the LOVE game: III

1. i love coming home to a clean room with white sheets and pillowcases.
2. i love wearing aprons (even when i'm not cooking).
3. i love sunday afternoons, quiet and rejuvenating.
4. i love the counter after my roommates and i go shopping - as if we've stolen the entire produce section.
5. i love doing yoga with the lights off and my eyes closed {eleven-o-clock at night}.
6. i love the sunlight that streams through my window from four to six everyday making yellow stripes across my bed and walls.
7. i love walking through the streets of provo, dreaming up stories for the impossibly-perfect houses, and feeling content doing so.
8. i love ginger tea in the evenings, snuggled in the folds of my grandma-made quilt.
9. i love eating in a group, passing the food like family, talking about design or art and tasting exotic chocolate.
10. i love taking the time to drink in a moment or conversation with all the senses, committing it to a place of memory deeper than description.

the perks of waking up an hour and a half late

that's right.  this morning i was having an absolutely random dream.  so much so that i bet i was smiling and trying not to laugh at all the characters in my sleep {because you know, they would have heard me and thought i was impolite}.  naturally, it startled me a little when natalie burst into my room at 7:20 and shouted in surprise, "JESSI!"  i was supposed to wake up at 6:00.  so during the ten minutes in which i got ready for the day (and still had time to put on mascara - yeah, i'm that good), my planner and my unfinished homework were giving me a guilt trip.  luckily, i wasn't more than 30 seconds late to class: me, win; failed alarm clock, eat that.

it took me half-way through my 8:00 class to be fully conscious, but i was entirely physically present.  by the time i was conscious, i was annoyed.  BUT as you know, i've been working diligently on this mental process called stubborn, obstinate happiness.  hehe, i won!  that alone, i think, is a little manifestation that in my head things are going splendidly!

now, the upside:

because natalie is a saint, i still ate breakfast this morning (and oh was it ever yummy, thanks to our returned blender and my sister's pro-smoothie skills).  unfortunately, waking up late in combination with the fact that i ran out of pre-frozen meals in tupperware two days ago meant that did not have time to pack a lunch.  one goal i have this semester is to eat out as little as possible.  but i had to eat!  during my hour break, i stood in line at subway, ordered my veggie delight, read the rest of the ecology of human development for my next class, and ate my sandwich.

the student center is a fabulous place to eat lunch because 1) there are so many people to distract me from my homework and 2) i just love to watch them!  sitting at a table adjacent to mine was a son and his father.  for the first few minutes, i couldn't for the life of me figure out what in the world they were doing.  then it hit me.  when they sat down, before touching their food (and both with a newspaper in front of them), the son simply said, "GO."  there they sat, pencils in hand, racing each other in today's cross-word puzzle.  isn't that incredible?  it made me smile for the next hour!  the dad won, by the way, and in relief the son began ravenously chowing down on an enormous burger.  it must have been commonplace to them.  the way they didn't have to communicate about what was happening, but just raced (with, i imagine, a strict rule of no food-touching until one of us wins).

maybe my major just turns me into a crazy person, but isn't that one of the silliest, neatest family traditions ever?

i love crazy families!

singing tastebuds

candied orange scones

...interested?

this was a late night experiment that passed the test with flying colors!  of course, i'm sure it helped that we were devouring these while watching the young victoria, so my taste buds weren't the only thing in bliss.

for the scones:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg 

1/4 cup applesauce

2 tsp olive oil

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

2 1/2 tbsp rice milk (or soy, whichever you prefer)

2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp orange extract

1/4 cup agave syrup

first, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  combine the flour, salt, baking powder, soda, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix well.  with a fork (or your fingers!), mix in the applesauce and oil until crumbly and stir in the chopped pecans.

in a separate bowl, whisk everything else together, then combine the wet and dry ingredients in the bigger bowl until well mixed (i feel like captain obvious writing these directions tonight for some reason...).  shape into little flat circles (about the size of your palm) and place on a greased baking sheet.  bake for 18-19 minutes or until golden brown.

