which is kind of amazing, and it is that type of hard-to-define music that is also really beautiful and catchy. give it a listen, if you are so inclined.

and there you have it! thoughts that mean mostly nothing :)

i lead a simple life

i interrupt our normally scheduled programming to tell you about one of those beloved simple pleasures that sometimes take you by such enormous surprise that you just can't help but inform everyone.

i've been meaning to wash my car for seriously weeks. things that have preventing me from completing this task: 1) utah springs are unpredictable--it could be totally sunny and then raining five minutes later; 2) murphy's law is a very really thing; and 3) i'm lazy. but today, the stars aligned and i headed to the carwash. i decided to go to the self-wash to really get all that grime off. best decision ever! i literally giggled with glee when i was wielding the power washer.

in short, it was awesome. if you had told my ten year old self that i would one day love washing the car, i would have laughed in your face and then quickly gone back to my baby-sitters club super special.

but i guess this is another sign that i'm growing up. what's next--i'll want to start weeding the yard regularly?

40 days of lent

the past several years, i've decided to observe lent, though i am not catholic. i am, though, a rather introspective and goal-oriented person, and the idea of sacrificing something for a period of time with an eye toward self-improvement is always appealing to me. so, i do lent. this year i decided i was going to give up soda, since, while i don't think i'm really "addicted" to dr. pepper, per se, i was craving it way too often.

but that didn't really feel like enough, since it wasn't like i was drinking 50oz. of pop a day. someone--it might have been meredith--suggested that i start doing something during lent that i don't normally do. i really like this idea, of adding something to my life, replacing a negative behavior with a more positive one. so, since i love writing notes to people, i set a goal to write 40 notes/letters during the 40 days of lent.

i started out really well, on pace to reach this goal. as the weeks went on though, i decided that a more realistic target was 25 notes in 40 days. it wasn't that i wasn't thinking about the goal and just let it slip away from me--i was thinking about who i could write to pretty constantly. but, you know, postage is expensive.

but it was still pretty great. i sent 13 notes through the mail, 6 were hand-delivered, 4 were substantial and meaningful facebook messages, and 2 were emails. i became obsessed with stationery during these five weeks and bought way too much of it as a result (but that just means i need to write more notes!! it's a beautiful circle!). with some of these little notes i sent out into the world, i never heard anything from the recipient, so hopefully they all got to the right place. why is it so hard to get people's addresses? mail used to be it, the only way to get information--now it's like a person's residence is a closely-guarded secret or something (obviously, good idea if you want protection from killers and stuff, but bad idea if you want to receive thoughtful mail from a friend.)

anyway, i'm excited to keep going. i love writing notes, as i've expressed before, because it's sooooooooooo much easier to say what i want to say with the written word. and it's something you can keep forever. so if you want a note from me, let me know :) i have plenty of cute things to send you!

preparing for italy

in case you were still in suspense and don't follow me on any other social media, carter opened his mission call a couple weeks ago and is going to the italy rome mission on august 6th. let me tell you, we are all pretty stoked about it.

we've been scouting out the italian restaurants around town, learning italian phrases here and there, and fielding advice and info from many different sources. carter's future mission president's wife has a blog, and it has been fun to see the missionaries who are there now and to get a little taste of where carter will be living for two years. when he is there, we'll be checking the blog religiously to get a glimpse of our cute anziano beesley :)

last week, in a hotly contested instagram battle, we won the right for stately type to design italy-themed t-shirts (results/top design still pending). we recruited a bunch of carter's friends people to vote and blew those other yahoos out of the water. viva italia!!

sources say that there's a good chance that the rome italy temple will be completed while bud is there serving in italy, which is awesome and will (already is) generating tons of interest in the church. pope francis, carter is coming for you ;)

mostly we're excited to start planning our return visit to italy, after carter is already home. because we all know that's happening!

any suggestions for our italy prep bucket list? any ideas are welcome!

yay for conference!!

this weekend, once again, is general conference. i'm so excited to hear all the messages and hang out with my family and eat good food (conference weekend is pretty much synonymous with good eats in my mind). i think we will get to go to a session this time, which will be awesome. there is nothing like being in the room when the prophet walks in--i'm still amazed by how much power i can feel in a room full of thousands.

