So...sometimes there's a big lull in the blogging

I can't believe that we posted 17 times in February, and only 3 times in March! So crazy!

Dave and I are both really busy. We have some major school assignments coming up, plus work, plus our church callings. Yeah, life has been a little busy.

Last week we had a little bit of a spring break. Dave was really on spring break, and I had lots of my classes canceled during that week. We had to use most of our extra time working on things, but it was a nice little break from the regular strain of classes.

And I really can't wait for this semester to be over!! I am starting to get a little stressed by all of the things that I have to do before it's over, but then at least I won't have to think about them anymore!

New Look!

A friend of mine edited the html on her blog so that she could have 3 columns, and I rather liked it! So I did the same thing.

I have often wanted to make my list of things on my side bar shorter so that it wasn't so far to the bottom of the page. Mission accomplished!

If you want to do the same thing, check out this tutorial. It is a little confusing, and if you've never edited html before you might want to ask someone to help you with it. Or just be sure that you save the existing html before you go tweaking your blog.

What I've been up to

Dave has been posting a lot frequently. And I like that!

But, to prevent this blog from becoming "Just Life by Dave" I'm going to start posting again!

Life has been a little busy lately. I'm still working and going to school, which really is enough to fill up almost all of my time. I occasionally do things with my husband! :D

And I've also been spending two hours a week watching this cute little guy!


This is Emily's cute little babe, Joshua. They're in Provo for a few weeks so that Emily can finish up her work for her master's, and I get to spend a couple hours a week with him while Emily works with her clients. Here we are together. Joshua looks like he's looking away from the camera in disgust. But actually, he's just waking up, and trying to resist.


And I actually think that Joshua likes me quite well. I just rocked him to sleep!

Right now I should be doing homework.

But instead, I am looking at past posts on my blog, and thinking about how much I LOVE having a blog!

The other day I attended a conference session that was talking about how blogging can be used by writing teachers. A blog allows students and the teacher to comment on different writing assignments, and gives the students another forum for writing. I think that if I ever teach another writing class, on my own, I might incorporate a class blog into it. I think it would be fun and rewarding.

Having a blog has been a really great experience. I've used it to get to know myself better, write about my frustrations and joys, publish my writing from Two Good Things, and tell jokes. And now I get to share it with Dave. It's just so fun!

It's Finally Happened!

Several of you have alluded to this post (or the lack of it) in your comments. I have been kind of slow to get to this, but I'm really busy right now. And I promised myself at the beginning of my blogging career that I would never feel guilty or apologize for not doing something (blogging) that I was only doing for fun in the first place.

That having been said, I'm REALLY excited for this post! I've been thinking about it for a long time. Let me tell you how long:

In January, I discovered a blog. December and January were big blogging months for me, because I had just graduated from BYU and I was single, and I had a ton of time to read. I read on the 100 Hour Board quite frequently, and I would explore links to other blogs from blogs I already subscribed to. It was a very carefree time.

As I was saying, in January I discovered a specific blog: The Single Mormon Girl's Guide to Life. I thought it was fun. There was commentary on being single, on dealing with relatives and friends who make awkward/tactless comments about you being single, etc. I don't have a problem with being 25 and single, but it was still fun to read. I went back and read all the archived posts. And I found one post that I could really identify with. The author talks about a candy drawer in her family's house, and how everyone would leave the same old things in it, eating them only when they were desperate for sugar. She compared this to dating:

"I want someone new to come into my candy drawer ecosystem, open the drawer and see that banana flavored Laffy Taffy and say to themselves… ‘WOW. These are my FAVORITE! How did this get left in here? What dummy would leave a banana Laffy Taffy in the candy drawer? I’m so glad my favorite candy is in this candy drawer…what a lucky guy I am!’"

It's true! I really wanted someone to truly appreciate me while I was truly appreciating them. I wanted to find a guy (a piece of candy) that was my favorite, and think that I was the luckiest person in the world to get him before he was snatched up by someone else. And I wanted him to feel the same about me.

And it's finally happened! It started out when Dave and I had been dating not very long. I had read the Candy Drawer post, and I was going to write about it on my blog and comment about it. But something funny happened. Dave said to me one time, "You're my favorite!" I was shocked. This was exactly what I wanted someone to say to me! And it continued. We still say that to each other. So I decided to wait to comment on this post until things had progressed more with me and Dave.



