what's goin on

it has been awhile since i posted anything! there have been a few times i've thought of something great to post on here, but i didn't have the time to write it at the moment so the thought drifted away. maybe those thoughts will float their way back to me at some point :) but for now i just felt like i wanted to write a post, and the first thing i thought of to write about is my manager Priya who had her last day at our branch today :(

Priya is the best manager i've ever had! i am so sad to see her go :( i don't think i've ever had a manager who i truly considered by friend before...there was one day that she took me out to lunch which was the "grand prize" for the game we had been playing that week which i won :) it was so much fun!!! i really enjoyed getting to see Priya outside of work and getting to talk to her on a just friend level rather than a friend/manager level which is a little bit different :) she asked me questions about mike and life and my family and i got to find out more about her boyfriend and her life and family too! i really enjoyed having a friend of mine be my manager :)

Priya also believed in my abilities to succeed at work. it's kind of tough getting started out as a teller because there are expectations we're expected to meet in terms of "sales" made. i figured if i made "threshold" (the lowest acceptable level with no bonus compensation for reaching that level) then that would be good was a good enough goal for me. well, i managed to reach threshold with two weeks left in the quarter (we reset our count each new quarter) and Priya told me how proud of me she was and that she knew that i had the ability to reach bronze (the next level of sales that included bonus money for reaching it). she remembers how i laughed when she first said that, but she was serious! in the next day or two i realized that maybe all it would take was owning that goal and determining to achieve it. i decided to go for it and, lo and behold, i achieved bronze! achieving any sort of level with bonus money your rookie quarter is something to be very proud of and so it really gave me alot of confidence in myself and my abilities! Priya knew and believed from the beginning though that i could do it, even before i knew and believed it. i have never had a manager that pushed me to do and be better and believed in me. all my previous managers seemed pleased with my performance (i think so anyway, i really didn't get much feedback!) but didn't try to urge me on to do more. Priya was proud of what i had accomplished but let me know that she knew i had even more potential in me and helped me achieve that. there are so many lessons for me in that!

Priya had the ability to express to everyone that she cared about them in a way that each person could tell that on a personal level. you know how it's different amongst different people in terms of the actions they interpret as meaning that someone cares about them? well Priya figured out how to show each person that she cared about them and then she showed them. whether it was through joking around or simply asking about how things were going or being encouraging or a multitude of other things, i knew that Priya cared about me :) i have had managers in the past that did convey care and concern at times, but no one who did it like Priya did. because i knew she cared, i knew that i could ask for help or understanding in a tough time. that really meant alot :)

i don't know if the examples i've shared really embody how great of a person Priya is, but she sure is super and i'm going to miss her a bunch!!! maybe at some point i'll end up working at her new branch :) but in the meantime i will miss her!!!! thanks for everything you've done to help me be a better teller and a better person, Priya! you have taught me alot that will help me in work and in life too :) thank you for being such a great friend to me!!!

for time & all eternity

look what we got in the mail today!!!! our personalized temple picture!!!!!!!!!!! :) i love it!!! i wish i could sleep with it but i'm afraid of drooling on it and making it yucky. it is so big and beautiful!! even bigger than our tv :) totally worth saving our money up for a month for!!! i love the temple! especially the one i got married in!!!! :)

(i wish i had time to make this post longer, but hopefully all the exclamation points make up for it hehe)

minnesota grass

as i've been observing the fading out of winter into spring this year, i've found myself contemplating on the grass at various points. at first, as i mentioned in another blog, i found myself gazing upon the dead, deep-freeze-attacked grass. it was all brown and boring and kind of yucky, but i was still pretty excited to see it because it meant the snow was receding. in the last few weeks i've noticed that the grass was starting to turn green! it's alive again!! i guess april showers really do bring some spring colors! but, as i thought about it, i realized that i started seeing green grass before we had any showers. and that got me thinking.

that grass was crushed all winter under the excruciating weight of the snow that seemed to be EVERYWHERE and lasted seemingly FOREVER. if i was grass, i would've been pretty angry with the snow! i mean, that snow made it so the grass couldn't get sunlight and it was so cold that the ground was frozen and couldn't get any water! that's mean. i bet the grass felt like it was a pretty unbearable thing that they had to endure with all that snow sitting on top of them and smushing them flat. i'm pretty sure the grass couldn't see how that situation could be anything but bad.

BUT. as the temperatures began to rise, the snow began to melt and the grass was visible again. and this is the part that i realized recently - not only was the snow melting away, but it was nourishing the grass with water again at the same time! the very cause of the grass's death (or hibernation or whatever grass does :) in the first place became the very thing that made it strong again...maybe even stronger than before! (more resistant to lawn mower blades perhaps! :)

this made me think of life - i know i've been in plenty of situations that i thought were less than wonderful and i didn't have the foresight to realize how those situations could actually be of good to me in the future and leave me a stronger, better blade of grass...oops i mean person :) it's hard to be in a bad spot like that and to see what the benefits will be, but i hope that everyone is able to look back and see that, as undesirable as the trial may have been - and sometimes even of one's own causing, good things came as a result of working through it, being patient, and persevering. maybe the snow isn't so bad after all!!

