Your Love Is My Drug.

Sorry I haven't been around.

I haven't had much to say.

But today, I watched a chick flick. 

You probably know this about me but

pretty much

I hate chick flicks.

And I've decided that

chick flicks are a drug.

1. Chick flicks give you a high.

Like this.

2. Chick flicks skew your perception of reality.

"Oh, someday I'll have a boyfriend as perfect as this!"

3. Once you watch a chick flick, you just want to watch more and more

until your brains turn to mush.

They might look like they're having fun,

but they're actually dying inside.

Don't get me wrong;

I still indulge in the occasional chick flick.

But I always regret it.

Can you feel the love tonight?

I just wrote 16 Christmas cards

and 3 thank you notes.

And let me tell you--

I feel the love.

I love writing love notes.

Because you sit down and think about experiences you've had with that person that have made an impact on you.

And then the Spirit guides your pen to write nice things about his or her character

that you hadn't articulated or even thought of before.

And then your appreciation for that person is so much more specific and meaningful.

Sometimes you look back over what you've written

and your heart burns

and, like Mr. Grinch, you feel like it's grown three sizes that day!

I feel the love,

I feel the love,

I feel the love that's really real.

I love montages.

Look at your life through heaven's eyes.

Not more, just different.

I feel different today than I did when I woke up yesterday.

Count Every Beautiful Thing You Can See.

Today, I realized there are so many beautiful things about life.

Like driving up the canyon,

past beautiful, strange rock formations,

to where there is snow on the ground.

And eating pork goulash

and vegetable lasagna

in a lodge 

near a crackling fire.

Sipping hot cider

and basking in the charm.

And then driving down the mountain,

leaving the winter wonderland behind

for another day.

If you're unhappy, it's because you've chosen to be.

Because there are too many beautiful things

to just not be happy!

Greatest Idea Anyone Has Ever Had.

"Let's carve giant presidents' heads into the mountain side!"

I need to go. Real bad.

Road trip, anyone?

Grateful.

Last year I began a tradition of writing

100 things

I was grateful for in my journal on Thanksgiving.

I just wrote my list. 

I actually couldn't stop at 100, so I've got 108 things.

I went back and read my list from last year, and it's clear that I've changed.

This year, 

over 40 items on my list just had to do with people that I'm grateful for.

Last year it was only 20.

I wish I could shout it from the rooftops.

I LOVE PEOPLE.

I LOVE LOVE.

I LOVE YOU.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Indian Summer.

Yesterday, I decided definitively that the best kind of weather is any

unseasonable warmth.

aka,

Indian Summer.

Or, if it's warmer than usual in Winter, I call it--

drum roll--

Indian Spring.

Yesterday, for instance, was the day before Thanksgiving,

and I wore a t-shirt and flip flops during in the afternoon.

Unseasonable warmth is even better than anticipated warmth.

There's a slight chill on your arms and bare feet

that gives you a bit of nostalgia.

Makes you feel like you should be in love

and go on an adventure.

Indian Summer whispers in your ear,

"Remember summertime, when you ran free?"

Yes, Indian Summer. I remember.

BYU Boys.

Only at BYU:

1. Two guys meet up on campus and you hear one ask the other,

"What's your first name, again?"

Aww, former mission companions. Sweet.

2. One day in the library, I saw a guy on a computer,

with his anatomy homework abandoned next to him,

looking at engagement rings.

QUINTESSENTIAL BYU.

Gotta love 'em.

Take up our quarrel with the foe.

Happy Veterans/Armistice/Remembrance Day.

(A WWI veteran.)

Today I talked patriotism and nostalgia with my dad.

He called me the Queen of Nostalgia.

Well, yeah.

I'm also the Queen of Celebrating Holidays.

How to celebrate Veterans Day:

1. Wear a remembrance poppy.

2. Recite "In Flanders Fields."

3. Listen to "Passchendaele" by Good Books.

4. Eat ravioli.

President Wilson invited veterans to the White House to eat ravioli 

on the first Armistice Day.

I myself had Chef Boyardee.

5. Think about America and war and peace and sacrifice and the whole world.

This is the most important part.

Try it. You just might come to love a more obscure holiday, too. :)

Come what may and love it.

It was the best of days; it was the worst of days.

Stressful things:

Waking up at 4 am.

A million hours of studying for my Old English exam.

Eating no bake cookies, a donut, potato chips, and ice cream for breakfast.

