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!

moving out/moving in

everything has been pretty close to the surface over the past couple days. i'm not entirely sure why--every so often i have a couple days where i just want to cry, and pretty much anything will make me cry. combine that with moving to a new place on my own and "leaving the nest" (again), and i've been having a rough go of it.

the good thing, though, is that i know it's going to be okay. even if i don't make a million friends right off the bat or become the social butterfly of the ward or even have everything figured out, things are going to be okay. remember how i have to tell myself that multiple times a day, still?

but overall, i feel pretty good. my space is coming together, and i love all of it. i'm sleeping on an air mattress for the time being (a very comfy air mattress, though) and there are still boxes surrounding me. but it's great. it's going to be great.

special thanks to my family, for so many things, as always: for being here to help me move, for being there to console me, for being the best.

so it's on to new adventures. this sounds so melodramatic, which it probably is. but it feels like a big deal to me right now. so bear with me. i'm sure it will be a fun adventure :)

things i like about winter*

*since winter is sometimes such a hard season to like

freshly fallen snow that glitters in the sunlight

christmas everything

family time

fires in the fireplace

hot chocolate

snuggling under warm blankets

winter church outfits that include hosiery

thinking about new beginnings/resolutions

my birthday is coming up

not as much sweating going on

crisp mornings (though i do prefer temperatures above 10 degrees...)

sweaters & socks

holiday meals

spending more time with the ones you love because staying in the house together is infinitely more appealing than the alternative.

i think winter sometimes gets a bad rep, and i'm at fault as much as anyone else. winter can be warm if i want it to be :)

thankful {part three}: little miracles

i've been struck recently by the way that good things happen in my life. i always expect these grand happenings, where i see this beam of light and hear a chorus of angels , whenever i discover what i'm supposed to do or be.

that's never how it is.

and i even know, intuitively, that that's pretty much how it is for everybody (see this talk). but i guess i usually at least want a little voice nudging me along. it's usually not like that.

it usually happens that i have a thought one day to do something, something random that i wasn't really planning on, and then something good, even great, comes from that. really, usually something perfect for me happens. so, i'm thankful for those little nonverbal nudges that teach me to trust in myself along with the Lord. i'm thankful for the tender mercies that i can see in my life everyday.

thankful {part two}: family ties

i am really grateful for my family. it wasn't in the plan to be living at home, especially not for as long as i have been. but it has actually been pretty great. i'm grateful that we like each other as well as love each other--we like spending time together. i'm grateful that my parents were willing to let me stay here while i figured out what i was doing and then, when i did kinda figure it out, they still let me stay.

i'm grateful that i was raised in a home where the gospel was a central theme. along with that, though, my parents taught common sense and common courtesy and real life skills that i think a lot of people my age lack today. i'm not saying i'm perfect or that i know how to navigate every possible life situation, but i'm pretty sure (based on my own experience...) that my siblings and i have a leg up on some of our fellow youths, and that's a direct result of our upbringing.

i''m grateful for each of my siblings. meredith, who is my best friend, my only former roommate i still talk to regularly, the person who knows all my weird idiosyncrasies and random thoughts. bergen, my fellow reader, the one of us who is truly thoughtful and selfless in so many ways, the middle child who IS LOVED AND APPRECIATED (seriously, berg. we love you.). and carter, my hilarious brother, a dedicated future missionary, my basement buddy. we all have a ton of fun together--there's basically no one else i would rather go to disneyland with :)

my family is awesome, and i am so lucky to be a part of it.

mixed feelings

tomorrow, i start my new job. i haven't really been in denial about my nervousness--it just makes sense that, when you start something new, there will be a learning curve. i'm not nervous about that, the actual job part, because i know i'm a capable person and i can do hard things. but i am a little nervous about how much my life is going to change. don't get me wrong--i want to be working and doing fulfilling things with my time. but this is a pretty big change. i'll be meeting a lot of new people, working in a new field, spending the majority of my waking hours in a new and foreign place, adjusting to a new schedule and new rules (like, remember how now i can't have spontaneous vacations? not that i ever really do anyway, but...it was nice having the option, i guess). it's a lot to figure out.

