Boredom Takes Over

Stole this from my friends at BYU. What interesting questions!

5 Random blurbs of my personal philosophy:

1. Everything is beautiful
2. Everything will fall into place
3. Music is all around us.
4. God will not leave you.
5. Learn real love, and then you will create peace in the world.


5 Questions circulating in my head right now:

1. How do I make myself motivated to get good grades?
2. What happens when Mike leaves?
3. How do I fix the relationships I have messed up recently...
4. Why am I not considering the lilies? 
5. Am I being unreasonably mean to myself lately?

5 lines that are currently stuck in my head:

1. Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free...
2. It all will fall, fall right into place.
3. I'm happy just because, I found out I am really no one.
4. Oh blessed am I, that I may sing thy devotion. Oh blessed am I, that I may sing. Oh blessed am I.
5. I believe in a free Narnia.


5 things that bother you:

1. Ingenuine smiles.
2. Plaque.
3. Bad parenting.
4. Apethy in friendships.
5. Knee caps.


5 things that I think about when I'm told to go to my happy place:

1. Sleep
2. Comfortable sofas
3. Looking at the stars
4. Cafe Mekka
5. Nicaragua


5 things I want people to know about myself

1. I don't care about myself, but if you hurt one of my friends I will stick it to the man.
2. I am constantly working on improving myself, whether it be physically, spiritually, or emotionally.
3. My life seems to be going to fast. 
4. I am overwhelmed by beauty. I cry often just because I am so captivated by God's imagination
5. What I want most in life is to be a wife, a mother, and a Christian. 

Christmas Travels

All is dark as we make our way to Sacramento. I wake up occasionally to Bella taking the entire back seat over, and I scrunch up to the window. Five in the morning. My thermos works  exceedingly well, and as I write this at 8:30 at night, I am finally able to drink the tea I made 15 1/2 hours ago. I woke up to fields all around us, and they were playing tricks on my eyes. Close to Bakersfield…We stopped at a Chevron station. In the bathroom, with no toilet seats (sick.), someone had scratched,
“Jesus is Lord -
Messiah -
Believe -
Repent -Live Forever”
Into the paper towel dispenser. Of course, we played the Chanticleer Christmas album, and sang along to it all. Oh, choir. How I miss you.

I feel like I should not be in my car, but Mike’s old Honda Civic with him, Annie, and Molly. We should be listening to Jason Mraz as we drive through the dinosaur mountains and making faces at everyone  in Philip’s car.
Over the summer, some of my best friends and I road tripped down to Seal Beach and went to Disneyland. We wanted to go again before Mike went on his mission and Brian did his internship, but it didn’t work out. Oh well. I would have liked to spend new years at Disneyland with them.
I’m glad to have these couple of days to spend with my grandparents, although I am sad I am not going to be in Disneyland tomorrow like we all wanted.

Chanticleer fills my ears with wonderful sounds.
Failed attempts at watching August Rush.
Chapters of Stardust.
We roll down the windows to feel the salty air, and my fly-aways tickle my face.
In Seal Beach, we go on an In N Out run. Always a must.
Christmas seems gone, and the beach is in eyesight.
My thoughts are scattered, and I want to be home for New Years… But I don’t think I will be…I wish I had internet at my grandparents.

As I look around here, I don’t think I could ever call Los Angeles home. Give me the mountains, small towns, community, winding roads and four seasons. The forest, and fields. Flannel for the cold nights. The River! The smell of nature and the rain. Clear nights where all the stars are shining for you. Small book stores. Yes, yes, yes!
I sit at Portfolio Café, drinking a latte and glancing down at my henna tattoos on my feet. I should probably cut my fingernails.

Tomorrow, we shall spend our gift cards like champs at Nordstrom Rack.
Lunch on the balcony of my great Uncle's apartment in Laguna Hills.
We will lay on the beach, but the water will surely be too cold to swim in.
I'll take my chances and wear my awesome yellow swimsuit, and wade in the waters of champions. 

New Years Resolution

Ah, yes, another year has gone by. So fast, I might add. I remember writing 2008's New Years Resolution list like it was yesterday.. Here is the list, and look at all those completions. I feel so much more productive than I thought!

Resolutions for 2008
1. do what i want sometimes. - Completed.
2. dress in silly/pretty/things people may not like, any day. - Completed.
3. get lots of new music. - Completed
4. learn not to take the smallest things personally. -Sort Of Completed.
5. go to marble mountains and/or royal gorge this summer. - Failed.
6. watch more movies. -Sort Of Completed.
7. read more books. - Completed.
8. start using capitols and punctuations. - Completed
9. not sleep through chamber choir ANY MORE! - Completed.
10. stop being afraid that people will not like me. i realized that thats just life, and some people will like you and some people wont, and i shouldnt get as offended as i do. -Life Long Goal.

