FHE

This is how FHE went down today....it's 8:22 and I decide I want to start an online final. I open it up-"please plan for at least two hours to complete this final". I groan. Tanner, seated on the adjacent couch asks if we are going to have FHE now or a little later. I ask for later because I just want to get this done.

Fast forward an hour or so later. I have three questions left-one asks for a 1/2 page response and the last two beg for a full page. My brain has checked out at this point so I ask my sweetheart if we can have FHE now. He responds with a happy yes along with a-I just finished our taxes and we will get $11 back. (We didn't really need to pay taxes (we didn't make enough money-tmi?? but we're doing it for habit)... So we start FHE.

I sit on the couch with my legs slung over my husband. We sing a Hymn. One line in, tanner slides up to a high note and we burst out laughing. We laugh throughout the whole song. It was a funny song. Then I pray. But I'm still laughing.

I'm not just giggling...I'm full on crying. I know people really do cry when they laugh really hard but this was the first time I have ever laughed so hard that I literally had tears rolling on my cheeks. It's a full on belly laugh and I can't remember ever loosing control of myself like I did during this prayer. Tanner is laughing too, only he's really just laughing at me. After I finish, my very patient, wonderful husband looks at me and says, "I have NEVER seen you laugh so hard". I have never laughed that hard.

Then I start to break down. I start crying because I'm stressed. I don't want to study, I don't want to pack our things Thursday and move, I don't want to observe in a high school for eight hours Wed, I don't want to dance tomorrow (that's my number one thing), I don't want to finish the three questions on my final because it's just too hard. I seriously lost it. It was the strangest feeling-being roaring with laughter one minute and then crying uncontrollably the next.
Tanner just sat there, and listened. He stroked my hair and dried my tears from my face. He told me everything was going to be okay. I half way believed him. Then we read in the Book of Mormon and I was comforted. My fears went away and I was motivated to study. I finished those last three questions, and felt ready for the rest of the week.

I am so blessed and so grateful for the calming messages of the scriptures.

This Family Home Evening will go down in history.

TUESDAYS

Tuesdays are apparently my days to write on this little blog. Yay for Tuesdays. And yay for the last Tuesday of the semester. I've had some great Tuesdays this semester but I am sure glad they are over. Tanner made a lovely French dinner tonight and I looked up food ingredients for hours. It was so fun. And now my homework is complete for the semester and I just have to show up for classes tomorrow...and did I mention that Tanner and I are joining my family for a camping trip tomorrow?

We are. We're driving down to Zion's national park and hiking the subway. It's a huge slot canyon and you have to swim through frigid water....and there's not sun down there. And it's April. What are we thinking? It will be fun. My uncle who has literally 3-6% body fat (I can't remember), almost got hypothermia when he went with my dad. I am a tad bit worried about Tanner because he really doesn't have a lot of body fat. I'm just glad we'll have wetsuits.

Perhaps I'll post pictures when we get home, but chances are not very likely. Finals start Saturday and we'll be hitting those head on. YAY finals!

After finals we'll quickly pack our house (what?) and head to Texas for tour with the dance team. Then we'll fly back, turn around and drive to Tennessee for the summer. Now all I need is a swimming suit. Any suggestions?

Winner

This evening I had the opportunity to attend a student recognition dinner for the Dance Department. I was lucky to receive a wonderful scholarship from Mary Bee Jensen-the founder of the Folk Dance program. The food was great, the women were lovely and the gratitude was plentiful. The best part of the evening was when someone announced that under some seats were pieces of paper indicating the winner of each table. They were the ones who got to take the beautiful tulips in the center of each table home. I was excited but nervous because I don't usually win things like this. I was the girl in primary who always reached down under her chair and never found something. This time, I felt the piece of paper and grabbed the winning paper. I took those flowers home, vase in all and I felt so happy. It's so strange that something so small can be significant to you. I am continually blessed and those happy tulips will make me smile for days to come.

Anne Shirley in the books

Anne Shirley
She is the best.
Once upon my childhood I started reading the classic book. Unfortunately, those books did not capture my attention. I must find them and start over again.
The movies are wonderful however. I bought my sister all three for Christmas and I think it was one of the best gifts I've given. Sure, it wasn't homemade and it was quite expensive but every single penny was worth it. I think she may have almost shed a tear. I was nervous and excited all Christmas break while we were in New Hampshire anticipating her reaction. We celebrated Christmas with my family when we got home around New Years. They always say that anticipation is greater than the event itself (...Gary Dunn?) but this was one of those cases that the event was just as great if not more.
Let me tell you something about my sister that may illustrate how much she loved this gift.
I call her Anne. Her name is Anna. In my phone, her name is Anne Shirley. My name is Jane Austen in her phone. Our alternate names. That's as close as we get to second life. ha.
Anyways. She really liked the gift and I really like giving it to her. I realized after giving her the wonderful collection of DVD's that I had not seen the final installment of the movies. This wasn't a huge deal given the fact that I didn't make it through the first book, but I wanted to see it nonetheless. This weekend I was granted the pleasure of watching Anne Shirley make her way through the front lines of WW1.
Here's my dilemma. I was bored. I didn't like it. She was all grown up and spending more time with other men and I wanted to see more of Gil. I missed the little stories of her childhood and the funny situations she was put in. It happened in all the books so why not in this movie? Well the movie makers did a little stunt and created this after story for Anne. It wasn't true to her or to the books. It tried to move along a plot and Anne just doesn't live a life like that. Her life is what she wrote-silly little stories of people she loves most. I didn't get to see that in the final installment of the movies.
I will forever be grateful I gave my sister those DVD's. I am also glad I got to see them all and from now on, I will only watch the first two.
Books win.
I suppose I'll check back in after I watch The Hunger Games this Saturday. I'm anticipating a wonderful event they could change my book vs movie opinion :)

