friday letters

dear women's conference lady who asked me directions on campus today,

i'm sorry that i gave you the vaguest of instructions and pretended i knew what i was talking about. i hope you found what you were looking for...

dear appetite,

i have no idea where you have disappeared to yet again, but i cannot afford to keep drinking naked juices, which is currently the only thing that has entered my body today, and is the only thing that i even think about eating. (and by naked juice, i actually mean the lame off-brand odwalla juice that doesn't taste the same but is two dollars cheaper.)

dear paige,

each phone, text, or facebook conversation i have with you is the highlight of my life. also voicemails. i think you are the funniest person in the world and also the most wonderful friend. soooo thanks.

dear forget you,

i know that you are a bit of an old song, but i still love you, and i appreciate that you got me through last night and today. listening to you on repeat has been enormously helpful.

dear stephanie and holly and stephen,

i like this new job. i like it a lot. i like it in the way where i don't mind waking up in the morning, because i like my job.

dear snow,

what the h? although my striped gray sweater appears to be warm, it is actually just an illusion. and i don't love walking across campus and being snowed on in my not-warm gray sweater.

dear royal wedding,

i'm not going to lie, i don't really get how there is more media attention for the royal wedding than there is for the recent tornados and hurricanes. but, uhhh, congrats.

dear boy who is talking on the phone right now about where he applied to grad school,

the fact that your list includes harvard, columbia, boston, and mit makes my heart flutter.

on not having a boyfriend

one of my most vivid memories is from when i was eight years old. my mom had just tucked me in to bed, and i said, “mom, i can’t help that i’m so boy crazy!” and my mom said something that made me feel awkward, but i don’t remember what she said.

(my eight-year-old journal is a work of art. it contains a daily list of the top five boys i liked, short stories, chunks of my guinea pig's hair, and unscramble games. concerning? most likely.)

as much as i hate to admit it, i’m one of those girls that always has a boyfriend. in high school, there was never more than a month between boyfriends until my senior year. i dated michael almost my entire freshman year of college, and then had Things with three zac/h/ks in five weeks before dating the zack i was engaged to.

the truth is, it’s kind of strange that i always have a boyfriend, because i much prefer not having a boyfriend. the last four boyfriendless months have been some of the best months of my life. it’s nice having someone who always cares, who will always listen and who loves nothing more than holding me. but sometimes it’s even nicer to live my life without worrying how it fits into somebody else’s, to just be amy without trying to be michael’s amy or zack’s amy or brad’s amy.

other things i like about not having a boyfriend include: leaving my phone in my room for an extended period of time without worrying about the negative repercussions it will have on my relationship, not skyping until [insert some ghastly late hour here that would disappoint my mother], spending my money on the things i want to instead of paying for half the dates or gas to visit the bf for the weekend, shamelessly checking out the guy who studies in the same place i do before computer programming, having time to go running, making plans for my future and setting my own personal goals without worrying about whether or not i’m getting married before i graduate, flirting with the hawties sitting next to me in class, and having time to actually spend with my friends.

someday i’ll have a boyfriend again. but it won’t be until i’m good and ready, and it won’t be until i’m ready to let somebody be part of me again. in other words, it won’t be for a long, long time. and i'm happy about that.

okay it’s time to get back to my homework. (which i’m not even complaining about. fer real.)

i am a child.

on monday, this conversation happened with the guy whose job i am taking:

stephen: are you always nice, or do you have a dark side?

me: nahh, i think i'm a pretty nice person. i mean, i look like a 12-year old. how could i not be nice?!

stephen: i don't think you look like a 12-year old.

and i think he meant it. hello, first time in my life that somebody legit doesn't think i look ten years younger than i am. so i'm feeling pretty good about life, right? right.

fast forward three hours. i'm unpacking my car. i'm carrying a box in. some guy gets out of his truck.

him: hey! you just moving in?

me: yaaaaa you betcha (that's just some of my minnesotan accent coming out)

him: oh, is it your first semester?

