#29.

March March.

March was busy this year celebrating my birthday among a million other birthdays. Oh yeah, and my sister got married. More about that later.

My birthday was on Saturday this year, which is exceptional because that meant I got to celebrate all. weekend. long. Yeah, I did.

Friday I made the Oldroyd sisters make me something that looked a lot like this:

We ate our ham and Havarti cheese crepes with grapes and raspberries and the dulcet tones of Edith Piaf. We were in a faux-French patisserie talking about faux-French things - like "nom de plume", and Quebecois, and...snobbery. And I desperately wanted to be in France. But not as much as I wanted to be with them. In France.  

Saturday I went afternoon skiing in Park City. Initially, Gretch and I were disappointed by the fact that every run we wanted to try was closed. It turns out that Park City Resort only leaves two runs open for night skiing. Literally, two. And one of those is a terrain park...what the heck? No matter. It was my birthday! 

Gretch and I napped on the chair lift and I tried my hand at sliding on "boxes" and "table tops". Yeah, what up? Tricks in the spring powdy pow moo cow pow! Ok, so maybe it wasn't powder but it was awesome spring corn. Yes, corn. Corn snow. It's a real thing. I worked at Alta for two months, I know these things.

Yaaaaawn. ZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

Aaaanyway, all of my best trick skier efforts resulted in the saaaaaame thing:

Guess I won't be drastically switching careers (again). 

My birthday day ended with a two-hour hot tub nightcap (much needed) replete with philosophical discussion. :sigh: My favorite.

Finally, on Sunday, I got together with some friends and gorged myself on this:

Awesome.

My parents celebrated by putting my house on the market. Yes, my house. The one they own. Thanks, guys...! It's actually been really disruptive. I have to make my bed every morning...put the dishes in the dishwasher...avoid putting clothes on the floor...what am I, 17 again? (Wa ah ah...) PLUS I have to make myself scarce every time there's a showing. Grrr. Oh well, guess I'll just have to start planning the 3-week vacation they can take me on once the house is sold. How do you feel about Spain/Morocco? Israel/Egypt/Jordan? Mmm...Thailand/Cambodia??

Happy Valentine's Day.

No chocolates, no flowers, no bedazzle my breakfast for me. Nope, not today. Today, a friend joined me for chicken tikka masala take-out and a jam session which turned into a recording session. 

Hope you enjoy the fruits of our singledom:

(Um, for all you pre-Thanksgiving/pre-Labor Day/pre-spring Christmas music haters out there, you might want to bookmark this page for 10 months...)

Missionary James.

My little brother went into the Missionary Training Center this week. My parents and older brother flew out with him in order to drop him off. James stayed just long enough to finish the 2,000 piece puzzle I started and then he was gone. To Benin (ultimately). Despite earlier doubts we've realized that it really does exist. On this planet.

Sending someone off on a mission is a bit eulogistic. Which might be somewhat appropriate in this case. Do you know what lives in Africa? Nile crocodiles. And Honey Badger.

Though James is the sort of fellow who could walk safely between the jaws of a yawning hippopotamus without knowing he was in any sort of danger. No matter where we go he will find trouble and come out unscathed. He's survived being swept down the Salmon in a one-person ducky, almost getting run over in the streets of London, and being washed out to sea in the Gulf of Mexico. On the same Salmon River trip, James was trying to swim into an eddy behind a rock - which he did just fine - but his lackadaisical efforts at getting back to shore just didn't cut it. Downriver he went (again). When my dad and our guide caught up with him, he told them something along the lines of, "I thought it was time I became a man." He was 12. 

I don't think I'm qualified to say this but...welcome to manhood, James. Good luck out there.

Waiting on the Lord.

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)

Contextualized in that way waiting still seems dreary...but doable -- a worthwhile endeavor. Unfortunately, as you strive to keep an eye single to the glory of God, as you are asking and seeking and knocking the devil comes to meet you instead. And sometimes he comes at you so hard and for so long that you begin to doubt everything you once believed in. Yourself. Your relationships. Your God. Did I make the right decision? Am I doing the right things? Should I have moved to Salt Lake and stayed there for 7 years...really? Why did you tell us to adopt a narcissist and his lackey brother again? And where the cuss did you go anyway?