i hope this doesn't sound whiny. i'm excited to be moving on to this new phase, excited to be meeting these new people, working in a new field, getting to know this new place and new schedule and new rules. but it's also scary to leave that old phase behind, you know? i'll see pictures on instagram of people who are in provo and that feels like a different world. it was only two months ago that i was there, my home of seven years! but now i'm like, why are they still in provo? nothing against provo, obviously, but it seems like everyone else should be moving along with me, but then i realize that, no, i'm kind of on my own here. maybe that's why it's scary. even though i'm at home, with my family, this new job is something that is just mine, just for me to navigate.

but i guess that's all a part of growing up, right?

blessed

the other night, as i was saying my prayers, i was thinking about how grateful i am to be a part of the true church and to have a knowledge of the true gospel. i have so many amazing blessings because of these truths. sometimes, at times like this, i start to wonder how it is that i could be so lucky. out of all the churches and all the belief systems, i am a member of the only true one, born into this restored church of Jesus Christ? it seems unbelievable.

then the thought process usually goes like this: what if this is all just a big hoax? what if, at the end of everything, nothing is the way we think it will be and we're all just floating out in the ether, alone? what if our leaders have either been deceived themselves or are deceiving all of us? what if it isn't true?

but then i remember: i know it's true. i've felt it, over and over again. i know the gospel is true, and this is the only true church. i know our leaders are inspired and that they commune with God. i know that i can also receive revelation and comfort and forgiveness and companionship and knowledge. it's true. i know it.

this became a classic quote as soon as president uchtdorf said it last saturday, but that doesn't make it any less true or relevant.

hold to what you know--there is great power in faith, even just a tiny amount. i know that exercising faith leads to more faith and more knowledge, and that's how i know it's all true.

love letters

i like to call myself a writer sometimes. mostly this is because i have been an english major for so long and have written a lot, academically, but it's also because i just...like to write. i like to write in my journal, i like to write on my blog, i like to write the family christmas letter. i like to write people notes because i feel like i can say it better on paper than i could in person.

i've noticed that i also like to write letters to the guys i like at any given time of life, the really big crushes that took over my life. i've been reading through some of my old journals, and there are several instances where i wrote letters to my crushes instead of actually saying anything. for the most part, i didn't say anything to them because i was pretty sure they didn't like me back and, therefore, it would have been incredibly embarrassing for me to confess my undying love in any fashion. sometimes i wrote the letter just as an outlet for me, to clear up my own feelings and figure out what exactly i was thinking.

But I'm starting to come to a realization: you haven't forgotten about me, and I don't think you will anytime soon, not that I'll let you, though I did try that...and it didn't feel right. But I'm pretty sure you talk to me more than you talk to almost anyone else...

i guess i need to write it all out because my feelings/relationships/prospective relationships are almost always confusing. is that me, or is it just life? i don't know.

If you had any inkling that I was feeling like this, you'd probably run in the other direction. Believe me, I wish I wasn't.

i remember, in elementary school, all through my days at cesar chavez, i loved david apana. i knew his address, i knew his phone number (549-6785), i convinced my friends to three-way call him--i loved him. one day, i wrote him a letter expressing all of my most intense grade-school emotions, and before i could talk myself out of it, i put it in the mail (because i had his address memorized, of course.). almost immediately after the postman picked up our mail, i wished i had that revealing letter back. i mean, obviously it was an awesome letter with different colored pens and probably stickers and maybe some of my mom's perfume spritzed on. but, even though we are talking about snail mail here, i was putting myself in a vulnerable position.

i needn't have worried--nothing was ever said about the letter, so i have no idea if he ever even received it. of course, nothing ever happened between me and david, either, but that was probably for the best. since then, though, i've been more careful about wo i share my love letters with.

i like the written word. it's a way to be both personal and distanced at the same time. and that comes in handy when you are a girl with a lot of feelings and not a lot of guts.

the impossible

i've been thinking lately about the idea of impossibility. one of my favorite scriptures is luke 1: 37. i love it for its simplicity:

for with God nothing shall be impossible.

