A Letter on Memorial Day.

To all the fallen or wounded soldiers, past or present–

I don’t know if I will ever really be able to express my gratitude well enough, but I sure can try.

I grew up on military bases around the world. I always heard stories about you. I always was taught to honor you and what you stood for.  I lived on streets named after you.  I have met some of you.

It is your sacrifice that drives my patriotism.  I do love the beauty of the United States.  I like the diversity, I like the public transportation systems, and I like public education.  But when I put my hand over my heart and look at our nation’s flag, I am not thinking of how nice our nation’s highways are, but rather your personal sacrifices.  That is what I think of when I say I am proud to be an American.

You were so willing to give everything you could.  And it made a difference that has changed more people’s lives than can possibly be counted. You should be very proud. I know I am.

I promise to never forget.  I will have you in the back of my mind as I go to memorial day barbecues.  I’ll eat a cheeseburger for you. I will always thank God for you.  I promise to let your example be what I strive to be.

Sincerely, Annette

P.S. Keep an eye out for me while you are up there, k? Thanks.

(the letter I left at the Fallen Soldier Monument at the Provo Cemetery with a bouquet of my favorite flowers, and a yellow ribbon)

The blog post where I list the people and things I miss.

I think my life is cursed to forever be made up of long distances between me and people that I think are awesome. So…here is a list of people I miss that may not know how much I miss them.

First is Elisabeth. Obviously. She is my best friend in the whole wide world and I lub her.

Second is my little Tally. My little sister. I love her more than I could ever express! She is so cute and smart! And will always and forever be my little Tally no matter how old she gets.

Third is Aaron Lindsay. Me and this kid go way back. We had some good times back in the day, and we have a friendship that surprises me everyday.  It is pretty impressive when I probably text him at least once a day, even after so many years.

Bryson Smith!!!!!

and here is a classic of Bryson and Aaron, just for kicks and giggles.

Jared Fowkes. FHE brother from Fall semester of college. We had a class together. Sometimes we got shakes at the creamery. We watched a lot of movies, and he is responsible for my slight obsession with The Last Airbender. He is also frickin awesome and works at Disneyland.

Arianne Glick. She lives like 5 minutes away but I never EVER see her. It is a sad truth. This is her and I dressed up as Ketchup and Mustard, just in case you couldn’t tell.

The Air Force. Oh the flight suits. Oh the sound of jets. Oh the beige housing. Oh the BX. The Air Force is what I always list as “home.”  I belong there.  I like #6 and #1 the best.

Grant Young. Or, Elder Young as he is known today. We are buddies.

Mrs. Rhodes.  She is my numero uno role model. The best teacher I have ever had. I want to be her when I grow up.

Heidi.  My oldest Sister. She is so cool. And life is funnier when she is around. She is also MUCH too far away for my taste.

Heidi….with me in the background.

Penrose 81. The best roommates a girl could ever ask for. Seriously. No really. I miss them A LOT. It is a little lonely to not have my roommates! (or…any roommates at all for that matter).

School. I miss walking around on campus. I miss late nights in the library. I miss school work! My brain is turning to mush!

There are more. But right now, at 11 pm while I am waiting for my roving shift to start, these are the ones I can think of. I think I am cursed with being far away from what I want.

Cursed with that and a really pathetic inability to flirt. But what can you do.

How to have a good day.

Bad case of the giggles

I dearly love to laugh. In fact, laughing is probably on my list of “Top Ten Most Favorite Things” along with Clorox wipes and buildings that look like Hogwarts.

But sometimes I don’t like laughing, like when I can not get myself  to stop laughing during the Sacrament Hymn.  Once I would regain composure and sing a couple more words, Jessica would loose it and then all my valiant efforts were reversed. It was a little embarrassing, but mostly just hilarious.

I hid under a nasty sink for nothing.

First–I apologize for not having pictures of this momentous occasion.

Second–I apologize to my to-do list for not being at the gym, cleaning my room, calling wells fargo, going to the student employment office, going to the temple, finding out when my new ward meets tomorrow, or refilling all my gajillion empty water bottles.

But this is a good story.

One of my FABULOUS co-workers Timothy is away from work because of a death in the family.

This is me and Tim at the bus stop.

So, Megan Skyler and I decided to make him some cookies.

This is Megan

And this is Skyler. And I took this picture, and I think I should get some sort of award for it.

We decide to use the kitchen-ish thing in the basement of Merrill Hall. Upon our arrival there, we all make the treck to the Helaman Creamery to buy eggs and butter which were the only two ingredients we did not have.

Of course, it was closed. We were in despair.

But then Megan had a revelation! She thought that maybe one of our other coworkers who happens to be in California at the moment had eggs in her mini fridge.

This one is Erynn. She is giving us the OK to borrow two of her eggs.

And then Megan found some Crisco in HER room, which we used instead of Butter.  What’s fat is fat my friends.

We went BACK to Merrill, only to find the Kitchen lacking in all the tools we needed to create these cookies. So, we made the trek (and it is indeed quite a trek) to May Hall, which had been rumored to have a really good kitchen-ish thing and which we knew had cooking tools.