Dave and I got engaged on Saturday! We're going to be married on August 15th, 2009, in the Snowflake Arizona Temple! And I can say that we are indeed each other's favorites. I'm so happy!

Guest post from Dave anyone???

Update: Dun, dun, dun!

I know that I haven't been posting very much. This month has been the normal blah. Work. Laundry. Cleaning.

It's also been an abnormal blah. I'm starting to pack, since I'm moving in a couple of weeks. I'm going to be moving in with my cousin Rachel. And I'm going to be living in a house! I've never lived in a house in Provo, and I think it will be fun. Another thing that will be wonderful is that I'll have my own room! I've always had a shared room in my apartments in Provo, except when I lived on the foldout couch in the living room! (That was last semester when I lived with Lorie.) So, now I'll have my own room, and I'm really looking forward to it.

This month has also been wonderful! I've spent a lot of time with Dave. Conference weekend was wonderful. We spent part of it with Dave's family, and part of it with my extended family that live in Utah or were visiting for the weekend. I thought the talks were wonderful! I love the feelings that I have while listening to spiritually uplifting messages. We also spent some time with my cousins this last Easter Sunday, and then went over to Dave's family's house. Two Easter dinners in one day? That's what I call beautiful!

I've also been talking to my adviser in the TESOL Certificate Program and preparing for classes. I'm excited to get started on that in a few months!

Happy (late) St. Patty's Day!

Wow, I haven't blogged in a long time! Don't worry, I have a lot to blog about, and I'll do it in several posts over the next few days. But first things first...

My family emergency.
My mom had a heart attack on March 1st. It was very scary. I went down to Arizona for a week to be with her and the rest of my family. She is recovering well now, and I attribute that to the many prayers that I know so many of you said on her behalf. Thank you for your faith. Please continue to pray for her, if you are so inclined. She is still regaining energy, and she is in need of comfort and peace as she gets used to the short-term limitations she has on her body during the recovery process.

I've been back in Provo since March 8th, but I've been working like crazy to make up hours missed and to be able to come down to Arizona again this week. I'm in Arizona now, visiting my parents and doing some work for my office, and it's so good to see Dad and Mom again! She's really made a lot of progress in the last three weeks, and it makes me so happy to see that faith can aid in the working of miracles in our lives!

And Happy (late) St. Patty's Day!

Bring on 25!

Here's the link to the new blog that I'm going to be writing for, Mormon Doctrines and Beliefs. There are a couple of posts up already, so feel free to check them out. Also, if you want to join in writing an article a week (a half an hour an article), let me know and I'll give you the information you need to get set up. I'm really excited to get started on it.

In other news...I'm going to be 25 on Wednesday! Yay! I'm really excited to celebrate. It's been a good year this last year. I've done some things that I haven't wanted to do, and a lot of things that I have wanted to do. I've also been through some up and down points, and made some really good changes and decisions because of those ups and downs. And I wouldn't give up everything that's happened this last year just so I could say that I'm 24 still. So bring on 25!

New Blog

I was invited by my friend Christin to participate in a blog that is being started this week. It's a blog for LDS people to post some things about our beliefs. The instigator, Nate Nead, found that there was a lot of information out there about Mormon beliefs that is false. He also found that it was hard to find accurate information about our religion, and that it came from only a few places. So he has decided to start a blog that we can update with information once a week (and with several blog writers, it will be updated several times a week) in the hopes that it becomes a useful source of valid information to those that want it. The site is called Mormon Doctrines and Beliefs, and is not up and running yet. But as soon as we get started and have everything set up, I'll post a link here so you can get there.

I like being a nerd

This is so funny. In my field methods linguistics class we've been talking about the semantics and pragmatics of the phrase "oh snap." We've taught our teacher (40s-ish, Dr. Elzinga) how to use it, and he's pretty obsessed with it. I just found it used in a Gmail blog post and I can't wait to share it with my classmates! I think that some of them will disagree with the way that it's been used, but I think that it fits. Hilarious! And nerdy. I have realized that my classes--my entire university career--has changed the way that I look at the world, especially in a linguistic way.

