wah

Are you sick of hearing about my thesis yet? Good. Me too. But seriously here is my last week.
I spent somewhere between 20-30 hours staring at this:

I wrote a lot of words.
Then I would send in a draft and then after two days of anxiety-induced nausea and insomnia, I would get a reply that implied I was not fit for academics. And then I go through this again. And again. It makes me feel really good and worthwhile.


Despite these vile feelings toward everything having to do with my program of study, I applied for December graduation. When I called my grad coordinator to have it processed and approved, she told me I was missing 5 classes. I seriously thought I was in a nightmare and I almost started screaming. Do I sound like a crazy person? Because that is what I feel like. Don't worry though, she realized it was a mistake and fixed it. The deadline for defending this masterful work of art is Dec. 2, so maybe in a couple months this will all be over.  Bad week.

conference thoughts

(Well my parents are on a cruise which means my blog audience here has decreased by about half.)

I had always wanted to actually write down some questions before General Conference, but had mostly just kept the thoughts in my head. Thanks to a note and wonderful talk sent to me from my mother-in-law the day before conference, I actually did take the time to write some very specific questions down in a notebook and keep it in hand to take notes as I watched the talks. It made such a difference! I really gained a deeper appreciation for our church leaders. In the face of everything we read in magazines or self-help books about how to live or what the most fulfilling life is, it is so refreshing to hear Christ-centered messages that give us true direction.

Outfit Fail

First, recall that when I started my job at the COB in May, I was self-conscious about not wanting to dress/look like a sister missionary because, as everyone knows, that generally translates into drab and frumpy.

On Friday I had to give a client presentation, so I woke up slightly earlier than normal to get ready. I put on a new skirt and went through a couple outfits until I felt good and Matt gave me his stamp of approval. Feelin' good!

Then a few hours later at work I found out that my presentation was rescheduled, bummer, wasted a new outfit. But it gets worse.

After work, I was standing outside in Temple Square waiting for Matt to join me, and a couple missionaries walked by and one of them said, "Hi sister!" I thought he was just being friendly, so I waved and said hi back. Then he said, "Where's your companion??" It hit me hard: I look like a sister missionary. Ouch. I said, "Oh um I'm not a missionary!" And his response was "oh SORRY!! I'm SO sorry!" which really made it worse, because the way he said it clearly indicated that he knew what he said was an insult.

To make myself feel better I will take this as a sign that the new and improved dress and grooming guidelines for the sister missionaries must have really taken effect, because I promise you I was not wearing Dr. Scholl's or a floor length black fleece skirt.

Lake Powell August 2011

Hello mid-September! Where did you come from?

Before I catch up on recent events, I need to document Lake Powell! Prepare for a really long post.

So Paul and Mary invited us to come on their annual Lake Powell trip again this year- we love them! Gabe and Lexi, their girls Savannah and Seinna, and our friends Tyler and Andrea were all there too.

K so my dad gave us a couple bags of fireworks at the family reunion, so we thought it would be fun to bring them to the lake. We didn't realize HOW MANY fireworks were there! Literally hundreds. So that provided two nights of entertainment.  THANKS DAD! It was extra cool in the canyon with the light bouncing off the canyon walls and the loud echos. I tried to take a video of the legendary "atlantis" but the camera got a little shaky when atlantis started flying near our heads. So here instead is a blurry picture of the guys lighting fireworks.

I knee-boarded for the first time!!! You have to understand this is kinda a big deal. I have tried wake boarding more times than I can remember, and I tried knee boarding once before, but usually all these attempts just end up with a  really really sore body and a face slammed with water over and over again. So I finally got up on this board not once my friends, but twice. (Ok one beach start and then I got up by myself). It was really fun!! I wish I could do other water sports, but it may be awhile until I feel brave enough to try wake boarding again. I would maybe try water skiing though.

Here is Andrea dutifully taking pictures of Tyler wake boarding.

And here is me behind the camera dutifully taking pictures of Matt wake boarding. I thought this was a cool action shot but Matt looked at it and said it was not good. I guess I missed his GOOD day ;)

Tube wars! Here is Tyler and Matt. I wish I had a good picture of Andrea and me battling it out, right before some weird freak accident happened and she flew up and landed on me and crushed my bones and then was dragged under my tube. It was weird. And it hurt.

We took a little day trip out to some cool sites, and Gabe and Tyler jumped off of this really high cliff!!!

And then the day trip was cut short by a series of unfortunate events. Long story short, one boat broke and then the other boat's battery died. Stranded.

The girls crack me up. They kept us all entertained.