*i didn't have any on hand, but after tasting these, they really would be incredible with about a teaspoon of orange zest included, and if you're feeling super ambitious, you could replace the rice or soy milk with orange juice.

i served these with homemade candied pecans and coconut (at the insistence and courtesy of natalie) and orange chocolate sauce for drizzling.

the candied pecans were a combination of whole pecans, agave syrup, coconut oil, cinnamon and shredded coconut all simmered in a pan until toasty!

for the orange chocolate sauce, i whisked together cocoa, agave syrup, vanilla (extra, extra) and orange extract.  once again, this would have been even more decadent with orange zest instead or in addition to the extract.

believe me, these were a mighty success!  i loved every last bite.  to make it even better, my tummy loved every bite just as much - they weren't too sweet even for a late-night snack!

sorry, though. no pictures this time!  it was a little too late and i was a little too hungry for orange scones to be playing around with my camera.  next time, for sure i'll snag some.  they were beautiful: orangy with all the candied yum and drizzled with chocolate - it looked like christmas to me!

enjoy life!

the blur: what a week.

this has been an extraordinary week of people.  the first week of school is always a reminder of how much i simply love to see so many different kinds of people every single day (in hindsight that is).  you see, while i love being flung into that consistent byu culture, which feels more like a melting pot to me than it probably does to most people, it's also a week of unusual adjectives.

this week, i laughed so hard i cried; i ate the most glorious breakfast - twice.  i almost brought a hammer to campus just so i could smash the microwave (jfsb basement) that i could not for my life figure out how to use.  there was a day that made me so sick to my stomach that i sprawled on my bedroom floor for over an hour before crawling into bed.  i reconnected with a few potential kindred spirits (on that note, i think it's about time for an anne of green gables marathon soon, don't you?).  although a huge improvement from last year, i found myself almost entirely lost three times.  i made several chillingly large decisions, with only the threat of tears.  i realized the possibilities tied to the fact that my twenty-first birthday is in two months, and the potentials almost made me hyperventilate.  i experienced that knife-to-the-back sensation when you understand that no matter how much you want something, the obtaining is completely out of your control.  i scheduled an appointment with the internship coordinator for next tuesday - talk about scary!  i awoke to a quarter-sized black spider directly above my nose, and i probably would have died if beth hadn't come along.  oh yeah, and i ran four miles (yay, me!).

i think that gives at least a feel for the emotional roller coaster this week has been.  after all was said and done, i now know where all of my classes are (not to mention the indoor track and weight room).  luckily, there were a few blessed people that stabilized my week a tad bit:

sprint boy: we could never really decide upon an approximate age, but he was hysterical.  after natalie's subconscious made the choice to put her phone through the washer, we found ourselves sitting for nearly an hour listening to his bored ramblings (on a friday night).  i very nearly gifted the flower sticky notes in my purse after he asked for the needed number fifteen times.

julia:  meet the beautiful italian waitress (who, of course, works at olive garden).  she gave us way more cheese than was wanted or needed and i loved her for it.  she called us "my love" in italian (we think), "her pretties," and told us more than once to "enjoy life and hold on to our credit cards!"  truthfully, through her incredible accent and flamboyant eye makeup, i caught only about two-thirds of what she said.

allison: a new friend in my advanced family processes class in a very similar life situation with the portrayal of an entirely more firm grip on life than i can admit to possess this week.  a short little conversation after class and my motivation and confidence in my decision-making ability bounced back up to a little above normal.  don't you love when you need someone to just show you that it's possible to take the next few steps and they land right in one of your classes?  i do.

so that's the week!  and now that i'm slightly more settled in a routine, i won't be doing anymore week-long sum-ups {hopefully}.  now to conquer the world!  ...and do some homework.  :)

happy birthday blog!!

on august 30, 2009

my blog was born.

well, the first post at least.  i was sitting around the edges of our family room with my sisters for much longer than a day during the actual creation and naming process.

in honor of paisley's first birthday, i'll share the incident that created her name.

it all started with hailey.  we read aloud to each other often, all different sorts of books.

we were in the middle of the eragon series (which i'm sad to say, i'm not a fan anymore).

it was the height of tension: a man tied to a stone slab and about to be sacrificed to evil beasts.

and then suddenly,

"he was stricken with paisley!

palsy, actually.  he was stricken with a palsy.  but hailey didn't say that.  she clearly (and intensely) read

"paisley."

and that was the beginning.

we laughed so hard we cried and our sides ached.

the mental image of huge patterned paisley-shaped somethings shooting from the rocks around the poor almost-sacrificed man was too much to bear.

the phrase sat patiently on a sticky note (attached to a magnet board) for almost a year before it became the monument of my record keeping and a constant reminder of sisterly affection {not to mention the persistent reminder of the good laughing at a silly mistake can make}.

the phrase evolved, with time.  it's become a symbol of what life (especially in college) can do to people.

all those bright colors spinning around you, so many and so close that you can barely make sense of it.

but when you back up,

you begin to see that it isn't really chaos at all.

it's a pattern.

unique

brilliant

all your own.

and then you realize your pattern isn't the only one.

sometimes it weaves in and out, through others.  mixing colors, picking up polka dots or stripes.

and that's just the beginning of seeing the real big pattern.

because after all, 

we're all stricken with paisley together here, aren't we?

