5 Happy Things of This Day

Because I felt like posting something this morning, I thought I would post 5 Happinesses of This Day. :)

1. Eating big breakfasts with my new husband! I was going to call him my new "little" husband, but anyone who has seen Tin knows that he is not little. But yes! This morning we had scrambled eggs, "porridge," toast, and sliced oranges. mmm. I also drank some "Sustagen" drink which is like Instant Breakfast. It was delightful.

2. The sun is shining today! Oftentimes New Zealand is quite rainy, but we are headed towards summer, by jingo! And today is a sunny one. I am happy about that. Our towels are outside drying on the porch railing.

3. This morning I read about Alma and Amulek teaching the people in Alma 32-33, and I just love those guys. Oh to testify the way they do!

4. I am wearing Tinoa's running pants and his sweatshirt. They are not my size at all. But that is the point.

5. Yesterday we went to the library and I checked out my very first library book in NZ! I feel that that is something rather celebratory. I have not started it yet, except for the first page, but just seeing it here on my table makes me feel glad in my heart.

It is only 10:53am, so I am sure there will be more happinesses in this day. But those are the 5 that come to my mind at this moment.

I'm not such a good blogger.

Hello Krissy and Kelly,

The two who read my blog. Bless you both.

Sorry I rarely update on here. I'm oober lame, I realize.

But, I think you both know what is going on in my life that is worth talking about.

:)

I just want you to know that I love you both a lot. Let's be friends forever, okay? No matter what happens, and no matter what continent some of us might be living on.

Have an awesome day. :)

Happiness is...

Dear Krissy,

This one's for you! The only one in the world, I believe, who reads my blog. :) You are amazing and fabulous, you know that? I love your liver, girlfriend.

Today I've been thinking about what we were talking about a few weeks ago--looking for the five best highlights of each day. I've decided to share mine for the day with you here. Okay? :)

1. Getting to eat tostadas today with Esther! That was seriously so fun. It was awesome getting to know your coworkers, and your cake was AMAZING. I wish we had a picture. I so support your "dietitian (sp?) gone baker" plan. :)

2. Church was really good today. I liked watching the NieNie video! That was unexpected but very nice. She inspires me so much.

3. My nap was very soothing.

4. I received an email that made everything okay again. I'm so relieved. I know, I really am smitten. But I am really enjoying being smitten. :)

5. I just love you and Melissa. Really, I can't even express it. I feel like you are like my sisters and I don't know what I would do without you. Thanks for discussing life with me and sharing your wisdom.

OK, so those are my thoughts for today. What were your five favorite things of the day?

Love,
Emily

Nothing really.

I am currently reading Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

It is nice to read things that are actually extremely satisfying.

Considering that reading things like, say, Facebook are not usually... so satisfying.

It bothers me that I can feel so content with my life one moment, and then go and read about other peoples' lives and then start doubting myself all over again.

Things like this should be avoided.

And that is all.

I am like an eggplant.

From a recent report on a Zupa's employee training meeting:

Manager: So, what is the most important part of any uniform??
Krissy: Um....a....hair...net?
Manager: [aghast] No! A smile.

After telling me he'd give me a "play by play" of his next day's activities during nightly planning (when I go around insisting they can add more detail):

Elder F: And so, then, I'll go to breakfast you see. I know, I should plan that too. I'm thinking...probably an apple, a banana, and maybe some AJ. But that is tentative at this point.

While considering what to say in her job interview:

Krissy: So I just want them to know that all of these things are really important to me! I mean, good health is so important to...
Me: Staying alive.

Also this week I realized that I am like an eggplant. This is something that is difficult to describe--a fact which I learned when trying to explain to my roommate exactly why I am, in fact, like an eggplant. Just trust me on this.

Yes, this has been a random post. I do have a lot going on in my little mind...things like:

Concerns for the future
Worries for Haiti...and Chile...and on and on
Stress for my dear missionaries and trying to figure out what more to offer them..and wondering for how long I intend to teach there
My floundering efforts to write a huge literature review for a conference presentation in a few weeks
The dawning reality that I am in some way, shape, or form un-date-able (or so it seems)
The dawning reality that maybe I'm just choosing to be un-date-able, which is also stressful
Trying to somehow be a good sister and somewhat of an aunt from the other side of the country
And other things

but none of it seems like the type of thing I can put on a...blog for Pete's sake.

So, let's just be content knowing about my current realization that I am like an eggplant.

And that is all.

Mary Poppins, Pumpkins, and Vegemite

Why!

Hellllllloooooooooo to you!

Haha, whenever I say things like that, I remember this scene from Mary Poppins:

“Hunter: View hallooo!

Horse: Oh, yes, definitely. A view halloo.”

