As we go galavanting

I don't think I have ever made an actual list of goals at the turn of the year.

I want to be accountable. I want to be reminded. I want to accomplish the crap out of some stuff, so

10 things I most hope to accomplish in 2014:

1. Learn at least one new moderately difficult piano piece. Fingers remember thy practice!

2. Make more fresh veggies. Twice a week would be WAY more than currently.

3. Sing somewhere other than in my shower, or over my dirty dishes. In front of some people.

4. Go into New York for a day trip by myself at least once (we will be living close for a few months. I should tell you guys about this soon).

5. Try macaroons

6. Eliminate fat talk from my conversation, and my thoughts...no matter how thin my mother gets.

7. Love my husband better.

8. Read a new book every month. I shall post a list soon.

9. Keep to a budget, which includes ONLY buying things at the grocery store that are on the LIST.

10. Have more creative play for M, otherwise, I shall never remember to teach him his colors or his body parts.

                              

The Most Sacred

I am finally trying to be brave again, so I want to write about something intimately important to me, Temples.

Temples are one of the biggest blessings that come along with being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Temples are amazing. Temples are sacred. Temples are special. The spirit of God dwells there, and it is impossible not to feel it.

I have had friends ask me questions about what we do there. Our experiences there are so sacred that we don't share details about the covenants or  ordinances we experience there. It isn't weird or crazy. Just sacred and personal.

We make covenants that require us to live righteously. We are instructed about the Lord's gospel. We do ordinances for the dead.

The dead people part creeps people out sometimes. Other people think that we force our religion on deceased persons by doing this. It isn't creepy or forceful. We look into our family history, perform the ordinances by proxy for those who have lost their bodies through death, and they have the opportunity to accept or refuse those ordinances.  We aren't pushy. The Lord has promised that every person will have the opportunity to accept His gospel, and this is part of how He keeps that promise.

The part that always leaves me feeling unexplainable gratitude is the fact that in the Temple I was able to be sealed to my husband forever. Time and eternity baby. And, as we have our children, they are bound to us eternally as well. If we live righteously and keep our part of the covenants and promises, our relationship will be always.

I can't imagine not having my C with me. Ever. Because of the temple, I never have to be without him, even after we go to the next thing after mortality.

Every time I leave the temple I feel empowered and more capable of dealing with my personal temptations and trials than I did when I went in. There is no better place to find peace, and escape from the trouble and pain and frustration of being human.

I love the temple.

 

Homliness. The Good Kind. The feelingy kind.

Holy. Slackage.

I know it is cliche, and lame, but I have no idea what happened to the last five weeks.

I only feel a little sorry that blogging hasn't been high enough on my priority list to get done.  I have been too busy basking in the glorious feeling that is the home of my childhood.

I have two homes now. In Minnesota when I talk about "home" I mean Utah. In Utah when I talk about "home", I mean Minnesota. 

I'm pretty lucky. In this case, two is better than one. 

Home is a funny thing isn't it? I have seen all sorts of cutesy and over the top word arts on pinterest talking about what home is. Most of them make me throw up in my mouth a little.

Yes, the heart is there. C and M are definitely required. But, what swirly word art stenciled on to wood can't explain... is that familiar feeling that settles in all over and in you. It is an inside-out ordeal. That place in the very center of you relaxes.  You see things without having to look at them. Things can seem familiar and new simultaneously. I read those last few sentences, and they don't quite explain, but I don't think they could.

Its a matter of feelingyness, not words put in yellow vinyl on a block of wood.

* I do not judge you if you love those blocks of wood. They just aren't my style!

I have something embarrassing to talk about

Image Source

No, it doesn't involve food.

I had a daydream about Robert Pattinson. A DAYDREAM. Meaning I was awake the whole time. Facepalm (I am very serious about making that my word). 

It wasn't as you might think it would be. 

I had just read an interview with one of the actors in The Host movie that just came out last weekend. He was being asked if he had received any crazy attention in the same manner that Robert had for Twilight. He hadn't. 

Then I started doing dishes. (Is there a phenomenon going on at anyone else's house involving dirty dishes ALWAYS being in the sink? I swear I wash them six time a day.)

Then I started thinking about Robert Pattinson running from a mob of screaming girls in Paris. Poor dude. I would never chase him. I mean, he has great hair, but thats about it. Girls are fa-reaks sometimes. 

Too bad I didn't live in Paris. Then he could have spotted me, a woman with a baby should be safe, in a market or cafe, and seen that I didn't react to his presence at all. Then he probably would have come and asked me to hide him for a few hours. I would have looked at him with a face of pity, and said okay.

