To sleep

Have you ever wondered, as you lay in bed, about the shadow of sleep?  Thought about how every room, every apartment, every house around you has shut out its lights and every soul within them has laid themselves down to sleep? It doesn't matter whether they are in their beds or passed out on a couch, just the thought that they are all lost to the conscious world. That the TV has been turned off, the computer closed, the front doors locked, and the lights hushed. Silence has enveloped the world about us, leaving nothing but whispers and sighs of drowsiness. In only a few hours beeping and vibrating will awaken all these aching bodies. Birds will sing and cars will roar. And no one will be able to hear the distant trains carrying their ghost cargo. We all lie here in our beds, lost to worry and stress except for that which pervades our dreams and causes us to toss and turn. We lie here, unified in the idea that despite the craziness of life sooner or later one must lay their body down and rest. We lie here under our blankets and sheets, with our comforters of both fabric and loved ones' grasps. We lie here, content to let go and breathe peace. To allow the earth to rest our heads, our thoughts, and our hearts. To sleep.

"An update of my life," in four parts

I've been meaning to give a big update for some time now but have just been lazy about it. For some reason sitting down and writing and being clever and witty takes more effort than I wish I had to put in to it. Oh well, because I really do enjoy doing it once I get around to it. So I am finally going to update everyone and focus on these things:

1. What I have been up to (school & work wise)
2. What I have been learning
3. What I've been listening to, reading, and watching
4. What I've been up to with friends, family and the oddities

Of course I can't just sit down and do all four acts in one sitting/night, so I will focus on each one respectively and hopefully have a good and balanced update by the end of the week. I'll start with number one, which randomly enough I am really excited to talk about.

What I have been up to (school and work wise):

As of Thanksgiving I am no longer working at Fastsigns. Wasn't really part of the plan, but time to move on and find something new. Don't worry, it only took me 2 months to find a new job. It has been quite the adventure, scratch that, quite the nightmare but fate smiled upon me last week through a phone call from my visiting teacher who just got a job at the subway/grocery mart opening up behind our place.  She told me that there were still 3 openings left and gave me her boss' number. So even though I once upon a time swore never to work in food again, I am returning to it because of the absolute desperation and need for not only the cash but the longing of feeling productive and needed. I start sometime this week, not quite sure when, but I do get my uniform tomorrow. Horray. And because Fern and Josh did a major closet detox I now have 2 pairs of black pants and a pair of khakis to wear to work. Let's just pray that I still look good in a hat and polo.

The last few weeks I have been doing a bucketful of genealogy work for me pops though. And be genealogy work I mean scanning family photos, some of which date back to the Civil War. I have been drinking in the moments of flipping through the memoirs and souvenirs of my Grammie's life and reliving the elegance of life in Pennsylvania in the 1900's. My father's mother, Margaret Dixon Stroud aka Peggy, grew up back east. Back when they named their estates, had nannies and personal nurses, went away to ladies' schools, and went on "trips abroad." My grammie's family owned an antique shop, but after marrying my grandfather Nathaniel Wallace, Peggy moved to a ranch outside of Reno with him and their growing family. I won't give you a family history lesson, sorry, I really just wanted to share the excitement I have had in looking at these photos, reading letters and just getting to a know a well-standing family, that is mine. One thing I found really cool was this:

Elise Croft born in 1894 in Nashville Tennessee, pictured here in the year 1978. Elise was a friend of Peggy's who went out with her brother Morris Stroud III for a visit to Nashville in August, I believe, of 1978. It was Elise's home that really caught my attention, however. How could I not be interested in it after looking at this photo:

It's gorgeous. The end. I did what any other 21st century kid would do, I googled the Croft home of Nashville and to my hope, I found something (yes click on the word something). For those of you not too eager to click and read, here's a brief synopsis- the Croft home is now a Historical Home at the Nashville Zoo. Can you imagine walking through there during a tour and just thinking "My grammie was here 30 years ago, on this porch. Oh yeah and she was friends with the woman who owned it!" Yes I'm bragging just a little bit. It really has been an unbelievable treat to get a peek into my grammie's life and the world that she came from. Unbeknownst to me until recently my baby blessing spoke of my eagerness for genealogy work. Now knowing this I have been hungry to just eat up as much of it as I can with no regard to this weird longing to learn more and know more. It's been an adventure reading and typing up my great-grandmother's journals, seeing my grammie's photos and just living in their worlds and seeing them grow as I am now. Even though it was considered a job for me to be scanning the photos, I am so grateful that I didn't have a real job to keep me from it. I am a bit sorry that I am on the last binder of photos and letters, but there's always our own family photos to sift through and I'm more than happy to do it.