this conference season, we had a general women's meeting as a lead-in to conference weekend. as i started my notes, i titled the section (the historic) general women's meeting because i predicted that one, if not all, of the speakers would reference that this is the first time all women, ages 8 and up, have been gathered, and i think that qualifier is so mormon haha. "this has been an historic gathering"--we hear it fairly often :)

but this meeting really was historic. as soon as i walked in the door i was bawling, and it didn't stop through the opening prayer, given by a new beehive, or the musical numbers, where the choir was made up of 8 year olds and 80 year olds and everything in between, or the talks, which somehow focused on every single thing i've been wrestling with the past several months. it was incredible.

i'm a faithful member of the church and of the relief society specifically, but i've never felt the spirit of sisterhood as strongly as i did in that meeting. women have power, you guys. i felt it!

so, come to conference. it will be awesome!

oh hey

every day when i get to work, i open a browser and go to my blog. i open a post i've been working on, or i start a new one, intending to fill the blogosphere with my latest profound thoughts. but lately, everything i start to write seems stale, leading to a bunch of half-written, half-formed posts that i feel no enthusiasm for. does anyone really care about the music i've been listening to lately? am i bringing anything original to the table, and if not, why don't i just save all these musings for my journal (which is pretty much what ended up happening this month)? how do the bloggers do it, come up with interesting original content each day?

but i guess the answer is that i don't care too much about all that. i'm never going to be one of those huge lifestyle bloggers with my humble little blog. and if i don't feel like writing something here, i just won't. and if i do, i just will. and maybe i was in a slump, because people, it wasn't like i wasn't trying to post stuff for the past few weeks of my life.

but i also sometimes feel like maybe i'm trying to record things in too many places. does that make sense? i have my journal, which i write in pretty faithfully, and i have my blog, and i have my other notebooks, and i have my phone, and i want to take this art journaling class, which would just make one more place to record my life and my thoughts. and is it just too much?

i don't really know. i don't feel like thinking too deeply about it right now (bowling took up a lot of my concentration cells today). but, best case scenario, i'm prepping to be an awesome over-sharing mom, am i right??

hasn't quite hit me yet {part two}

this week, my little brother carter's missionary papers were submitted. obviously, this has been a long time coming--we've been talking about him going on a mission basically since he was born. but now that it's actually legitimately close--like, on the horizon--i'm trying (and mostly failing) to hold it together. last week he posted his mission picture on instagram, and when meredith showed it to mom and i at chipotle, we both burst into tears

the four of us siblings are pretty close. we're close enough in age that we still have similar interests, and moving to utah when we did kind of forced us to be friends with each other in a place where we didn't start out with too many friends. and, as much as this pains me to say, it probably helps that we're all still single. it will definitely be interesting to add new personalities to the mix. someday! :)

but what i'm really trying to say is that it is going to be hard to send my little buddy out into the mission field. i know he's going to be an amazing missionary, and i know that is what he's supposed to be doing and i wouldn't have it any other way, but there is going to be a pretty big hole where he should be. it will be super weird to be three sisters without the pesty little brother. and who knows what my parents are going to do with an empty nest! (well, semi-empty, of course ;))

tonight mom called me and said that a certain apostle wants to hand-deliver carter's call, which he assigned today. so, it's happening! next week we'll know where he will be laboring for the next two years. i'm basically a mess. i started writing this at work and had to postpone until i got home because i was bawling at my desk. but while there are a lot of tears now (and i'm positive there will be a ton of tears when he leaves), i'm excited for him and the great things he will do. godspeed, elder!

happy casimir pulaski day!

do something extra-mustachioed today in celebration :)

26

last week was my birthday. i celebrated with shopping, eating out, seeing the secret life of walter mitty finally, and going to a byu basketball game. it was a good day, kind of quiet. i'm glad i got to spend it and the rest of the weekend with my family.

as my lovely little brother kindly pointed out at my family birthday dinner last week, if you round up, i'm 30. which, thanks, carter. i still have four years of my twenties left! sheesh. but somehow 26 does feel a lot older than 25, for some reason.

