Merry Christmas!

new hair

We all know I(you?) love these "new hair" posts...

Confession: My genetics are single-handedly responsible for my luscious thick-as-a-horse's-mane hair, as well as my numberless grey hairs at the ripe age of 25 (started at age 22!). Although most people (lie and) say they can't see my grey hair, I'm slightly self-conscious about it. When my friend who is an entry-level hair stylist offered to dye my hair for free, I jumped on the offer, although it's usually a huge time commitment (4 hours). This time, she added quite a bit of red, which I didn't like last time I dyed it, but actually rather like this time. She also added some blonde highlights, although those are much more subtle.

What think ye?

Who took the "burr" out of December?

• Rode sixteen miles to Wake County and back on the American Tobacco Trail 
• Got to see a real tobacco barn!
• Got my fill of fresh oxygen & horse poo 
• Enjoyed 67 degree weather 10 days before CHRISTMAS
• Wore shorts and Chacos 10 days before CHRISTMAS
• Thought it was summer instead of CHRISTMAS
• Passed numerous old men in shorts too tight
• Got winked at by an old man chewing on a toothpick 
• Wondered why that other old men was wearing a pink visor and pink shirt on his run
• Wondered why that other old man wasn't wearing a shirt at all on his run
• Felt grateful for a body that works so well and for the world around me that brings so much joy 

xoxo

Updates on my Quarter Life Crisis (QLC)

I think my sister Catherine's expression (far right) reflects my feelings these past four months perfectly. It has been a time of soul-searching. And if you don't know what that means, just look into Catherine's eyes above. You will realize, that you do, in fact, have a soul. That gaze could make a grown man cry.

Ok, back to me though. 

I have considered more professions than most of you would in a lifetime: 

• Teacher (Age 10, it was wanted I wanted to be when I grew up)
• Biochemist (first major at BYU)
• Pediatric Nurse 
• Labor and Delivery Nurse
• Exercise Specialist
• Personal Trainer
• Physical Therapy Aide
• Physical Therapy Assistant 
• Physical Therapist
• Respiratory Therapist
• Cardiovascular Specialist
• Radiology Technician
• Geriatric Specialist
• Diabetes Educator 
• Dental Hygienist 
• Dental Assistant 
• High school Biology teacher
• Doctor (ok maybe I only thought of this one for 27 seconds)
• Chinese teacher
• Bread Business Owner
• Photographer
• Nanny
• Homeless Person
• FBI linguist

• Chinese translator 
• ESL teacher 
• High school Math teacher 
• PE teacher 
• Data Entry Specialist 
• Administrative Assistant 
• Public Health worker 
• Dietician 
• Professional Blogger (really)
• Public Health Professor
• Chinese Professor 

I would like to tell you that I've narrowed it down, I've found it, I have discovered what my real passion is these past four months. But I haven't. I think it takes a long, long time for all of the puzzle pieces to fit together. 

Yesterday I was feeling unmotivated to go running...and in fact, unmotivated to do anything. But then, I discovered a  beautiful thing called podcasts. You can download free BYU speeches/devotionals/firesides onto your ipod. Free! Did I mention...FREE? That was just the motivation I needed. I popped those suckers onto my ipod, drove to the Duke trails, and was able to pump out 6 miles while listening to an awesome talk called "What is your Calling in Life?" I had read this talk a few months before, but for some reason, after four months of soul-searching and unemployment, and more than four months worth of anxiety built up inside of me, this talk took on a whole new meaning. For those thirty minutes of listening, I felt like I was in line with the universe. It was one of those moments where you feel like you're doing something right. Where you feel like someone understands. Where you feel like you aren't a complete idiot for not knowing what to do with your life. Where you feel like, finally, someone isn't judging you because you're single at age 25. Where you feel like your problems don't isolate you, but connect you with everyone else. And where you feel like, at the same time, they are personally understood. It was enlightening. 

Of course, that feeling is fleeting. Why is it so hard to hold onto those moments? I'm still left to face the occasional (ok, frequent, let's be honest) smack-in-the-face despair that tries to overcome your good-intentioned optimism. It's hard waking up every morning and having NO IDEA what you should do with your time. 