So, it's just me again, on my little plaid chair, in my skirt, way too late at night...so what else is new? I somehow arrive here at the end of the day, exhausted, and I think, why not share something to avoid brushing my teeth? Do you know...

I own approximately 9 "mid-calf length" skirts...and maybe 3 pairs of jeans.

Is that weird?

Haha.

But anyway, mostly I just wanted to share with you a few of favorite quotable moments from this week. Maybe you will find them funny, and maybe not...but either way, they make me smile...so ah well.

***
"So, if you're not sure what you're allowed to eat, just go ahead and look right at this picture. Yup, that's it, right there. If it's not in this picture...yep, praaaaaah-bably not a good idea. Like, me? I quite like pumpkins myself."
--Elder F.
--While pretending to describe the Word of Wisdom (a law of health for spiritual and physical strength) using a pamphlet with a picture much like this:

****
"But this is completely unfair! How am I supposed to know what you're SAYING?! I don't SPEAK Spanish!"
--Elder G.

during an activity designed to practice listening to Spanish...the language in which he is supposed to teach the Gospel as a missionary and which he has been learning for the past month

****

Sister C: Yes, my husband reads to me every night before bed.
Sister S: GAWRSH! I gotta get me a man like that!!
Me: So Sister C., how long have you been married?
Sister C.: [at first stumped for a minute]...it's gotta be...fifty...seven? years?
Sister S: What year were you married?
Sister C: Uh....woulda been...1953.
Sister S: Yup, I married my first husband in '56.

[pause]

Me: I was born in 1985.

[silence]

[laughter]

****

"So pretty much whenever I need help from another department chair, I go in his office and then we just end up commiserating together. And then I like to eat Cheetos and drink chocolate milk. And I'm thinking I really need a bottle of Vegemite for my office."
--Dr. E

on why it's hard to be the department chair
Note: He is Australian. Having Vegemite in his office would, in his case, be a good thing. As opposed to how it would be for the rest of us, who know that Vegemite is...not so good.

****
"Your name is EMILY?! Oh my gosh. I see you totally differently now.
Like, you look different."
--Elder W.
upon learning that my first name isn't actually "Sister" OR "Hermana."

****
"Wait, this is the best part. He steams in the rain! But just a little bit."
--Melissa

On Jacob, while at Movies 8 seeing "New Moon"
(She was not serious.
We are not that pathetic.
Close, but not quite.
Just saying.)

****
"And so, he drives up an hour-and-a-half from Price to see me two or three times a week! He takes me out for a muffin, and a show, and then lunch, and then he hits the road again. But I also talk to him on the emails a few times a week too. It's been hot and heavy like this for a few weeks!"
--Sister S.
on the boyfriend she has had since August. She is in her 70s. :)

****
So, do you have a romance to tell us about?
No?
Well...
[disappointed, and then with renewed vigor]
The temple is a magical place!
--Sister C.

On having hope
****

Happiness is

When I was in high school I kept a little notebook called "Happiness is..." Every few days I went in and made a little list of things that gave me happiness.

Today I have a cold (thanks to my germy little black taggers - bless them), and I have had a disgruntled week. I'm not sure why entirely, but I have just felt unsettled lately. I am doing too many things and keeping too many people at a distance. Both of these are things I want to remedy, but I'm not sure how. Does anyone else ever wonder if they are broken a little bit?

So, I thought I would consider happiness. Lately, happiness for me has been:

• That Switchfoot song "Dare You to Move" - it's taken me back a few years
• Getting hot chocolate at night with roommates and some new friends
• Making Valentines for people that I love and actually using all the Valentines stickers that I've been too scared to use because they were "expensive"
  
• The special moment that I had when I was making brownies for the Valentines and I turned our brown sugar into a bag of soupy muck - it was hilarious
• Watching old episodes of "One Tree Hill" and admitting to myself that even though it is dorky, I still like the whole Nathan/Haley romance stuff
  
• Having a good cry, even when I felt kind-of dumb about it afterward
• Singing the songs from "The Chipmunk Adventure" with Krissy's friend, Dallen ("we are the girls, we are the girls, we are the girls of rock and roolllll-uh!")
• Talking on the phone with KC and listening to her wisdom
  
• Quoting Teen Girl Squad and feeling like a freshman again - "I have a crush on every boy!"
• Wearing the awesome beaded necklaces that I got in England with my mom
• Having dinners with Melissa and Krissy and discussing life
  