i guess i'll never be taken seriously as an adult.

in other news, despite the fact that my car is (almost) entirely unloaded, i keep forgetting several critical things in my car. which cannot easily be remedied by walking out to my car, because i can't get a parking permit because i don't have my car registration..so my car is parked forever away.

for breakfast, i eat frosted mini wheats out of a tupperware with my fingers.

for dinner, i eat a chunk of bread and a chunk of cheese. for lunch, i eat jamba juice.

note to self: bring in utensils tonight.

also, this campus is enormous in comparison to byu-i. i'm learning just as fast as i can. but until then, i walk around under the direction of google maps on my phone. i pretend i'm texting.

clever? i think yes.

it's time.

so the whole family's been in utah for dan's graduation. it's been the most wonderful weekend. we had a graduation party at his parents' house,

(check out that enormous blue balloon.. i want one)

ate tucano's (hello yummmm), played some games, experienced more random dad photoshoots

(please love my hair in this picture, which is not supposed to be a masterpiece)

went shopping (and actually bought clothes.. so that's a nice change for me), had an easter egg hunt,

and, of course, dan graduated.

also, we attempted to make chocolate snickers fondue last night.

cristina makes fondue a bunch. my mom makes fondue a bunch. but for some reason, it just did not work last night. in fact, we tried twice. both times, the chocolate seized and it just couldn't be recovered.

still, it was delicious. we used spoons and kind of chunked it onto our food, instead of dipping it.

but i'm pretty sure fondue is not supposed to be able to do this:

anyhow, it was an awesome weekend and just reminded me of all the many reasons i'm crazy about my family.

and now i guess i'm ready to start real life tomorrow..

..kind of. change is not my favorite. i love the idea of change, because it is only through change that we can reach our full potential. but i absolutely loathe the actual process of change. i like routine, and change means the end of a routine. i look forward to one month from now, when i have my new routine, but i don't look forward to starting my new routine.

and, to be honest, i'm super nervous!!! it's my first time since my very first semester to move into an apartment with nobody that i know. it's a new school, which means a new campus. it's a new major, with new classes that i literally know almost nothing about. it's a new job. and all of that makes me a little bit nervous.

buuuut i couldn't agree more with neale donald welsch:

"life begins at the edge of your comfort zone."

so here it goes :)

only in utah..

..ten minutes before church starts on easter sunday.

different trips, different trains

there's something about academic tradition that makes me want more. i felt it on the university of virginia campus last month and i felt it again today at my brother-in-law's commencement. in virginia, it felt like education was a way of life, not just the means to a career. today, it felt like education was the gateway to the rest of the world.

my dream in high school was cornell. i loved cornell. i loved the library and the campus and the history. i dreamt of cornell. i saw myself at cornell. i wanted cornell. but in the end, i went to byu-idaho instead, not because it had a great library or a killer campus or the kind of academic history that cornell has, but because it was similar in size and it was something nobody in my family had ever done..and it cost about a tenth as much as cornell.

love

in retrospect, i wish i had understood myself better in high school. i loved byu-i. i loved the area and the people and the classes. but i didn't get what i wanted from college. i haven't felt like i had to work since my first semester. i didn't have homework, i rarely studied, and i didn't stretch my brain. instead, i made clouds out of cotton balls and did handwriting tests and bit nilla wafers to illustrate the phases of the moon. (i get that part of that was my major, which is why i've also changed my major.)

that's part of why i chose to transfer to byu: i want to work. i want to study and i want to learn something and i want to push myself. breaking off my engagement changed me. it made me realize what i want and who i want to be. some people are lucky. it's right for them to find the love of their life at age 19 and get married and start a family. but i'm lucky, too. because right now, i have the world at my fingertips. i can do whatever i want.

and i want byu to be my gateway to the world. i want to go to cornell to get my mba. i want to put on a robe and get my master's and be as educated as i can. so i'm going to. i'm going to be part of that tradition of academia.

and i can hardly wait.