On a side note: I got a job doing day care at the local fitness center. It's very part time, and doesn't pay well, but it came at a time too inspired for me to complain too much. It was at a moment of complete frustration this past week. The kind of frustration where you don't want to talk to anyone, and if you did, you really would not have anything to say. You know, the kind of feeling that you can't communicate. I said a prayer, and five minutes later got a call from the boss there telling me of the job. It's nothing big, but it will at least help me earn some extra money when I need it desperately. More importantly, it was a little tender mercy that I needed. Badly. I am grateful to have the job. And even more grateful to know that everything will work together for my good in the end. 

December 7, 2011

67 degrees on December 7, 2011 in Durham, NC. Contemplated wearing shorts today. It's Christmas and I'm singing about chestnuts being roasted by the open fire. There is something wrong with this picture. 

Thanksgiving break with Emily, Jerry & Family

Since there are so many fun things we did, I'm just going to inundate you with pictures. There were just too many cute ones. :) 

1. Playing at the park on Thanksgiving day: A, S, Me, and Em

 2. Prepared & ate a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, complete with pumpkin cheesecake and a brined turkey! Delicious!

3. Had a "Girl's Day Out" where we went to Fort Sumpter near Charleston. We had to take a ferry across to the Fort - which was the location of the first shots of the Civil War! It was beautiful and interesting. Later on that night, we shopped until we dropped at the Outlet Malls. Fun!

I saw Justin Bieber at the mall! Oh my goodness!

4. Went on a beautiful walk in downtown Charleston on the pier!

5. Went to Cypress Gardens - a pond with trees (with Spanish moss on them) growing out of the water. We even saw an alligator on our boat ride!

Em, S, & M on boat ride

Me & A - a little apprehensive of the twenty alligators swimming around that pond somewhere...

Check out those huge catfish!

M, waiting for the boat ride to start. She has grown up so much & I love her chubby cheeks & cute smile! 

Butterfly house!

It was such a fun visit, Thank you Emily & Jerry! 

Why it's a bad idea to give your child a bowl-cut at age 6.

No caption necessary.

Is she wincing at the hair cut?

Gender may be unclear and cause awkward situations. 

This is what their hair will look like as it grows out. 

Just a few reasons I love my sister Emily

1. She makes brining a turkey fun, disgusting, and fascinating all at the same time. 

2. She makes a killer mint milkshake & enjoys a good treat almost as much as I do.

3. She makes the best "funny faces" of ANYONE I know. Hands down.  

4. She is one of the only people I know that can motivate her intelligent children (and 25-year-old sister) to run as fast as they can around a tree. For no reason. Her persuasive power is RIDICULOUS. More evidence: She had me, all of the primary teachers, and all of the primary kids CAPTIVATED as she told a story about butterflies. Seriously, I couldn't leave the room. And I had a super strong desire to be reverent and catch butterflies. 

5. Emily is always giving and is one of the most caring and genuine people I know. This includes not only her husband and children, but her parents, siblings, and even the lady at the grocery store.  

6. Emily is such a good Mom and is an example to me of what kind of Mom I want to be. Her kids are happy, crazy, and intelligent. She doesn't leave them wondering whether they love her, whether it's by disciplining them when needed, or being sympathetic for the hardships of a two-year-old (I would cry, too if I someone turned off my favorite Princess song).  

7. She is super blunt & says it like it is. If she thinks the elaborate cheesecake she spent hours on is disgusting, she will say it. Her opinion & perspective is one I value highly (at least in matters unrelated to cheesecake) and she always has good advice and opinions on things. 

8. Not only is she tots adorbs & gorg*, but she is not pretentious at all. 

*tots adorbs & gorg= totally adorable & gorgeous

9. Her willingness to accept other cultures. (You would, too if your baby looked Asian!)

10. She is super fun, loves jumping pictures (you do, right?), & knows how to photo-shop people out of the background of the picture. Side note: Her computer skillz are ridiculous! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

A postlude to RIDICULOUS & it's remedy

New meaning of ridiculous:

Being described as "perfect and upright" and then having

1. ALL of your oxen, [donkeys] stolen in the same day -(Job 1:14-15) RIDICULOUS 

2. ALL of your servants and sheeps consumed in flames from heaven- (v.16-17) RIDICULOUS 

3. ALL of your sons and daughters killed in a freak accident by some random wind destroying their house- (v.18-20) RIDICULOUS 

4. All of this happening in 24 hours and being able to say "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (v.21) REALLY RIDICULOUS.

It gets worse, just wait. 