Hmm... What will 2009 bring me? I guess I should start planning. This resolutions list better be good, I have a feeling I will be learning and growing a lot. Yipes! Let's see...

Resolutions for 2009
1. Learn to be happy alone.
2. Get better sleep. Meaning no more staying up past 12:30 on a regular basis.
3. Spend lots of time with the little sister. When I was 13, I always felt very alone.
4. Improve/expand vocabulary. 'Nuff said.
5. If not work at Camp Hammer this summer, at least volunteer for 2 weeks.
6. Learn to control my emotions.
7. Stay fit!

8. Read more books.

9. Save money for new camera. Nikon D50? D80?
10. learn to stand up for myself. Do what is best for me!

11. Stop being afraid that people will not like me. I realized that thats just life, and some people will like you and some people wont, and I shouldn't get as offended as I do.

Blog Slump

Lately, the creative juices in my brain have not been working... and I have all these awesome ideas for blogs, but cannot write them well. I have drafts and drafts of these ridiculous half-blogs that are so not worth posting. Just wanted to say sorry for the delay but hopefully Christmas will get that creativity flowing again, if not Christmas, then Long Beach on the 27th! Holla!
Merry Christmas my dear blog readers!

Really?...REALLY?

Tonight I had to work. And I was sick. Ugh. Worst.
And there was this party of 12 that came in.. That became a party of 20... That became a part of about 30 or so Grass Valley wonders of the world. Probably the least classy people I have ever seen. Let me tell you, I did not ever think I would see a party of people spend a total of $950 on sushi and sake. Just thought I would let you know that if you go to a small restaurant with that many people, get completely smashed and take up the entire room and scream and yell, I as your hostess will probably hate you. Just sayin.
On the bright side, I made bank tonight!
And tomorrow, bowling party with the sushi q friends! Huzzah!

Scratched Knees and Love Letters

"It's funny. This, uh... This necklace reminds me of this really random memory of my mother. I was a little kid, and I was cryin' for one reason or another. And, she was just like, you know, cradling me and rocking me back and forth. I can remember seeing the little balls in this thing just floating back and forth. And, uh... And there was just, like, snot dripping down my nose, right? And, uh... She gave me her sleeve... and she told me to blow my nose into it. And I remember thinking, even as a little kid, like... 'Wow.. This is love.. This is love.'" (-Garden State; Written, Directed, and starred Zach Braff. Filmed in 2006)

The other day at church, in one of his sermons my dad was talking about comfort. Dictionary.com describes the word comfort as to soothe, or reassure; relief in affliction; consolation. It's really too bad that the American culture has reduced the word comfort to that overstuffed, overflowing with cushion, tan sort-of-suade material lounge chair. The word comfort to us means sitting down on a huge sofa and watching tv.. But that's not comfort at all!

During my dad's sermon, he told a story about me. (Of course I can't tell it to you as well as he did, but I will try my best..)

It was the day our family left England, and I was four at the time. While we left church, we walked away from our village, all waving their hands goodbye. Everyone was crying, including us. As we came home, I was running to the house, and my four year old legs tripped and i scraped my knees on the gravel.

Turning around to look at my godmother, a stoutly and well fed woman, I stared with tear filled eyes, and I just ran to her. She took me up with her loving arms and held me as I cried, and she cried too, knowing that I was leaving so soon.

Gosh, even writing that story makes me cry. Not completely of sadness, because unfortunately my godmother died a few years ago, but of knowing that this woman loved me so much, that now when I think of comfort, I think of her. She was my first true memory of comfort and love. Her birthday was on Christmas day, so even though I am ecstatic about the holiday season, it makes me sad to know that my family can't call her after opening our Christmas presents to wish her a happy birthday and happy Christmas.
A few months back, my dad walks into my room and says, "I just found this...It was in on my dresser.." It was a letter, and he didn't remember when it was from, I'm guessing just a few years back."You are all the world to me. You still brighten my life and I love you very much. All my love, Nellie."
Every time I read it, I cry. It makes me feel so loved, even now that she is gone. Her shaky writing from her arthritis, and the fact that she put in 20 US dollars for me.. I will never throw this letter away and I will always look back on it to remind myself of what comfort really is, and the love Nellie had for me. I still can't get myself to spend the money, or even put it in my wallet. That $20 has stayed with the letter.


This was like the hardest blog to post ever, and I've written it in pieces over the past week because it's been really emotional. It's really hard to find a person that you can truly find home with.. That was my godmother. I know I have found my comfort in other people, and I have found home in other places, this was just my first memory of it... And it will be in my heart forever.
Last week my friend Miles reminded me of a song I heard sooo long ago, and he and I have been listening to it a lot recently. So this blog is dedicated to the one I love, my dear godmother. Rest in peace. I love you forever.

