Life {My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee}

You know, I think sometimes we get certain ideas stuck in our heads for a reason. Here's the one that's been stuck in mine for awhile, from Elder Holland's CES Fireside a few months back. If you get the chance, watch the whole thing, but the musical number in this clip especially: My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee

Life {Merry Christmas!}

May you have also eaten too much, spent enough time laughing at relatives to make your ribs ache, and be on the verge of a sugar-induced coma--because that's all part of a merry Christmas for me. Take care of yourselves--and each other, because that's what this world is really all about.

Life {Watching NFL Games}

So I know I'm home for Christmas when Sundays mean crashing on the couch, falling asleep to whatever football game is on that day. (Home for the summer means falling asleep to Nascar.) I'm a Bengal's girl. They're bad, yes, but they're my team. And they never made play-offs this year. Boo.

Last Sunday I 'watched' the Patriots and Cardinals game. By watched, I mean I was curled up on the couch, holding my napping nephew, who put me to sleep too. (If you want to know what happiness is, that's it. There's just something about a sleeping baby) For the little while that I was awake, I saw the most incredibly ridiculous thing. A player made a touchdown and, in a fit of happiness, made a snow angel. One little snow angel. And he got flagged for it.

Alrighty boys-who-make-the-rules, now when did you start taking yourselves so seriously? I mean really, this is a sport that was originally all about playing in the mud, tackling your best buddy as hard as you can, and being just plain all-American boy. The origins of your games are empty streets and front yards, rainy days and pre-adolescent boys. Lighten up already!

Life {During Finals Week}

You know what? This is pretty much a really hard time for me right now. Like really, really hard. But I have to look at this year as a growing experience--Right now, there's a lot of growing pain. A lot. But wow, just look at how far I've come. I'm not the person that I was, for better or worse.

Life {Tagged Again}

OK, so apparently the only way to get me to post regularly is to tag me (Thanks Mallory :) ). I'm pretty sure I didn't post even once in all of the month of November. So here you go, 7 random facts about me:

1) Nearly all of my severe injuries have been on the left side of my body. Left knee, left wrist, left eye, left thigh....yeah, you get the idea.

2) I have a teddy bear made out of mink fur. Weird, I know, but I've had it since I was 3.

3) I'm completely fascinated by fire.

4) I'm kind-of sort-of pretty much just terrified by 'possums.

5) I brush my teeth for a long time. And wander around the house while doing it. Sometimes I even forget I'm brushing my teeth and just walk around with a toothbrush in my mouth.

6) I like to sleep on my stomach, with my face buried in pillows. Which is why I wake up with crazy bangs.

7) I named my car Valentine.

I tag Megan and Sara!

Life {Tag! I'm it!}

Mallory tagged me (Go read her blog, then you'll know why we're friends :) ), so here goes.

8 Things

8 Things I'm Passionate About
1) Doing the right thing, and doing things right (Read: perfectionist)
2) Art--Painting, Drawing, Photography, anything that involves making a mess
3) Finding new places and new beauty in nature
4) Lindt's Intense Orange Dark Chocolate Candy Bar
5) Family and Friends (Friends might as well be family)
6) Cooking
7) Learning (Even if I do complain about it a lot)
8) Curiosity (It's kinda like #7, but a little more general, I guess. I ask a lot of questions sometimes, lol)

8 Words or Phrases I Say Often
1) "What the heck?!"
2) "Huh? Oh, wait, yeah..."
3) "Ummmmm"
4) "I just lost my train of thought"
5) "Errr"
6) "What? No, really?"
7) "You're kidding me"
8) "Go 'way, 'm sleepin'"

8 Things I Want to do Before I Die
1) Publish a book
2) Visit England
3) Get married :)
4) Graduate college (seems like this will never happen)
5) Learn how to make stained glass
6) Get a piece of art in a gallery
7) Try the Coke/Mentos thing... I love to watch things explode
8) Learn to go with the flow a little better

8 Things I Currently Want or Need
1) More time
2) Peace
3) Money (I'm in college--I'm broke!)
4) An art studio--complete with gigantic windows and lots of room to make messes
5) A Nap
6) Someone else to clean out my paintbrushes
7) New Sketchbook (the good kind with the vellum finished paper)
8) A good movie to watch, and someone to watch it with

Mmkay, now is the part where I tag people....except I think that only Sara reads my blog, has her own, and hasn't been tagged yet. So tag Sara, you're it! The rest of you--get a blog!