nicknames

i've always been jealous of people who have nicknames.

my little sister's name is brianna. most people call her bri. i call her bee, or bria, or bri.

people whose names are zachary or wesley are fortunate, because they are called by their nickname most of the time, which makes their full names kind of special.

megans and chelseas are lucky, because their names quickly turn in to megs and chels. it rolls of the tongue. it belongs there.

my name is amy. my dad calls me amy lou. my best friend's mom called me amy jean the jelly bean. my grandma calls me aimmers. some peple call me aims. but for the most part, i am amy.

some names shorten easily. webster's dictionary defines nicknames as "a familiar form of a proper noun." nicknames are familiar. they imply that the full name is said so frequently that it is no longer necessary.

i wish my name had more nicknames.

and now my heart stumbles on things i don't know

(song of the week: awake my soul)

another nice part of being home is that my wallet can sit untouched on my nightstand for two weeks, and my bank account can stay unopened for even longer. today i bought something for the first time since i've been home. my purchase consisted mostly of new running shorts and i love them. i took my new shoes out for the first time today, since it's miraculously not snowing, raining, or windy for once in minnesota's history.

i'm obsessed. they're nike lunar elite 2, and i felt like i was running on air. some runs are just like that, and they remind me why i run. i listened mostly to chill music--noah and the whale, ingrid michaelson, regina spektor, mumford and sons--until i was tired, and then i switched to my usual running music--ke$ha, rihanna, kanye--to push through to the end. and when i was done, i stretched on my driveway and wanted to do it all over again.

other things i'm liking right now:

*this lion picture which paige made for me:

*people who say "what's wrong? talk to me :(" and actually want to listen.

*that chelsea found these puggles at the pet store and i get to play with them when i go to denver for memorial day weekend.

*mandarin orange salad and homemade rolls. i ate at least a gallon of salad for lunch. yuuummmm.

*finding a new blog that i can't get enough of, and reading every post ever written in the last three years.

*that all of my supposed-to-be wedding activities have passed, so i don't have to suddenly realize "i should be getting married right now," or "i should be at my minnesota reception right now."

*buds starting to speckle the trees. i love spring. i live for spring. and it is almost here. :)

i learned.

this weekend has been good. and i've learned a lot.

1. on friday my father bought me new running shoes. they're beautiful and i love them. but i learned never to show dad the scheel's ad on sunday if the scheel's ad says that running shoes are $15 off this week. doing so will only result in being told to bring the shoes back to scheel's tomorrow and get $15 off. so that's going to be fun.

2. dad's taking a photography class. (i think my parents are cool because they are always doing things, even though they're old. (just kidding. they aren't.) like biking hundreds and hundreds of miles (dad), taking chinese classes (mom), taking a photography class (dad), making family cookbooks (mom). thirty years from now, i hope i haven't just settled into a routine. i hope i'm like my parents.)

anyhow, dad's been wanting to take a picture of a strawberry for a while. so after scheel's on friday, we set out to see if we could do it without a timer, which would have made it infinitely simpler. somehow we figured it out.. even if we did make a bit of a mess in the process. so i learned a whole bunch about photography and also about timing when i press the button on the camera. (it's not as easy as you might think..)

3. on saturday, bri went to the state speech tournament. (am i a tiny bit concerned that my baby sister has been involved in speech, debate, math league, science bowl, scarlet ambassadors, student council, national honor society, golf, cross country and peer tutoring, plus many more equally [insert adjective here] things i am forgetting to mention? yes. yes i am.)

mom and dad and i drove up to the cities to watch. brianna is in discussion, which basically means a group of teenagers get together to pretend like they're grownups and try to solve the world's problems. here is a brief list of what i learned.

a) i loathe pompous, arrogant teenagers who think they know everything.

b) however, many of those pompous, arrogant teenagers have bigger vocabularies than i do.

c) if i hear the sickly sweet phrase "actually, i wasn't done. you can make your point in just one minute." one more time in my entire life, i will probably kill somebody.

d) i am more grateful than ever before that i did not sign up for speech just to impress the boy i liked freshman year, because one saturday spent at a speech tournament was more than enough.