School wise- I'll be starting an Independent Study class this week which I am excited about. I love school and the idea of getting to learn and be studious and "smart" gets me giddy. Too bad I won't have a class to get ready for; no cute boys to study with. I think more than anything I am just grateful to finally have something to fill the empty hours with. To be productive. I know I say that a lot, but I have truly found that my feelings of happiness rely greatly on how productive and obedient I am being in my life. How studious and hard working I am. Being busy with school work till I'm bleeding it is fulfilling and I know that having a "routine" helps me prioritize my time a lot more. Which usually means that those most important things - scriptures and prayers - get done, and my whole self is a thousand times happier. I really do have a testimony of doing good things. They bring joy and happiness, and fulfillment. Fill your time with good things, be productive and work hard.

The Dormant Spirit

I don't really know how to upload a video so hopefully this works, but we watched this in combined Relief Society/Priesthood today and although my eyes weren't leaking like most of the females in the room, it really did inspire and comfort me. His words are amazing and I highly recommend finding his talk on BYU Speeches and reading it for yourself, "Unleashing the Dormant Spirit" by Elder Busche.

I think we're pretty

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Yes I made that dress (with a lot of help of course from The Source)

Whatever happened to them? They were like the best!

Labor Day Weekend

I spent Labor Day weekend in Hurricane. And yes that is Hurricane to the right, this is the view from on top of Molly's Nipple. This "semester" has been pretty crazy so far. I have been gone almost every single weekend since it started, and well, I guess that is just what happens when you aren't in school. I hitched a ride down Saturday night and came home Monday evening. It was a really short trip but let's be honest, any excuse to get out of Provo is joyously welcomed. I drove down with Joe Furse and his sister Mary after they left their cousin's wedding in American Fork. The drive of course entailed me updating Joe on all of my love life woes and my "theory" on dating and its games. Mary must think I'm crazy after those 3 hours of me non-stop talking. Joe did get a word in edgewise when he told me all about his own dating scene and needless to say, it just felt good to talk to people who would listen and still love me in the end :)

We got in around midnight, dropped my stuff off at Grandma and Grandpa's then went over to see Colton and his mission companion Garen, who was visiting for the weekend also (same Garen in earlier post). I had thought that the weekend would be nice and relaxing, nothing too out of the ordinary. But Colton upped and surprised me with all these plans he had made to show off beautiful Southern Utah to Garen who had never been down there. So we drove out South of Town, shot the 12 gage (I just like saying that because it sounds tough),

also shot a pistol - my first time,

drove through Zions,

and of course through Short Crik aka Colorado City or vice versa. Monday Joe, Colton and I hiked Molly's Nipple- an extremely steep hike that will be unforgiving if you ever chance to slip on the soft dirt. The boys have hiked it several times at night which I swear is impossible since I was going at a snail's pace on the way down, praying I didn't slip and slide off the mountain.

It isn't exactly a pretty hike until you reach the top and you get that amazing view of Hurricane and Pine Valley. And then if you turn to your left you can see St. George and if you look hard enough the D for Dixie College.

After a shower and lunch we headed back to Provo (Logan for Joe). Such a bittersweet parting. I did manage to leave with a few jars of peaches and apricots. Oh and sorry about all the pictures. I kind of went overboard with the picture-taking. After hiking I checked the camera for how many I took and I was far past 100 (this is hardly 2 days were talking about).

Funny story: also after hiking Joe was reading the newspaper and flipped to the Zodiac daily fortunes. Mine began as follows, "You may feel as though you are in the center of a hurricane right now." You got that dang straight.

Oh and we saw a house that one of my "greats" built when my family originally owned a bunch of land up by Mt. Carmel

And while out there we saw this road, which has the best name ever. I could only imagine this in some Mark Twain story