but, i am determined to make this a great year. a couple weeks before my birthday, i was looking back on the past year, and, even though a lot of things have changed, i don't feel like i've actually done that much to improve myself. well, i guess that's not entirely true--i'm always thinking about that, and i think i did an okay job. but, as far as my list of 25 things to do when i'm 25 goes, i didn't do too well.

let's revisit:

1. save enough for a big purchase (car? new computer?)
2. go on a spontaneous trip
3. go to an avett brothers concert
4. get a big girl job
5. learn to sew and now i have a sewing machine! happy birthday to me :)
6. start learning a language which i need to pick up again...
7. receive a master's degree
8. go somewhere i've never been
9. west coast road trip
10. record something
11. go to the temple
12. publish something
13. learn to ride a bike...i guess
14. consolidate  moving twice will do that to you!
15. read the standard works
16. go to a fancy party
17. family reunion--aspen grove 2013!!
18. read classic novels--i've got a running list
19. read c.s. lewis
20. make a piece of art to put in my house
21. eat something new every month--let's face it; i go to the same places and eat the same things. i need some variety up in here.
22. write and send a letter at least once a month
23. hike the Y
24. go legit camping
25. choreograph a song for zumba

so, 8 out of 25. it's not great, but it's something, i guess. this year i don't know if i'm going to make a list like this, but i'm definitely going to try to make it a really great year. 26 is going to be great!

thoughts on tuesday: recent goings-on

last week was busy busy busy, and there are some things i want to write pertaining to those great few days. but right now i just want to unload my brain a little bit :)

last night i went to a zumba class for the first time in a really long time. i've been meaning to go for literally months--i've been researching all these places and keeping tabs on schedules and trying to work up the nerve and the motivation to actually go. well, yesterday i did it (after i slept late on my birthday and missed my original first attempt). but the point is that i went, and it felt so great to go back. the music started and i was moving in those familiar latin rhythms and it was awesome.

several months ago, we heard about jolley's pharmacy in salt lake. while it is a functioning pharmacy that has been around for 60 years, it is also an adorable gift and floral shop. so, mom and i made a trip and found some really cute things. a couple weeks ago we went again and found more cute things. yesterday i went again, by myself, because there was one really cute thing that i just couldn't forget about. i limited myself to only getting that one thing (which was too expensive for its own good anyway), but there were other things that i would have gladly left with. oh, jolley's. you're a gem.

speaking of gems, on saturday i was driving home from work, and i took a different route due to my lunch choices, and i passed this cute store.

it didn't look quite like that when i passed--i would have pulled over right then to check out that rainbow cart thing--but still. super cute. so, naturally, i stopped after work yesterday just to see what could be seen. i ended up with a heart-shaped teacup and saucer, but, again, there were other things that i would have gladly left with. because emilie jayne is a consignment shop, the prices are really reasonable--there were some great furniture pieces in great condition that i was seriously debating. i'll probably need to make another trip sometime soon since my house has almost no furniture or decoration (outside of my room, of course).

the weather has been so lovely lately! i hate being stuck inside when it's so great outside. on sunday i took advantage of it and went on a walk in the neighborhood. i'm a fan of walks, and i saw a lot of cool stuff. one of the things i really love about this area is that the old houses have so much character; people really pay attention to the details.

 

 

i ended up walking for about an hour, which was actually kind of a long time, and i wore my saltwaters for the first time, which was probably kind of a bad idea. and i had to rush home to watch nancy and tonya, the awesome olympics documentary. i mean, figure skating was made for drama, am i right? but anyway, it was the first of many sugarhouse walks.

 

there has been a lot of reorganization in my house lately, which led to a lot of anxiety for me. i think it ended up that i am moving to the master bedroom this weekend; i'm still not sure how that happened, but i'm not going to complain. it does mean i'm going to have a whole new space to work with! 

stylewatch: kate spade

the title of this post is misleading, because i'm not really revealing a new trend in modern fashion or anything. everybody knows that kate spade is awesome. but over the past few months i've realized that her aesthetic is so close to mine it's ridiculous. basically i'm obsessed with kate spade.

she's all about bright colors and gold and polka dots and stripes and well-executed florals, and that's what i'm all about! if i could buy everything kate spade, i would. i went into a kate spade store last year, and it was physically painful knowing i couldn't buy any of the beautiful things in there. one day! for now, take a gander at a small sampling of the lovely things she makes.