4. church today was really fantastic. some weeks i just struggle in church and i have such an awful case of the wiggles that getting anything from it proves to be almost impossible. today was the opposite. it was one of those powerhouse trios of sacrament meeting, sunday school, and relief society that just make it all worth it. and i learned that sometimes, no matter how little you think you're going to get from church, heavenly father has a way of giving you just what you need.

5. i learned last night that the blueberry white chocolate cheesecake from the cheesecake factory is quite possibly the richest dessert in the world. except, maybe, the s'more concoction brianna and i made for dinner with the missionaries tonight.. (ps, love missionaries. so much.)

6. due to the veryyy long day that brianna's speech tournament was, my parents went on a long hunt to find me a time magazine, which i read and it was glorious. however, until then, i was forced to download app after app to keep myself entertained. and i learned that my new favorite is scoops. so if you don't have it yet, you can thank me later, after you play it and fall in love. (you're welcome for the weekly app update.)

i do things.

yesterday night as we left the relief society recipe exchange which was 45 minutes away, my mom said to me, "well, we should be back before too late."

and i said, "well, mother, it's not like i have things i need to rush home to do.."

and she said, "no, but you have things you do."

at that moment, i realized just what a big difference there is between "having things to do" and "having things you do."

my sister has things to do. homework, nannying, studying for AP tests, church assignments, oboe.

i do things. make cupcakes with my mom, buzz through 300 pages of a book about html in five days, complete a half credit class in nine days, run.

in case you can't tell, not even one of those things is overly important.

but don't even worry! this four-month hiatus from real life is almost over! yayyy.

ohhhh please.

i have compiled a list of things i just cannot stand. please bear in mind that this list is not comprehensive.

1. when people walk into my room to floss their teeth. conversation is just not possible when one person's hands are down his or her throat, so why does flossing need to be done in a social setting?

2. walking into a public bathroom stall and finding pee on the toilet seat. i'm an avid croucher, not a sitter, because i do not want to sit where somebody's else's pee was just twenty seconds before i wiped it off.

3. that there is a special group in japan to save the pets left behind in the evacuation zones. because there isn't enough work to do just helping the people..?

4. putting my contacts in the wrong eye. and then doing the whole close-one-eye-then-the-other thing all day long to confirm and re-confirm that i did, in fact, mess it up.

5. the idea that two people at byu-idaho who like each other will hang out from the instant class ends until curfew every single day from here until marriage or breakup, whichever comes first.

6. zagg invisible shield screen covers. i am absolutely certain i have never regretted spending $20 on something more than i regret buying that thing.

7. when people eat my food. as if i'll think that somehow i ate twelve oreos in one week..while i was on vacation, 1000 miles away.

8. chocolate milk. hot chocolate is great. chocolate ice cream is wonderful. but chocolate milk is just..not. i think it stems from the time i drank strawberry milk in first grade and then threw it up. nasty stuff.

9. facebook pictures that were obviously taken solely to create the appearance that you were having a good time and that your life is enviably fun. because really, who would want to just live life and have a good time if there wasn't a camera to provide evidence?!

we had a tornado drill..

quite frankly, it is concerning to me that brianna even found it necessary to ask this question.

wear your passion

so rebecca posted this on her blog today.. and i am in love with it.

because it's right. life is simple.

i've spent the last six days rereading the jessica darling series by megan mccafferty. i read them in high school a couple times, and i needed a few hundred pages of deep fluff books.

(those terms might seem contradictory, but they aren't. straight up fluff books focus on what people are wearing, who's kissing who, and what to do with the limitless credit cards everybody's fathers have funded practically since birth.

deep fluff books focus on self-actualization through relationships and life. i'm a sucker for either type of book, not gonna lie. but this week i needed some depth.)

anyhow, these books make me just want to write and write and write, which means the pages of my journal fill up twice as fast (and considering i average a journal every three or four months, that's saying a lot).

