Life as I live it.

I was wishing that someone would blog because I like to virtually people watch. I also like to people watch in real life but right now I am just sitting alone in my apartment and it's not as much fun to people watch yourself. Pretty much this is a guilt trip to those who have not blogged in 3 or maybe even 8 months. You know who you are. Since you won't do it maybe my good example will motivate you. This is what has happened as of late.

Last weekend I celebrated MLK Jr. Day by going down to Sierra Vista and visiting my family. We talked a lot, made and ate some delicious food, and in general enjoyed each other. On Sunday we went to church with Morgan and she played piano. She has the cutest decreasingly non-existent baby belly (intentional use of a double negative). I also practiced a bunch of new music I am supposed to learn to play for my ward choir. I got to help select the songs this time around and am quite happy with the choices we made (if you are interested we are singing I Know that My Redeemer Lives, Have I Done Any Good, This is the Christ, and Praise to the Lord, the Almighty). My mother and I also worked on and fitted a practice dress. I love Lady Katherine and all of her gorgeous, super classy clothes and often pick out fabric and patterns in hopes that Mom will become my royal seamstress- it sort of works, most of the time.

For some reason it seems that short school weeks always drag on forever. This last week was not an exception.  I had a handful of students who made it a point to test my patience. One even decided to become his own personal, royal de-seamstress. Wait, what is a de-seamstress? That's when instead of doing your work you use a broken rat-tail comb and a pencil to spend the morning ripping out the inner seam of your jeans up almost to the crotch because a small hole in the knee was bothering you. (Run on sentence not purposeful, but since this is a fictitious job description, assume I used it as some imaginary literary device.) Needless to say, by lunchtime Friday I was almost as exhausted as you are after trying to say aforementioned run on sentence in a single breath. Thankfully during lunch a friend messaged me, asking if I wanted to go to the UA basketball game with her and some friends. Made. My. Day. After that I was able to make it through the afternoon and our introduction to Geology, as well as all the excitement that comes when you are 9 and get to study rocks during school. Side note: rocks are actually awe-fully awesome and it takes no effort to make 3rd graders interested in studying them. What is cooler than studying sparkly things and volcanoes? It addresses every target audience.

Saturday I was not excited to get up in the morning because it was raining and I had signed up for a math conference starting at 8. I did not want to get out of bed but I did and I am grateful I did not skip out. It was WAY FUN. Pretty much I had a bunch of short math lessons where we played fun math games and learned some sweet techniques. Including something called Exploding Dots (if you are awesome look here or here). It is a fun and easy way to count and perform basic operations using your regular numbers, as well as numbers in different bases. Also includes a super cool way to divide polynomials. Again. AWESOME. Caree, my old college roommate/really cool human being and math teacher, was also there. I hadn't seen her in while and got to eat lunch with her and chat it up a bit. I finished with the conference and the delicious food they served and then went and bought some new sneakers. My previous ones only cost $15 and I have worn them regularly for 2 years and the needed replaced. I then went to the basketball game. Funny story. My friend got the tickets from her childhood BFF who plays on the USC team. We all, including her, showed up in our Arizona best cheering wildly as UA beat them by 30 points. His parents and siblings sitting behind us didn't mind though and were really great. We made sure to cheer for USC every time #21 had the ball. Walking back from the game I broke in my new sneakers by jumping in and skipping through a giant puddle with Amber. My feet were a little cold for a while, but my not-so-inner child appreciated it. I then came home and studied a little bit for my lesson today.

This morning I got up, wore some really bright pink tights with my black dress, and rocked my Gospel Doctrine lesson. I LOVE teaching gospel doctrine, and really enjoy studying Doctrine and Covenants and Church History. If there has been one part of the gospel that has been hard for me to accept it is the prophet Joseph Smith. I never really loved church history. They were strong people and are inspirational but I was never interested. I will be honest I have feigned excitement about it for a long time. I would do my study, pray for a testimony, and even comment and affirm the importance of the principles and events recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants. When I bear testimony of Joseph Smith I often experience some amount of guilt because I don't feel the testimony and wrongfully assume I don't know it for myself. When I hear Gordan B. or Thomas S. I know and have felt they are prophets. I have never felt this for Joseph Smith. My testimony of the Restoration has always been based on the 'fruit of the works' if you will. One day I may encounter an opportunity for the Holy Ghost to testify to my mind and my heart, and I will feel the power of the Prophet Joseph. For now I am grateful for the chance to study and build upon my testimony of the mind. In today's lesson I really enjoyed Joseph's dialogue in JSH 1:28-29 and have decided to commit myself to better avoiding the 'levity' he admitted as well as work on more regularly checking my standing with my Heavenly Father. A real, unfeigned excitement for the restoration is building; for that I am excited.