Life {Ice Cream}

Here's the preface to this: I'm in a slightly odd mood. Ha, that's an understatement.

I decided something. It has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a little bit homesick and missing the amazing-ness that is Graeter's ice cream. (They just opened a Denver branch--you don't want to know how tempting it is to go there right now)

You know how they say that dating and trying to find Mr. Right is like finding your favorite flavor of ice cream-- for some people it only takes a few tries and for others you have to try every flavor at every shop?

Whoever Mr. Right is for me, he's Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip ice cream, two scoops in a waffle cone. That's it. Simple as that. I could get all metaphorical with this (mostly sweet, but with just enough bitterness to keep you from getting a toothache, just enough to appreciate how sweet, or how its just slightly out of the way of normal flavor, etc), but let's just leave it like this for now. We all know that I can go all day when it comes to working up metaphors...

I'll see ya when I see ya, Mr. Black-Raspberry-Chip. Till then, you had better take care of yourself...
:)

Life {Revisited}

I'm a major writer--I think you know that by now. I was going back through some old, old (2005) writing that I did in high school for Mrs. Killen, who was pretty much the best teacher ever and a reason that I'm in the English program and I found something. Actually, I found a lot of somethings--this one's a poem, one I remember writing from a single fragment that got stuck in my head, the line "Silence's mantle falls"...

In the Wake of a Suicide Bomber

Silence’s mantle falls,
broken,
to the floor.

Mercy’s shrill cry
rends
the burning air.

Revenge gathers the blood,
drinks,
and still thirsts.

Mortal man crumbles,
disintegrates,
dust unto dust.

Suicide.
Jihad.
Kamikaze.

Why?

Life {The Things I Forget to Tell You!}

The most important, recent news that I STILL haven't posted about (which is stupid, because you have no idea how excited I am about this) is that I have a nephew! His name is Bryson David and he was born last Tuesday, the 26th at 5 AM to my brother Chris and his wife, Missy.


We were all betting on him having jet-black hair--it's light brown. And his eyes will probably be green. He's got the Geyer cleft chin alright, as well as the big feet and long fingers like mine. He's absolutely darling, and I'm so sad to have left him behind! (And how weird is it that my brother has a baby??)

Life {My Family Thinks They're All Hilarious}

I'm officially moved into my Provo, UT apartment again. And, in standard Jen fashion, I injured myself within less than 24 hours after making the move: Wait 'till you hear this story.

In my usual brilliant fashion, I jumped off of my bed (honestly, I was just hanging stuff on my wall and not being a delinquent, for once) and straight into a spinning ceiling fan. OWWW! But it gets better. I doubled up in pain for a minute and narrowly avoided crying, and then went about my merry (but head-achey) way. About 10 minutes later, I noticed an odd splattered stain on my white gauze curtains. I ran my fingers through my hair--and you guessed it-- found the blood. EWWWW! So now I have two 1/2 inch long slashes just barely hidden by my hair and one great big sore spot.

I told this story to my dad this morning, and he promptly sent me this email:
Five little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"
Four little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped her head.
Papa called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

Three little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

Two little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped her head.
Papa called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"No more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

One little monkey jumping on the bed,
He fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said,
"Put those monkeys straight to bed!"


love ya
Dad

And don't forget the picture... How loved am I? :D

Life {Fell Apart, by Alistair Cockburn}

Every once in awhile you stumble across something on the internet that really just makes you stop and think. This poem struck a chord with me. Maybe it was because of the way that it was written that I really stopped to concentrate on what it had to say....

Life {Word of the Day}

I'm a word-nerd, I'll admit it. I definitely get those word-of-the-day emails and I just loved the quote that went with today's:

"Some things you can feel coming. You don't fall in love because you fall in love; you fall in love because of the need, desperate, to fall in love. When you feel that need, you have to watch your step; like having drunk a philter, the kind that makes you fall in love with the first thing you meet. It could be a duck-billed platypus."
-- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

Life {In Boxes?}

A side effect of coming home for the summer for what is most likely the last time (Don't worry, I'll be back to visit) is that it's time for me to pack everything up, to rummage through the detritus of my childhood and decide what is worth keeping and what's not.

