Change

I see change all around me.

I see it in the blue of the sky and the heat rising up from the pavement. I see it in the feathers sprouting from the baby ducks at the pond. I see it in the strollers that the mothers push down the sidewalk, the face of a baby that's growing up all too fast, the laugh of a toddler that already knows too much about life, stay young, don't change, don't grow up.

I see it in the calendar pages, turned over each day almost mechanically, as life ticks on. I see it in the ring on my finger and the date on the wall, realizing it's been almost six months and wondering where the time went. I see it in the hole in my favorite jeans, the box of clothes for DI, the bricks of the high school I haven't stepped foot in for over four years. I see it in the face of a tall missionary who shouldn't be old enough to go, let alone to be soon coming home. I see it in the wedding announcements, the graduation announcements, the new baby announcements, and the obituaries. I hear it in the music on the radio and smell it in a coat of fresh paint and feel it in the rocks under my feet where there once was grass.

I see change whirling all around me, snatching familiarity and wafting it away, dangling it just past my fingertips before it disappears forever. I close my eyes and picture my life and open them and watch it change. I plead for it to just slow down, to let me rest and enjoy the comfortable, familiar moments for just a second longer, but change hurries on and I am left to find new familiarity in whatever follows in its wake.

And so I hold the hand of the one who will never leave and I watch change as it sweeps past, changing life, changing everything, changing us.



Viva la Vida.

Wedding Photo Book!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly offers exclusive photobook layouts so you can make your book just the way you want.

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So I finally finished our wedding photo album and ordered it from Shutterfly. Now I just need to get some prints for our wall in our apartment :)

Birthday list

My birthday is coming up.
Naturally, that means it's time for the always-difficult task of deciding what to tell those well-wishing friends and family when they ask "What do you want for your birthday?"

Fortunately, I have answers for them:

 

Psych Wall clock (available here with a $10 discount using the code TICKTOCK)

Psych Toaster (seriously, it puts pineapple on the bread! available here)

A year's supply of this!

And a few of these:

Some of these (not these exact ones, but some from somewhere)

One of these (so I can get fabric for curtains for our apartment, plus thread and such!)

 THIS: Psych season 6 on DVD. Unfortunately it's not released yet. That's okay, late birthday gifts are almost like celebrating all over again! :)

Most of all, I want this: 

Oh wait, I already have that :) That's all I really need, anyway. Nothing else is really that important!

Viva la Vida.

Sick.

Sick...

Huddle under blankets and try to keep warm, even though the internal furnace is burning me up...

Stare at clock.
Roll over.
Rock back and forth.
Move arms to new position.
Move arms back.
Stare at clock. It's been one minute.
Try to ignore aching body.
Push off blankets.
Shiver.
Pull back blankets.
Stare at clock.
Two minutes.
Roll over.
Listen to Ryan snore softly.
Be very jealous of sleeping Ryan.
Stare at clock. 
Stick hot feet under Ryan's cold feet.
Listen to Ryan continue snoring softly.
Stare at clock.
Stare at clock.
Decide to get up.
Lay in bed twenty minutes getting up courage to leave warm cocoon.
Stare at clock.
Try to ignore aching body.
Get out of bed.
Sit on floor and shiver.
Go to kitchen and eat applesauce.
Sit on couch.
Stare at clock.
Register for classes.
Blog about being sick.
Stare at clock.
Stare at clock.
Stare at clock.
Stare at clock.
Stare at clock.


Viva la Vida? Maybe when I feel like a person again...

Day Zero # 77 - Read the Ensign

So I'll admit it. When I was little and I graduated from reading the Friend to reading the New Era, I was devastated. But I read the New Era anyway, and eventually I really came to love it. However, the Ensign in my mind was always a big, thick magazine, full of dry topics and long discourses on heavy, complicated doctrinal topics, with not enough pictures. The Ensign was, in fact, for adults.

So I'll admit that when I finally became an adult and moved out and started paying rent and all that fun adult-ish sort of stuff, I clung to macaroni and cheese and books from the teen and young adult section and tried to ignore the Ensign. Therefore, I was taken aback when I had a roommate who would sit and read Ensign articles to herself every morning over breakfast. I thought she must just be crazy and couldn't possibly be enjoying herself.

But deep down I figured I should probably read the Ensign. After all, it contains the words of our latter-day prophets and apostles, and it is a form of modern-day scripture.

So my 101 list seemed a good enough excuse to read the Ensign. I made a goal and bought a subscription.
And I discovered something.
The Ensign is awesome.
It's full of stories, testimonies, talks, topics that apply to me, good advice, information about life, and amazing insight.

I just renewed my subscription. My year is up, but I wouldn't stop reading the Ensign for anything!

Viva la Vida.

Refiner's fire

"Perhaps refining isn't about bringing out the best in you. Perhaps refining is truly about bringing out the worst - because only then is the Master able to scour the flaws and imperfections away and create a shiny, clean vessel."

President James E. Faust said, "Here then is a great truth. In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong. In this way the divine image can be mirrored from the soul. It is part of the purging toll exacted of some to become acquainted with God. In the agonies of life, we seem to listen better to the faint, godly whisperings of the Divine Shepherd."

He doesn't say, "In the picnics of life, we feel a hug and know that all is well and life will be full of easiness and butterflies," although it is true that the Lord's love is available even during trial and hardship. The purpose of life is to test us - to try our faith and our strength, to give us an opportunity to be heated to the breaking point so that the flaws are revealed, and then overcome them to become a clean and beautiful masterpiece.

"Our needed conversions are often achieved more readily by suffering and adversity than by comfort and tranquillity.... The Prophet Joseph was promised that “thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high.” - Elder Dallin H. Oaks

The challenge, then, is to not shirk from the refiner's fire, to not hide from its cleansing influence, and to have faith that in the "agonies of life" the Master is truly creating a masterpiece.

Day Zero # 16 - December 16, 2011

I find it extremely ironic that goal #16 happened to be accomplished on December 16, 2011.

I married the man of my dreams and the keeper of my heart in the temple, for time and all eternity.

And I couldn't be happier about it!

Viva la Vida.