this comes in reference to the immaculate conception, so yeah, i believe that, with God, nothing is impossible. He can do anything--move mountains, calm oceans, raise the dead. i fully believe that miracles happen.

it's harder for me to believe this when it comes to my own life, my own problems, my own worries. i know, theoretically, that, if i rely on God, i can do anything. but it's a lot more difficult in practice. i know that i have limitations, some which i don't even understand, and those limitations let all my self-doubts and fears creep in. i start to think that those things that i want to do are impossible, that i can't be helped.

i'm ready to change my attitude about impossible things actually being possible. the first step is an unshakable belief, right?

Jesus said unto [me], If thou canst believe, all things are possible to [her] that believeth.

crushing

last year, i tried to make a comprehensive list of all the boys i've ever liked. this was right on the heels of 1) my essay class and 2) my reading of bossypants and is everyone hanging out without me?. i thought a list like this would be useful when i eventually write my autobiography/memoirs/collection of essays.

anyway, this list. it's pretty lengthy. it starts in kindergarten. i had a preschool crush but i can't remember his name, so i started things off with wally, who also has the distinction of being the only crush who ever made me bleed (thanks to slamming my face into the classroom floor...i guess i liked the bad boys back then). and, of course, the list comes up to the present. over half of my total crushes come from these crazy college years.

it's been a while since i had a really good crush. this is both a good thing and a not-so-good thing. on one hand, it means i can actually get things done. but on the prospects-for-marriage front, it's not really that fun.

at these times, i usually say to myself, you need a good crush to take your mind off of the crazy other stuff that is going on in your life.

and then, typically, the heavens are opened and i am blessed with a big ol' ginormous crush. prayers are answered, am i right?

but it is often a large case of "be-careful-what-you-wish-for"-itis, because a crush for me usually ends up taking over my life. i want to be with the person all the time, i'm thinking about him all the time, i hope he's thinking about me all or at least some of the time, i start to daydream about how it will be if/when we start dating. it can get a little overwhelming, for me and for the guy, if he ever knew.

a boy once told me that he didn't really have crushes. it was a foreign concept to him. this, in turn, was incomprehensible to me. how do you like someone then? what does it feel like when you think about that person? or do you not really think about them? does that mean you are so easily able to compartmentalize your feelings that your day-to-day life isn't really affected at all? thinking about it now, maybe he just hadn't found the person who would make him feel the flutter of a crush.

this is what came up when i googled "exhilarating." i think it sums things up pretty well.

i'm not sure if i'm that point again where i'm ready. i guess i can't really control it, but crushing on someone is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. maybe that crushless boy has all the luck.

why i love easter {secular + sacred}

1. easter candy. i'm already having post-easter-candy-availability anxiety. i haven't had nearly enough reese's eggs or cadbury mini eggs. and i haven't had any dove truffle eggs, which are my very favorite. {update: i just looked up dove eggs, which i can't find anywhere, and apparently they are a "seasonal item" that is "no longer being offered," to which i say, shouldn't an easter seasonal item be offered at easter?!?} easter candy is about a million times better than halloween candy, in my opinion.

2. easter outfits. when i was a kid, we always had matching easter dresses. a lot of the time, mom would even make these adorable outfits for each of us, which made them even cooler. today, i still like to buy myself something springy around this time and call it my "easter dress." this year, i actually bought the dress back at the end of february, and i've been patiently waiting to wear it until easter sunday.

probably my favorite childhood easter outfits. the checks! the hats!

3. easter egg decorating. this isn't one of those traditions that is sacred in our family, but it's still fun to dye eggs every once in a while, and by "once in a while" i mean once a year or so. this week we dyed eggs for fhe, and it was pretty fun. i realized that i'm not the most creative egg-decorator, while some people in our group displayed an unusual and delightful talent for this medium.