I'm a pack-rat, or at least a sentimental gal. I want to keep everything, despite the fact that some things just have to go. So now there are bags of clothing waiting to be donated, stacks of books waiting to be boxed up and shelved in the closet, and piles of clothing and art supplies finding new homes in my suitcases. And trashbags brimming with needless clutter, destined for the curb.

I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I'm abandoning home sometimes, but I know that this is a necessary move. I can't be who I am meant to be if I don't leave, if I don't strike out into the world to find my own place. I just wish the process didn't hurt so much.

Life {Unfinished Art}

The project list is getting pretty long: Here's a quick summary of the paintings alone.

1) Plane Propeller for Bryson
My brother brought home an old airplane propeller and asked me to paint on it so he could add it to his soon-to-be-born son's nursery (it's all airplane themed). Which means a lot of practice when it comes to painting old P51 Mustangs and F4U Corsairs.

2)Cat/Southwest Painting
About two years ago I told my mom that I was going to paint her something for Mother's Day--It never got finished. Based off of a photograph I took of a kitten curled up in a southwestern-style woven basket.

3)Ocean Background Painting
All I have completed on this one is an ocean inthe background. No idea what's going in the foreground at all, but it needs something.

4) Rose in Oils (For once, I'm painting myself something...shocker)
And it's pink!!

5) Megan's own personal Ipod ad
It'll be cool--I just need to do it :)

6) Becca's Calvin and Hobbes painting
Because sometimes she's a little much like Calvin...or his alter-ego Hobbes, depends on the day really :) Just teasing, Becca

7) Blank 16x24 canvas
Yeah, no ideas yet. I'd like to do something that I can leave here, with my family. For some reason I need that connection, I guess.

8) Blank 11x14 canvas
Maybe this will be another gift... I don't know yet.

This is all....for now. Until I go buy more canvases, pretty much.

Life {Barefoot}

I realized yesterday that, at the end of the day, I had not put on a pair of shoes once. Not even flip-flops.

Life's different here.

Life {In the Garage}

A few years ago, my dad realized something--Chris would soon be married and Jason had already moved out of the house.

Which meant that he would ultimately be living in a house with all girls. His solution? Build a pole-barn out back, a sort of mechanic's club-house, a refuge from all the estrogen.

He's even good enough to put up with me "helping" out--in some ways, nothing has changed since I was little. I'm still asking questions every five minutes and am still absolutely flummoxed when it comes to the identity of various tools, parts, and ...well, random stuff. (And did you know how much of that stuff is toxic? Is it really that good for you to be playing around with lithium anti-seize?) Anyways, since my Mustang is the current project taking up all of Dad's time, I thought I should be lending a helping hand in something other than the financial department. (After all, the only reason I can afford to put the 'Stang back together is because I finally got an insurance settlement check for lost wages and "inconvenience" after totalling out Dad's truck last summer) From my time in the garage, I've learned some useful things--how to change my own oil, replace the bulbs in my headlights and taillights--and some... other things. Turns out you don't need a Pilates ball to do balance exercises if you have a good tire. (Well, a girl has to do something when she has no idea what's going on!)

I also found out that I am absolutely not to ever bring home a boy who knows less about tools than I do. Dad doesn't even like the idea of boys in my life at all--I was teasing him and said I'd just date a mechanic while I was in Utah and man, did he get grumbly! It's funny to hear the tone of his voice when he's mentioning some possible maintenance that might need to be done that's out of my skill set and says "You'll need a boy to do this." In his mind, "boy" is a dirty word. Like I said, things haven't changed that much since I was little :)

Life {Is Too Funny}

You know how you have those groups of friends who are just awesome and you've known for pretty much your whole life? For me, one of those groups is made up of some really awesome people that I've gotten to know through church--Connie, Fleishia, Audrey, and Mallory. We've all gone in a thousand different directions (and Audrey ditched us for Maryland ;) j/k), but we try to get together at least twice a year for the infamous "Biannual Birthday Bash"(December and May), during which we all go to TGI Friday's, eat too much, and shamelessly flirt with the male waiters. We could probably help it, but it tends to be more fun not too. Anyways, at these little gatherings, we all share our big news, dish about boys, and usually meddle in each other's lives, including make predictions for our future lives (see photo--those are actual predictions, made December 2007, of who will be married first and at what age so posterity can later laugh at us for how wrong we were).