While he hid in my apartment letting the mob search and dissipate, he would have perused the family pictures on our walls while we talked about my awesome husband, and how being married to someone you really love is the best. Then we would have talked about how Ches is a helicopter pilot, and don't you know, Rob needs a private pilot, and would love to give him a job. He would even give him a starting bonus large enough to pay of the large amount of student debt it took to get that license. There is also a small role in movie that he is involved in that the casting department has been stumped with, I might be perfect.

Then I realize I am day dreaming about Robert Pattinson and I stop immediately.

I told you it was true

Disclaimer. I know it is cluttered.  You try putting all of you stuff in a smurf sized hole.

Here they are at last.  The pictures of the hobbit hole.

 Okay.  I know this first picture gives you no view of my apartment aside from my mismatched socks, but look at this rug my mother-in-law made for me! Isn't it fabulous!

I am standing in the middle of the living room, and this is my kitchen.  It is the perfect size considering the amount of cooking I do...not much.

I am standing almost against the cabinets in the kitchen, and this is the living room.  You might note the two hobbit size doors on the right side. Two of the three.

 

This is the door to the bedroom. Go up those little stairs, open the door, and you find....

 

 A hobbit! Cough...I mean, Husband!

He happens to be putting up Christmas lights for me at this moment.

Here I am sitting on my bed. Note how close the ceiling is. I have tried to stand up in fits of excitement, and been promptly shoved to the floor when the ceiling punched me in the head.

 

 This is our little dresser. Three drawers wide, and two high (just so you know the word drawer is hard for me.  I always want to put droor).

  

 I had to leave the room, and stand on the stairs in order to get the whole bed in the frame.  It is a king size, which we don't need because we both sleep right in the middle most of the time anyway.  Ches sleeps in the pillow crack (I know right?).  He says it is because it is closest to me. Cue Awwwwws.

 The ties nearly reach from the ceiling to the floor. These are THE ties.  The wonderfully hideous collection of nothing but polyester.  Husband is quite a snob actually.  He won't wear silk, and it can be no less than 4 inches wide. Yes, he does wear the clip ons.  Note here.

 

 A cute little bookshelf I keep by my bed.  I wish there were more coins in my little green piggy bank.  Then I could go buy an ice cream cone....and eat it.

 

My favorite part is probably how our pile of laundry mounds from floor to ceiling.  I am pretty sure some stuff lives in there, like gnomes and their pet spiders.  It only takes a week to cover up that little love sign you see in the distance.  We can't have our love covered up by dirty clothes now can we? Sigh. 

Hobbits

Are curious creatures, and I am beginning to understand how they feel in their manner of living. That would be because, I am indeed, living in a hobbit house (that sort of roles off of the tongue doesn't it?)

Husband and I recently moved into a rather small apartment. Although Chesley has been know to be compared to hobbits (if you have not seen this reference click here) I had never really fostered my desire to live like them. I am now regretting that negligence.

Someday I will tell my children,"Your father and I once lived in an apartment with three little hobbit doors, and a little hobbit bedroom where we could only kneel on our knees because...well, although we have done many amazing and spectacularly adventurous things that we can only tell you about in stories because it all happened before you came along, we have never been hobbits!" And they will pelt us with questions about this amazing time in our lives, and ask us to tell them the story again and again.

And we will. It will always begin like this....

Your father and I once lived in an apartment with three little hobbit doors.....

No Sidewalks

I have always had this thing for poetry. I love to read it, and I love write what I can. I am going to start posting a poem every once in a while. Here is my first attempt.

I grew up in a small town, a town with no sidewalks. I once had a friend who told me he never wanted to live in a place that was big enough to have paved sidewalks. "That's when people stop waving to eachother when they drive by," he said. It made me stop and think about what I love about living in a rural place, and this poem came out of it. It has a lot of revision to go, and I would love input from all of you.

No Sidewalks

I live in a town with no sidewalks,
And my bones have grown there as the trees.
There is a road that wobbles and winds
And stretches into infinite distance.
My feet have never found its end.

I walk on the road where broken
Asphalt meets weed; I can see
Mountain to mountain to mountain
To sky. A cradle of dirt and rock
Open up to bright swaggering blue.

I stop on the road to let a
Gurgling stream greet my thoughts. I lay
to look out of the mouth of the cradle.
On the horizon, cows and grass give
Way to pavement and glass.

The sky strains too heavy
With smearing, fading smog.
It rolls closer to my road
Every year. Closer
to my road, and my Feet.

Smog, sidewalks, and lifeless steel.