4. easter baskets. easter baskets aren't quite as involved as christmas stockings, which only makes sense, but they are still pretty awesome. one year, my basket featured a pair of pink jelly sandals, which set the bar pretty high for future easters. after that, i ALWAYS hoped i would find a pair of clear, high-heeled jellies in my easter basket. alas, that never happened, because i'm pretty sure i made them up (yep, my imagination actively designs amazing shoes.). but, if you ever come across such a creation, there's still time to fill my easter basket.

5. easter dinner. ham, deviled eggs, olives, rolls. doesn't get much better than that.

as for the sacred side of things, i love easter for the same reason i love other sundays: we get to talk about the Savior and the atonement. easter is especially great because that is the main focus. i'm grateful for the gospel and the knowledge i have that i have an Older Brother who was willing to suffer and die for me and everyone else that i love and those i don't even know. it's comforting to know that, when i am struggling with something or when i am feeling the nudgings of despair, Christ has been there too. He is right there with me, even for the stuff that is probably inconsequential in the long run. i love what elder holland said about this a few easters ago:

It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone...Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so.

so, in conclusion, easter is awesome because Jesus Christ and His atonement are pretty awesome.

i hope everyone had a beautiful easter sunday! don't get fooled tomorrow :)

self-discipline

i set some very specific goals for myself this week, like going to bed at a reasonable time and waking up early and not eating out or eating treats (it turns out that not having ice cream means i just want something else to satisfy my sweet tooth...go figure). they are more specific than this, but the details don't really matter.

anyway, the point is that i haven't been perfect, but i've been pretty good. and i feel good about it. i feel good about myself for making some progress in the realm of self-discipline.

i've had elder maxwell's article, "becoming a disciple," in mind for a few months now. his words are the inspiration for my zest for self-discipline (long quote, but worth it):

     Denying oneself has never been popular as a lifestyle, and it is clearly not today. Self-denial is portrayed by many as too puritanical and too ascetic. Scoffers have acquired powerful pulpits from which they bray their message, which constantly puts down discipleship and encourages the natural man to think highly of himself and to please himself.

     What is it that we are to deny ourselves? The ascendancy of any appetites or actions which produce not only the seven deadly sins but all the others. Happily, self-denial, when we practice it, brings great relief. It represents emancipation from all the “morning after” feelings, whether caused by adultery or gluttony. Being concerned with tomorrow, true disciples are very careful about today! Self denial also includes not letting our hearts become too set on any trivial or worldly thing. Then we can learn the great lessons about the relationship of righteousness to the powers and the joys of heaven.

     The fundamental fact is that if we do not deny ourselves, we are diverted. Even if not wholly consumed with the things of the world, we are still diverted sufficiently to make serious discipleship impossible. As a consequence, all the gifts and talents God has given us are not put meekly on the altar to serve others and to please God. Instead, we withhold to please ourselves. Diversion, therefore, is not necessarily gross transgression, but it is a genuine deprivation, especially if we consider what we might have become and what more we might have done to bless and to help others.

though i have problems and temptations to deal with, i don't think i have huge issues with some of the things he mentions here. but i love that bolded line. the fact is, i am diverted from my true purposes a lot of the time, spiritual, educational, professional, social, physical. so i'm practicing self-denial for those things that do challenge me.

a grateful day

i don't know if it's the remnants of love day or what, but i'm feeling grateful today and thought i would put it out there.

i'm grateful for:
--my family--parents, sisters, brother
--sunshiny days in the winter when i can sit on the balcony and read
--the temple and smiling temple workers (and seeing former students in the confirmation room...only in provo)
--health insurance
--netflix
--relief society
--neighbors
--comfy couches
--hair bows
--zebra snuggie
--grilled cheese and tomato soup
--girl friends
--clean dishes and an empty sink
--the savior
--missionaries
--phone calls
--zumba
--warm coats
--new friends in dinner group (and dinner group itself :))
--the office
--blogging
--my talents
--sibling group texts
--all the things that make me laugh
--a car that works and has heat
--school/classes that are interesting
--loose curls
--good things to read
--the prophet
--good health
--the beautiful earth
--the internet
--provo, this wacky and awesome place to live

there are so many things i am grateful for. life is good!