"oh darling i wish you were here"

well, as i write this blog, mike is off at an elder's quorum activity. "an activity where the wives weren't invited??!" as my mom asked. nope. not invited. but not too horribly sad about  not being invited since it's a video game night ha :) my contributions to the evening consist of encouraging mike to go so he could get to know his quorum better and making chocolate chip cookies for him to take along.

anyhow, the title of this blog is a line from the Owl City song "Vanilla Twilight". i always liked that song and have thought of it at times when mike and i were apart. we both really love Owl City and listen to it together often :) we watched the video for it last night which is really neat and, unexpectedly, touched me. check it out:

click on this link in case the video doesn't work: Vanilla Twilight music video

i think this video is AWESOME. the idea that i get from the video is totally different from what i get from the song, but i love the creativity of the music video - it seems like we don't see that so often anymore. what i love about the video and what touched me is the way that this phenomenon that is occurring in the sky is something that connects all these random people. they all stop what they are doing (driving, walking, playing, sitting) and pause to watch what is going on...i noticed that even nature paused for a moment because it stops snowing briefly in the video! maybe it's weird, but i get this really cool feeling inside when i think of or see things that make people interconnected. i just love knowing that even though there are so many people and we are all so different, there are still things that make us all the same in some way. everyone feels sad whether they want to admit it or not, and everyone feels happiness too at some point. everyone desires to be loved. and like in the video, everyone who saw something like this going on in the heavens would stop and look up. it makes me think of the second coming and what it will be like at that day when everyone stops what they are doing in response to the Savior returning to the earth. which reminds me, everyone is a son or daughter of God and that is probably the strongest way we are interconnected. it will be awesome when everyone realizes that :)

i love being interconnected with other people. i wish that more people took the time to connect with others - even with people that they don't know that well. i see this all the time at the bank - some people are too busy and impatient to even have a conversation with the person who is depositing their checks or getting their rolls of quarters for them. or they go beyond being short and are rude and hurtful for who knows what reason. we're all the same in so many ways, i know they wouldn't want to be treated like that. all i want to do is make the people that come through my line smile or even just make their day a little better or easier. oh well. i just try to remember of how we're connected whether we're friends or not and move on to the next person who will let me help them to smile :)

well, all this deep thought just to say that i miss my husband. "i'll doze off safe and soundly, but i'll miss your arms around me." i'm excited for you to get home, mike!! :)

the rain came back!!!

I MISSED THE RAIN ALL WINTER AND IT'S FINALLY COME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cannot begin to tell you how exciting it is to have rain again. (and actually, since the rain has returned we've had another heavy snowfall, but i am too excited about the fact that it's getting warm enough to have rain again to be bothered by that fact haha. if it rained once it will rain again soon!) i have always loved the rain, and have so many fond memories of it. i think because my dad loves the rain i've always had positive feelings about it. rain is so calming and peaceful - doesn't matter if a thunderstorm is going on, it still seems peaceful to me :) i love it.

i remember staying up really late one night with megan when we shared a room growing up. a thunderstorm started while we were talking and "trying" to fall asleep and we got really excited and decided we should watch the rain. we both laid with our heads upside down and hanging off our loft beds so we could see out the window we opened and watched the rain and lightning. it was so cool :) i love that memory. i think the storm went on for quite sometime, but it got to a point where we couldn't lay with our heads like that anymore. i'm sure we drifted off to sleep listening the sound of the rain tapping on the metal awning covering our window. that sound is one of my favorites - makes me want to go get a metal awning for our tiny little basement window!

another rain memory from when i was growing up is from a sunday afternoon one summer. we got home from church and begged mom to let us go outside and play in the rain that had been falling all morning. she said we could if when we came back inside we came in the laundry room so we could dry off and change and not get the carpet wet all through the house ;) so my sisters and i all went outside to play in the rain. we splashed in puddles in the driveway, and became fascinated by the river of rainwater that was rushing through the gutter by the curb in our front yard. we waded around in that for a bit and discovered that our flip-flops floated down this mini river if we set them on top. we decided to have flip-flop races and timed our shoes to see which one was the fastest :) i remember having to chase one down the street because the current took it away quicker than we had expected!  i remember the missionaries looking at us pretty strangely when they drove up for a Sunday visit and all four of us were dripping with rainwater having a marvelous time splashing around in the gutters hahaha. we were thoroughly soaked by the time we decided to head inside, but we were happy and had made some awesome memories.