this is kate spade. she's gorgeous! and classy! (via)

i mean...wedding shoes, anyone??

she makes these great book clutches...great gatsby, pride and prejudice, romeo and juliet, the catcher in the rye. (via)

 

pretty much my motto for life.

look at this--virtually all the dresses are amazing and adorable.

via

via

and how cute is this book? i will be buying this.

and just so you all know, my birthday is coming up and it would be just so great if i got a little kate spade surprise. anything will do! :)

reason #97 why i'm not meant to be single

i didn't really plan for this to be my valentine's post, but i guess it only makes sense :)

so, the reason: i hate driving. i feel okay about it when i'm out on the open road and no one is really around and you don't have to think so much, but otherwise, i really hate it. every time i think about driving myself somewhere, i have to think about how tricky it will be to get there or if the parking situation is difficult or if there will be a lot of cars on the road. it causes me a lot of anxiety--sometimes i won't go to a place because i know i will be too anxious. pretty much my biggest fear about moving to salt lake was that i would have to drive myself all over, and there are way more people in salt lake than there are in provo, which means way more cars i can crash into. it's probably a miracle that i've never been in a car accident, not because i'm a bad driver (although i don't think i'm great), but because i get so tense.

i'm not meant to be single because i probably won't be long for this life if i'm going to be left driving myself everywhere for the remainder of it.

or i guess maybe i just need a chauffeur? ;)

small victories

the past few weeks of work have been pretty hectic, for reasons that are largely too boring to describe. but these past few weeks have been all about the small victories for me--i guess my philosophy has been that if i don't take a teeny bit of time to celebrate those, i'm going to go crazy, since things are usually pretty mundane.

there's this one student that i've been fighting pretty hard for, and we've been on kind of a rollercoaster, from volatile phone conversations laced with obscenities to now exchanging emails full of exclamation points and smiley faces. this student has a little bit become my friend, even though we will never meet, and problems just kept coming up. today all the problems were resolved and i could finally tell her that we had everything we needed.

sometimes it's easy to get bogged down by the monotony of everyday life, but i have to keep reminding myself that dealing with people is never monotonous, and really, dealing with people is never insignificant. and i'm glad i can do my little microscopic part to help. it feels good, you know?

 

thoughts on saturday

how is this my first february post? february is the best, and i haven't even acknowledged it in social media yet! valentine's day is arguably the cutest holiday, this february has been pretty moderate, so far, weatherwise, and of course the coolest people have birthdays this month. i think having a february birthday is actually a pretty good thing, because it peps me up enough that i usually avoid the february doldrums that some people seem to suffer.

i'm feeling like it's almost time to read harry potter again. it's been too long since i've been immersed in harry potter, and my life could use a little bit of that magical wizarding world right now.

i keep buying notecards and thank you cards. i can't help it! why are there so many beautiful notes out there? is there any possible way that i can actually send all these out? i don't know that many people. and think of the postage costs! but, the thing is, i really do want to send notes and cards to people. so, if you want to get a beautiful, thoughtful note from me, just let me know. i have plenty of  stationery options to choose from :)

this week i got some cardio in by watching this amazing jane fonda aerobics video. i have a deep love for aerobics, but it's been awhile since i've done one of these. so classic! the outfits alone are priceless. but the best/worst part was that the next day i was so sore! my calves are still tight and it's been four days. that jane fonda, man--she knows how to get you working.

oh, the olympics. here again to take over my life. more later.

have i told you guys yet about my quilt? well, i'm quilting. i'm almost done with the top, too, and it's pretty awesome. i have to take frequent breaks or else i get overwhelmed by weird perfectionist tendencies (i don't get it--i am not really a perfectionist. i like to do a good job, yes, and i work hard, but i'm not someone who has to control every detail. but the sewing thing makes me really self-conscious, for some reason. that probably says some things about me, but let's not get into it.), but it's coming along nicely. i'm excited to get it done and have a real thing, that i sewed, to have and use.

oh, and can i just say how bummed i am that the third series of sherlock is over, just like that, and i am once again without benedict cumberbatch? three episodes is not enough! not nearly enough!

