blustery day quick fix

Yesterday was bit of a "blustery day"

I actually don't mind blustery days....but I have some conditions.

I like to have a fireplace nearby,

a good book to keep me occupied,

some cuddly clothes,

and a handsome fiance to cuddle with.

Yesterday, however, I had none of these things. My apartment is missing a fireplace, I have only textbooks to read, all my cozy clothes are still packed up at home, and my handsome fiance is approximately 300 miles away.

sigh...

Since none of these things were working out, I decided, during my freezy walk home from campus, that I could maybe add one more condition. this new condition is......

have something to munch on that warms you down to your toes.

So after a quick trip to the grocery store, I rolled up my sleeves, tied my apron, and got to cookin.

I found a recipe online (yes-that did make me a little nervous) for chicken tortilla soup.

With a lot of help from J.J. (my roommates boyfriend) we whipped up a delicious, warming, good smelling dinner for all us girls (and J.J. of course)

Holy cow, it really was SO good! And perfect for the blustery weather outside.

oh and p.s. yes, my hands are still smelly smelly from the garlic/onion cutting.

But the end was totally worth the means.

on growing up

I have been thinking a lot lately lately about "growing up" and what that actually means. I know that the reason I was supposed to come here to BYU was to help me in this growing up process. I had such a hard time deciding between here and BYU-I. When I think about it now, I don't regret my decision at all. Coming here was kind of my own little adventure that I really desperately needed.

When I decided to come here, I knew my roommate (kind of) and that's it. Really. I didn't have any family anywhere close, or really any good friends/acquaintances that I could count on. Through this experience I really learned to rely on myself and discovered that I'm a lot more capable than I had ever before thought I was.

I had to be responsible for myself. If I had a homework assignment due or a test coming up, my mom wasn't there nagging at me about it. 

If I wanted to eat dinner, I made it myself.

If my clothes were dirty, I did my own laundry.

Those are only the obvious things that come with living on your own.

I also learned that I don't have to have a buddy with me all the time-that I can do things by myself.

That was a hard thing to get used to.

I'm used to being surrounded by friends and people I know that I can call on to accompany me. However, being in the midst of about thirty thousand people, a very small fraction of which I know the names of, was a little intimidating. I walked by myself all around campus, I sat by myself during class, I attended a play by myself, and even got used to eating lunch by myself. I made some friends along the way, but most of the time it was just

me,

myself,

and I.

But now I have come to not mind being by myself. It's actually kinda nice to just do my own thing and get done what I need to.

And to tell ya the truth,

I kinda like it.

Another sign of my growing up is that I've been able to make phone calls and talk to professional people. This has always been real scary for me, but I've had to practice this a lot lately (especially with planning a wedding!) and it really doesn't bother me anymore. I have learned how to express myself clearly, and even though I still practice what I'm going to say before I make the call, I no longer stress about having to call this person, or talk to this person and it really doesn't bother me anymore.  

Along with that, another thing I have learned about growing up is not being intimidated by people. I have always been really bad at this, and it drives me crazy! However, as I've grown up, I've realized that I can appreciate other's strengths and not only see my own weaknesses in the shadows of their strengths.

For instance, the other day I ran into a friend that I have always been intimidated by. She is gorgeous girl, and is nice to boot! But for some reason, after every other encounter I've had with her, I walk away feeling like I can never in a million years measure up to her. And it's maybe caused me to resent her a little bit.

However, the other day when I ran into her we had a lovely conversation and I was able to walk away thinking about how nice she was and how happy I was to have seen her.

This was such a huge step for me, and the significance was not lost on me.

 So even though these may seem like minor examples, I guess the main idea of this very random post is that as I have grown up and been able to live on my own I have learned to accept myself just the way I am. I still make silly mistakes, and there's always room for improvement, but I really believe that I am doing okay.

I may not be perfect, but I'm working on it.

And I'm totally okay with that.



the scoop.

I have always been a bit of a romantic at heart. Maybe even more than a “bit”. You can always find me on a free night watching any of my collection of sappy, cutesy chick flicks.

Being the expert in all things chick flick-ish, I had often thought of my own “engagement story.” How would it happen? Would I be surprised? Would I cry? All of these questions were answered this past weekend. And my own “engagement story” went a little bit like this:

I was completely expecting it to happen this weekend. (so much for the element of surprise) We had talked dates, even discussed little details, but hadn’t really started “officially” planning anything yet. And I was NOT going to start planning anything until I had a ring on my finger! So when I arrived home on Friday night and Kolton suggested we do something fun the next day, like go for a four-wheeler ride, the little wheels in my head started turning. I was SO on to him.

So on Saturday afternoon, Kolton showed up to my house with a fourwheeler in the back of his truck and informed me that we were going up to Meadow Lake. (i.e. my FAVORITE place in the world, as I have informed him many, many times.) so we hopped into the pickup and went on our way.

As we were driving we noticed some ominous, dark rainclouds completely obscuring the mountains that we were headed towards. But we decided to press on and see if we could possibly miss the rain. Kolton mentioned that he didn’t even care where we went but we HAD to go on a fourwheeler ride. Once again, I just smiled a little secret smile to myself. I was SO onto him.