week one in number 103

wow!  in the chaos of moving, this little blog journal has been neglected.  this past week has been such a flurry; it feels as if i've only been in provo a couple of days, and at the same time it's like i never left.  there's two constants in provo: couples holding hands everywhere and a non-stop steaming of owl city in all the restaurants and stores.

it's been almost one week {tomorrow} that i've been back.  i've opened boxes, gotten bruises, opened boxes, hung pictures, opened boxes, grocery shopped, organized my closet, bought my books, almost cut my little toe off, opened more boxes, put together an end-table, moved furniture, and ran around like a headless chicken most of the week.  i still have an incredible amount to accomplish!

looking back, i realized that one year ago tomorrow, i started this blog to document my adventures while attending byu, as one who was not so certain this happy valley idea was her thing.  in memory of my first post, written the day before the first day of class {today}, i'm taking a little walk down memory lane -- and staring over this year's brink a little as well.

first, read my first post.  now, here's some commentary:

i live across the street from the second level, moderate-sized apartment of last year, in the building with the frills (which i have decided look convincingly like pineapples).  i love the old houses with the broken shutters next door more than almost anything.  as it turned out, the convenient parking garage located beneath the complex of little 205 was a more hospitable place than i realized.  periodic break-ins, scary looking skaters, and glass from shattered windows soon became no surprise in the garage.  luckily for me, my little green punky brewster car was never harmed, nor was i.  provo still seems larger than a medium-sized city, although not quite like new york or hong kong.  i'll admit freely, i am still capable of becoming hilariously lost.  but after nailing down the few main roads (and carrying a map of campus around in my head and my backpack) things became much easier.

although changed considerably from last year, i am still not ordinary.

california-girl-beth lives next to my frilly pineapple complex in a quaint yellow house.  na li, who was as mysterious the day she moved out as the first day we moved in, is around town somewhere, still finishing her chemistry degree and, i imagine, still having midnight solitary fashion shows with her roommate's full-length mirrors.  natalie is with me still, thank goodness.  i can't begin to say how grateful i am that we're still living together.  we are still attempting to keep each other sane, and a little more healthy this semester.

this year, we've added two more girls to our apartment ingredient list.  beth, or elizabeth, is a kindred spirit and long lost sister that served in the same mission as natalie.  the day that a small public bus broke down in uruguay was a fateful day.  you see, natalie and beth were both on that bus.  i awoke to her singing yesterday and it made my heart smile.  she loves to make almost-vegan cupcakes with me, and lets me cuddle with her. genny, or genevieve, is beth's younger sister.  with six years between them and five between natalie and i, if you lined up all our ages, we could all be one big sister-family.  genny is a saint.  she brings a beautiful, sweet, calm presence that i prayed this apartment would find.  she did my dishes this morning, and if you know me, you know that almost nothing makes my day more than finished dishes i didn't do.  it's going to work splendidly, i think, the four of us.

this is the brink.  the day before we all began classes.  i don't expect to get lost.  i'm not particularly nervous.  but i am expectant, excited, and quite curious.  i'm trying a lot of new things this semester.  i'm an incredibly new me than i was a year ago.  this is my last year, and i can't wait to see what's in store for me.

i miss my kitties, still terribly.  i have a thousand pictures to hang on my bulliton board.
and i really can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.  it's like being at the top of a roller coaster, the part when you can't see over the edge, and that alone takes your breath away.
adventure awaits.

and class begins tomorrow.

it's TIME!

this is it.

tomorrow, i pack my little green punky-brewster (sp?) car and drive back to happy valley.

the goal:  leave before 1:00 pm
actuality: we'll see which direction the wind is blowing tomorrow, when the time comes!

the list of things to do before i leave and things to do the day or two after i arrive is just about a mile long, but now that it's actually written down i'm not quite as crazy.  i'm a scatter brain, as usual when everything is boxed up i-have-no-idea-where, and the only thing i can find is a random art book that didn't quite make it in the book boxes.

sanity level: i can't focus for long enough to tell.  high spirits, skiddish nerves, and a pearl necklace.

i'll get there!  by the end of the week, i'll be moved in, settled, and ready to love another semester with grace.

by the way... the most exciting news of the week: i made it into the second level of latin ballroom, finally!  i can't wait.  i've been dreaming about more samba, rumba, and paso doble routines for more than three years.  oh the things i'll do with my dancing shoes this semester!  three days a week of straight-up latin bliss - practically heaven. {as long as i can get my country dancing fix every once in a while to keep me sane!}

and it's way past my bed-time!  long day with a road trip waiting tomorrow, and i need my sleep.

goodnight!

sanity update soon to follow.

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!