Ode to a tree

Once upon a time, there was a house in need of a tree.

A tree was planted, though it was hard to tell at first. Small in size but mighty in strength, it survived a few years of being tripped over, snow-heavy winters, and almost being ground to bits by a lawn mower to become a fixture of the neighborhood.

As it grew, it became a natural backdrop for first-day-of-school pictures

and Halloween costumes.

It provided ample shade for bike-riding summers

and plenty of leaves to play with during the fall.

Shoes are for sissies.

It weathered rain

and snow.

It endured many, many years of Christmas lights

and even more risky firework activities.

But as the tree grew taller and taller, its roots grew too, damaging the driveway of the house. No one remembered what the front of the house looked like anymore, having been overshadowed by the tree that would not stop growing.

Even climbing the tree had lost some of its appeal, as most weren't keen on risking their lives to do so.

Can you spot Tyrel?

And so the tree was removed, and the house was without a front-yard tree once more.

But the spirit of the tree lived on. 

Thank you, dear tree, for the memories.

How Harrison Ford became my grandpa

I'm not sure when I first noticed the resemblance. Possibly as early as 2013 when the Ender's Game movie came out, but it was probably around 2015, when all the Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens hoopla was happening. Harrison Ford was all over the place, in all his silver-haired glory.

In fact, it was the silver hair that finally clued me in to something I hadn't seen before: this man looked an awful lot like my grandpa.

It's true. All of it.

I mentioned the uncanny resemblance to my dad, and he agreed, saying, "He looks a lot like Grandpa Rushton." From his tone, I gathered that he had made this connection decades ago, but I was still reeling somewhat from the realization that one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors looked like someone in my own family. (An uncle and at least one cousin also got the Harrison Ford gene, so his legacy lives on in the Rushton line.) 

The resemblance only grows as Harrison Ford (80) approaches the age my grandpa was when he died (84). This week, I started watching Shrinking on Apple TV, which has been a bizarre experience. My sharpest memories of Grandpa Rushton are from the end of his life, so watching current-day Harrison Ford onscreen is like watching my grandpa live an alternate life, one where he still has Parkinson's but is spared Alzheimer's, and is a therapist into his old age.

What Harrison Ford looks like now.

What Grandpa Rushton looked like then.

Now, you might be thinking that there's some resemblance there. The white hair, obviously. The sort of crooked smile. The similar jaw structure. But it's not like they're identical. 

But that's the funny thing about memory. Our memories change over time, and if you go long enough without seeing someone, you might start thinking you have a special connection to some guy you've never met, simply because he reminds you of someone you've lost.

Malcolm Gladwell did a Revisionist History episode about memory once. He used 9/11, an event everyone over the age of 25 remembers, to illustrate how our memories aren't as reliable as we think they are. 

Researchers conducted surveys of what people remembered about the 9/11 attacks. They compiled their first set of answers a week after the attacks, then again a year after, three years after, and 10 years after. And while people were confident that their memories of that day were accurate, the data told a different story. Often, the accounts from the first week were different from accounts documented years later.

I've seen this phenomena play out in my life. My brother said for years that he got in his infamous bike accident on 9/11. He crashed his bike, the road scuffed up his face, our neighbor rescued him, and then he drank bean and bacon soup through a straw until the swelling in his bottom lip went down.

His telling never seemed quite right to me though, so I dug out my journal from that day and had one of my very first "Well, actually" moments. Because I documented this traumatic event the day it happened, I captured important details my brother hadn't retained—like the date. It was the following Tuesday, September 18, not September 11. He probably just saw the Twin Towers news coverage on TV at our neighbor's house and merged the two events together.

Grandpa Rushton died when I was 18, and I don't remember a whole lot from before he had Alzheimer's. Still, he's a solid presence in a lot of memories of Christmas parties, 4th of July gatherings, and softball games (he had an umbrella hat!).

But sometimes I think I might be merging my memories of Grandpa Rushton with his real-life doppelgänger. Was Grandpa actually a crusty old guy, or do I only think that because some guy who looks like him often plays the crusty old guy on TV? Did Grandpa Rushton actually have a crooked smile, or is Harrison Ford's smile just filling in the holes in my memory? Was Grandpa Rushton really the kind of person who makes snarky comments, or do I just think that because I've seen Harrison Ford make snarky comments in interviews?

