maybe a week late... but still in love

so jack johnson is pretty much the best.  the epitome of beach music, if you will.  if you've visited natalie's blog, unconsciously me, you already know all about this (well almost all about it).  but, for the sake of my own record keeping, here's the story of our musical adventure: {oh boy was it ever an adventure!}

last thursday, natalie and i hit the i15, provo-bound!  the plan: to leave at 9:00 am.  reality: 1:35...ish.  the goal was to have the entirety of #205 (the resting place of my last year of life) packed up in boxes by nightfall.  friday, we planned to clean our little arms off before our dad arrived with his truck to load up our assets and send them to storage for another week, all before we headed further north to sit in some musical bliss.

however, when you start an adventure five and a half hours late, you should expect some unforeseen obstacles {book of jessica, 1:1}.  pulling into provo an exit north of our apartment, we realized the mall that neither of us had entered for much too long was only two minutes away.  after all, we were both in need of a few sale-marked items before the beginning of a new school year.  if the management of #205 had purchased the much-needed security cameras in our absence, they would have caught us pulling into the parking lot at 8:30 pm.  not bad, right?  after hugs and a few quick catch-up stories from the roommates we abandoned, we headed under my bed to grab the plentiful store of boxes we had used to move into my first home-away-from-home.  i found my dusty snowboard, two bins exactly where i left them, but the boxes were  gone.  absolutely, positively gone.  no boxes to be seen.

we sat on my floor for a while, regretting our late start and wondering if monsters under the bed could live through provo winters after all.  soon, the reality of how soon noon on saturday was approaching sunk in.  we grabbed the keys and dashed to walmart.  here, i'll omit the detail.  i simply need to say that after wandering around walmart for over a half hour (during which we had many more small adventures, resulting in my rediscovery of the pineapple lamp of my dreams), we found boxes.  who knew boxes would be in the shipping department, anyway??  we bought them all - well, the small ones.  the bigger size was completely sold out.

we drove back to #205 as fast as my little car could carry us through provo's late night, decidedly more busy than usual traffic.  we packed, and we packed, and we packed, and we packed.  3:30 am found us still packing.  around that time we finally decided we at least ought to take a nap -- after all, the concert less than 24 hours away would certainly keep us up past a decent bed time.  from 4 to 7 in the morning we slept, gloriously from my perspective.  

without breakfast, we were up again, pack-pack-packing.  once again, long story made short, after scrambling like the building was on fire (with the much needed help of our dad that morning) we were out of the apartment completely by noon.  whew!  it's such a relief to be out of #205!

did i mention we're moving into an apartment across the street?  it seems silly (but i'm sure it'll be entirely worth it) to make such a small change for such a big difference in management, upkeep, and overall loveness.

with a quick meal and a short nap, we were off to the concert!  by the end, we were so tired all the lights on the road back were one big blur (and it was a miracle we made it home with no incidents), but an entire night of jack johnson after the rather adventurous day of packing was completely worth every minute of it.

a week later, and i'm still on a jack jonshon high!

pineapple lamp of my dreams, beautiful isn't it?

less than two weeks, and time to get excited!

okay! so classes start soon soooon, and i'm starting to get excited about these ones.  i only have two semesters left, one of which i'll have a part-time internship (if things go according to plans.... see previous entry. ha!), so all my classes are upper-division and most are pretty small sections.  small classes are my favorite - easier discussion, more personal relationship with the professor, and of course SO much easier to get to know everyone else in the class.

here's the line-up:

- cross-cultural family and human development
- advanced family processes
- family adaptation and resiliency
- writing in the social sciences
- and of course,
- doctrine and covenants (part i)

cross-cultural family and human development sounds particularly exciting to me at the moment.  i always loved the studies i read in my other classes in that area.  and oh, the professors!  two of these are from the same professor, one i've had for lower-division and loved.  i actually have quite high expectations for one professor, in particular.  a mr. willoughby.  {really. you can't get a more romantic name than willoughby.}  i've heard nothing of him, yet.  but for his name alone, i expect to be sitting in rapture two days a week for over an hour.

speaking of days of the week, i'm trying a new schedule layout this semester - one i've wanted to pull off for a while.  i don't have any classes on monday or friday, and only one on wednesday.  hello, four day weekends! it'll be interesting to see how it works though.  the hope is that it will give me more effective morning study time (if i know myself at all).  it'll sure make for loooong days on campus!

speaking of... i also need a small lunchbox.  keep your eyes open for me!

plans, not from death cab for cutie

yesterday marked exactly one week left at home.  it's an extremely bittersweet fact.

see, i never expected to be moving back to ivins this summer.  the plan was to stay in provo, find a job  i could keep through this coming fall semester and come home on the weekends (every other, or so).  however, looking back at the entirety of summer, the one word that sums it up is unexpected.  it's been one of the most unpredictable summers of my existence, i believe.  the only other that comes close is the first summer out of high school, with the typical life-altering decisions looming and my decision-resistant nature putting them off as long as possible. but this one beats all.  it was unexpected and unpredictable in almost every way.

however, through the chaotic nature of unexpected events, i've discovered something.  this past january, i wrote a few musings on the same subject, about the unexpected color thrown onto my canvas.  i wrote about how i longed to be able to accept the change with more grace, hope, and trust in God.  i wished i could have seen the beauty that such big changes bring sooner than i did.  and i think i've improved.

i guess in hoping for such, i may have invited several more drop-from-the-sky-and-hit-me-in-the-head changes.  for practice, you see.

what i've discovered is that i have changed.  i can say truthfully that i've seen the beauty this summer (without requiring understanding).  i've been okay with the changes - although some were extremely unwanted, they didn't end my world.  i'm the sort of person with a functioning five year plan.  a five year plan that i work toward.  i've learned to be more flexible with the changes God introduces, less flexible with my foundations despite the always shifting world.

i've come to whole-heartedly believe this quote from the beloved movie, dan in real life:

 "in the future, i will be answering your questions, but today I want to break from my usual format and talk to you about the subject of plans.  not so much my plan for this column, but life plans, and how we all make them.  and how we hope that our kids make good, smart, safe plans of their own.  but if we're really honest with ourselves, our plans usually don't work out as we had hoped.  so instead of asking our young people "what are you plans? what do you plan to do with your life?" maybe we should tell them this: plan to be surprised."


i still have a five year plan.  two of them, in fact.  and a loooooong list of items i'd like to accomplish before i come to the end of those five years.  but i'm making a few changes tonight.  i'm planning to be surprised.  after all, if life were just as i expected, it would get dull pretty quickly.  God knows best, and i can't wait to see what surprises He's waiting to drop from the sky.


as far as i believe, they're probably much better than any plan i could contrive for myself.


i plan to successfully finish another semester this year, and have more adventure doing it than ever before.  but as for the rest, it's all one big surprise!