We ran into Spencer the Hall Advisor and his new wife Kim, who let us borrow their measuring spoons. That was nice of them.

This is Spencer and Kim.

Side note: the May Hall kitchen-ish thing isn’t really that great…

But since we were finally prepared, Skyler plugged in his ipod dock and turned up some tunage. We listened to some High School Musical, some A*Teens, some Plain White T’s. Skyler whipped up these cookies while Megan and I mainly stood at a distance…Skyler is pretty serious about his cookies. He assured us he had everything under control. We turned on the Food Network and watched for a little while. We talked about our favorite Food Network Shows. We talked about our romantic escapades.

It was much to soon that Megan had to go to a sleep over that she and Jessica were hosting.

This is Jessica.

After Megan left, Skyler and I were left with a problem.  What to do with this plethora of cookies. It was a dilemma. We decided to spread the love so that we didn’t eat them all.

The first delivery was to Spencer and Kim for letting us use their measuring spoons, and because they are newly weds, and because we had a big heart Shaped cookie that was perfect for them. They weren’t home, so we left them on a chair by their door. Spencer: We are sorry if you tripped over the chair…or if you guys don’t find those cookies for hours.

Then we began operation deliver-cookies-to-our-favorite-asian, Ariel who was stuck working the Desk.

This is Ariel.

Were unsuccessfully sneaky in our delivery of her cookies.

Then began the REALLY sneaky stuff. We had a plate to deliver to the sleep over. We first went to Jessica’s apartment, but heard no noise to indicate a girls night well under way. On our walk to check Megan’s apartment, we saw someone walking accross the parking lot carrying a pillow and bag. We may or may not have panicked a smidgeon and made a very hasty entry into the hall. (I’m sure she saw us, and I am surprised she didn’t call university police because we were classic examples of suspicious individuals. We ran through the halls and hid behind a door as the new comer walked down the hall.

Much sneaking, hiding, knocking, checking, hiding some more, humming the theme of mission impossible, and cursing my too-big pants for their lack of stealth ensued. We saw that the cookies were gone and went out the half door.

Right after exiting the building we laughed and rejoiced…loudly. And it took us a few seconds to realize what window we were directly under, and all the sleep over attendees faces looking at us through said window.

Caught red handed.

It is not like they didn’t know who it was in the first place. Megan herself was a host of the party, and she had helped make the cookies! But it was just a bummer to be caught after so much trouble. I hid under a nasty sink for nothing.

What in Tarnation!?!

There are few disappointments that sting as sharply as running downstairs to get your clothes out of the dryer…expecting them to be warm and fluffy….anticipating throwing my most cozy hoodie on for the rest of the night….only to discover the loads sickeningly damp and cold.

It made me want to punch a baby dolphin or something.

Curse you broken Dryers. Curse you.

P.S. I have a super fly job even super fly-er coworkers. Since I am not feeling particularly creative or wordy this evening, allow me to direct you to some descriptions of said job and said coworkers for your reading pleasure whilst I prepare my own “Ode to Conference Assisting”.

Here you shall find a marvelous description of the job. Very well done coworker Megan. *applause*

Here, here, and here, you shall find even more marvelous descriptions of the people that make my Helaman Halls world go ’round.

If I were…

I have seen a couple people do this, and I liked it. So I did it. Enjoy!

If I were a month, I’d be: July
If I were a day, I’d be: Thursday
If I were a time, I’d be: 6:15 am
If I were a planet, I’d be: Earth
If I were an animal, I’d be: a Dinosaur
If I were a sea animal, I’d be: a sting ray
If I were a direction, I’d be: southwest
If I were a piece of furniture, I’d be: a fluffy couch
If I were a sin, I’d be: laziness?
If I were a liquid, I’d be: sonic chocolate coconut shake
If I were a tree, I’d be: an apple tree
If I were a flower, I’d be: a sunflower!
If I were a bird I’d be: a penguin
If I were a state of weather, I’d be: no clouds and a toasty 87 degrees
If I were a season, I’d be: summer ❤
If I were a musical instrument, I’d be: the bagpipes
If I were a mythical creature I’d be: a hippogriff
If I were a color, I’d be: peach
If I were a vegetable, I’d be: summer squash
If I were a sound, I’d be: laughter
If I were an element, I’d be: water
If I were a car, I’d be: a hybrid. (prbably a Honda Insight)
If I were a song, I’d be: “Little Romance” by Ingrid Michaelson.
If I were a movie, I’d be: Penelope
If I were a book, I’d be: something educational
If I were a word, I’d be: kapow
If I were scent, I’d be: lavender
If I were an object, I’d be: a teleportation device
If I were a number, I’d be: 9
If I were a place, I’d be: white sands New Mexico

I have a new life goal.

People always tell me what a driven young lady I am.  I always have very worthy goals that I work for until I achieve.

My new one is:

To be able to run in heels like Gweneth Paltrow does in Iron Man.

She sprints from the bad guys...wearing THIS?!?! Incredible!

Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.