this memory is a little more fuzzy, and i admit that it could be not a memory at all, but rather a dream or a piece of someone else's story that i converted to a pseudo-memory :) but i have this thought of a time when my family was together and i woke up in the night and heard my parents' voices outside. the place we were staying had a porch with really nice rocking chairs on it so i went outside to see what they were doing. there was an amazing rainstorm going on and my parents were sitting and talking on the porch while enjoying the rainstorm. i'm sure i joined them and enjoyed it equally as much :) if that's not a real memory, then oh well. i guess i'm getting old. but it makes me smile to think about it so maybe we'll have to do it sometime and make it a real memory :)

i have so many memories from my mission of rainy days (shocking, i know). i loved serving in a rainy place! there were lots of rainy days, but not very many thunderstorms, so i remember one night when we actually were graced with a thunderstorm. i was in a trio at the time and me and one of my companions ran outside to enjoy the rain and lightning and the other begrudgingly joined us since we had left the apartment and she had to also :) i remember just standing in the rain and laughing and talking and singing. then as we were driving home from the airport on the day i returned to VA from my mission, i remember the most incredible thunderstorm and thinking that Heavenly Father was giving me a really great welcome home present :)

when mike and i went out to the west coast for Anny's wedding we enjoyed several rainy days :) the house we were staying in was right on a lake and it looked so beautiful with all the ripples caused by the rain! we were borrowing a friend's jaguar to get around while we were out there and we loved the automatically adjusting windshield wipers that the car had - if it rained harder, the windshield wipers would speed up with no adjusting. if it stopped raining, the wipers stopped. wow. we have since reflected on all the rain we experienced on that trip as well as how nice it would be to have those windshield wipers on our cars!

i know i have plenty of other rain memories, but these are the ones that came to me first. from what i've heard, it's supposed to be a stormy spring here in MN so i'm really excited to make more rain memories this year!! I LOVE RAIN!!!

what's new and exciting

i am excited about the new dishes set that mike and i bought the other day at target when we happened upon the gift card we combined all our gift cards onto! we won't pull out the dishes until we get our own place, but it's exciting to have them :)

i am excited that the german pancakes i made the other day puffed up nice and big like it's supposed to! last time it didn't work...maybe because i used vanilla-flavored almond milk instead of regular milk haha

i am excited about my new rolling pin!! also purchased from target with wedding gift cards :) also exciting was the pizza we had...and something weird is that i rolled it out with the rolling pin ha, but it actually worked out nicely!

i am excited that me and mike played stake conference bingo last sunday!! and also that we both won smoothies from it :)

i am excited about the tupperware we bought!! i told mike i wanted to go buy something fun and he asked what i had in mind. he laughed at me when i said tupperware and said "i thought you wanted to buy something fun" haha ;) it is fun! he turned out to be pretty excited about it to though once we got it :)

(close-up of the swirlies on the tupperware!)

i am excited that it's easter time and the peanut butter cup eggs are out! to me, these have the perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate and are best served frozen :) yum!!

i am still excited about our awesome penguin backpacks from mom and dad at Christmastime haha! i stumbled across this picture and felt i should post it since excitement still filled my heart at the sight of them :) we are excited to take a trip so we can use the penguins to bring some of our stuff! lots of cool and exciting stuff going on in big lake as you can see!!! :)

life is like a TV series

sometimes people compare life to a movie. like they're the main character and going through this one plot and eventually it all gets resolved and everything is hunky dory. sometimes it takes longer for that conflict to get resolved depending on the person, so maybe in that case they would say it's just like an extremely long movie.

well, i disagree. i think life is like a TV series. i recently went with mike and some of his family to see the movie Unknown at the theater. it was a pretty good movie, but after it was over i was left feeling like something was missing. i thought about it for a few minutes, and i realized that i have been watching so many TV serieses (seri? how do you pluralize "series"???) recently that a movie just didn't have the depth and breadth that i have come to expect from a story. so like i said, the movie was decent, but i felt like there needed to be more to it.

so, to my point, a TV series does go into depth. a TV series has several conflicts throughout - often many at the same time. a TV series may end one episode leaving you in suspense and dying to watch the next to see the resolution, yet you watch the next episode and...what?! a new conflict?? and they didn't first resolve the one that you were hoping to see through?! haha. i used to hate that - i'd be all excited for the next episode only to discover that the focus was on some other side character or someone's history or something else unexpected and i didn't get to see things resolved as i had hoped...so i usually would go on to watch the next episode after that hehe :) but this is so much more like real life. some conflicts remain throughout the whole series - it starts in episode one and goes all the way through the season finale. other conflicts are introduced and resolved within one episode, while in the meantime the hero/ine struggles with the original conflict plus surely a few others that have arisen.

sometimes it's a surprise and a conflict that you had thought to be previously resolved, never to be dealt with again, pops up and becomes the current focus. that's kind of how i feel now in life ha. i already graduated from school and went through the decisions that come with getting a bachelor's degree: where should i go to school? what should i study? what classes do i take? where do i live? i remember thinking about all those things and going through the stress of trying to answer those questions. it was tough at times and i didn't see how everything would finally end up. yet, here i am, past all of those things. it got worked out. i didn't think i'd be needing to ask those questions again in my life, but i find myself asking them again with and for mike. i see him feeling stressed out by not knowing the answers, and i remember how it felt to not know exactly what i was supposed to do. but i also remember that things worked out and i made it to where i am, so i know it will work out with him too :) we'll get it! and i know that just like sydney bristow in ALIAS or jack bauer in 24 or michael schoffield in Prison Break, we'll figure out the answer amidst all the other conflicts/plots that are going on in our lives right now :)

i know that movies are shorter and don't leave as much time for character development and blah blah blah, but still. live is like a TV series...just sayin ;)