(i'll be the first to admit the titles are a little (okay, a lot) tacky. but the books are sooo good. read them.)

which makes it important that i get serious about my search for my next journal.

this is what i want: a hardbound red book without lines and with thick watercolor pages. does anybody know where the freak i can find one?!!? because i am about at my wit's end, having looked at every book and craft store i can think of.

yummy.

so bri and i have this thing. it's called making s'mores. we love those things. and every time i come home, we do our very best to not forget to make s'mores.

if you grew up making s'mores in the microwave, you need to get that out of your life. fer real. because the best part of ovens is the broiler. and if you aren't taking advantage of that.. well.. that is just too bad.

so this is what you need to do. get out your broiling pan. and your graham crackers and marshmallows and guittard chocolate chips. (this is important. oven s'mores are way better with chocolate chips than chocolate bars. and guittard chocolate chips are way better than any other chocolate chips.)

make your s'mores.

then put them in the oven on broil. please watch them veryyy carefully because burnt oven s'mores are just as bad as burnt campfire s'mores.

and when the marshmallows are brown, pull them out and flip them over.

(and yes, the ideal time to eat s'mores is right after running, despite what you may think.)

when that side of the marshmallow is brown, take your s'mores out of the oven and pour a glass of milk.

get in mah bellyyyy

today it's sesame street.

yesterday i went to the doctor. and i had a needle put in my finger. my history with doctors is not that wonderful. sometimes i pass out when needles get put into me. sometimes i get seconds away from passing out just from listening to the doctor tell me how to take care of the gaping hole where my wisdom tooth used to be.

either way, it's rather embarrassing.

i didn't pass out yesterday. not even close. but my finger still hurts. seriously, it does. so i would like to use this opportunity to discuss the merits of band-aids.

specifically: i am one hundred percent certain that band-aids actually do relieve pain.

so right now i have a cool sesame street band-aid on. i am not one of those disney-princess-obsessed mormon girls that i've found byu-idaho to be so full of. but i do have a certain appreciation for the following bandaids: toy story, dora, strawberry shortcake, sesame street, hello kitty, barbie, and animal print.

so do i occasionally wear a band-aid just because i feel like it? yes. yes i do. but right now, i can honestly attest to the fact that my finger feels better with a band-aid on than it does without a band-aid.

the dot on my finger where the needle was reminds me of the freckle that used to be on my middle finger. i was in kindergarten, and i thought it was an owie. that was back when owies were cool as heck. i have an incredibly vivid memory of walking down the bus aisle holding my middle finger up to show everybody my owie. and i have an equally vivid memory of cristina telling on me once we go home.

my mom patiently explained to me that holding your middle finger up meant a naughty word. i completely and entirely didn't get it. but i pretended i did and i never held my middle finger up again. it was my first memory of being flooded with that embarrassing, stinging shame that happens when you do something stupid without even knowing that it was stupid. being told on, i've found, often has that effect.

(that freckle, incidentally, was burnt off when i was nine years old and lit a match. it was the first match i ever lit. it burnt my finger. and i have never lit another match.)

so now that you know the history of my middle finger freckle which i'm sure you have always wondered about..

..i hope you have a nice tuesday night.

sunday ramblings

what have i been doing on this sunday?

well, i will tell you.

i have been stalking brianna's new roommates with her.

extensively.

we're talking facebook, blogs, mother's blogs, and twitters.

and it has been wonderful. i like them already. not that my opinion matters. but, ya know, it does.

also, brianna's brilliant plan to not be the-freshman-with-a-car-that-everyone-in-the-dorms-takes-advantage-of is to not tell anyone she has a car. i wish her luck with that one, and hope it lasts longer than the three days i anticipate it will last.

i like bee. people think we look alike.

example: this is the text i got this morning: "hey tell me what color dress you're wearing so i can tell you apart from your sister."

so that's cool. cause i'm pretty sure we don't look alike. but whatever. you be the judge.

also, brianna has a new app. it's called "shave me." it's in the top 25 free apps right now. and i would just like to say: eww. it shocks and disgusts me that enough people have "shave me" that it has made it to the top 25. like, seriously. eww.

this is what i love right now.