We finally made it up to the lake and immediately headed on a hike. I really love hikes, and this one was so beautiful. We came to a little bridge over a creek and I announced to kolton-semi-subtly- that I LOVED this place, and it could possibly be my favorite place in the world. He just nodded his head and kept walking.

Then we reached a little “mini-lake” (that’s how I refer to it anyway) we hopscotched on some rocks til we finally got to a big one that was out in the water. Once again, I mentioned to Kolton that I LOVED this place, and even glanced over my shoulder hoping to see him on one knee.

But no.

 Once again he just moved on without saying much of anything. Disappointed, I followed after him. We hiked for a bit longer, til we were both out of breath and then the weather started turning pretty nasty so we made our way down the mountain. We made it back to the pickup right as it started to rain. Now what? We kinda looked at each other knowing that the four-wheeler idea was out of the question and began to drive home.

As we were headed down the mountain we saw a little side road that I was positive was just for fourwheelers. Turns out, it was just a fourwheeler trail that was a bit larger and could possibly fit a pickup. If you were real careful. (kolton will disagree with that, but this is my story.) anyway…so as we're headed up this tiny trail with me to afraid to breathe too heavily for fear that we will tumble right down that mountainside, the trail suddenly opens up. We pull off to the side of the road and we can see the ENTIRE valley. (except for of course, the part the rainclouds are hiding) so we’re looking out at this amazing view just chatting about everything.

Pretty soon (after about an hour of me wondering what the heck we are still doing up here) Kolton gets all serious, turns to me and says, “Jayci, I have a sad story to tell you.” I look at him with a confused look on my face, and he starts into this big story about how he has been SEARCHING for a ring and can’t find anything. He mentions all the jewelers that we’ve gone to and how none of them have anything that he liked and how he’s been so busy at school and hasn’t had time to really seriously get looking and now he just doesn’t know what to do, but we probably need to start planning everything soon, so we’ll go ring shopping again another day. At the end of his spiel he finally says, “So…will you marry me?” I of course said “Yes” kind of confusedly. This was all wrong! What happened to the one knee, ring thing?!  So as we sit in silence for a second he says “Oh! I forgot to give ya something!” and pulls out of his pocket a long piece of  braided string with a bead on it.

a bead.

He said something like "this will have to do until we can find a ring." So he hands it over to me and I just kind of twirl it in my fingers just waiting and waiting for him to say “Just kidding!” and make this all better. Instead he says, “Hey, let’s put it on!” takes my hand and ties the string in a knot around my finger. Then he pulls his pocketknife out of his pocket (go figure) and cuts off the excess string.

I look at my hand and just want to cry. This was so NOT how I had always pictured it. I wasn’t really mad necessarily, just extremely, extremely disappointed. And there was no way we were going to tell people we were engaged. Not with a string on my finger. Now I know that this makes me sound like a little brat, but I just had my mind so set on what exactly I thought was going to happen and it just wasn’t happening. It took every ounce of self control to just shut my mouth and not say all the things I wanted to.

Such as:

Kolton! What are you thinking!

Are you kidding me!

You are NOT serious!

And…why didn’t we go ring shopping today! (actually…..i did say that one. But it was said in a nice tone)

No sir, instead I just shut my mouth before I said something I would regret later. Not knowing exactly how to handle my silence after I had been so bubbly and happy and hopeful ten minutes before, Kolton suggested that we just go on home.

So we did.

And I don’t think we said hardly two words the whole drive home.

I was trying to come to terms with my disappointment, telling myself I was just being stupid. A ring is just a dumb materialistic thing (that I really want) and what really matters is Kolton and getting married, and not silly things like beautiful, sparkly things that go on your finger. At the same time, I was also coming to terms that we were not going to be getting married in December like we had planned. Because really-there was no way I was going to start planning a wedding without a ring. i don’t know why, but that just did NOT sound appealing.

Just for the record…I did have a teensy little hope that maybe he was just kidding and had something else planned. It was very slim, and I didn’t dare think about it too much because if I was wrong then I would REALLY be crushed. So instead I was planning a cry session for when I got home.

Soon we turn on to the county line road and are headed towards his house when his dad calls. Kolton acted funny about the phone call so I started wondering if maybe a little something more was going on. We pulled up to his shop and unloaded the fourwheeler that hadn’t even been used. He was being very slow about everything and I was freezing so I was trying to hurry him up. Finally we got back into the pickup and pulled into his driveway. All the lights in the house were off , which was a little bit weird I thought. We walked into the house, took off our shoes, and he still didn’t turn the lights on.

And then I saw it.

Coming from the kitchen was a soft little glow that could only be from candles. He led me into the kitchen and sure enough, there was a beautiful little dinner all set up, complete with candlelight and that fancy fake champagne stuff. “Are you kidding me!” I asked him. We walked over to the table and I noticed that there was a fancy little box all wrapped up with a beautiful bow on top. I was instantly about ten billion times happier until he said

 “I knew you’d be disappointed, so I got you a present”

 My heart fell (again) and I just knew  that it was a necklace. (don’t ask me why) of course, he went to a jewelry store, couldn’t find a ring, and instead bought a necklace. It just makes sense, and the box was rectangular to boot.