5. THEN having "sore boils" afflict you from head to toe (Job 2:7) RIDICULOUS

6. Having your best friends turn against you in the time you need them most, being judgmental and suspicious instead of comforting and caring (Job 4, 11) - RIDICULOUS

7. All of THIS happening and still being able to declare, "Though [God] slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15) - REALLY RIDICULOUS

I have yet to read all 42 chapters, but I am sure it just gets more and more ridiculous. And I thought my life was ridiculous...

Today in Sunday School we talked about how God is love and light. We had a good discussion that awakened in me a series of questions and concerns I didn't realize I had. The teacher mentioned how it is important to seek out signs of God's love in your life daily. She mentioned how it could be simple, like the beautiful trees or living in a place with nice weather. Another example could be avoiding a car accident or some other catastrophe. While I am the first to appreciate nice weather, it got me wondering...What about when the weather is bad? It's been raining for months? Obviously that doesn't mean God doesn't love you. What about when you don't avoid that catastrophe? What about when you personally or someone in your family encounters a trial that seems unbearable? What about when you pray really hard for something, and you don't get an answer? What about when righteous desires are left unfulfilled? What about little children who grow up in an abusive home? 

How can we really feel God's love, even in moments of rejection or despair? In the midst of trials that we find unwanted, unwarranted, and unbearable? 

After pondering about these things, I have had two examples/sources come to mind: 

Job. He had a testimony of Jesus Christ even when all was gone in His life, even when it would have been a lot easier to assume that God didn't love Him or that He didn't care. Pretty amazing that Job was faithful through all of those trials and was still trusting in God's love for Him as an individual. His faith was awesome-RIDICULOUS. Although I know my life doesn't even compare to his, I want to have faith like he does and trust like he does. 

Elder Christofferson's talk from last April General Conference: "As Many As I love, I Rebuke and Chasten"

I love everything about this talk. It has spoken to my heart on so many occasions, and especially right now. 

Today, this was one of my favorite parts about trials and sacrifice: 

"Sadly, much of modern Christianity does not acknowledge that God makes any real demands on those who believe in Him, seeing Him rather as a butler 'who meets their needs when summoned' or a therapist whose rolse is to help people 'feel good about themselves.' It is a religious outlook that 'makes nor pretense at changing lives.' 'By contrast,' as one author declares, 'The God portrayed in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures asks, not just for commitment, but for our very lives. The God of the Bible traffics in life and death, not niceness, and calls for sacrificial love, not benign whatever-ism."

Even our trials are meant to refine us and helps us bring forth more fruit. I want to be able to join with Paul when he says, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,  nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

The remedy to ridiculousness. 

Contagion

Remember when you were about to graduate from high school and you were picking your senior quote? You agonized for hours and days and days and hours about what quote you should choose? What quote should represent you for years to come to your classmates? What would be your legend, your identity? Really, it was the most important decision in your life at that point. (Let's be honest, there was no question about where to go to college. Especially if you were like me and only applied to ONE school).  

I remember those times.

If only life were still that simple. If only the decisions that loom in my future (ok present, let's be honest) were really as miniscule as a senior quote or what I was going to wear that day. If only I wasn't deciding on who to spend eternity with, or what I would be doing every day for the rest of my life. If only I could not worry about the fact that my job doesn't use my brain, or my heart, for that matter. And not worry that I'm living under my potential every day, a potential that I don't even know how to realize. And not worry about the thousands of other details of life...grad school? where? how to fund? why? why not? what?

Or maybe life really is still simple and I'll look back and realize these decisions aren't that huge. But I seriously doubt that.  

For now, I have no choice but to harken back to that dear, sweet, (random) senior quote of mine: 

"Enthusiasm is contagious. Start an epidemic." 

....Still have no idea what I was thinking with that quote....

But this enthusiastic laugh is certainly the most contagious I have EVER experienced: 

Thanks, Adorable Niece Liesel. 