• Nice notes. Some especially good ones from this week:
• "Emily, I have been watching you, and I like what I see. Yow, yow!" --from "Anonymous" (but I know it was Dallen)
• A picture of two people talking with a tin can telephone (as we are going to have one with our next door neighbors so we can tell each other when they're keeping us up at night)
• "Roses are red, violets are blue, If you won't be my Valentine, I'll go boohoohoo!" (This was especially good since all three of us in our apartment got the exact same poem)
  
• Yoga - always, yoga
• Telling my elders what's actually going on in my life and not feeling bad about it - actually feeling relieved, because sometimes I'm just too tired to put on a face for them, and it's probably good to be real with them sometimes anyway
• Listening to Melissa's excellent renditions of her life experiences: "And then! [with fingers fluttering].. baby candy bars...alllll over...baby candy bars...."
• My jeep, Harvey
• Going to the Sunflower Market
• Awesome oatmeal with dried cranberries, raisins, sunflower seeds, and coconut
• Post Secret
• "Things overheard at BYU" - a hilarious page on Facebook
• My current iPod book: "The Amateur Marriage" by Anne Tyler
  

See, life is happy.

A Thought

A nugget of knowledge (for you to tuck away with the other ones I know you are continually collecting):

"I always say that you should aim to laugh every day and aim to cry every day. Just don't do them both at the same time... because that is a choking hazard."

--Dr. B, from a life-changing Anthropology course I am taking

Hahaha, don't you love that idea?

And in case you didn't know, I collect "nuggets of knowledge" as I go through life, a la Francie Nolan of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. More on this another day.

Sitting under a tree

Mmm... lovely!

To be in bed reading...and sitting under a tree.

Did you know...I once painted a mural.

Really!

A family I used to babysit for wanted to make their playroom zippy and so they asked me to paint a mural on the wall. I painted:

A big tree
Elmo on a swing from the tree (by special request)
Each of the kids in the family
A flower garden (where the kids handprints were the blossoms)
The yellow brick road
And the emerald city

It was eclectic. But magical!
If I do say so myself.

Life is good. So busy! But good.

A Lovely Leeeeeeap

On my computer I keep a folder called "Stuff I like." This is one of the pictures in it. Isn't it neato? Jummmping. Flyyyyying. Soarrring.

Things and People I love today:

Thelma, the lady I work at the temple with, who is a HOOT, let me just tell you
The song "Samson" by Regina Spektor...also "Free Fallin'" by John Mayor (wowie, it is awesome)
Perusing the aisles of Target at night
The fact that my brother is in town, and we are having a breakfast party tomorrow!
Crazy wacko tights
Friends who are wise and insightful and share their nuggets of knowledge with me (even when I don't deserve them)
Curry...mmmmmm
My jeep, Harvey, who is a studmuffin
Long phone calls with my Mom
Happy memories and exciting hopes
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I love every day...if you didn't know already, it is my FAVORITE book - if you've not read it, today is your day.)
The book I'm currently listening to on my iPod: When We Were Orphans by Kazou Ishiguro

Thursday night...and a stuffy nose

Today is Thursday.

But it is almost Friday.

It is that in-between time of the night when I am too tired to brush my teeth and I just wish I was already in my bed. But instead, here I am, still in my MTC skirt, on my little chair. Typing to you.

Today was a good one. Tonight my elders were a little...riled up, shall we say. It was their first P-Day Eve, so they were giddy.

Tonight we focused all on the Book of Mormon. We made a massive explosive brainstorm on our classroom whiteboard of all the things we love about that book, and by the end I was writing so fast and furiously all the ideas they were shouting that my handwriting about couldn't be read. We put up names...words...stories...inspirational moments.

Have you read it?

If not, ...do.

If you have, ...read it again.

I will do it too.

Because it moves me everytime in new ways. And not just the book as a whole...
...but eensy verses...phrases...clauses, if you will...

I will never forget one time that I was reading the Book of Mormon on my mission. I was in Hialeah, Florida, newly arrived to the Ft. Lauderdale mission. That was a very delicate and strange and wonderful and horrific time of my life. One day in the little Gleneagles apartment where I lived for six months I found myself with time to read the Book of Mormon. My companion was taking a nap for some reason that I've forgotten, but it was me, there in that strange little space, reading that day. I read 1 Nephi 8, Lehi's account of the Vision of the Tree of Life and it was like, even though I'd read it many times before, that

I was reading it for the first time

That's what it felt like. It filled me joy and an unbelievable realization that God knows exactly. Who. I. Am. And what I'm going through. That sometimes life feels like walking through a mist of darkness...but if we call His name He'll lead us to the tree.

I sat there, me at my desk in that little apartment with my companion slumbering...and I cried. I held the book to my chest and I cried and cried because through it I knew God saw me.

It's time for me to go to bed now. I just wanted you to know that God knows who you are too.

Psstt... read the Book of Mormon.