Birthday 2010

Freaking rad people
Gave me a Kindle. Like, WHOA!
Best friends in the world.

And a book of quotes -
Each illustrating unique
Personalities.

AND an awesome game -
Literary smörgåsbord!
MUST be played again.

The cake: Perfection.
Apricot nectar covered
In lemon icing.

So, in sum, I say:
Absolutely delighted.
GIANT hugs all ’round.

As it turns out

So I’ve said for years that if I ever, for whatever strange reason, had my own company, I would NOT work for the week between Christmas and the New Year – nor would I ask any of my employees to do so. That week is pretty much a wash for most companies; lots of folks are still on vacation, and the ones who are around don’t really feel like working (partially because of celebratory recuperation and/or anticipation).

So what was my wondering surprise when this year I found myself swamped – SWAMPED, I tell you – with work during that week. With most top-tier business schools setting round 2 application deadlines at the beginning of January, plus a 50-page doctoral thesis on neuroblastoma, I was working harder that week than I had in a long, long time. However, rather than bemoaning my fate, I loved every second of it. I thoroughly enjoy what I do, and my clients were all nice and proactive, so we got everything done with time to spare…

Which turned out to be quite fortunate, as my concentration from January 5 on was pretty much destroyed…

And…

Behold the Destructor!

The short version: Cute boy I had a crush on felt prompted to ask me out. Followed prompting. Terrific date. Asked me out again for the following Friday. Second date was even better. Third, fourth, and fifth were Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Lots of interesting divine intervention-type phenomena. (Example: When unexpectedly asked to give Roommate Prayer, turned in a stunning unrehearsed Park Avenue-style performance, complete with whispered asides, prompting vocalized amazement from both C-t-P and now-girlfriend (”Did you hear that?!”/”He prays like we do!”). Question “Are you going to kiss me or what?” finally answered, non-verbally, in the affirmative on Thursday, January 21. Much fun over the 32 days since then.

(This post due in part to my grandmother, who left me a message yesterday demanding pictures. You don’t cross Grandma.)

Plunged!

So by far my favorite New Year’s Day tradition is the annual Polar Bear Plunge here in the (sometimes very cold) Northeast. This year’s Plunge rocked. It was relatively warm (temperatures in the 30s, I think, as opposed to last year’s 10°F) and I got my belovéd roommate C-t-P to document the experience on film:

C-t-P’s intrepid nephew and me properly dressed for the occasion:

Going forth with faith:

Enjoying a nice cool swim:

Mission accomplished:

So fun. SOOOOO fun. Pretty much the raddest thing that will happen to me this month, mebets. I honestly wanted to do it again right after I got out and I’m not sure why I didn’t. What is it about freezing cold water that I love so much?

Essay: How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

Really it’s a photo essay, as is probably already obvious.

So here I am all decked out in my late grandfather’s overalls, shirt, and gloves (and my grandmother’s socks), holding the gargantuan rake:

(I’m TOTALLY posting this picture on LDS Mingle. Or I would, if I had an account on LDS Mingle. Which I don’t.)

As you can see from the piles behind me in the picture above, I had already been doing what’s in the picture below for quite a while:

Then, the gathering and cramming into bags!

Can you tell where I’ve been?

Once one has bagged the leaves, one must carry the bags to a specified location:

Forty-three bags in all. Thirty-five from today; eight from yesterday.

My grandmother TOTALLY owes me. I mean, all she’s done is love me and help raise me for the past almost 34 years. And let me stay at her house and eat her food for free. And give me Christmas and birthday presents. And…

Scandinavia, part 2 (Norge)

More pictures from another beautiful, beautiful place:

Scandinavia, part 1 (Sverige)

Pictures from a beautiful, beautiful place:

Unas cosas

1. For the next few days, I’m the semi-proud driver of a Volvo. It was the smallest rental car available. Simon Bennett, the victim of a (very minor) sideswipe last week, is having his scratches and dents repaired courtesy of Liberty Mutual. I already miss him and his cute checkerboard top and his manual transmission – I really wish all American rentals weren’t automatically automatics.

2. For one of the funniest posts I’ve read in a long time, visit my friend’s weblog. (It’s short. And hilarious.)

3. A friend of mine is involved in a 10 Days to 10 Million project, seeking to share love with as many people as possible in the days between now and Thanksgiving. According to the website, one in three people currently feels some kind of sadness or anxiety – in other words, a third of the population needs to know that they’re loved and cared about. Given my own 23+ year battle with depression, I know how much a quick note or call to someone can mean. So, visit the site, watch the 3:45 film, read the text, and then let someone know you care.

Thunk.

That’s the sound of my head hitting my desk. Again.

You see, for the second time in as many months, I have left a pot on the stove until all the water boiled out and the pot was ruined. This time, the pot in question even caught fire. I was reminded of my would-be lunch when the smoke alarm commenced its piercing cries.

I actually remember thinking today as I turned on the stove that I hate having one of those “you-can-tell-she’s-been-cooking-when-you-hear-the-smoke-alarm” reputations, but had to acknowledge, even then, that it’s a reputation well deserved. I shouldn’t be allowed to leave the kitchen when something is cooking. Or enter it in the first place.

Anyone want to become my personal chef?

The quotidian

Using a recent journal entry as a post today:

I was reading the testimonies of the Three and Eight Witnesses on Thursday and started thinking about that place where earth and heaven intersect. I was thinking about how it bugs me sometimes that God seems to choose such prosaic ways of accomplishing His work – that I want the plates to be carried around in a shining silver box in some kind of constantly illuminated celestial carriage, instead of shoved in a sack and buried under a hearthstone. I want everything related to God’s work to be obviously imbued with the celestial. But what occurred to me as I read is that maybe God’s work is imbued with the celestial – that I need to learn to see the divine in things that seem humdrum and everyday, because really nothing in this world is humdrum or everyday – and neither are people.

Autumn in New England

So a travelogue of my Scandinavian sojourn is coming, but in the meantime, I have to direct you to a friend’s weblog post for today. The pictures are AMAZING, especially given that they were taken with an iPhone – I can only imagine what pictures taken by a photography aficionado with a Nikon would look like (hint hint). I’ve copied the following images as a teaser to encourage (or perhaps compel) you to visit the real weblog post.