When I say that we've known each other a long time, I mean a looooooong time ( see Exhibit B--talk about the embarrassing things we've done!) . Long enough to have done some pretty crazy things together and long enough to know that we're really just beginning to figure things out. Anyways, as you can imagine, boys have always been a hot topic. I remember that about two years ago or maybe a little more, two of my friends made me swear, up and down, that I would tell them the moment I got kissed.


I didn't.

I waited to tell until the Biannual Birthday Bash this past May, and then Fleishia cried on me. Not even kidding--she cried. It made me wonder if they had given up hope on me or something.... Just kidding girls. And Connie's engaged! Girls, what are we going to do as you're all getting married off??

Life {By the Signs}

Do you know what one of the most amazing parts of a bookstore is?

Well, besides the squashy leather armchairs and the books themselves. Those win hands down. Especially the overstuffed, sink-into-the-seat type of leather armchairs.

The stuff you find on bargain racks is pretty awesomely amusing. The horoscope ones tend to be the funniest by far--and just a little scary from time to time when they get something right.

So here's what I learned--My birthday's April 23rd, so I fall under the Taurus sign. I'm supposed to be grounded, tied to the physical, and very stubborn. Taurus corresponds most closely to the earth element. I'm supposed to be materialistic and prefer small amounts of genuine things to large amounts of substitutes (think a square of good Swiss chocolate over a brick of Hershey's) and I'm supposed to be pretty set in my ways.

Here's the other thing--I was born in 1988, the Chinese year of the dragon. According to this book, the Chinese also add elements to each year. 1988 had something to do with wood. Does the combination of a dragon and wood sound a little, well, flammable, to anyone else? Anyways, it seconds the whole stubborn thing and mentions stuff like having a temper, liking things a certain way, etc...

Not surprising. I am stubborn. Very stubborn. I'm also usually slow to be provoked, so it doesn't come out too much. Just when I'm being stupid and insisting that I'm right. The same goes for my temper. The book was also right about the grounded thing (I tend to be a dreamer, but I know how to pull my head out of the clouds long enough to live in the real world) and the temper (that one gets categorized with the stubborn thing). Materialistic though? I'm a pack-rat, I'll admit that, but I've never really been obsessed with having things. I just really like the things that I do have. :) And yeah, I'm a perfectionist--but I'm working on it! I promise!

I don't really believe in this astrology stuff. Horoscopes are so general that they could apply to anyone. Me or, I dunno, Hillary Clinton. (Trust me, we're talking opposite ends of the spectrum here!) And of course, I can't remember right now all the traits that it got really, really, wrong. But man, horoscopes are fun to read... especially when you're standing there in a book store with a best friend, laughing yourselves stupid as you're reading these passages that are supposed to guide the rest of your life....

I think I'll leave that to my fortune cookies ;)

Life {With A Blog}

OK, it's official, I really shouldn't be allowed to have Internet access at about 1 o'clock in the morning. Just not a good idea. I do things like start blogs. I already write like a maniac--paint like one too. Just ask my roommates--they've seen how messy I get. There might even be some blackmail pictures floating around out there, complete with paint in my hair, paintbrushes in my mouth and behind my ears, all that absent-minded artist type stuff.

By the way, never put the wrong end of the paintbrush in your mouth by accident. Acrylics, temperas, and oils all taste absolutely dreadful. Have yet to try watercolors--not that I intend to do any such thing on purpose--It just tends to happen with me. Much to the amusement of anyone who is watching me paint at the time. Trust me, if it weren't for the amusement factor, I seriously doubt that my mother would let me get away with making as huge of a mess as I do.

Alright, so you by now you've figured out that I've got a thing for painting. To be honest, I have a thing for almost every type of art. Including making 'sculptures' out of whatever leftover food is on my plate. But more about that at some other point. I am also into writing and reading--I'm an English major, after all. Still have a pretty decent amount of college ahead of me before I head out into the real world, ready to take on the publishing industry with my editing skills. I'm not a "I want to be a teacher" type of girl: To be honest, I haven't got that much patience. You don't want the minds of the next generation, our hope and future, to be molded by me. Honestly. I can't even figure out my own mind most of the time, so how am I supposed to shape those of others? So the utmost thanks go out to those who are taking on that responsibility--it's a huge one.

Can you say "stream of consciousness"? My first blog post, and I'm already rambling. I'm afraid this is going to happen a lot...