Sorry friends

I just checked my blogs for the first time in a long time. Realization: I really haven't been very accessible lately. With school, church, work, and being a wife I've been incredibly busy. And when I'm not busy I just want to sit at home and relax. So I rarely see my old friends.

And for that, I apologize. I haven't forgotten you. I still think about you. And I'm sorry I'm lame.

I'm so cool you guys

This is my handbell choir. Yeah. We're awesome. You can see me in this video a few times. Every time it shows the big aluminum bells I'm cut out though. All you can see is my arms and sometimes my boobs since the rest of my body got cut off.

What

I'm sitting on my couch watching That 70's Show and doing pretty much nothing. There are dishes in the sink and crumbs on the floor. Our bed is un-made and Jacob's new school books have taken over the coffee table. I had plans to go through all of my clothes or to sort through our storage closet. Not anymore. I'm even too lazy to get up and get my camera memory card so I can put up pictures on Facebook.

Lame.

So I'm just sitting here being lazy. *Sigh*

I can't even remember why I decided to write a blog...

Um...

Bye.

sitting around

Haven't blogged in a while and I'm not really doing anything right now so I thought I'd ramble for a bit.

Our snail had a baby. It's less than a centimeter long though so we've only seen it twice. I hope our frogs don't eat it.

Also I have a twitter account now, which is sort of cool except I only know like four people on it.

I'm chatting with a random friend on Facebook right now. I haven't talked to her in years, but we were never super close so I'm sort of apathetic to the conversation. Is that mean? She's nice, but I think I'm just too lazy right now to really care about much.

We're going to California this weekend for my little brother's mission farewell. He's going to Uruguay, which is crazy. My Aunt Migraine, who is a nurse practitioner, thinks he won't last a year because he's so skinny. Her bet is that he'll get sick and be malnourished or something. Who knows. He's excited though. He heard they eat a lot of steak down there, which sounds pretty good to me. I'm sure he'll love it.

The weekend after we go to CA we're leaving for Texas to visit Jacob's family for a week. I'm pretty excited to go to the Dallas Zoo and Six Flags, but I'm not too excited for the 25 hour drive there and back. Hopefully our friends ZombieLover and GirlWhoHatesPeopleWhoSayTheMovieWasDifferentFromTheBook (GWHPWSTMWDFTB), who are going with us, don't get too sick of us during the long car rides. We're driving straight through.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go read my book now. If anyone actually reads this blog, I cherish your devotion and hope you are well. :)

Random

1. On the right side of my Facebook page the same ad always appears: Utah Breast Augmentation.

2. I had a dream the other night that a fish in a spider web turned into a large lizard which continually scratched at our door. When it got angry it turned into a pink monkey. I think at one point I punted it across the street but it just came back.

3. I played Nazi Zombies (on Call of Duty) for my first time last night, and I got to round 6. Jacob's friends were impressed. I'm not sure why I was good at that when I suck so bad at Halo...

4. Dan Brown has great stories, but he's a terrible writer.

5. Jacob's eyelashes are singed from barbeque-ing yesterday. They're all discolored on the edges.

Birthday List...sort of

This is a brainstorm of possible items I would like for my birthday, mostly because I have nothing to do and Jacob asked what I want. Oh and I'm on Jacob's laptop and the enter key doesn't work. My apologies.

1. A new cell phone (probably going to be too expensive)
   2. Guitar Hero World Tour
   3. A Harry Potter T-shirt (a cool one, not one with Daniel Radcliff's face plastered across the front)
   4. Money to shop for new clothes
   5. Guitar lessons
   6. Books--Maybe some of the Harry Potter books, or some Roald Dahl books, or the new Perseus Jackson books, or the Kite Runner or something that's supposed to be really good
   7. Movies--Another Seinfeld season, The Emperor's New Groove, Surf's Up, The Sword and the Stone, pretty much any Disney movie (ooo I love Beauty and the Beast)...

   Meh I don't know what else. If I think of anything else maybe I'll redo this post on a different computer.
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Magical Aquarium

I don't know if anyone will even bother to read this--it's been so long since I last posted--but I finally had a spare moment and felt like blogging.

Jacob and I got a 36 gallon aquarium a few months ago (he begged and I caved). We have a tree, some plants, and a little skull that has bubbles coming out of the mouth. Oh yeah and we have some cute freshwater fish.

Our five rasboras are named Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna. We have two frogs named George and Paul (coming soon: Ringo and John). We have a snail which I think is named MoleButt but I'm not sure. We used to have a guppy named Little Jerry Seinfeld (has anybody seen the cockfight episode?) but he died a few days ago, rest his soul. And we have some other random fish that are nameless. They just look cool.

