best Christmas Ever

I was fairly certain my week in Washington would contain a proposal, and I knew I would be staying in a giant Italian villa, so I was excited. But I had no idea just how awesome it would be.
As soon as I had walked in the door, Christian's nieces and nephew came to meet and greet me, including hugs. It was just the first taste of how welcoming his family would be. In fact, they started to feel just like family to me in only a couple of days, even before Christian asked me (officially) to be a part of it. Then they eagerly led me on a whirlwind tour of the house, though it still took me a while to learn how to get to my bedroom. Christian's sister offered to tape little fishies on the wall leading to my room so that I wouldn't get lost. It was such a beautiful house.


And who wouldn't want to stay in a house with someone like this cooking for you?


But, like I said, what I was most excited for was the proposal. Christian had mentioned that there was a beautiful park where he wanted to take me for a walk. So when we were walking in this incredible, snowy, enchanted park, I thought it just might be time.


I wasn't too worried when it didn't happen. I just figured that all his hints about my shiny little Christmas present meant that he would pop the question on Christmas day, and decided to be patient just a few more days.

On Christmas Eve, I was in the middle of crochet/knitting lessons with his oldest nieces when Christian asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I almost said no because I was in the middle of something, but decided to go. His Dad loaded us into the bucket of his tractor and carried us across the field to an incline with a gap in the trees that was perfectly positioned to watch the sunset.


As we sat there watching the beautiful sunset and listening to Christmas music, my suspicions were once again aroused. At one point Christian pulled his phone out of his pocket and I was sure it was going to be a ring instead. But then Bruce started to back up the tractor and we headed back toward the house. "It's OK, I told myself. Tomorrow." But we didn't head toward the house. We headed instead toward a grove of trees on the edge of their property, and Bruce dropped us off for a walk. I thought maybe he just thought we'd enjoy it or maybe he had business to do with his tractor and needed us out. Then, as we turned a corner on the path, this is what I saw.


Candles and hot chocolate and fancy German Christmas cookies. I asked Christian what were in the cookies, to which he slyly answered that it was a "secret recipe". Turned out the secret recipe contained traces of tree nuts, to which I am allergic. For a moment, I think Christian thought he had poisoned me and thereby botched the whole thing. But it was only a trace so I was OK, and Christian literally threw my cookie away, just to be safe.

See that red box with the green ribbon? This is what was inside.


When we went inside, his sister asked if I would be her sister as she hugged me. I said yes, but really I felt like I already was. We then feasted on a fancy prime rib dinner and enjoyed a wonderful pageant put on by the little ones.



Christmas morning was equally delightful, with more presents than I had ever seen under one tree, gleeful children, and being showered with unexpected gifts from my new family.


In short, it was a Christmas filled with everything that makes Christmas wonderful to me. Family (especially children), delicious food and goodies, remembering the Savior, and presents. I got the best Christmas gift of all this year, and it was definitely the best Christmas ever.

P.S. Our date is April 7th, in the Manti, UT temple!

beauty

There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think I had to hear that saying a few (billion) times to really understand what it means, that everyone has a different standard or definition of beauty, a different idea of what qualifies as beautiful. The world is busy contradicting this bit of tried wisdom by convincing you that there is only one beauty ideal and that every woman should strive and sweat and starve and spend in order to approach this ideal. Unfortunately, the ideal presented in the media is not only unrealistic (plastic surgery, make-up artists, air brushing), it's unhealthy. Those "beautiful" models you see in the media, the ones who are 6'2" and 120 lbs.-- are underweight.

Generally, health and beauty go hand in hand. Shiny hair, soft skin, and white teeth, for example. It's natural selection. So why have we let the media separate them? And what sense does it make to put beauty before health in our list of priorities? I fully support America's getting in shape. I support exercise and healthy eating habits. I support losing weight when needed. But I DO NOT support the media inflicting body image issues and self-hatred on women and girls by lying to them about what the perfect body looks like.

Now, I want to be beautiful as much as the next girl, but, according to this adage, I cannot be beautiful to everyone. So who do I want to be beautiful for? Do I want to be beautiful to all the shameless gawkers at the gym? Do I want to be beautiful to the men that spend their time drooling over Victoria Secret catalogs? Do I want to be beautiful to someone who buys into the media's lies and thinks that all women should look the same? No, of course not.

I once heard a DJ commenting on how one new movie made so much more than another new movie. "Of course more people wanted to see [movie A]. Why would you want to see a cute brunette in [movie B] when you can see a hot blonde in [movie A]?" Personally, I am proud of not being beautiful to him.

First and foremost, I want to be beautiful to me. I want to look in the mirror and feel good about the way I look. I want to feel good about my strong, healthy body and everything I can accomplish with it. Secondly, I want to be beautiful to people who see more in me that a pretty face. If someone thinks you are not good for anything but to be looked at, to be seen and not heard, to be an object--why in heaven's name should you care what they think about the way you look?

Take back your health. Take back your positive body image. Take back your confidence. Take back everything that you can do and be that has nothing to do with your dress size. Take back everything that the media's lies have stolen. And help the women in your life do the same. For help doing this, check out my new favorite website, http://www.beautyredefined.net/

a blanket apology

As I have already boasted many times, I have the best job in the world. However, I have recently become aware of an occupational hazard that, I'm afraid, is affecting the people around me. For that, I would like to apologize.

In order to effectively communicate with my Spanish 106 students, I find it necessary to adapt my speech in several ways. For example, I have to talk a little bit slower than natural, I incorporate charades at every opportunity, and I frequently repeat myself. Last week I was talking to a co-worker who speaks Spanish better than I do and I used the word correr, which means to run. I felt more than a little bit silly when I realized that I was unnecessarily running in place in the middle of the hall. On a later occasion, I found myself speaking rather slow Spanish to my supervisor who, once again, speaks better Spanish than I do.