So Kolton dished up our dinner and I just stared at this teasing little box by my plate. He brought our food and said I could probably open the box after we were finished eating. By this point I had been on such an up and down emotional ride that I just ate my food. Kolton scarfed his down and then watched me finish up my food. I was so shaky and all jumbled up that it was all I could do to put each forkful into my mouth. But somehow, I finally finished and Kolton calmly said

“Okay, I guess you can open it now” and hands the pretty little box to me.

Under the wrapping was a little white box. In that box was a little ring box. As soon as I saw that I’m sure I just got a big ole grin on my face.

And of course, when I opened up the little ring box, there was a

beautiful,

sparkling,

DIAMOND ring looking back at me.

FINALLY Kolton stood me up, got down on one knee, and gave me a REAL proposal. I again said YES (it was a little less confused this time) and we did the whole celebrating, putting the ring on, maybe kissing a little, thing.

and that's about all I've got. It's a doozy isn't it?

And now I just got this big ole ring on my finger, a handsome fiancé, and a date at the Idaho Falls temple.

December 21.

 Be there.

i played a mean trick.

On my poor missionary cousin about seven months ago.

I did. It's true.

When my cousin was on his mission, every single letter he wrote me ended with the phrase, "...And you can't get married till I get back, don't forget our little promise!"

After about a million of these reminders from him, I got to thinking I could really take advantage of this situation.

So last spring, my family went to visit my grandparents in St. George over Easter/Conference weekend. My family invited Kolton along (and I maybe wanted him to come too) so he drove himself down to Provo and since I had classes and had to go a day later than my family, he stayed the night and we drove down the next afternoon. We had a lovely time all weekend chillin with the family and such, but one night we decided we oughta get outta the house and go for a drive, so we decided to drive down to the St. George temple to have a little look-see.

When we finally made it to the temple, we just sat outside the gates in my car and chatted and had a lovely time before we drove home.

In my weekly letter to my cousin, however, the night was explained a little differently.

I thought it would be really funny if I wrote to him and told him that I was engaged. I only thought this because he had been such a freak about it and was so concerned about me getting married before he was home.

Instead of us just driving to the temple and staying in the car, he got the story that we had walked around the temple grounds and found a little bench where Kolton had gotten down on one knee and proposed. In the letter I explained that we didn't have a ring yet, but that we were super excited and all was well. At the end of the e-mail I wrote in fine print. "Austin, this is just a belated April fool's day joke. Don't freak out because I am just kidding!!"

However, that dear cousin of mine did not read the fine print. In his next e-mail that he sent to the whole family he talked about how I was getting married and that everyone probably knew already. His whole tone of his letter was just so sad and depressed and I felt so bad when I was reading it! Just a few minutes after he sent the first e-mail, he must have read through mine again because he sent out another one saying that I was just kidding and not really getting married.

Oh it was so embarrassing!! I had just been messing around and he had taken everything so seriously and was so sad. I felt awful!

So the next e-mail I sent him, I told him he was a freak and that I was just teasing him because he had been so worried about something that probably wasn't ever even going to happen.

Well.....this weekend when I had to call him (my now returned-missionary cousin) and tell him an important, kinda big, new development in my life, I was reminded of  this funny/mean little trick I played on him.

and I felt a little bad being so anti-climatic.

However, this weekend ended just a little differently

 Story to come.

things i love today.

-When they play the "Star Spangled Banner" over the intercom all across campus at exactly 5:27pm. Even though I was running late to class I just had to stop, put my hand over my heart, and enjoy it. Watching [almost] everyone else stop during their busy hustling to make it to class was neat. All of the sidewalks stopped for a minute while everyone did their patriotic thing. The only thing that could have made this better is if we ended this moment with all of us reciting The Pledge of Allegiance in unison. I miss that!

-The acorn that fell from the sky and just about conked me in the head. "The sky is falling!" as I barely dodged the unidentified flying object, I had a moment of panic. But then as it hit the ground I realized it was an acorn and started giggling to myself.

And lastly...

-The feeling that I had leaving my New Testament class. (L.O.V.E. that class) We had taken the last few minutes of class to quietly listen to "Come Thou Fount" sung by the BYU choir. It was so beautiful and I just had the most peaceful feeling leaving class. I had big plans to study flashcards on the way home but I just couldn't do it. I just enjoyed the walk home. The beautiful sunshine, the fall smells, crunching through the leaves, and thought about what we'd learned that day. It was such a wonderful feeling.

thoughts

-Note to self:

Never

ever

ever

never

never

ever

never

 Ever again wear those boots you love up to campus. Your tootsies will not be very happy with you and will require some ice and pampering once you finally do limp home.

-It rained today/has been raining all week. I love it. I don't, however, think the marching band practicing next door at the football stadium appreciates it very much. Poor marching band.

-And finally, this is the lovely sight the greets me each day as I walk to school. This isn't the greatest picture but in case you couldn't tell, those are beautiful rosebushes. With technicolor roses, red, yellow, pink, you name it. It sure brightens my day. 

And that's all I've got to say about that.