(Yes, that really happened.)

Head too small for my body. 

(Compared to what?)

 Being socoldsocoldI'mgonnadie.

Greek participles.

Not finishing my homework.

Falling asleep in the computer lab.

No clean laundry.

Dry skin.

People who won't be quiet.

Coworkers leaving without warning.

Nice things:

Professor not collecting the homework that you didn't do.

Understanding Greek participles more than you thought.

Friends in class.

100% on an exam!

Educated guessing.

Learning the geography of religion.

Knowing all the passages on the Old English exam.

Having the oldest Doctrine & Covenants in the room.

Talking to the boy next to you in D&C.

Friendly strangers.

It not being as cold as you thought.

Dozing.

Lessons to draw:

#1 - If you sit there and let life happen to you, you realize it's all pretty funny.

As Elder Wirthlin would say, come what may and love it!

#2 - Heavenly Father knows you! I prayed that He would send me any blessing He could, and He did!

It made me think of this:

Savior, Redeemer of my soul,

whose mighty hand hath made me whole,

whose wondrous pow'r hath raised me up

and filled with sweet my bitter cup.

Love is the whole wide world.

Today I felt

disappointed & discouraged.

But then I realized,

I just can't wait to meet my husband and children so I can love them.

There are people that I just love so much now who help me to see how much more blessed and sweet my life will be then!

Latinate.

New favorite station on Pandora:

Choir of King's College, Cambridge

I just want to learn Latin

and be Medieval.

In November the snow starts to fly.

My blog went a little crazy in October.

Because I was crazy.

But it's November now.

And let me tell you--I started the month off right.

All six of us roommates plus my best friend went and heard President Monson speak at BYU today.

I want to be good forever now.

It was rainy and I saw my first worm of the Fall,

which made me so happy for some reason.

(I thought a picture of a worm would be too gross.)

I decided that to be a scholar, I need to start reading.

'Cause right now, I'm just a wannabe. 

So I'm gonna try reading one book a month.

I decided to start with The Iliad.

Wish me luck.

I went to a Dixieland jazz concert with great people.

There was scatting and plunger mutes. 

I heard these guys:

And it snowed!

Making "In November the snow starts to fly" a true lyric!

The Christmas trees were up in the Wilk! Soon they'll be decorated like this:

It's definitely okay to start listening to Christmas music now!

(Not that that stopped me before.)

But I'm also really excited about my Thanksgiving traditions!

Gratitude Turkeys!

And I'm eating Nutella out of the jar.

And I'm happy.

Halloween is dumb.

Halloween would be a lot cooler if we took it back to its roots.

Like if we burned crops in big bonfires to prepare against the coming winter.

And wore costumes of animal skins and heads and tried to read each others' fortunes.

But then I guess that would make us Pagans.

Dang.

Why I Avoid Pinterest

I waste enough time already.

I don't need any more help in that area.

(Ironic.)

But

it's

really

tempting.

If life were easy, it wouldn't be hard.

I defy my own rules.

I make others bear my burdens.

I eat candy for breakfast & forget to print my homework.

I worry about work, because I can't be the perfect mentor.

I'm pointedly prudish.

But tonight I lay on my back with Kim Bennett

and found pictures in the texture of the ceiling.

I saw a bat dipping his toe into a swimming pool to test the temperature of the water.

That was something nice for us to do.

The moral of the story is

If life were easy, it wouldn't be hard.

Tilly McBroom.

I still love Utah as much as ever,

but I've really been missing the East.

Old New Castle, Delaware.

I've been wanting to see a good ol' East Coast deciduous forest. 

I want to go to Walden Pond and quote transcendentalists and suck out all the marrow of life.

I especially miss the ethnic and religious diversity of home.

We were talking about ethnic groups in my Human Geography class.

And I realized I miss the Italians.

I miss the Irish.

I miss how everyone is Irish at St. Patrick's Day.

I miss the Polish last names.

Like Wozniak & Lewandowski.

I miss going to high school with the children of Chinese & Indian immigrants.

I had no idea that black Americans made up only 13% of the US.

I miss them.

I miss being from a place where everyone was Catholic. 

I remember being jealous that everyone in elementary school got to go to CCD and I didn't.

I miss Jews, too. 

Senator Joe Lieberman spoke at BYU today.

He's Jewish, if you didn't know that.

Doesn't that sound nice?

(I sincerely hope none of these pictures are offensive.)