Joanna Newsom The Book of Right-On

Not all tragic events yield tragic fruits. i don't know what i mean by that.

i like music

i am open to new stuff. please recommend music.

Pictures from my camera, from the last few days

I have no idea what this horse's name was. Maybe Beau. I didn't ask questions, i just got on.

family time on Sunday

FHE, Monday night

why, yes! that is a 2007 Corvette! Yes, the actual owner of the car knew it took us for a ride.

Wednesday required a little change.

wisdom at the table, prepared and served

I was sitting in a Relief Society Presidency meeting tonight, absorbed in thoughts for my RS sisters. To my right was our pres. Returned missionary and all the good things that implies, has a bachelors degree, 24 years old and getting married at the end of this month.
To my left was our secretary. She's 18 and quiet as a mouse, but i saw her show a high-spirited 16-hand horse who's boss. This was after the horse threw her once.
Across from me was our 2nd counselor. She's 22, a publicity major, sincere ambition and a beautiful heart.
I realized that i was the only at the table that was not overwhelmed, and didn't feel completely clueless. I know Relief Society. The beauty of it, the struggles, the miracles, and the necessary structure. I've been a teacher in the Relief Society, and a teacher improvement teacher. I have been responsible for coordination music, and leading.
what made this all really strike, and take on great meaning was when my sweet little horse trainer told me that she's so glad i didn't marry him, because she wouldn't have met me otherwise.
And now i sit here absorbing the great compliment in her sentiment. also, the great clue from above.
i was so needed at that table, tonight. I have a lot of experience, wisdom, love, etc. to offer. Really, young sisters who have only ever understood Relief Society as it functions in a family ward are missing out on the universal nature--the brilliance and beauty--of this great organization. It isn't just that i've been in student wards for the last 3 years (and a singles branch before that) it is the wards and stake that i've been in. It's the leaders i've had and the leadership opportunities i've had because they understood their leadership. If i were married, i'd be a newly wed in a family ward--if i had a calling at all, it'd probably be in the primary, and i'd be losing my mind. (actually, it'd be in the Young Womens and the other leaders would be losing their minds) BUT
i see how much more i'm needed here. now, in the lives of these sisters.
and i count it a HUGe blessing (and mild annoyance) that there aren't really any "feasible dating options"
i have sisters to love, a great service to do, and amazing people to work with.
life is hard, but we can do hard things.
i was born to do impossible things.

i have temporarily rearranged my blog

for the sake of music.

and sharing it.

:)

introspection -i swear i knew it all along

i actually just spelled sware wrong.

So, when life takes a tumble down a rough slope, your perspective is pretty much shot to-

well, i'm trying to keep my blog free of profanities...

at times like these it is positively sublime to have a friend in precisely the same position. Even more so when she calls you at exactly the moment you need her the most. Thanks, Heid's for telling me what i so badly needed to hear:

This period in my life is just a season. a healing season. living with my family and working is temporary, but a necessary time for healing and growth.
my fear was that i am stuck here, making life-sentence career and life choices.
not so
i've been critically over-concerned that by "coming back" to my hometown, i've forfeited opportunities to live other places with other people doing other exciting things i've always wanted to do.
this simply isn't true.

i am growing and learning--and healing ... somehow one crisis moment tends to unleash all of your life's traumatic moments...
most especially, and this one is very slippery to me, others are learning and benefiting from my being here.
I am a strong, capable, charismatic woman. I should have greater faith in myself to do whatever it is i choose to do. others do look to my example, and feel the love of their Savior through my intense joy in and love of His work.

and the time will come for me to move on to whatever is next--my Father in heaven is perfectly aware of my sense of adventure and my restless nature, and he has already put things in the works for me.
but until then, let go of worry and dive in with joy to the work before me.

I have perfect faith in me, in whatever i do.

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won.

--Lucille Maud Montgomery

my matti bought this... shirt thing...
well, i bought one, too, so i'm not going to describe it.
In fact, it's pictured here

i found it on clearance for $3! admittedly, i had pined matti's, and every time i saw it on the rack, finally! i have one too!!

yay!!

And then, i was cleaning my room (this also translates as unpacking), and i found my beads!! three strands of green-toned beads. i bought last march
because i like them
i put them on and had this instant and overwhelming desire to wear my towel-shirt-thing. the three strands of beads were a little overwhelming, so i wrapped one of them around my wrist.
it was a challenge to get it around one last time.

and i looked absolutely fabulous.

but then i realized that we were going to go to a spook alley for FHE, and that i would probably end up wearing my double hoodie over it. yeah, six inches of terry flounce sticking out from under hoodie-age. classy. this could mean only one thing.
a change of attire.

just one little hang-up

i can't get the beads off

i do NOT understand life

or love

or pain


... that's all

moments in life

i have phenomenal hair.

maybe i should qualify that for the current arguement: i have out-of-this-world bed head!

seriously!

that hair defies laws of gravity...

physics...

traffic!

my hair could literally be pulled over for causing traffic jams and fender-benders.

people might even start putting their heads out the window to get this hair.

Sorry, folks. this is a wondersome coalescence of genetics, hair product, timing to perfection of showers and bedtime, carefully haphazard hairstyle, and the perfect sheets with the ideal thread count, twill weave and dye method.

This is one of those refining moments.

I have immutably unique hair.

and with those eyes... !

a mi, c'est perfect. c'est le goddess.

c'est i don't speak french...

back on point: this image is undeniably, singularily

striking.

if i do say so myself.

i want one

may i keep her?

i have two orange blankets

and my mother will be crowned tomorrow.

