Someday I want one of these too...

How could I not? I love that my dad's pick-up truck is a hiccup-truck, her freckles are pickles, and in her mind, "Aunt Esperanza my daughter", looks like a princess. There is something so sweet about little girls; I want one just like my cute little niece!

It was really fun to see my sister and her kids last week at home in Washington. They are so cute! My sister is such a good mom and I want little kids just like her's. I love the little nephews too; I just especially enjoyed my niece copy-catting everything I did and telling my I was a princess.

The Gift of Time

"Heavenly Father provided me the gifts of life and time, but I was to choose how to use them." - Kristen M. Oaks

I love this quote from Elder Oaks's new wife Kristen. I believe this way about life, I believe this way about my continued single status, and I believe this about all of our lives. I'm not really into self-help books but lately I've decided to try it out. I just finished reading The Late Bloomer's Revolution and A Single Voice, both similar, one from outside of the church, one from within. The message was essentially the same: Go make your life; stop waiting for it to happen!

Sister Oaks says really this applies to both single and married people. She says, "Looking at sisters around me, those who were happy and fulfullied, I began to notice that their happiness had nothing to do with their marital status...Whether happy or not depends to some degree upon outward circumstances, but mostly it depends on how you choose to look at things yourself, whether you measure what you have or have not." (11)

Amy Cohen says it's never too late to begin, never too late to become what you have always wanted to be, and Sister Oaks says it is up to us to make our lives meaningful. I believe that. I'm grateful for all of the amazing examples I have around me (this means you) whether married or single of living a happy life. I have my ups and downs; don't we all. But I have been trying to make a concerted effort to "make happy memories" as Sister Oaks says, even as a single person. You have each been a part of those happy memories - thanks for your friendship.

Recent happy memories:

Hiking around Brighton Ski Resort, Silver Lake and Twin Lakes


Observation Point, 8-mile round trip hike to the top of Zion National Park


The Utah Shakespearean Festival

Eclipse; best one so far...

Best Twilight movie so far--don't you think? Edward wasn't as white and scary looking and wears less lipstick; the acting is getting way better; too bad they can't go back and re-do the first ones. And I'm still on Team Jacob and always will be.

I just have to say though, the scene where Bella and Edward decide to save sexual intimacy for marriage kind of made me giggle. It was just kind of awkward, but way to be Stephanie Meyer, for keeping it clean!

Facing the Judge

A few months ago a friend of mine tried to convince me to channel my strong emotions into writing music. Not only would I drain my emotions of their intensity, but I would have a great song at the end too. That would be great if I wasn’t the only English teacher on the planet with absolutely no ability to write creatively: not songs, not stories, not poems. I did however feel some strong emotions later that week as I ended a non-relationship with a boy I liked. How did I feel? Could I write what I felt into a song, or at least a poem? I tried.

I won’t share the poem with you; it’s crap. I can’t write poems because I get struck on an idea and then my mind seethes on that idea and I completely lose any logical train of thought that could be written into prose. I am more likely to write an essay about an idea and everything every philosopher has had to say about that idea than a cohesive train of thought, poetically expressed in verse.

Here is the idea I got stuck on. I feel like I am on trial. Every time I go on a date with someone new, or someone old who can’t commit to me I feel like I am on trial. Will the judge deem me worthy of another date, or even heaven forbid, a relationship with that person? Am I cute enough, but not too cute, smart enough, but not too smart, thin enough, but not—(oh wait, that doesn’t apply to me!); am I too old, too young, ambitious enough, righteous enough, not so righteous I won’t be any fun; experienced enough but not enough to make me seem worldly or frivolous. Am I too fashionable so I look spendy? Am I not fashionable enough so I look dowdy? If I wear something a tiny bit low-cut am I immodest, if I don’t am I a prude? Is there the proper amount of attraction, or is there so much I make him scared; or worse--not enough, and as a man, he knows his attraction to me cannot grow.

If, if, if, if, if. When it doesn’t work out us single people get stuck on if. What if I would have given it more time, what if I hadn’t suggested we see each other more regularly, what if I hadn’t gone out with a different guy that weekend? Should I have said yes to another date? What if my attraction to him really could have grown? How important is attraction really anyway, right? What if I just give him one more chance? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned I hated his favorite t.v. show? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned I’m not a very good cook. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him I liked him, a lot.

And then the if’s you can’t change. If I was shorter, if I was thinner, if I was younger, if I was more fun, if I was cuter, if I liked sports, if I had the right hair color, if I, if, if I, if I, if only I….

And that is what it feels like to be dating, like you are someone no one has of yet deemed worthy of choosing. And sometimes you are your own jury and 12 little versions of yourself are up there telling you why you are not being chosen, why you are still in court, up on trial in front of a man who for some reason you have convinced yourself has command over some area of your fate.

And that’s just it. You have to go through the process of freeing yourself from the ifs and from thinking your life has value if, and only if, you are in relationship. In Sister Oak’s book A Single Voice she said, “I remember feeling many times that I was just marking time, waiting for my life to happen.” You have got to make your life, not wait for it to happen. You have to learn to be happy with yourself, as yourself. It’s a process, it’s a journey, and one I won’t give up on. I dust myself off when something doesn’t work out, and obviously by now I’ve had a lot that hasn’t worked out! I try to self-improve, to make myself happy and interesting, and try not to worry too much about the what if’s.

And I would just like to say Ha, my mom said if I went on study abroad (when I was 20) I might miss dating opportunities that could lead to marriage (no offense to my mom whom I love love love) that didn’t change the course of my fate, I’m still single.

Or did it? Am I still single because the man I was supposed to marry found someone else while I was traipsing around London? Jk, I Love you mom!