Be

Multiple times over the last week or so, I've wanted to get a tattoo. Just, up and get one. To blow off everyone else and their expectations and every belief I may or may not have and just be true to MYSELF.

I'm not going to actually go through with it

(although, when my brothers and sisters show off their new tats, I start contemplating what mine would look like...).

Does painful self-mutilation sound appealing? At times.

I guess I'd like to step outside of myself

and start over.

Instead of a tattoo, I'm moving to a new apartment, starting work on one of my life-long goals and buying an

expensive necklace that reminds me to be

true to MYSELF.

It's beginning to look a lot like....

It snowed! My first snowfall of my first holiday season being back in America!

This is the view from my front door--can you see my car out there? I had a wonderful time last night, driving through the snowstorm to dinner and my little brother's high school musical with a really great guy. It's beginning to look like I will enjoy dating new people. Nice to know that my heart is still open to falling in love again.

Before the snow melts, I've got to

1) have a crazy-fun snowball fight 

2) go sledding

3) drink hot chocolate and see the lights at Temple Square

4) make popcorn balls and sleep by the fireplace at the cabin

Brilliant!

Sarah Rhoads Photography is my new favorite blog. This couple-photography-team have a PASSION for life and people and pictures, and they share it all online! I wish I lived in Seattle, I want to meet them!

Little Bug, love yourself.

My sweet daddy saved me dinner. I drove to his house after rehearsal and devoured tacos with homemade pico de gallo, plus he grilled me up a quesadilla. Then, we made hot fudge sundaes, with the fudge melted in the bottom of the bowl before dumping a scoop of icecream on the top.
We stayed up past midnight talking about life (particularly my life) and relationships (particularly my relationships). He makes me feel so sure of myself. He is my oldest and most encouraging cheerleader. He hugged me a great big papa bear hug and pretty much set the things I've been mulling over straight enough to make heads and tails of what I'm trying to do here in life.

On October 10, 2010.

10 is his favorite number.

I love this boy.

He is understanding

sweet

romantic

kind

handsome

funny 

I feel hopeful about what this decision yields.

Either I shall finally find a peaceful confirmation that I never want to live without him,

or I may be surprised by an assurance that although our paths entwined they must separate.

Girls' Weekend in Wyoming

Just before Shelley left for the coasts, we drove up to WY for a fun girls' night. We (Kim) grilled chicken and veggies after a day of four-wheeling and boat-paddling. These lovely ladies are the best and the weekend was too short! Also, the barbecued feast Kim made was delectable. Mmm............mmM!

Shelley's delicious gourmet cupcakes....

I'm so sad my camera cut this image off, it was so adorable.

Look at that beautiful sky!

I love these girls. We had a BLAST!

Can't wait until we get together again.

Thursday Date

My sweetie picked me up and took me to the beach for a surprise BBQ....he grilled salmon and asparagus and baked potatoes. I adore him. It was delicious, and very fun.

Football Game

James played the snare in the drumline at his highschoool's game--I LOVE this atmosphere.

Across the country, Friday night means cheering the boys on while the audience eats nachos, girls flirt with the band, and people start wearing jackets as October rolls around.

My niece was adorable--she kept imitating the cheerleaders. "Can you hold my hand?" she asked me, and then practice kicking her leg high and yelling, "WOO!"

MILESTONES

I ran.
THREE MILES.
without stopping.
for the first time in my life
this morning.

kudos to Me!
To celebrate: pedicure.

perfect.

Sweetness

This fantastic debut novel enraptured me, making my Friday morning quite enjoyable. Bradley's eleven-year-old heroine, Flavia de Luce, is admirably intelligent. Her deducing stream of thought, extensive grasp of chemistry, and delightful attitude in tricky situations had me cheering, "Yeah, Flave! You ROCK!"

Read it.

He's Home

So...this is LOVE.

Sunday morning, the bell rang, I opened the door and IT WAS HIM. Tangible, crooked-smile, I-could-reach-out-and-touch-him, HIM. He squeezed me sooooo tight when I hugged him--how did I survive two years without hugs like THAT?? He took me to church, gave me presents from Mexico, held my hand when we went on an afternoon walk. We sat on the curb and talked and talked and laughed and took this picture.