-having a child to distract me during church.

-having a child pee on me during church, allowing me to go home to change.

-writing missionaries. but mostly getting letters from missionaries. or letters from anyone, really.

-fast sunday.

-calling my sister in the next room to talk on the phone because i don't feel like getting up.

-learning html.

-doing my review job. (not even kidding.)

-pencil skirts and black heels.

-sophie kinsella books. i secretly love that awkward situation (that happens altogether too frequently) in which i am reading a book and cannot stop laughing out loud to myself.

-finally finally starting to get better.

-not forgetting to write my grandma my weekly sunday letter. :)

-the relief society sisters having a lively conversation about how to be honest when a) the color is nice but that dress does make your butt look big, and b) looking at the ugliest kid they have ever laid eyes on at the supermarket.

-just letting everything be okay in spite of (or perhaps because of) life.

welcome to the first day of the rest of my life.

only kidding. :)

true or false: i'm sick for the second time..in two weeks.

true.

i haven't been sick all winter. it was awesome. then i got sick in virginia. it lasted two days. i got better. then i got sick again in utah. it's lasted three days so far. i'm just a tiny bit miserable.

oh well, worse things have happened.

plus, something good has come out of it.

i am straight up addicted to the app falldown.

and i plead with the entire universe to get it. play it. love it.

on a brighter note, my textbook for the 0.5 credit online prereq class i have to take on microsoft excel came today. and i know it's silly (i'll repeat: it's an online half credit class about excel), but it made me feel like life is finally starting. not that i haven't been living for the last four months..

but so many things changed/are about to change (engaged/not engaged, byui/byu, early childhood special ed/information systems, office assistant plus review writer/new office assistant job) that it's been hard not to feel like i'm just waiting..waiting..waiting for april 26 when i'll be all moved in to a new provo apartment, have one day at my new job under my belt, and be going to the first day of my classes..

the epitome of selflessness

there aren't very many things that suck about being home. i like my bed, i like my family, i like my mother making me dinner every night. but there is one thing that just plain blows.

there's nobody to make junk food for.

i like to cook. i like to bake. and sometimes i like to make things that just aren't very healthy. at school, somebody will always eat it. and even though everybody's all "ohhh i really shouldn't be eating this.." they do anyhow.

at my house, everybody would rather just not eat junk food. of course everybody's a little bit happy, because who doesn't like the occasional cookie or brownie or slice of cake? the only problem is, i would like to make things a lot more than occasionally. particularly when i'm home and have nothing that i need to do except drag my butt to my computer and work a few hours a day.

rumor has it that when my father and my mother were first married, my dad would ask my mom every once in a while if she wanted to split a girl scout cookie for dessert. and by "every once in a while" i do not mean that he was cutting back on the girl scout cookie day. i mean that was his splurge of the week.

and that is why i will never be a heart doctor.

anyhow. in desperation, i decided today to make food for my little sister's young women's activity.

so, you're welcome, girls. it had nothing to do with my need to bake something and then get it out of my house where somebody would better appreciate it. it was all for you.

i want.

i think sperry's are attractive. especially on boys. but also on girls. and that is why i want these shoes:

cute? i think yes.

two more things.

number one. my father is so classy he uses a knife and fork even while driving.

okay, not really. but i really and truly love this picture. he's a shockingly good driver while cutting his food.

number two.

this is what i am one hundred percent grateful for:

attached garages.

living in an apartment in the windiest place in the world (that also happens to be freezing cold and snowy), aka rexburg, (and particularly on the top of the hill at the ridge), has opened my eyes to the beauty of attached garages.

and as i got out of the car at 1:30 in the morning when it was c.o.l.d. after driving home from the airport sunday night, i was immediately flooded with the thrill of excitement that i wouldn't have to walk across a snowy, cold parking lot.

