on this day

i wrote this on saturday, but for some reason i've been on something of an internet fast since then. but i'm posting it anyway.

four years ago, i flew from salt lake to new york to shannon, ireland.

this is me when i first stepped outside, out into the first blustery day of the trip. this was the first leg of an amazing study abroad experience.

i was afraid, at first, to be honest. i didn't have any great friends going into the trip, it was the first time i would really be away from home, out of the country, and i can always find a million other things to worry about. it didn't help that, in the terminal at kennedy airport, waiting for the flight that would take me across an ocean, my computer inexplicably wouldn't turn on. so, for those first few days and nights, i fretted over whether i would ever be able to talk to my family or how i would upload pictures. i feared that all my worries would be confirmed.

eventually, my computer worked again. i made friends. i talked to my family and posted pictures on facebook. i had an incredible time. a four year anniversary seems as good a time as any to revisit it all, right?

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 :)

kid phases

a little over a year ago, we had a discussion on our kitchen floor. the discussion wasn't about the kitchen floor; rather, we were all sitting on the floor talking. in the dark. it was a magical night.

we each asked a question that everyone had to answer. the best and most memorable question was about our childhood phases. it was hilarious to hear about the wacky stuff we did as kids. kids are so weird, yet so awesome.

i went through a phase where i loved to make "concoctions." i would shut myself up in the bathroom for hours and just mix stuff together. powder make-up, comet, clorox bleach gel, bath salts, shampoo--anything i had handy would go into the brew. there were probably some poisonous gases wafting around. but i don't seem to be any worse for the wear, so that's good, i guess. my mom would sometimes find my potions after the fact. i particularly remember mixing up something green in a film canister that my mom later found, puzzled. why didn't i become a chemist or something? or, because i don't actually like chemistry.

i went through another phase when i was a little older where i always wanted to be out in nature. so i would take a book out to the backyard (just like now, i was never too far away from reading material) and find a spot to read. sometimes i would just pull a plastic chair into the planter behind the swing set and lean back against the tree that was in there, always wary of the pokey burs that fell from that tree and dotted the yard. or, other times, i would find a tree to sit it. we didn't have huge trees in our yard, and i wasn't much of a climber, so my chosen perch was in a small tree whose limbs were sturdy but not high off the ground. after a few months, though, i guess my constant perching became too much for this little tree, because one day i was sitting in it, heard a crack, and then fell to the ground. it was a shock. and that pretty much ended my nature-reading days. until college, that is.

did you go through any funny phases? i have more, but we'll save those for another time :)

recent weird things

1. i keep a grateful journal, where, everyday, i write down five things i'm grateful for that day. for the most part, they are pretty standard: my family, interaction with that boy i like, a good hair day, some great meal, the scriptures. you know, the ushe (i looked this up--how do you spell the abbreviation of "usual"? i was going to write "youge" pronounced like "rouge," but then it looked weird. so that's that.).

as i was rereading my journal at the end of the year, i found this entry for november 13, 2012:

6. studying about the hot air balloon.

?????????????????????????????????????????????? i have no idea what this means. i don't recall studying the hot air balloon, ever, and i don't think i could tell you one fact about them that i didn't know four months ago. i can't think of a fact about hot air balloons as it is. but it's written in my handwriting, so either that part of my brain was somehow surgically removed, or i'm a sleep-writer, which is actually pretty likely.

2. a couple weeks ago, either right before or right after the oscars, i had a dream that daniel day-lewis was my professor for a british lit class at byu. it was totally awesome, obviously, but even more awesome because he really liked me. at the end of class, he asked me if i was taking his class the next semester, but i didn't know for sure, because i was supposed to be graduating and defending my thesis (that figures prominently into my subconscious, typically). he said, well, i hope you do take my class, because i'm a fan. so, dream-daniel day-lewis is a fan of me. i told one of my friends this and he said, well, why wouldn't he be?

3. on monday, i was driving to zumba, and i was passing the brick oven, when all of a sudden, this guy was darting in and out of traffic, like, in the way. he almost got hit. i could see that he was a brick oven employee, and he was crossing the street to the employee parking lot. well, i look at his face as he darts in front of me, and it's someone i know--a former home teacher who has the distinction of being one of the most awkward people i have ever met. and then i started laughing hysterically, because if anyone would frantically run across the street in front of a bunch of cars, it would be this guy.

okay, that's about all i can think of right now, that is, aside from the many weird facts that i have already shared here previously.

and, because i didn't have a blog when i was a sophomore in college (how i wish i had), here's a pic of me acting like i didn't have eyebrows. throwback wednesday, if you will.

i was so young then.