resolution for the new year {2014}: be moneywise

this is pretty straightforward--it's important when you get older and have more things to pay for and buy and more bills and more of a future to plan for to be pretty good with your money. i'm okay with my money, but i could definitely do better. 

i'm making a conscious effort to 1) not spend money on clothes and shoes (this is a process...) 2) save save save (one of my roommates is amazing and has something like four savings accounts--one for emergencies, one for travel, one regular one, and one for her wedding. yeah, she's a catch.) and 3) not eat out so much. it's a little thing that can end up eating a big chunk of my funds, and eating in more often will also help me with my first resolution, so win-win.

so there you have it--my main resolutions for the year. it's going to be a great one!

without further ado, a tour of my room

i made this sweet flipagram!! i was going to go into a bunch of detail about all the things, but i don't know if i really want to anymore. i've had a lot of fun putting this room together, and i think it turned out pretty great. like i said the other day, i'm really happy with the mix of found and made and repurposed and purchased. i'm still missing a couple things, but overall i love it. here's to creating a space exactly how i wanted it!

thoughts on thursday

today we bought tickets for the katy perry concert in salt lake on september 29th. i logged on for the facebook presale kind of on a whim, and i lucked out and found fairly good seats at a fairly good price. i literally could barely contain my excitement at work (yes, i took ten minutes at work to buy katy perry tickets. time theft? hopefully not.), so when somebody eventually asked me how i was doing, i blurted out that i'm going to the concert, just two weeks after we see one direction in los angeles. and my coworker said, you're really living the teenage dream, huh? and i was like you have no idea.

i went to institute with abby at the u on tuesday. i felt like a traitor. it was still pretty good though.

my room is pretty much done, for reals. look out for a room tour post soon. i'm pretty happy about it all, especially since there was so much that i ended up doing myself/with the help of others. i found this quote that has been inspiring me through this process:

if you wait until you have enough money to decorate and make your home your own it will never happen. if you wait until you can afford to buy everything new you are missing the point. it is the old, the new, the made, the hand-me-down, the collected, the worn (but loved) things in your home that make it your own. {stacy risenmay}

i am really proud of the made pieces in my room, from the embroidery to the headboard to the ikea nightstand that i am taking full credit for (i spent three hours building it--it was made by me). i also love the new things i got, like my bedding and my salty bison sign that i loooooove. and i revamped some of the old things i had. i'm in the market for more awesome hand-me-downs, though. i just saw one of my friends who inherited a sweet wingback chair from her grandma--i could really use a chair, people. and our house is in need of a couch. help a sister out.

and, in conclusion: i had no idea how much i missed sherlock until i was finally watching sherlock again tonight. seriously. but i'm still unsure how benedict cumberbatch could be both so sexy and also weirdly weird-looking at the same time. ah well. people probably say the same about me.

kinda weird, right? a little alien-esque.

but here? super sexy. it's also his voice, though, too. i guess he needs to be experienced with multiple senses. not in a weird way.

resolution for the new year {2014}: build my portfolio

i've had this writer dream forever. i've tweaked it over the years, and i've dabbled here and there, but i can't get it out of my head. but the problem is that i don't really have writing samples, per se. i have blog posts and journal entries, but nothing really concrete, aside from a couple personal essays i wrote in pat madden's essay class a few years back. i have these aspirations of writing something more serious, and then it never happens.

so, this year i want to dedicate time (hopefully each day, if only for a few minutes), to writing for real. i think blogging kind of counts, especially if the posts are of the more essayistic variety (and let's face it, i should be doing more of those anyway). but i want to start to put together a portfolio, since many of my dream jobs require something like that.

por ejemplo, a couple weeks ago, joanna goddard of cup of jo posted a job opportunity working as a writer and editor for her blog, which has a pretty huge national readership. in my opinion, i could totally do something like that--write interesting and meaningful posts and build a brand. but i don't have the experience i would need to even feel comfortable applying.