freaking love attached garages.

and then i went back to utah.

i'm about done with all this traveling. :)

but utah was fun, too.

dad and i packed up the rest of my stuff in utah, and then hung out with cristina and dan, as well as my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandma.

love this girl :)

and i can't wait for april 25, when i'll live less than five minutes away from them!! (at least for a few weeks.. until they move :-/)

virginia is for lovers

frankly i have absolutely no idea what that means. and i never have. so that's cool.

once upon a time we went to virginia last week.

and it was magical. even though it was supposed to be warm. and it most definitely was not warm. we're used to it.

anyhow, we did some cool stuff.

like going to williamsburg,

visiting university of virginia,

hiking a mountain,

hiking another mountain (during which bee wore ballet flats through the snow.. don't even ask),

going to monticello,

eating dinner at the boor's head inn,

and having the most wonderful time ever.

mom and dad gave bri the camera at monticello. it was like when parents give a camera to the little kid so they stay interested and involved. and it worked. ha. bri was yelling "photo op!" every ten seconds.

statistics.

i love lists. so here's another one.

this semester i have:

flown 9392 miles,

driven 5378 miles,

spent 19 hours on an airplane

and 66 hours on roadtrips,

spent 7 weeks not in rexburg

and only 5 weekends in rexburg.

i discovered that i'm allergic to strawberry milkshakes,

watched 62 hours of gossip girl with chels and quincy,

had my wisdom tooth removed,

spent $911 on my car,

went to both the east and the west coast,

transferred to byu,

got two new jobs,

and used four boxes of bandaids.

happiness.

driving around virginia for a week meant a lot of time to think. (okay, okay, that's not true. bri and i fell asleep almost immediately every time we got in the car. i felt like a kid that conks out as soon as the car seat is buckled. but still. i've had lots of thinking time lately.) i've thought about a lot of things: life, dreams, relationships, friendships, family, career, learning, school, work, what i like, what i don't like.

and i thought about the times in the past year that i've been most happy. not the long-term, life-is-great kind of happiness that happens every few months when everything clicks just right for a few weeks, but the momentary, this-is-what-life-is-about happiness.

this is what i decided.

1. summer days with paige. also known as jpm. it was exactly how summer is supposed to be. every day after class was done, either i'd go straight to paige's or she'd come straight to my place. we did our homework and made dinner and ate nilla wafers and went for long drives and sang loud and talked about boys and life and dreams. and every day i just thought, "yes. this is it."

(ps my biggest regret in life is that i will never have paige's lips. that is all.)

2. sitting on the sea lion beach at la jolla last march. i could have sat there all week. i had everything i could ever have wanted that day, including an invisible dog named benjamin, and i just couldn't keep my smiles inside. and i freaking love those sea lions.

3. running friday afternoon errands with chelsea. somehow it turned into a bit of a tradition this semester--i pick her up from class, we run random and usually entirely unnecessary errands (e.g. buying craft supplies or hunting rexburg's grocery stores for just the right kind of cheez-its), and then we go home and dispense with our friday night activities. i could never have made it through this semester without that girl, straight up, and even though this semester was a crazy weird time for both of us, friday afternoon errands were just happy.

4. the cabin. i don't know if it's the location ( a gorgeous tree-surrounded lake in wisconsin), the skiing (there are usually at least a couple days during which the water is a perfect ten), or being with my family in a place where friends, school, and jobs just don't seem to matter as much as laying on the dock, but i am almost always blissfully happy at the cabin.

and after making this list of my top four happiest moments in the last year, i realized: there is a really, really good reason that this kind of happiness doesn't happen very often. i'm glad it doesn't. i'm glad that i'm not one hundred percent on every second of every day. because then when these happy moments strike, i can just stand back and think, "yes. this is it."

(also i would like to point out that three out of four of my happiest moments occurred in the sunshine. so if anybody would like to buy me a ticket to the sun, that would be just fine. please and thank you.)