But that's not why our fish tank is magical. About a week ago, Jacob bought a blue snail to replace Vanilla Bear (our white snail that got sucked up the filter). The snail seemed all right the first day, but after that we never saw him again. He just disappeared. On Sunday, Jacob cleaned the entire tank and even took out all of the plants and looked under the hood but the snail was nowhere to be found.

That evening, while staring at the fish tank like he so often does, Jacob exclaimed that there was a tiny black fish swimming next to the tree. I took a look and sure enough there was some mystery fish in our tank.

Possible explanations?
1. Some of our fish bred but only produced one egg that we apparently didn't notice.
2. Our blue snail turned into the tiny black fish.

Personally I'm inclined to go with the more magical theory. It just seems more likely.

A Savior is Born

This year I had the opportunity to sing with the BYU choirs at the Celebration of Christmas concert, and we sang a piece that really moved me. It really captured what Christmas is about and what Christ's birth actually means for us today. I've posted a recording of last year's performance of the piece to this blog, but it's a little hard to understand the words in some places. Open the link in a new tab or window so you can follow along with the words:

Carol Of Joy

"Green leaves all fallen, withered and dry;
Brief sunset fading, dim winter sky.
Lengthening shadows,
Dark closing in...

Then, through the stillness, carols begin!

Oh fallen world, to you is the song--
Death holds you fast and night tarries long.

Jesus is born, your curse to destroy!
Sweet to your ears, a carol of Joy!

Pale moon ascending, solemn and slow;
Cold barren hillside, shrouded in snow;
Deep, empty valley veiled by the night;
Hear angel music--hopeful and bright!

Oh fearful world, to you is the song--
Peace with your God, and pardon for wrong!
Tidings for sinners, burdened and bound--

A carol of joy!

A Saviour is found!

Earth wrapped in sorrow, lift up your eyes!
Thrill to the chorus filling the skies!
Look up sad hearted--witness God's love!
Join in the carol swelling above!

Oh friendless world, to you is the song!
All Heaven's joy to you may belong!
You who are lonely, laden, forlorn--
Oh fallen world!
Oh friendless world!

To you,

A Saviour is born!"

I hope that amidst the sorrow and pain of the world we can remember our Savior and the peace he brings, and I wish you all a very merry Christmas. :)

Random Thoughts

I'm supposed to be working on our lesson for church tomorrow (Jacob and I teach the Sunbeams in our ward), but I thought I'd post a quick blog first. You know, just random things I'm thinking about.

I think there are people out there who read blogs and make comments just because they want to criticize. I just deleted a comment from my "Friends" post because Anonymous (another hilarity--I mean if you're going to criticize me, at least tell me who you are) was upset that I was being hurtful and that I shouldn't judge my friends. If you knew or understood me, you would know I was just venting frustration.

Other thoughts. My neck has a crick in it. Probably my least favorite type of injury. I've actually posted on the topic before.

I just figured out how to put hyperlinks into my blog text (something I've always wondered how to do but never wanted to ask anyone because I would feel stupid). Unfortunately I can't find the post on neck-injuries that I wanted to link.

Jacob's coming to pick me up right now. And I didn't do any of the lesson. Blast.

Logic

There are two main reasons I hate debating politics:

1) Contention. Arguing, even respectfully debating, always leaves me in a bad mood. No one is going to change his/her mind, no one is going to prove anything, and everyone is going to end up with higher blood pressure in the end. And when both sides are very passionate, feelings can be hurt and friends can be lost. Basically, debates are an effective way to get real flustered real quick.

2) Logic. When it comes to the big, belief-testing political issues, logic is rarely on my side. Obviously that makes me look like a self-righteous bigot or whatever they're calling us these days. I know it does. I know that most people don't understand personal revelation, or a firm believe in supporting Church leaders. I know most people think it's "blind faith" when I believe without knowing all of the reasons why.

Personal conviction and faith are very real to me, and I believe the combination of the two to be a lot firmer an argument than human logic. To me, logic has little to do with faith, except to add to an already present validity. All I know is I have a testimony of the Gospel. I have a testimony that marriage is an eternal principle not to be taken lightly. I have a testimony that the leaders of the Church receive and act upon revelation. And I know that the Gospel has always brought me peace and has never brought me sorrow.

Sometimes I don't have a plethora of logical reasons for my beliefs. That's because it's not about logic for me. I think human logic is too limited to trust in. I put my faith and trust in the Lord.

That's why I hate politics.