paradise

i have really enjoyed the music of Coldplay for a long time, and they released a new album yesterday called Mylo Xyloto. i haven't had a chance to listen to the whole thing yet, but i am already really taken with their song Paradise. the music pulls me in and the video that goes with is it unique too! check it out!

for anyone who wants to listen without the video here is the link. i'd recommend listening to/watching both because the song without the video has more instrumental build at the beginning of the song vs. the video version. and it is amazing!!!

i have to admit that at first i wasn't totally sure i was "getting" the video, but as it went along and by the end i thought it was great because of the message it shared in conjunction with the lyrics. what i took from this song and the video is that paradise isn't about having fancy or expensive things (i.e. a bicycle instead of a unicycle haha), but rather it is about being with people you love and care about. it doesn't matter so much your surroundings or situation (could be in the middle of a field, for example), but when you are with those people whom you love and they love you the world continues to spin and the goings on in the world continue to go on yet what matters is being together and loving each other and the feeling of joy that comes from that. i think people in the world today spend lots of money and travel far and wide to try to find what they think will be "paradise" to them. sometimes i think they are missing the point. i know i could find paradise in my living room if i had Mike there with me :) and i'm really looking forward to finding a paradise in my parent's living room when Mike and i go out to VA for Christmas and EVERYONE will be there!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Gifts for baby Addison!

It's time for bed so this won't be long, but I have completed my projects for my good friend Kim's baby that is going to be born around the end of the month!! It was so fun to have a project to work on again! I'm so excited to be a part of helping Kim and Tim decorate to welcome their new baby!! Here are some photos of what I made! :) I almost forgot how much I love creating things :)

P.s. Sorry the pictures are kind of weird...I had a hard time getting them uploaded from my phone

Welcome to the world, baby Addison!! :)

life in technicolor

i heard this song from coldplay for the first time recently and i LOVE it!!! it's fairly short and there are no vocals until the very end, but i just think the song is amazing. here, why don't you check it out!

aside from the fact that i love a good song that builds its way through the music, i am impressed by the power of this song. it makes me think of what it feels like after you've repented and you come alive again...i just think it perfectly embodies the emotions and thoughts that are going on inside just after repenting and finally feeling that forgiveness. before you repent and when you're still holding on to your sin, life can feel like it's just grays and blacks. there doesn't feel like there is much joy to be had because there is something yucky that you're carrying along with you wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you're with. it changes the way you experience life - it brings you down. once you let go of that thing, the color starts to return to life and to the world as you see it. the song starts out with just one main sound - in a way kind of tentative since it's all alone and carrying the song. i think after repentance we are sometimes tentative as we get back into the swing of life the way we were meant to enjoy it. we may think, "am i really free? can i really go ahead and move on?" as we continue to do so, the music and the color in our lives build just as this song does. i picture this as the end part of a repentance journey for a person, and by the end i picture that person dancing and feeling lighter than ever as they are able to feel pure joy from being cleansed through the Atonement of our Savior. they are again able to see all the beautiful colors of life and are basking in the happiness that being clean brings. anyone who has repented knows this feeling - it is incredible :) and this song brings me and inkling of that feeling as i listen to the music build and reach it's height towards the end of the song. what a happy song to have around!

this song has actually inspired me with an idea for a painting so we'll see what comes of that in the near future :) 

strawberries!!!

YUM!!

i love strawberries :) i remember when i was growing up that i was not a big fan of strawberries for some reason. perhaps it is the fact that they are covered in seeds that turned me off from them when i was a wee lass, but i can properly appreciate them now that's for sure :) i even remember the experience that led my opinion of strawberries to take a turn for the positive. i was invited to a sister in the ward's home for a seminary celebration dinner and she served strawberries with angel food cake and whipped cream for dessert. these weren't even just your standard i-picked-them-up-at-the-grocery-store strawberries...she had grown them in her garden herself. man. talk about guilt-tripping someone into eating something! she went on and on about how delicious they were and how proud she was of growing them all throughout dinner and when dessert rolled around, my plan of politely declining had been dashed to pieces. there was literally no way that i could turn her down. i figured i'd just eat a couple of them and that would be enough. however, a curious thing happened. i tasted one - hmm...that was actually not so bad. another one - okay, maybe i can eat them all. a third - YUM!!! i was hooked. i think i even had seconds :) 

so now i'm reformed and i quite enjoy strawberries in a variety of things. it seems that lately i've had quite a few pleasant encounters with strawberries and i wanted to share!! here are a couple pictures of strawberry delights of which i have recently had the pleasure of creating and partaking :)

light, delicious summer strawberry pie!!! and it's healthy too!!! :)

german pancakes for breakfast with strawberries and whipped cream!!! delectable!!!

all of my recent encounters with strawberries haven't necessarily been food related. i am including two strawberry songs for your listening pleasure because i have been enjoying them quite a bit as of late :)

enjoyable song, plus the video is pretty entertaining :)

no video on this one, but the song is top-notch :) always love owl city!

so as you can see, strawberries are great and can provide some tasty treats for the tummy as well as some sweet and fun sounds for the ears :) yay for strawberries!!!

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!!