in winter

winter can be hard. you are mostly confined to the great indoors, since it is typically frigid cold outside, and there really isn't much to do inside that doesn't involve a couch and netflix. and hey, i love my couch and i love my netflix. but it can get old pretty fast.

sometimes winter makes you sad. sometimes winter makes you feel lonely. but that will pass, just like the cold always gives way to the beautiful warmth of spring and summer.

for me, fall is harder than winter. the long lazy summer days are still fresh in my memory, it keeps getting darker earlier, everyone's front doors start to stay closed. fall makes me sad. fall makes me feel lonely.

winter is crisp mornings. winter is my birthday. winter is sososososo close to spring. and we're almost there, people!

but in the meantime, let's not completely skip winter.

two years

remember how, basically every week for two years, i've written an email, full of office quotes and random facts about my week and thoughts about the gospel, and sent it off to an elder in mexico?

well, in about 18 days, that elder will be back on american soil. i keep forgetting that, soon, i'll be able to talk to him on the phone and text him and eventually see him again. has it been two years already? i can't wait!

need and want

“to crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. for when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? and here again is a foreshadowing -- the world will be made whole. for to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. so whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.”

marilynne robinson, housekeeping

 i don't consider myself a super needy person. i've always been fine with eating lunch alone or going to the movies by myself or just hanging out at home on a friday night. maybe this is partly a result of circumstance, but it's never bothered me all that much. i'm mostly okay on my own. but sometimes, i just want to be needed, you know?
 

“having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night is a very old human need. ”

margaret mead

this isn't meant to invite pity; i've just been thinking about the ideas of need and want lately. i feel like showing someone you need and/or want them in your life is part of being a good friend or potentially more than a friend. if that need is eventually fulfilled, does that mean that the relationship is over? it seems to me that if you don't need or want (i think of these two terms as kind of interchangeable, but i'm still trying to decide if they are significantly different.) a person anymore, something either needs to change or to end. 

i struggle with this, because it usually seems to me that time and experience and subsequent investment in a friendship (or whatever) would just create need/want that has some kind of enduring power. but i guess that's not the case? and i'm all about moving with the cheese, so it's something i need to just deal with. but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt when you realize you are not needed or wanted anymore.

eponine deals with this same feeling: "without me, his world will go on turning."

i feel you, eponine.

amen to that

i've thought a lot about this lately. i think the fairy tale ideal says that love is firecrackers--that it is so intense and explosive and quick-burning that there is nothing else you can think about. maybe for some people it is like this. but i also wonder if sometimes, while i am expecting this firework kind of love, i'm missing out on the soft, slow-burning stuff, the love that slowly and imperceptibly builds and builds, that is also actually really great, too. i wonder if i get caught up in the romantic comedy type of love and forget that that is not always reality.

on a somewhat related note, i was talking to someone the other day about (what else?) dating, and she said that she never expected to be the one that would have to chase the guy. having almost always been someone in that same position, i could relate. it wold be nice if the guy was chasing you and you knew for sure that he was all in it. but i've been thinking: does it really matter the details of the courtship/how things unfold as long as it all has the same result, meaning, for us young single adults, temple marriage? i have to believe that, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter whether it took you guys six months to actually start dating or whether you were more interested in him at first than he was in you or whether your first kiss was awkward or whatever. if the end is true, committed, deep love, i feel like it doesn't matter a whole lot how you got there. i think too much of my time is spent worrying about how the dating stuff happens, "the game", if you will, when i'm becoming less and less sure that that stuff is really of much consequence at all. i'm not sure if that last sentence made much sense, but i don't really care at this point. :)

so those are my thoughts on love for today. doesn't that soft love just sound really nice?

an unfamiliar feeling

what is that unfamiliar feeling, you ask? well, for me lately, it's been productivity. and also excitement and motivation toward my thesis.

it's been a very long time since i have felt any of this, and it's pretty awesome. turns out it actually feels kinda good to put in a good solid day of work. and i'm sleeping better at night. win-win, you know.