Now I need to make a milkshake to celebrate the permanent return of Birthday Cake Oreo. Then I will fold and put away my laundry. #myapartmentiscleanbutthereisanimmenseamountofclothingstrewnacrossthedifferentroomsthatmakeitlookverymessy #someonemakeadryerthatfoldsandhangsaswellasaconveyorsystemthatsendsthemtotheirproperspot                   

My thought on hashtags: I don't use them because I find them kind of ridiculous but I also find them to be really addictive and often say "hashtag:blah blah blah (the blah's actually being a real thought/statement) as I talk to myself in my head. Instead you may notice I improperly use colons to pause and preface them with fragmented sentences, which are now frequently associated and used following hashtags.

Happy Happenings

If you are curious about my break read the following. If not know that life is grand and I am happy! There aren't any pictures so I understand if you can't make it through.


I go back to school tomorrow and I am ready to be back but not quite ready to get up in the morning again. Everyone talks about how lucky teachers are to get two weeks off. Guess what, we are lucky and I enjoyed every moment of it...and there were a lot of great moments. I would add some pictures but I didn't really get any good physical ones. May my poor writing schools clearly express the vision of some of the things that occurred. My break started on Friday the 21st. I drove up to Phoenix with my parents and Shelby. We boarded a plane and headed to Sacramento. Saturday we slept in a little and recovered from the late/early arrival at our hotel. It rained the entire time we were there but it was beautiful and green. Get this- grass grows in the cracks in the streets, ALL ON ITS OWN. We nurture and care for that stuff here and most of the time it still looks brown and sad. We headed over to Bev's house (Alison's MIL) and helped out with the preparations for the nights party. Alison and James showed up a little later in the morning and that is always good news. I love my twin sister. She, for the most part, understands me and knows how to make my day. I also love James-he understands me and will learn more about me as a person has he learns to live with his wife (I have some experience with that girl and some pointers about resolving disputes if ever you need them). After lunch I headed to the Sacramento Temple with my mother. She escorted me as I went through the temple and received my endowments. I was able to sit with my mother on my left and Alison on my right and was beaming with smiles the whole time. I love my family and am grateful to all that were there. We then headed over to Alison and James' open house. It was lovely and we even got the chance to meet the adorable Jeremy and chat with my cousin Lori. Shelby and I headed back to Tucson on Monday and had Christmas morning together. Then we drove down to Sierra Vista. I spent the day with Morgan and we had a tasty Christmas dinner at the Firehouse with Spencer. By no means did we have a traditional Christmas but  I was able to spend time with my family and that is really all I need.

I spent New Years in Tucson and fed the missionaries. I cleaned, caught up on laundry, and spent some much needed time with friends (I am sort of a recluse when school is in session). I also spent a good portion of time celebrating the union of a couple of my besties. On Friday I made the 7 hour drive from Tucson to Phoenix- WHAT it takes that long to get to Phoenix. It shouldn't, but there is a lot that can be accomplished sitting in traffic for 5 hours- I painted my nails (the guys in the car next to me had a bong- sort of unnerving). Thankfully I had a big lunch with Morgan and Spencer beforehand so I wasn't starving when I finally arrived. We had a fun little sleepover and then got up early and got ready. I was able to attend the sealing of my friend which was really neat, I may have teared up a little. I spent the rest of the morning wishing I had different shoes and holding my bridesmaid's bouquet like a baseball bat.

I purposely did not set my alarm for church this morning and was a little late, the missionaries asked if they need to give me a wake up call to make sure I got there next week. I love my life and consider myself very lucky to be living it. I am almost always happy. My Wildcats are currently 14-0. I have homemade salsa in my refrigerator and a giant bag of chips. I still have to take down my Christmas/NYE tree but it will come in time. Arizona Baseball starts in 40 days. Life is Grand.