So, if on any occasion you have felt that I was insulting your intelligence by talking down to you, by insinuating that you needed help to understand the simplest of words, I'm terribly sorry. Force of habit. If you would be so kind as to point it out to me, I would be more than happy to put my hands in my pockets and speak more quickly and with more intellectual words.

Now I'm scared to see what happens to my communication skills if/when I become a stay-at-home mother of small children...

things I don't understand: part 1

I consider myself to be a relatively smart person, and people frequently tell me that I'm right about that. In spite of my....shall we say thoroughly adequate intellect, there are many things in this world that I don't understand.
For example, the current Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercial. It has no human actors, it just portrays two cartoonized cereal pieces. The first one licks the other and is then eaten entirely by the other. So, what? The cereal is so delicious that it eats itself? Moreover, the commercial announcer starts off by saying, "Hey, ladies!" Like men don't watch TV or like Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Or maybe because cannibalistic cereal somehow appeals more to women? I'm skeptical.
Or the billboard by Carl"s Jr. "Alcohol does to a teen's brain what weather does to billboards." But you are an adult and your brain is therefore invincible (not to mention your liver) so feel free to become inebriated whenever you like. If a substance can destroy your brain at any stage in your mortal development, wouldn't you rather just avoid it altogether?
Or the facebook poke. I mean, consider the possible messages a poke could convey. it could be one step more annoying than "I'm not touching you!" It could be an effective self defense maneuver of poking someone in the eye. It could be the infuriating "iron finger" my dad thrusts into my ribs when things get too quiet and he really wants a purple nurple. A poke could be something that one does to ascertain whether or not someone is dead. So when you facebook poke me, are you virtually checking my pulse?
Or those people who don't hold hands, they just interlock pinkies. Really? At EFY when hand holding was scandalous but your undying love required some form of PDA, maybe the interlocking pinkies made sense. You are a university student now.
Or how they decided to tear up all of Provo for construction right when school started and Provo's population skyrocketed.
Or BYU girls who still think leggings are pants.
I don't know. Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought.

stories to tell

A new group of friends that I've acquired has inspired me to acquire a new skill: storytelling. They all have such great stories to tell and do it with flare.
I have had an awesome life, and I feel like I have great stories to share. There was that summer that I was repeatedly asked out by a schizophrenic, once by a married man, and proposed to by a monolingual Mongolian. There was the time I was mistaken for a Slovenian prostitute or the time I accidentally stumbled upon a nude beach with no turning back. There was the time I committed a felony on the way to the temple and was kissed on the cheek by an apostle once I got there. There was the guy in his briefs trying to help get something out of my eye, or the time I choked on the sacrament water (not even the bread, the water), or the time I walked into a drug bust in Brazil or an illegal gun sale in Latvia, or the time I had a gun cocked and pointed at my face, or the time I was threatened with a knife and didn't notice, or the time I was briefly tortured on a carnival ride for the sick pleasure of those watching, or the time an Italian bribed me to do "the nasty" with him on his gondola, or the time I almost ran into a moose on a four wheeler, or that time I was sure the garbage men were going to kidnap me when I was lost at night in down town Sao Paulo, or the time I thought I was going to get arrested in Croatia, or the time I laughed at the movie Charly and was afraid of being attacked with torches and pitchforks, or the time I chased a fainting goat around with my umbrella, or the time I ate a guinea pig (in Provo), or the time I made snow angels on the roof in my wet swim suit in the middle of the night.
Holy cow, I love my life, such great memories. Now I just need to practice the flare. And the sound effects...

just for the record

Dear Provo-ites that crossed my path tonight,
I am sorry about tonight and feel the need to explain myself. I don't like you thinking ill of me, especially when that is based on a false assumption.
True, it is partially my fault. I should have known better. My body never reacts well to running out of doors, but I had so much energy and the stupid gym closes at 9:00 on Saturdays. True, I probably shouldn't have been pushing myself when I was already under the weather. True, I should have seen the signs; I could have prevented this whole thing. I was blind and foolish.
Two miles into it, I was rejoicing at how great I felt, especially at the lack of knee pain, even though I was running on concrete, which is never a good idea for me. I maybe shouldn't have gotten cocky, but it surely didn't last long.
So, as I stumbled the last mile home, zig-zagging slightly from the dizziness and clutching my head in pain, just barely peeking through the cracks between fingers and moaning slightly, it was from a migraine, not because I was drunk. Just for the record.

best. job. ever.

Having slept in dirty hostels or on the floor for the past several months, I have adapted and now find it rather difficult to sleep in real beds. They're just too comfortable, and somehow I can't waste such luxury on unconsciousness so I toss and turn all night. Fortunately the couch in my new apartment gets me to sleep; in fact it might do too good of a job since it renders homework rather difficult. For several nights in a row, I haven't even tried the bed, which has become nothing more than a storage area.
But before I discovered this about my new couch, I had a rough couple of days of exhaustion. Add to that the postnasal drip inherited from my roommate, a couple of headaches from my heavy hair that I was too lazy to straighten, and a literature class worse than death, and I wasn't exactly excited about life. 
Luckily for me, I have the best job in the world, a job that cures headaches better than Tylenol, cheers me up more than ice cream, and gets me more excited about life than really attractive young men. OK, maybe that last part was  little bit of an exaggeration, but I sure do love my job. Invariably, I leave having completely forgotten all my woes.
I love my job so much that I petitioned to make it my calling as well. The gospel teaching chair readily gave me the calling of Sunday School teacher when I asked, saying I was an answer to prayer since he didn't know who to call and was on a deadline. But I was prepared to beg and bribe. And it would have been worth it. I can't wait to teach tomorrow!