that sister of mine, she's a good mom

When I'm a mom, I hope I'm like my sister Bryttin.  

Bryttin is a lovely cook.  She always experiments with new recipes, adds her own special touches, and never fails to produce something simple and delicious.  I aspire to be as good a cook as she (though I am drearily far behind in that department...).  

Bryttin is amazingly organized.  Her basement has shelves with labeled boxes for my niece's toys.  Her kitchen is small, but she makes it work with a place for everything and everything in its place.  Her refrigerator is impeccably easy to navigate.  When I moved home, I had her come help me to organize and get rid of junk. She is the master of organization without being obsessive about it.

Bryttin is an active mother.  I think sometimes young mothers tend to use their children as an excuse.  Not Brytt-- she is always getting Lyv ready and taking her on interactive outings.  She is constantly out and about seeing and experiencing new things with her little girl; or, sometimes she finds fun things to do while at home.  I see some of that curiosity (and even a little mischief) in Lyvie sometimes and I love it.  

Bryttin is frugal.  I am amazed at the money she saves and the sensible way she shops.  I mean seriously--she's phenomenal.  Check out her new blog!  

Bryttin is always bringing our family together for dinners, parties, or even afternoons out running errands.  I love it when she brings Lyv down and we get to laugh at all the new things she is learning.  I love having "sisters night" and watching the world's stupidest movies.  I love watching the 24th of July fireworks on their back deck.

Here's to Bryttin--the greatest sister/mom/friend/wonder woman in the universe!  I hope you know how much I love you and look up to you.  

eleven days

...it is quickly approaching!

it's all in how you look at things

It is 2009!  Happy New Year to all.  

I'm teaching sixth grade and learning a lot.  I'm definitely not in third grade anymore...  It has been quite the adjustment, but I am looking forward to the experience.  I get to teach a unit on one of my favorite novels, The Phantom Tollbooth.  An excerpt that I found quite profound today: 

"Isn't it beautiful?" gasped Milo.  

"Oh, I don't know,"  answered a strange voice. "It's all in the way you look at things."  

"I beg your pardon?" said Milo, for he didn't see who had spoken.  

"I said it's all in how you look at things," repeated the voice.  

Milo turned around and found himself staring at two very neatly polished brown shoes, for standing directly in front of him (if you can use the word "standing" for anyone suspended in mid-air) was another boy just about his age, whose feet were easily three feet off the ground.  

"For instance," continued the boy, "if you happened to like deserts, you might not think this was beautiful at all."  

"That's true," said the Humbug, who didn't like to contradict anyone whose feet were that far off the ground.    

"For instance," said the boy again, "if Christmas trees were people and people were Christmas trees, we'd all be chopped down, put up in the living room, and covered with tinsel, while the trees opened our presents."  

"What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo.  

"Nothing at all," he answered, "but it's an interesting possibility, don't you think?"

December Love List

• Christmas time
• graduation
• Rexburg
• seeing the lights in Salt Lake
• spontaneously bursting out into song with Bailey
• Christmas shopping; finding excellent gifts
• walking around Barnes and Noble
• family Parties
• Christmas music 
• having breakfast
• hot showers
• sleeping in my own bed
• soup
• good grades
• the red and white lights on our fence
• holding hands
• sledding
• snow storms (when I don't have to drive in them)
• milk steamers
• preparing for Africa
• To Kill A Mockingbird (I got the DVD for Christmas! but I love the book as well)
• a clean room
• no homework
• oranges
• fires in the fireplace
• skiing
• slippers
• watching Lyv on Christmas 
• my amazing family
• getting mail
• sending mail
• the smell of Christmas trees
• seeing cousins
• sleeping in
• my light up globe

I love how potatoes are such a big deal

• I love the way the faucets in our bathtub and in our kitchen sink are backwards, so cold is hot and hot is cold. (And sometimes I forget to tell people so they end up washing their hair or their dishes in freezing cold water).  
• I love the way President Clark never fails to say, "It's another great day at BYU-Idaho."  
  
• I love making friends with people at the library because they have about 473.29 pages printing and they are standing in line ahead of you.  
  
• I love tutoring students and hearing about their lives amidst the grammar and the reading skills.  
  
• I love walking through the Spori and sometimes seeing Laura's art on the wall.  
  
• I love praying before class and sometimes singing hymns; it makes having Relief Society in a classroom not seem so strange.  
  
• I love "Photosynthesis Friday" and when the print-making and pottery students sell stuff in the MC.  
• I love the walk to the Hinckley building.  
  
• I love seeing Rexburg sunsets from the Taylor quad, and every time saying to myself, "Idaho is pretty."
  
• I love coming home to supportive roommates who are crazy and brilliant and like me the way I am.  
  
• I love being able to do projects in the media lab on the 3rd floor of the library because they have gluesticks.  
  
• I love the 57th ward and when the bishop uses hand motions to teach gospel principles.  I love sitting in meetings in which I laugh until my sides hurt, and where I still feel like I can help people.  
• I love visiting the Snowview apartments and the Sunrise apartments to find friends and scintillating conversation.  
  
• I love the math lab, where people like you--even if you struggle with every single problem.  
  
• I love how it is okay to eat peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner.  
  
• I love having room to invite people over.  
  
• I love how FHE is always awkward.  Every time.  
  
• I love making ice cream runs on Thursday nights, and that we now know that Arctic Circle has the best twist cones (and McDonald's are nasty).  
  
• I love when I'm at the library late and I hear music play over the loud speaker, along with "The McKay Library will be closing in 5 minutes" in a plethora of languages.  
  
• I love sitting in the "heater corner" to warm up.
• I love Broulims because it feels like a neighborhood grocery store.  Actually it is.  
• I love driving around and seeing stars and fields everywhere.  
• I love sitting downstairs and moving around because the non-existent wireless connection is touchy.
• I love listening to music with Lars in the morning while we get ready.  
• I love wondering if it's just "cold" or if it is "frigid" outside.  
• I love BYU-Idaho.  I have had so many good times/life experiences/hard times/learning experiences here.  I have felt comfortable here.  I have felt at home.  

Tomorrow is graduation!  I just picked up my cap and gown so I can iron it before tomorrow.  My parents are driving up, and we will get to hear President Clark and President Uchtdorf speak.  It's exciting and melancholy, as I have said before.  I like it here.  

Long live Idaho.  

and I say, God bless it

I was still lying in bed when my dad called this morning.  While I was talking to him, I got up and walked around my room.  I couldn't help but look out the window, and to my happiness I found SNOW!  It's late this year in Rexburg, but it has finally arrived, and with it, some real Christmas cheer.  Now it feels like Christmas time.  I think it's a way of helping me through this hard week.  

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round-- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-- as good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.  And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!  -From Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I held so many people in my suitcase heart

 Finals week has already taken on an entire new meaning this semester; it is a little more final than 

usual.  Final devotional.  Final days at the RC.  Final relief society lesson.  Final day in third grade.  Final weeks with laurakayciamyandeveryoneelseintheworld.  

It is such a contradiction: hurry quick! do this and this and this and this.  fast!  before it is all over!  but slow down!  slow. slow. slow.  don't end yet.

I'll miss these people, this place, this life. this part of life. 

 I don't know if it's the right 

time to be nostalgic, but I am anyway.  

Isn't it funny how there are always so many "lasts" before there are innumerable "firsts"?

 I'm student teaching!  In January.  In sixth grade.  I'm going to Africa!  In 

May.  First time.  I'm living at home!  With Bay.  First time (in a while).  Lots of new things.  new ward, new school, new people.  

It is really thrilling! 

But still, I'm just blue right now.