He kept his arm around my shoulder through dinner. He ate icecream with Nana, who told me later that he was "handsome and confident" and "our children would be beautiful." He danced with me on my doorstep before he left. He looked at me--and my knees got that hollow-boned, weak feeling--and he said, "Hey. I love you."
He fit right back into place in an instant, as though he was never an ocean away from me. His voice makes my heart cartwheel, especially when he's listening to my stories and he says mm-hmmm. I went to work the next day humming songs from Golden-Era Broadway songs and my cubical-neighbor Ilze said, "Please tell me why you are on top of the world today." Why? Because, you know what? I love him! I do. And he loves me! I'm not going to over-analyze or think too much or stress about the future. I'm just going to enjoy this sweet, charming man's pure heart, sexy smiles, and adorable train-of-thought (I could lay in his arms and listen to him talk to me all night long). And I'm going to love him back with reckless abandon.

Sleep is the only thing I can't do while I have my mind on something else

I have problems going to sleep. No, not the typical can't-get-my-brain-to-turn-off problem or I'm-so-stressed-out-I-am-gonna-eat-my-pillowcase problem. My problem involves an unwillingness to allow my consciousness to go away somewhere for the night, and hope it comes back to me in the morning.


Sleep is important, I know. My last year of college, I had mono and weird purple goose-egg lumps down the front of my shins (can't remember the long and strange medical term), due to a lack of slumber. I was busy writing papers, attending early-morning class, and squeezing in the occasional date. Sleep took a low spot on my priority list.


Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE plunging into my pillows and crashing comatose-style for nine and a half hours, until I can awake refreshed and endued with energy, occasionally to the sounds of birds chirping outside my balcony, if it’s spring. But all too often I face the four to six hours before the alarm clock’s ridiculously early ring (actually, chime—thank you, BlackBerry) with reluctance. Reluctance to wrestle with my pajama pants under the sheets and comforter. Reluctance to admit one more day is going away. Reluctance to place myself in that moment—the moment that I lie in bed and feel an accounting of reality: where I am, what I’m doing with my life.

A few years ago, I usually fell asleep with my cell phone squished between my face and the pillow. My boyfriend lived seven hours away, and I waited up for his calls at night. We’d talk for a few hours, until my responses slowed and slurred. “You’re tired, Sweetheart. I’d better go,” he’d say.


“No, no, no, I’m awake,” I’d argue, and then promptly fall back asleep. I frequently awoke the next morning with no recollection of how our conversation ended.


The first night I went to bed in Korea, on the floor, I felt very somber. I had flown across an ocean in an airplane, literally sprinted around the streets of Pusan in order to complete “Training Day” when all new missionaries met their training partners, and then lugged my luggage a few hours south to the old apartment where I’d be living. I closed my eyes as I lie in the unfamiliar place and prayed, “Please, please help me not to freak out.” I was a brand-new volunteer missionary in a foreign country. That mission evolved into the most joyful 20 months of my life. I believe I went to sleep that night clinging to the faith that everything was going to be just fine.


Last night, I stayed up reading next to the fireplace in Nana’s library, all set to procrastinate bedtime(note: Nana is my very stylish grandmother). The book was alright. I’ve been reading about one novel a night since I’ve been home from Korea, so for three weeks. It takes my mind to another story, someone else’s life all neatly wrapped up in words and sentences. My time home has been great, filled with family and food and unpacking. But bedtime is the worse. It feels a little lonely, and a bit anticlimactic.
Yesterday after everyone else had gone off to bed I realized, sitting there, that I was skimming the pages so skimpily that I couldn’t follow the story. I was swapping precious beauty sleep for a book in which I wasn’t even remotely interested! Enough, I sighed and closed the book. I turned the fireplace off (note: gas fireplace), brushed my teeth, knelt by my bed to say a prayer. Pulled back the covers, turned off the light, took my glasses off and set them on the nightstand.


Then I considered abandoning this plan and going back to the library to try reading a different book.


“No, no, no,” I told myself. I got in bed, closed my eyes, and waited for morning.




to the readers: my new living arrangements are quite nice, including an incredibly soft mattress and at least fifteen squishy pillows (read: princess bed). So, really, I should love getting in that thing. Any suggestions? What do you do to have a good night's rest?

my neice, sleepin like a baby