Sacred Harp

I was first introduced to the Sacred Harp last year when I was in choir. The Chamber Choir sang two different hymns, and the power of the songs gave me chills. For those who don't know what Sacred Harp is, Wikipedia describes it as:

The Sacred Harp is a tunebook of sacred choral music, written using the 4-note shape note system, which originated from the Deep South region of the United States in the 19th century.

Sacred Harp groups always sing a cappella, that is to say, without accompanying instruments. The singers arrange themselves in a hollow square, with rows of chairs or pews on each side assigned to each of the four parts: treble, alto, tenor, andbass. The treble and tenor sections are usually mixed, with men and women singing the notes an octave apart.

There is no single leader or conductor; rather, the participants take turns in leading. The leader for a particular round selects a song from the book, and "calls" it by its page number. Leading is done in an open-palm style, standing in the middle of the square facing the tenors (see: Leading Sacred Harp music).

The pitch at which the music is sung is relative; there is no instrument to give the singers a starting point. The leader, or else some particular singer assigned to the task, finds a good pitch with which to begin and intones it to the group (see: Pitching Sacred Harp music). The singers reply with the opening notes of their own parts, and then the song begins immediately.

The music is usually sung not literally as it is printed in the book, but with certain deviations established by custom; see: How Sacred Harp music is sung.

As the name implies, Sacred Harp music is sacred (Protestant Christian) music. Many of the songs in the book are hymns that use words, meters, and stanzaic forms familiar from elsewhere in Protestant hymnody. However, Sacred Harp songs are quite different from "mainstream" Protestant hymns in their musical style: they are often polyphonic in texture, and the harmony tends to deemphasize the interval of the third in favor of fourths and fifths. In their melodies, the songs often use the pentatonic scale or similar "gapped" (fewer than seven-note) scales.

In their musical form, Sacred Harp songs fall into three basic types. Many are ordinary hymn tunes, mostly composed in four-bar phrases and sung in multiple verses. Fuguing tunes contain a prominent passage about 1/3 of the way through in which each of the four choral parts enters in succession, in a way resembling a fugue. Anthems are longer songs, less regular in form, that are sung through just once rather than in multiple verses

It's so beautiful. Here are some videos of classic style Sacred Harp singers

Sacred Harp 159 Wondrous Love

Sacred Harp 146 Hallelujah, verses from Amazing Grace

Other links to really awesome Sacred Harp hymns:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTVGwHl7gk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sxW7yTu53M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrlNN7ftYpk

What powerful music. I was thinking of maybe starting a Sacred Harp group in Nevada City... If you live here, would you be interested?

Two Thumbs Up for Work

Last night I basically worked with the best crew ever at work, but before that...

First, I thought i might as well bring up the fact that almost every night, after i brush my teeth, I crave ice cold water. I don't know what it is, but I will seriously have to drink 2 full glasses of ice water until I am completely satisfied. Random fact of the day =]

Moving on. I work at a sushi restaurant I'm not sure how long it's been around, like 10 years I think? It was one of the first sushi restaurants in my town so it is very popular in Nevada County and well known. Last night a lady came in and was like "I'm from San Francisco and my daughter said that this is the best sushi she's ever had in her life." So that's pretty cool! Working there, I'm like a popular kid! But that's beside the point. 

Last night I got to work with my favorite girls! Nikki and Sarah were the two waitresses, and they are both pregnant right now. Nikki is 6 months pregnant this week, and is getting pretty big! It's so lovely to see pregnant women just glowing because of it. They look even more beautiful than before! I also got to work with my friends Maiya and Alex, who are totally awesome and whenever I work with them, the time just totally flies by because we have so much fun!

One of the funniest parts of the night, besides a guy who came in that totally looked like a guy from a video game (picture a guy with SUPER long hair in a pony tail, and a black leather trench coat, with a really deep voice. He probably had war hammer weapons in his jacket or something. It was so silly!), was when I was clearing a table next to this party of 2 adults and 5 kids. The boys were talking about their favorite foods and this kid, in a very proud voice, says, "The only thing I eat is sushi!... Or lasagna!" 

Then they started talking about what they are allergic to. One started off saying, "I'm allergic to nuts" and then came the snowball effect that turned into all of them saying anything from, "I'm allergic to bracelets" to "I'm allergic to water!" I don't really know how you could 1 up anyone in that game. 

While I finished setting the table (I was still hung over the video game man) I started thinking, are zombies allergic to anything? Just a thought...

Vlog... Ooh Kitty!

Guys... I just bought a webcam! This is awesome!

See my A.D.D. in all its glory!

So maybe the whole vlogging thing didn't work out..

These are pretty cool!

So i probably will never post a vlog because I can't handle the concentration. But I just wanted to share the excitement of my new webcam! I hope this made you smile hahah =]