I stand corrected.

a few people read my blog.

Sometimes in the morning i am petrified and can't move

Awake but cannot open my eyes

And the weight is crushing down on my lungs i know i can't breath

And hope someone will save me this time

Your mother's still calling you insane and high

Swearing it's different this time

And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her

That god never blessed her insides

Then you hang up the phone and feel badly for upsetting things

Crawl back into bed to dream of a time

When your heart was open wide and you loved things just because

Like the sick and the dying

And sometimes when you're on you're really f***ing on

And your friends they sing along and they love you

But the lows are so extreme that the good seems f***ing cheap

And it teases you for weeks in its absense

But you'll fight and you'll make it through

and you'll fake it if you have to

And you'll show up for work with a smile

You'll be be better and you'll be smarter

More grown up and a better daughter

Or son and a real good friend

You'll be awake and you'll be alert

You'll be positive though it hurts

And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends

You'll be a real good listener

You'll be honest you'll be brave

You'll be handsome you'll be beautiful

You'll be happy

Your ship may be coming in

You're weak but not giving in

To the cries and the wails of the valley below

Your ship may be coming in

You're weak but not giving in

And you'll fight it you'll go out fighting all of them...

Rilo Kiley "better son or daughter"

If you can like that song in the good times and the bad

when you're on top of the world, or at the very bottom

of a bottomless pit,

Then you understand.

What is so wrong with what i want?

And what is the purpose of dreams

if they were never meant to happen?

on a less depressive note:

I happen to know that i'm the only one who reads my blog

and i feel a little hateful, right now.

i hate bed time. I lay awake crying, wishing i would just--ready set--fall asleep. i also think about a certain someone and the overwhelming certainty that i will never be rid of the haunt in my head. eventually i realize that i have nothing to offer the world, that i have no friends within 10 miles (unless you count those ones that have families, fiances, and lives and incidently forget you exist). mmm, make that 300 miles.

i hate sundays. it is filled with a wretched epectation to have a great, spiritual day or else, but you better not expect anyone to be a part of that or to even want to spend time with you.

hate, hate, hate.

so there.

a purge, a transition, another beginning

i hate packing. i'm not the most effective at it, and i am inexorably inefficient about unpacking. it generally takes me months for the latter. usually because i did the former in a matter of hours.

I've been home for... almost 4 months. I still have as many full boxes in the garage as when i first came back. Not completely my fault!
Over the last few years, my bedroom has become somewhat of an "organic" storage room. my parentals have a storage room where they keep food storage, holiday deco, etc.
but if they had a box of grandkid stuff, or maybe books... cleaned out a closet in an upstairs bedroom... a mattress...
THAT found its way to my room.

not to mention everything which i haven't thrown away over the years. Pack rat is in my RNA (i refuse to believe it's in my DNA). good thing that i believe we can change our DNA (so RNA is cake).

purge. I have thrown away so much in the last 4 months. take that on faith when you consider on the stash that remains in the garage.
i found a broken stereo, VCR, and various other electronics which someone ambitiously planned to fix. yeah right!! first things to go!

there were many more things, and
boxes of things that i had just felt the need to hold onto...
gone
kept the boxes, though
my little sister took my book shelf, sturdy boxes are a handy substitute.

yesterday i unearthed two ends of the spectrum: stuff from HS--poetry, writingschtuff--and recent notes and spirtual-scholarly articles from BYU classes and church-calling-trappings. (a nice aside: i burned my HS journal. it really was not worth reading. having said that...)
hs, notes, printed articles--anything you can find in a book or online--took the dive into the garbage bag.

this process leaves my teeny room in a state of universal disaster. if i want to sleep in my bed that same night, i have to clean up and re-org mid-purge (like that happens)(HAH!!)
when i had a bigger room, i just tossed it all on the floor. now i use my bed because i do NOT HAVE floor space. it's a queen bed.

There's this idea that someday i will permanently move out of my parents house. I'm not leaving anything, and i am certainly not taking any boxes filled with things not important enough to even open the box. I'm not going to carry around baggage for the rest of my life!!

I WON'T DO IT!!!

so. it's been an interesting journey. i can't just pick up a notebook and throw it away. however, something inside me becomes capable of throwing it away (pack rat RNA, remember) if i thumb through it, first.

THere is something else i've got to share. not that i didn't know this already, but - I am one smart cookie! REally! reading through papers and essays and what-came-to-me-when-i-was supposed-to-be-taking-notes*... brilliant!!

(yeah. i'm that, uh, 'confident.')
so there...

*which is actually more important that taking notes

Ranch

yeah, lately i've been putting it all over everything! i never even used to even like it.

...ok, let me revise that statement. I put it all over everything but rabbit food. i didn't like it at all. until college. College student food somehow requires ranch.

A few years ago, at BYU-I, my little sister and i lived in a house together with about 9 other girls. Yeah, if the bathroom door handle would have worked, i could completely forget any other complaints i had about that sitch. the POINT

Kiki and i ate mozzarella sticks everyday for lunch... or second lunch... or basically every meal. i never would have even thought to put ranch on anything before that point but, because Kiki ate them with ranch, i started my tentative but steady relationship with that Hidden Valley wonder.

I started using ranch instead of mayo (or miracle whip, which is what i grew up on). i use it instead of sour cream--anything that must be nuked must have ranch

that being said, i almost never use the microwave.

also

my to-this-moment unspoken fixation with ranch pales in the palest way to my deep, deep devotion to cheese. Particularly cream cheese.

but that is a topic for another day

maybe even for an essay...

we'll see