That persistent little devil keeps at you until you beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears because suddenly the slightest provocation stirs you to battle. You're a paranoid pirate and you've holed yourself up in a man-of-war. You must defend yourself at all costs...but all costs means you feel so isolated and empty that you find yourself looking around wondering where everyone could have gotten off to in this, your dark, dark hour. You wonder how you can make it back to the days when you thought, like Victor Hugo's Mademoiselle Baptistine, "If the devil came into this house, we'd let him do his worst. After all, what can we be frightened of in this house? There is always someone with us who is the strongest. The devil might pass through but the good Lord lives here." But the good Lord apparently isn't home and the devil is not just in your house but in your heart. And he is doing his worst. And you're no longer trying merely to get through the test of time but the test of now. And that test just might kill you. You're the first marathoner and the road to the fourth watch seems impassable. Even if you make it through this grievous ordeal you will probably just lay down and die at the end of it all -- forget about waiting on the Lord.

:deep breath:

...but...just when you're beginning to resign yourself to your awful fate, when you no longer have the strength to fight the inexhaustible and the desolate deep threatens to swallow you whole, a sliver of light reaches your drowning soul. You realize that, perhaps, at some point during your struggle for the infinite your waiting turned into hiding. And once you unlock the door to your gray room and meagerly call out, "Here am I," you hear the response, "Be still and know that I am God." (D&C 101:16)

Your futile flailing is over. The devil is gone. The fourth watch is here. And all you have left to say is, "Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray." Please stay. Because you don't know how many more watches you will be rowing through before this storm is gone forever.

But, of course, this is all purely speculation. 

What a year.

I'm not sure I'll look back on 2011 with many fond memories. For reasons that aren't completely clear to me, this year has been one of my most difficult.

Lots of great things happened. Lots of changes.

My little sister, Kathryn, got married. Two of my good friends also got married. I went home for a pseudo-ten-year reunion. My little brother, James, got his mission call -- Benin, Cotonou. Ever heard of it? Us neither.

My sister, Christine, got engaged. I went to my first country concert -- Sugarland. I kind of enjoyed it. DON'T get your hopes up, country fans. I only kind of enjoyed it. My godniece started walking.

I finally found the perfect peppermint ice cream -- Schwan's. Me oh my, it's divine. My ward basketball team took second in Regionals. Yes, I wore the tattoo sleeve the entire season.

Just recently I got an ovation for bearing my testimony at a Relief Society activity. What? It happens to Glenn Beck all the time. I may or may not have strongly hinted that I wanted one -- is that wrong...?

You would think with all these things going on that the year wouldn't have been such a struggle. But it was. And it's taking its toll. Ladies and gentleman, I got my first A-.

Not ever, people. I'm not nearly as brilliant as everyone thinks I am. First this go-round -- in purportedly the easiest technical elective offered by the mechanical engineering department. People who don't even go to class get A's. And I went to class. Apparently that was my first mistake...

I thought graduating would be easier this time. Unfortunately, 4 more grueling years of school and $25,000 in tuition haven't given me much more of an idea of what I want to do. I am, once again, directionless. There was a part of me that thought that companies would line up to hire me, a female mechanical engineering student with a 4.0...well...a 3.99 now. I was hoping I wouldn't have to pursue a course of action because it would be pursuing me. Huh, I think I just summed up my whole life-philosophy...think about it, it explains a lot.

Back to engineering -- it's not that I dislike it, I'm just not sure I'll be any good at it. My GPA is misleading. All it means is I'm organized. And brilliant.

Who knows what 2012 will bring but here's hoping it'll be a sweet job in a sweet location where I'll meet a sweet, sweet, sexy man. We don't even have to get married. I'm pretty sure that just dating one for a couple months will cheer me right up.