Itis of a Senior

I have been at Brigham Young University for 9 1/2 semesters. That's a long time and I am not graduating in April.
Perhaps I should tell you that I was a Dance Education major for two semesters. It was fantastic. And I tried out mostly to prove to myself that I was a good enough dancer and that I could do hard things. It worked and now I believe that dancing is a talent of mine. In the middle of my junior year however, I decided that this major was not for me. Mostly I just wanted to educate people and dancing was not the medium I am supposed to teach through. I found a major that fit me perfectly.
Family and Consumer Science Education. In a year's time I will be able to teach the following classes:
Foods 1, 2, Pro-Start
CTE courses
Sewing of all levels
Fashion Design (and I pray I never have to)
Teen Living
Adult Roles
Child Development
Interior Design
Financial Literacy
Early childhood education
I can run the preschools in the high school
Food and Science
Human Development
Life Management
Hospitality Services--I have yet to know what the class teaches...

That's a lot of classes. Not to mention other jobs I can get with my degree outside of the education system. Thank goodness I found such a fabulous fit for me...
But I'm tired.
I'm tired of writing papers, of reading chapters and responding to questions that my teacher never discusses. I'm tired of memorizing facts without application.

I'm tired of taking classes that are supposed to teach me how to teach...and they don't.
Don't get me wrong, the education program at BYU is great I'm sure, but the course content seems so vague and out there that I'm getting frustrated.
I am just tired.
I have all of four more classes to take in the Fall and then I'll student teach. If I get any more tired I don't know what will happen.
This blog post was written to merely pass the time. In the future I will think of better things to say. I will tell you of the picnic Tanner and I had Sunday. That's at least somewhat entertaining right?

Flowers

I'm just really excited to have a flower party tonight. A dear friend of mine is getting married tomorrow!!!! My mom and I are doing flowers and it will just be a party. Yay for marriage and flowers.

I reactivated my account on facebook so I could grab these pictures (I'm on campus with a long break before I go to a master class with the Russian Red Army (world renowned dance group-yesss))

Here are some of my beautiful flowers from my wedding. All pictures from Amanda Castleberry. Flowers done by my wonderful aunt, cousin and mom.



Handsome

This is just a funny picture..but the bouquet is lovely.


A bridal shot


The bouquet for my bridals


Beautiful cake by Dani Talbot Wilkinson


Probably my favorite part of the flowers.


Huge splay.


Centerpiece-they were all different


Cute bridesmaids-hydrangeas


Bouquet for the day


Pretty flowers tucked in the desk drawers


I love flowers, don't you?

Processed Foods

I almost commented on someone's blog about processed foods but my husband's comment of, "people will be so annoyed with you"...stopped me.
So I decided to write a blog post about it.

Get ready to be annoyed.

Processed foods are sooooo bad for you. Oh my gosh the plague! I can't eat something canned. Actually you can. Just don't eat chef boyardee.
Processing a food is anything and everything. If you don't eat processed foods then you can't eat anything. Really. Washing something counts as processing. So stop washing your food. Cutting means processing so stop cutting your food- don't make that really healthy vegetable soup that has you slicing and dicing. Peeling is also processing. So, always eat your oranges with the peel on. Even picking fruit off the vine is processing a food.
My food science class makes me so smart.

The nutrient level of your freshly picked apple is at its peak so eat it as soon as it comes off the tree. If it sits in your fridge for a few days the nutrient level plummets. After food has been frozen it drops a bit in the nutrient level...then it stays stable for months. MONTHS. Same with canning. Cutting your tomatoes, adding salt and water and a bit of chloride actually retains nutrients. And chloride doesn't kill you-it firms up those tomatoes.

Check your ingredient labels, look up what things are. BHT is a preservative and it's not harmful-unless you eat a whole can of it. Moderation in all things.

Eat your fresh fruit and vegetables, cut out things you don't want in your body but please know what processing means before you start cutting it out of your diet. You would die.

I get that people like to be healthy. I like being healthy but don't freak out if you see something like velveeta in your pantry. Sure, don't eat it everyday, but use moderation. Be moderate about being healthy. Enjoy life and enjoy eating.

I'm done. Are you annoyed?