Ridiculous

I have recently decided that "ridiculous" is the end-all be-all adjective for pretty much every occurrence in life. Here is a list of things/situations* (past or present) it describes so aptly:

1. The back of yo' head- RIDICULOUS
2. Missing your sisters so much that you check their blogs every day- RIDICULOUS
3. When the only option for expanding your wardrobe is "shopping" in the attic, aka looking through boxes of clothes from high school - RIDICULOUS

4. The fact that there are more, and bigger, cockroaches in your home in Durham, NC than you would ever encounter in your normal living residence in, say, Taiwan (a tropical climate) -RIDICULOUS
5. Having your insane fear of said cockroaches motivate you to sleep in the same room as your mother at age 25 (it's the only room you have not spotted a cockroach in) - RIDICULOUS
6. Accidentally signing up for the wrong Verizon plan without knowing and then paying for 1000 texts per text and having your phone bill turn out to be $130 instead of $50 when you have no money as it is - RIDICULOUS
7. Actually sending 1000 texts in one month - RIDICULOUS
8. Having your boyfriend break up with you because he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend who is now married to someone you were formerly interested in dating but who rejected you as well - RIDICULOUS
9. Having your pants rip open unknowingly on a blind date with five other couples and no one telling you about this gash (which extends from the waistband to the knee pit, exposing your butt cheek and thigh/leg) until hours into the date - RIDICULOUS
10. Making a fetus for a project in Ceramics 101- RIDICULOUS
11. Driving across the US to visit your boyfriend's family and then having him break up with you during the road trip home - RIDICULOUS
12. Growing tomatoes the size of your head in your own backyard- CRAZY RIDICULOUS

13.Having to work at a job that you could have gotten right out of high school after graduating from college at age 25 - REALLY RIDICULOUS
14. The beauty of the fall leaves - RIDICULOUS


Feel free to add to this list. It's a good coping mechanism (healthy or not), I promise.

*Note: If these situations were not hypothetical (which they are, of course), than rest assured that I have no hard feelings against any of you.

Thanks, Eve.

"Those who feel no need for mercy usually never seek it and almost never bestow it. Those who have never had a heartache or a weakness or felt lonely or forsaken never have had to cry unto heaven for relief of such personal pain. Surely it is better to find the goodness of God and the grace of Christ, even at the price of despair, than to risk living our lives in a moral or material complacency that has never felt any need for faith or forgiveness, any need for redemption or relief.

A life without problems or limitations or challenges--life without 'opposition in all things,' as Lehi phrased it--would paradoxically but in very fact be less rewarding and less ennobling than one which confronts--even frequently confronts--difficulty and disappointment and sorrow. As beloved Eve said, were it not for the difficulties faced in a fallen world, neither she nor Adam nor any of the rest of us ever would have known 'the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.'"
"The Peaceable Things of the Kingdom" Jeffrey R. Holland

I love the truth that difficulties and challenges are necessary to comprehend real joy, which can be experienced even in the midst of those trials when I allow them to help me come unto Christ. They also enable me to become more compassionate and less judgmental of others. I guess I prefer this route than one of "moral or material complacency" where I feel little stretch to change or grow, with an accompanying lack of depth to life. I am really grateful for the words of prophets and apostles that bring the Spirit to my heart and speak to me like no person could.

How I feel about applying for jobs

A visit with Jana & Kev

It was a lot of fun to go see Jana & Kevin. We went to a Halloween playground/hayride place which I think Adrienne really enjoyed. Later that night we got to watch the BYU vs. TCU game with Catherine & Hunter. Then on Saturday, since I missed my train, I got to babysit Kayla & Adrienne while Jana & Kevin went to Stake Conference. They are such sweet little kids, I just love them. And of course the trip wouldn't have been complete without a game of Settlers of Catan, which Jana won (of course). Classic.

 

Going Solo

What do you do in downtown DC by yourself?

1. Tour the Old Post Office

2. Admire the glory of the Washington Monument & Capital building

3. Soak in the beauty of the fall leaves 

4. Tour all of the FREE Smithsonian exhibits/museums

10 Things I love about my sista Catherine

1. The way she puts on her chapstick

2. Sense of adventure: she'd sacrifice anything for a good set of buckwheat blueberry pancakes...including my train ride back to NC :)

3. She takes me running to cool places like Falls Lake!

4. She loves to eat delicious food & will willingly split everything

5. The chances that Catherine will want to eat gelato or ice cream at any given moment during the day (irregardless of prior intake) is 99.9999999999999999999%

6. She loves to work out & has huge muscles (can you see the bump??)

7. Not only does she have a great sense of humor, but she can be serious, too.

8. Her ability to look better in my clothes than I do. 

9.  Her quiet sense of dignity 

10. She certainly knows how to enjoy fall & the beautiful leaves.