A touch of nostalgia

From summer 2007

Book Review!

I absolutely loved this book. It was charming and heartwarming and...blah blah blah. A woman at work lent it to me and I just loved it. I should probably practice writing book reviews, because this is not the most informative one ever. It takes place during WWII and is written as a series of letter between an author and people living on a small island called Guernsey. It is so good! The feel kind of reminded me of Anne of Green Gables. Anyway, enough with the verbosity. Read it, love it, cherish it. I already do!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Two Missionaries

Elder Orr leaves for Washington at 5am tomorrow morning, but Sister Bates still has a few more weeks. These two are going to be the best missionaries! Seriously.

Sister Vella

I was going to write a blog about Aspen Grove, but I don't really feel like it anymore. I've been thinking a lot about Sister Vella and I want to talk about her. The problem is that I'm not eloquent-and I think we all know that-so bear with my inadequate scribblings about a wonderful woman.

At first Sister Vella may have been hard to get along with because she has a very brisk, no-nonsense personality. We were talking about it the other day and my dad said, "She acted like she knew everything, but...she really did!" And it's true. Sister Vella knew everything. Speaking of Sister Vella, someone said, "If you didn't love her, then you didn't know her." I don't think there could be a better phrase. If you really knew Sister Vella, you would know how generous, kind, and loving she was.

The more I thought about Sister Vella, the more I realized what she has done for me. I didn't see her a lot-especially after they moved-but she still impacted my life through serving my family and specifically my mom.

• She would frequently bring over half of whatever food she made for her family. We always had a jar of Sister Vella's soup in the fridge. My dad mentioned it in his talk, but our favorite thing was tomatoes with mozzarella cheese in vinegar. Yum! No one cooked as well as Sister Vella.
  
• She made my Irish dance costume-and a matching one for my doll.
• She made a new underskirt for my prom dress, so it would be long enough.
• She came with me to Jarom's farewell so I wouldn't have to go alone.
• She offered help and materials for my projects in school.

Besides all that, she was my mom's best friend.

Sister Vella loved babies, and I just hope she's in Heaven finding my children and helping to teach and prepare them for me.

I'm glad that Sister Vella can be at peace now, and not have to worry about any health problems. But we will miss her! I just hope that I can look to her example as a way to live my life. I want to be as generous and giving a person as Sister Vella was.

This is the truth

And I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out. So, for the first half of this week I had a pretty awful attitude! I'm serious, ask anyone. Actually, ask Jarom. He'd know. I was sulky, and mean, and caustic, and sarcastic...yeah it was basically great.

So today I decided to put on a positive attitude before I left for work. I decided that I was going to smile more, complain less, laugh more, roll my eyes less. I did it. For half of the day I had to chant in my mind: "I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful..." (What About Bob) but it worked. I had a positive attitude, and I even survived the test....my Tell class.

Positive thinking works.

It also probably helped that I skipped one of my two hour classes. But I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful!

Random picture: we rode the bus!

I can do this!

"It's knowing what they want of me that scares me. It's knowing having followed, I must lead. It's knowing that each person there compares me to those in my past whom I now succeed...

I know expectations are wild and almost beyond my fulfillment, but they won't hear a word of a doubt or see signs of a weakness. My nigh on impossible duty is clear. If I can rekindle my ancestor's dreams, it's enough."

Uprising

Jarom took me to see Muse on Monday...and it was awesome!! The only problem was that both of us decided to not wear our coats, and it was snowing, so...we got soaked. But it was fun.

Also, sidenote: People like Macs more than they like me.

Really, subconscious?

Me: Last night I had a dream that we had some huge family emergency and Dad, Grandpa Murray and I went to Japan to help out.

Uncle Kurt: Do you watch King of the Hill?

Me: No....

Uncle Kurt: Oh, because that is exactly what happens in one of the episodes.

Why can't my dreams parallel fairytale shows instead of shows like King of the Hill? Lame!