And then when we were towing the broken boats back to the dock at the end of the week, the rope broke so when  we got to the dock and Matt was supposed to jump out and swim the boats in- there was no boat! So we had to turn the houseboat around and go find the little boat floating out there with all our stuff in it. 

The week was a ton of fun, adventures and all!

RSL, etc...

 Real Salt Lake games are fun, if you live here, you should definitely go at least once. I feel like it's the only Utah team of which I am a legitimate fan. Mostly because early in spring, we spent a freezing cold morning in line for tickets and then went to the game that night IN THE SNOW.

Looking at this picture gives me winter anxiety.

 I was so frozen and numb that when I tried to eat nachos I kept missing my mouth and dropping food. Games are so much better in the summer when I don't have to wear a scarf around my face.

 I was pretty excited about this yellow card, I kept it at home for awhile because I was waiting for Matt to do something that would justify me holding it up and saying something like "penalty! unsportsmanlike behavior!" buuuutt then I forgot and I think it got thrown away. You know why else RSL games are good? Because the last one we went to with Jenna and Brayden was the night before their engagement, and I'd like to think that the game inspired Brayden to make that happen.

  I'm so excited and happy for them! Congrats you two.

Other things:

Rebecca stayed with us for a weekend last month- it was so great having her here! She shares my love of food so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen.

Here is my brother with his rock star band, Finding Autumn, playing a show in Provo. I had never seen his band perform before and I loved it! They are so talented. This was the family reunion after party.

Calzones are good. Pretty boring to look at from the outside though.

Best idea of the day to use whole wheat pita bread for pizza crust. So easy and delicious. PS fresh mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce make ALL the difference.

 How cute are these little baby zucchini lemon muffins? I love zucchini stuff.

These meatball sliders were pretty good but mostly I thought it was cool how I accidentally took the photo with a black background.

cooking

I love to cook. I love to eat. After hours and hours of "thinking work" with nothing tangible to show for it, it feels really good to come home and use my hands to chop and peel and grill and bake and actually have something delicious to eat. It feels meaningful. I read a book a couple years ago called Shop Class as Soulcraft that really resonated with my feelings on practical work. It made me gain a newfound appreciation for cooking, cleaning, yard work, service projects,  manual labor, pretty much anything other than research and writing. (Oh do I sound bitter about my thesis? Weird.)

I don't think I've ever apologized for the awful picture quality we have on here. On top of having a less than stellar camera, we basically live in a bat cave and don't get much natural light inside. Hence, the blurry dark photos. We did just inherit a nicer camera though (thanks parents!) and once I learn how to use it, maybe the food pics will look more appealing! I promise they taste good though. Here are some randoms from the last few weeks.

Spinach and artichoke grilled chicken

Artichokes nom nom. Good excuse to eat a stick of melted butter. 

Gazpacho- one of my favorite food memories from Spain

My attempt at 4th of July flag pancakes haha

ch-ch-ch-changes

Okaaaay okay I know I said I would update again soon, but I didn't. I feel like life has been on fast forward lately! The weeks go by so quickly.  Here are a couple points of news that have yet to be documented:

1) Started working part time at the LDS Church Office Building back in May. I work with the Research Information Division, doing research stuff about different programs in the Church. Specifically, I mostly work with Perpetual Education, LDS Family Services, Seminary & Institute, and Member Trends. I have to do a lot of statistics at work. Seriously wishing I had paid more attention in my research methods and data analysis classes! The work is really interesting and it's been a great experience so far. PLUS, the COB is right up the street from Matt's work so we get to carpool a couple times a week!! AND sometimes we walk to lunch with each other! I love love it. Another thing I love about working at the COB is on Fridays there are a lot of brides taking pictures outside in Temple Square, and sometimes I run into couples about to be married in the elevators in the parking garage. I love it. One thing I don't love: the dress code is "sister missionary", and people seem to take that pretty seriously.

Matt took this picture of me before I left for my first day:

2) Turns out I CAN eat wheat! WAhooo! I'm not a silly-axe anymore! I don't really feel like writing all the medical details here, but basically I had a couple scopes done and I just have other "conditions" instead, but they are ones I can take medication for, so it's all good. Life has been a lot different in the food department over the last couple weeks. For example, I had four orange rolls for breakfast this morning. And I made a whole batch of cookie dough and ate it all over the course of a few days. Yeah, I am aware I might gain ten pounds and I am absolutely okay with that. I feel like a baby eating food for the first time. I was ALMOST moved to tears when I had key lime cheesecake last week.

We picked up pizza before one of Matt's softball games a couple weeks ago and had a little picnic.

Look at me, I'm eating PIZZA!