Another example of this: I have been dealing with stats and stuff for my senior paper for the Linguistics senior seminar class (Ling 490). The research has been interesting, but I'll be happy when the paper is done and turned in. Anyway, I have also been entering my name in a daily drawing on BYU campus. They have two places on campus where you can enter yourself daily, and then the next day they publish in the paper the 10 winners that were drawn the previous night. As I was putting my name in today, I wondered about the statistical probability that an even number of the 10 people drawn each day came from both of the two locations where you can enter the drawing. I wanted to know how many people who had won already were people who were submitting their entries at the same location that I was...you see the reason for my interest, right? But I went so far as to ask the guys manning the booth if they knew if the program was keeping track of the locations that the winners submitted to, for statistical purposes. They said it wasn't being tracked. But I'm going to contact the Daily Universe and suggest that for next year. It will make the drawing more scientific if they can prove that your name has just as much chance being drawn from one location as the other (they're all put into one big bin for the drawing, but does one location have an advantage?). Yeah, I'm a nerd.

I'm thankful for my computer and the internet.

But it is TAKING OVER MY LIFE! Last night I spent way too much time reading blogs. Who's?, you might ask, since I unsubscribed to so many blogs? Well, I spent most of that time reading a complete stranger's blog that I found through a link on another blog. Which was this other blog? An almost complete stranger's that I found through a link on another blog that I actually subscribe to. I'm not going to admit how late I stayed up. So, I think that I'm going to come up with a rule for myself that I'm not allowed to use my computer at home unless it is for school work, church, finances, or some other responsible activity. All blog reading must take place on campus, so that I am restricted to the lateness of the hours that I dedicate to blogging. It's sad that I have to do this, but necessary for the time being. I need to focus on classes and schoolwork, just until the end of the semester. This is my last semester of classes for awhile, and then I'll be pretty free after December. I just have to be strict until then.

On a more serious note, I'm thankful for when things don't turn out like you thought they would or wanted. Sometimes this is disappointing. Sometimes this is painful. But I am thankful for any experience that forces me to shut down my "take charge" attitude and pay attention to the things that I don't have control over...and to examine more closely the things that I DO have control over. A little more self examination never hurt anyone.

HELP!!!

I've realized that my life has become a little wrapped around the blogs I read. You wouldn't think so, with how infrequently I post on my blog, but that's because all of the time that I spend in the blogging world is spent reading and not writing! And when I do post, it's usually a tag, or posting my writing from Two Good Things. Things have GOT to change!

I want to consider this blog as my journal that I don't mind people reading...and pretty much my only journal right now. I haven't written in my journal since August. So that means that I need to start including my feelings and thoughts about events in my life, or I'm really going to start feeling like this blog is pointless.

So, first on the menu: cutting down on the blogs I read. That's the only answer. And I'm afraid that it's going to have to come from those blogs that I blog stalk first, which are kind of my "candy" blogs. I really like reading Seriously, So Blessed, and It's Complicated, but if I have to give up one of them it's going to be It's Complicated. It's an interesting blog about a divorcee's return to single life, but she's a complete stranger, and it's not as interesting as Seriously, So Blessed. I can easily give up The Sartorialist, but that's one that takes very little time to read (It's mostly just artsy photographs). I have decided that I won't give up Three Beautiful Things because it also takes very little time to read, and it brightens my day. And the rest of the random blogs I follow post so infrequently that it doesn't seem worth it to unsubscribe from them to save time.

So, then it comes down to choosing between my friends' and families' blogs. You guys are so good! You post things all the time, and they're interesting things! I don't want to have to cut anyone out! (And when I say "cut someone out" I mean unsubscribing to their blog on Google Reader. I'll still have the links to all the blogs on my blog so that I can visit whenever I want. And I could even resubscribe once this semester is over, probably. I'm just too busy right now!) What this all basically comes down to is this: I might not be reading your blog. And even if I am reading your blog, I probably will not be doing much commenting or responding to tags. You may think this is lame, but I have to do a revamp of my blog to survive (Hence the new look!).

Hmmmm...Yeah, it feels good to have decided that.