that's what i want to change this year--write more, on a more consistent basis, with the intent that i will actually do something with that writing. i even bought this book to help me :)

resolution for the new year {2014}: eat cleaner

every year, i make a resolution, whether public or private, that pertains to being healthier. i want to exercise more or eat out less or cook more often. this year my goal in this regard is to eat cleaner. all that other stuff is encompassed in eating cleaner, but it's a different approach than i've taken before. and for the first time probably ever, i've been feeling like i need more vegetables in my life. who'da thunk, right?

so i'm determined to cook more during the week, preferrably full and complete meals, with sides and everything. i'm in the market for some good, easy veggie recipes, so send any of those my way. i guess i'm not really thinking about clean eating in the fanatical, wholly organic way, because, let's face it, most diets are probably going to be cleaner than some of the habits i've gotten into. i don't think it would be super effective to completely cut out all processed foods at this point in my progression. maybe someday, but not now.

but i do want to eat better, and i think there are a few little things i can be doing to get there. help is appreciated :)

resolution for the new year {2014}: overview

i always try to use the first few weeks of a new year to plan out some ways i think i can improve my quality of life, which become my "new year's resolutions", but i think i'm a pretty self-reflective person in general. so, most of these goals are iterations of thoughts i've had for a long time and that i maybe haven't articulated in quite the same way, or ever.

as i was thinking about how i wanted to pattern my life this coming year, i thought about the roots of the word 'resolution'. 'resolve' means, for one thing, to be firm and determined. in music, a resolve is a progression from dissonance to consonance. both of these are key to new year's resolutions, in my mind. as with any goal, you have to be determined and disciplined in order to accomplish anything. this has always been a weakness of mine, one that i am constantly working on. but one of the purposes of resolutions is to create a happier life for yourself, to resolve some of the dissonance to make way for harmony. cheesy? probably. still true? yesiree bob.

my overarching goal for the year is to choose happy. sometimes it is very easy to choose unhappy, or even to just choose complacency. i want to be actively happy this year. i hope my formal resolutions and my loosely ideated resolutions help me with that. let the self-improvement begin (or continue, as the case may be :))

year in (p)review

This has been a pretty eventful year—both in the sense that it has been full of events and that is has been full of personal growth. I guess that’s pretty much all you can ask out of a little ol’ year, right? So I thought I’d give a little run down of what has happened in 2013 (in the briefest of detail—ain’t nobody got time for more than that) and a sneak peek into what I hope will happen in 2014 (not to be confused with my resolutions—those are in the works and will be coming over the next week or so). And away we go! 

Year in Review

Took a couple classes that were actually pretty interesting (it seems really weird to think that I was in classes this year…that feels like a lifetime ago)

Tutored ACT English and Reading at Sylvan Learning

Job searched

Job secured

Job started

Lived with both of my sisters

Did a ton of Zumba and Just Dance

Listened to so much great music

Moved out of Provo

Moved home

Moved away from home

Moved to Sugarhouse

Went to Taylor Swift

Went to Hanson

Went to Kelly Clarkson at Stadium of Fire

Saw a bunch of really good movies

Wrote in my journal a lot

Got an iPhone

Went to Disneyland on two occasions

Welcomed a missionary home

Hit the Peaks (Seven Peaks, that is)

Bought a car (sheesh, I almost forgot that, the biggest thing!)

Blogged on and off :)

Became a homemaker/DIYer/crafter (who am I kidding—I was already one of those)

Read almost all the standard works—all that’s left is the New Testament!

Read a bunch of books, too many to keep track of

And, without further ado: 

Year in Preview

Go to One Direction (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (I am a teenage girl, I know)

Send off a missionary brother :(

Have an awesome time in Sugarhouse

Go on at least one epic trip, hopefully more. But maybe not more.

Sew my Shop Hop quilt

Finish The Great Bedroom Redecoration at Logan Avenue

Basically be a dating machine

Create lots of art. In a lot of arty ways.

Finish the Book of Mormon at least once

Progress at work

Keep a faithful thankful journal

Get a TIME magazine subscription and actually read TIME

Have a bunch of parties

Just generally have an awesome time

This has been a good year, overall, with many ups and downs. I haven’t really mentioned any of the downs here—no one wants to hear about my identity crises or breakdowns. All of it translates to good things in one way or another. Onward and upward, my friends. Adventure is out there!

Happy New Year!!