life's little lessons: laundry.

life is a strange teacher. to some she speaks through the sages of the past (aka-books). to others she speaks through parents and other influential figures (like Snoop Dogg). still others choose experience, or experience chooses them; some lessons can't be learned in any other way.

unfortunately for me, laundry is one of these.

don't you love learning lessons that can't be undone?

my last laundry mistake was about seven or eight years ago when i put a red shirt in with my whites. i learned that red+white=a whole lot of pink!

today i learned that when soaking sheets in a sink, the sheets act as a kind of linen water slide. or chute. i left my sheets draped from the sink to the floor this morning. tonight, all the water from the sink is now on the floor.. and everywhere in between. so is the stain. lovely.

this is basically what happened. minus the snow.

...oh. and there is also a fourth group:

people who never learn.

moi.

I'M BACK!!! :D

It has been quite a while, my friends. I don't know why I went on hiatus for so long. I just stopped. I even began to hate blogging because I got out of the flow and never wrote. When I did, it was crap. Oh well. I'm here now.

I'm back in Jersey! I was in Utah from August until Christmas. Since then I have visited my sister in Kansas and my Aunt in Virginia and am now back en mi casa con mi familia. :) ("in my house with my family")

Being "en mi casa con mi familia" is AMAZING! I LOVE IT. :)

Not much is going on just now, just rain and reading. Life is good. :)

p.s. Happy Birthday Grandpa!! :) He was born 1.23.23. He was always a man of numbers.

A Little of the New in the Now.

I moved to Provo, Utah at the end of August. I am currently working full-time and am saving $ for school, mission, and other ambitions. I'm not great at it, but am learning! I hope to begin school here at BYU (Brigham Young University) in either the winter or the spring semester.

There is quite a lot of newness in my life right now. New home. New family (roommates). New haircut. New shoes. New ward (church people). New location for work. New boss. New friends. New boys...it would suffice to say that I am adjusting to many changes right now. Along with the ever-present struggle of becoming a new person every day. Every day coming a little closer to who I want to be. Permanently.

Right now, there is no permanence. I am in transition. For the next many years of my life I will be going from one transitional stage to another. Mortal life is all about the transitory vagabond. And that is what I am. That is where I am. In the now.

SONNET 116

VS.

I just came home from the showdown football game between infamous rivals BYU and U of U. It was epic in all the wrong ways...we were steamrolled: 54 to 10.

From the beginning of the game I was little disappointed in many of my fellow Cougar Nation fans. I am all for rooting for the home team...but not so much for booing or trashing the other team (or your own when they are losing). It is awesome to become involved in the game, to care about the outcome, to be fully engrossed play by play. But I will never forget the revelation I had when advised by Steven Covey book to not allow yourself to become overly emotionally involved in something that is out of your control. I have tried to take this advice to heart...and it helps. So even though I was sad we lost, I am not going to jump off a bridge. It was just one game. There will be others. I still love my team and know they will rally.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

--Old Billy Shakes--

Flecks of Gold

http://lds.org/pages/flecks-of-gold?lang=eng

Excelsior!

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Come What May...and LOVE it!! :D

There's not just 'one way' to be happy.

Let the pieces fall...fall where they may.

You can't catch them in the air--

Nor plan your course 'round who knows where.

You know your end, so experiment along the way!

--me, just now. :)

Okay. So if you couldn't tell...I'm not asleep yet.

I've been thinking. a very dangerous and wonderful thing to do.

For the past couple weeks I have been going through several boxes. Boxes which I have not been able to go through for years...and not for lack of effort, but because I wasn't ready to let go.

I have a past. Everybody does.

It astounds me, just how hard it is to let it go. Sometimes there is needless guilt and shame. At other times the siren sings her sweet song of happy memories and nostalgic "better times." This is like poison for the would-be-baggage-free sailor of change. The pain of certain recollections can also act like quicksand, spiraling you down into an abyss of tainted memories. There is confusion. Uncertainty. Fear. An unwillingness to let go. Not knowing how.

It is hard to let go.

But I am on this voyage of change. I am taking a chance. The chance to live.

I am leaving for Provo, Utah in a week. Hopefully to attend BYU-Provo. My plans have not settled yet. I am exploring possibilities. SO MANY possibilities. (even more when you are an insomniac with a predilection to planning and re-planning your life every night)

I don't know what my life will hold...but is Really is WONDERFUL!! :D

Even when I don't believe it.