"all my little peccadillos"

this weekend i watched good will hunting, without all the swears that i found out were in the movie when i was looking up quotes for this post. the editing made it a little choppy, though i am told that the cinematography is kinda choppy anyway.

but anyway. i liked the movie, especially some of its thoughts on love. i mean, when am i ever not thinking about love? so it makes sense that those parts of the movie stood out to me.

here's the gist: will (matt damon), a foster kid from the slums of boston, is a janitor at MIT who is secretly a genius. he catches the attention of a prominent mathematician who decides to mentor will in order to keep him out of prison. part of the deal is that will also has to meet with a counselor to work through some of his issues.

sean (robin williams), his therapist, comes from a similar background and is able to build trust with will. like i said, the best parts for me were those where sean and will talk about relationships. here's a discussion that i really like.

Sean: You'll have bad times, but it'll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to. Maybe you're perfect right now. Maybe you don't wanna ruin that. I think that's a super philosophy, Will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody...My wife used to fart when she was nervous. She had all sorts of wonderful idiosyncrasies. You know what? She used to fart in her sleep. [they laugh] Sorry I shared that with you. One night it was so loud it woke the dog up. She woke up and gone like "oh was that you?" I'd say yeah...I didn't have the heart to tell her...[cracks up] Oh [sheesh]... 
Will: [laughing hysterically] She woke herself up? 
Sean: [in hysterics himself] Yes!.... Oh [goodness]....aahhh, but, Will, she's been dead two years and that's the [stuff] I remember. [Will stops laughing] Wonderful stuff, you know, little things like that. Ah, but, those are the things I miss the most. The little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. That's what made her my wife. Oh, and she had the goods on me, too; she knew all my little peccadillos. People call these things imperfections, but they're not — aw that's the good stuff. And then we get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds. You're not perfect, sport. And let me save you the suspense. This girl you met, she isn't perfect either. But the question is: whether or not you're perfect for each other. That's the whole deal. That's what intimacy is all about. Now you can know everything in the world, sport, but the only way you're findin' out that one is by givin' it a shot. You certainly won't learn from an old [crazy] like me. Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell a [kid] like you.

first, apparently that first part was totally improvised by robin williams, so the hysterical laughter is legit, not just really good acting. but also, this is exactly what i believe about relationships. i've been thinking about this a lot lately. i want to be in a passionate relationship someday, the kind you see in romantic movies. but, i also know that that kind of passion doesn't necessarily define a marital relationship, especially after the first few years. then, the passion hopefully becomes something deeper, and that's something that i don't fully understand now. i think that initial spark is important, but what's maybe more important is the life you build together in the years to come. i think that's what sean is talking about here, partly. getting to know each other, quirks and imperfections and idiosyncrasies and all, and still being so in love, is what i want to get to.

and i love those bolded lines sosososososo much. none of us are perfect! but that's not the point; it's about being perfect for each other. man, i really love that. i know this is only a movie, but i really believe that's how it's supposed to work, how it can work.

so those are my thoughts on good will hunting, one of the movies to cross off on my list of must-sees. next up: finding forrester and a few good men.

thankful 2012: day one

i have so many things to be thankful for, so here's the first part of the list (which will by no means be comprehensive). but, i am going to at least start off with some of the important things.

first, i am so grateful for my knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. so much of the happiness i feel in my life comes from this knowledge.

second, i'm thankful for my family. it's pretty awesome that we can all just sit around talking for like two hours and have more fun than we would in pretty much any other way. seriously, though. when my dad told us we were going to california over thanksgiving this year, i was most excited (i mean, after thinking about the joy of disneyland) about sharing a hotel room with my siblings. it's going to be a blast staying up late and making prank calls :)

third, i'm thankful for my education. there have been ups and downs, but i love learning and i am grateful for these years i've spent at byu. someday i'll be done, and i'll be glad to leave. but provo really has been good to me.

fourth, i'm grateful for my job, and i'm especially grateful that my job is teaching. it is lovely to have money with which to buy things that i need and want, and i love that i make that money right now by talking to my students and helping them to become better writers. i just hope i can figure out a way to do that for the rest of my life.

those are the important things i can think of right now...i'll be back soon with some other thankfuls.