At the end of the day, you're another day older

Do you ever have days where at the end, you think, 'hmm, I could have just skipped today entirely and my whole life would be completely unaffected'? Well, I have decided not to have those anymore.

And here is a picture from Christmas! These are my friends visiting before we went home for Christmas. Lisa, roommate Leah, me, roommate Blair, Kristy.

Happy New Year to all y'all...may it be filled with love and laughter! I've noticed a lot of people lately wishing for the new year to bring you "nothing but happiness." I have learned that sometimes life is better with a little sadness to help you appreciate the happy, so I will stick with wishing you instead my personal favorites. Love and laughter. :) Happy new year!

nothing left to lose

I am officially bad at blogging. It's not that I don't have thoughts in my brain, or a desire to share them, but it's definitely a culture issue. I have to be retaught how to function socially on the internet. And also I sit in front of a computer all day at work, so my desire to do so at night has been somewhat quelled. I think I will stick some pictures on here soon.

So lately I was thinking about if before we were born we took a course called "Mortal Life Prep." This would be structured similar to mission prep, and, like all good mission prep courses, would have to be taught by someone who's actually been there, done that, so we were probably taught by Heavenly Father, and I bet He's pretty good at it. I think He was because all the time when we learn stuff here that we already learned there, it resonates as true within us, even though there's that veil thing. We probably learned really well there, huh. And then I was thinking, well, not only that, but He sends us people to give us sortof a Mortal Life Survival course, a crash course if you will, for those who have already started, but still need help (i.e., me). So He gives us people that are pretty good at living, who have done it for a while, and have access to some pretty nifty communication with the Experts. In sum, at the end of this thought, I was mad grateful to have prophets, and to be able to listen to them this weekend.

That is the end of the thoughts.

city of words

I just got back from New York City. What a trip! And I mean that in all senses of the word... I loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Apple store, FAO Schwartz, Times Square, the hordes of people swarming in ebbs and flows all over the city... though I realized that I'm a country girl at heart. Gimme those wide open spaces! I ate at Serendipity (yummm, frozen hot chocolate) and went to see a Broadway show and walked and walked and walked...alarmingly unlike the pioneer children, however, I seemed to have no destination. I call it the City of Words because I heard so many from such a broad spectrum--words in different languages, dozens of them, words that were painful to hear, words of welcoming, words sprayed across buildings in effort to affect behavior, words carried by beautiful melodies into the lives of the listeners. Wherever I went, the words were everywhere. Today after church, I curled up in a chair for a while and just enjoyed the quiet. Though I did hear some of the most pleasant words today, and mostly from the mouths of the children in the Harlem Primary at church. Little Lily: "I so really sang loud!" Or Madeline and her cousin Janeesha: "Search-to look for the answer to something. Ponder-to get an idea. Pray-to make it happen." Sometimes the wisest words are those spoken by those who have spent less time speaking. I could learn a lot from that.