It can be hard to separate the two, but I think I've come to a compromise. I have four grandpas now, not three. Grandpa Rushton, Grandpa Jackson, Grandpa Bill . . . and Harrison Ford.

My 8 most memorable Midvale moments

This is old news to some of you, but I bought a townhome! I've known since January that the Midvale chapter of my life was about to end, but with a five-month wait still ahead of me, I've tried to avoid thinking too much about the actual move itself. For reasons relating to my sanity.

I can't think of any wait that has felt this infernally long. Even the senioritis I felt for six months before college graduation was more endurable. But it's finally feeling close enough to get started on some closure activities.

First up (on the blog, anyway): memorializing my most monumental but mostly mundane Midvale moments.

1. Playing with fire

I couldn't have cared less about this perk when I moved in—my roommate and I actually put my 70-pound TV in front of it for a while—but my fireplace soon became my favorite toy and is the thing I will miss the most when I move. I went through a mourning period when winter started ebbing away and I had to come to terms with the fact that I soon wouldn't have a fireplace to plan my winter hobbies around. (For the air-quality enthusiasts, I only used my fireplace on "green" days, which wasn't nearly as much as I wanted to use it.) No more reading, watching TV, or crocheting next to the comforting glow and warmth of the fire. No more turning all the lights out just to watch the flickering flames. No more burning books I hate.

Apparently I'm not done mourning. Have another fireplace picture.

2. That time there was a geyser in my closet

You can get the low-down on that here. When I did the four-way walkthrough for my new house, "how do I shut the water off?" was at the top of my list of questions—because I'd rather avoid another flooding, thanks.

3. That time my car was a fridge

More details on that here. "Where's the breaker I flip if my fridge dies on me?" was the second question on my list at my house walkthrough. Which I think I've forgotten already, dang it.

4. That time I was stalked by a cat

I didn't mean for this to become a post full of self-promotion, but, here's the story about the cat. This stalking went on for about a month. When I casually mentioned this to the apartment managers, they didn't seem at all surprised because apparently this cat was stalking everyone in the area. That revelation made me feel significantly less special.

5. A month in the Stinkhole

After my roommate got married, I moved into a smaller, one-bedroom apartment. I only stayed there a month, the shortest amount of time I've lived anywhere. But the Stinkhole left an impression, that's for sure. So much so that after a few weeks I upgraded its nickname to the Pits of Mordor.

6. Santa can't get through the chimney, but pigeons can

This is a big story for me, so I'm really surprised I never blogged about it. Consider this your bonus story.

It was the Friday before Labor Day. The minute I got home from work my roommate confronted me with this news: "I think there's a bird stuck in our chimney." We huddled by the fireplace (which took some maneuvering, since my TV was still parked in front of it) where she kept saying "Did you hear that?" and I would pretend I did. Eventually she left to spend the weekend with her family, and I put in a Gilmore Girls DVD and tried to forget about the supposed bird.

Some time into my binge-watch session, a pigeon strutted out from behind my TV like it owned the place. I shrieked and fled to the kitchen. (That's my natural response whenever anyone rings the doorbell, too.) And I probably called my mom. After my heart rate had settled a bit, I grabbed my broom—my weapon/shield of choice—and reentered the living room to open the balcony door. It didn't take much coaxing to get the pigeon to move from its carpeted perch; as soon as it saw that flood of sunshine, it stretched its wings and launched itself to freedom. It was actually a rather poetic moment, setting that bird free so it could fly off into the sunset.

Probably one of the most exciting Friday nights I had in Midvale, which should tell you a lot about my life.

7. The death of a car

Before moving to Midvale, I had only ever had altercations with curbs and bushes; never once had I been in a car accident that involved another person. But then in a one-year span, I was in two car accidents, one of which was a block from my apartment and that totaled my car. #SaltLakeCountyDrivers

This is what happens when a senior citizen turns left in front of you when your light is green:

I was lucky, though. Usually when I think of someone's car getting totaled, I imagine horrific crashes on the freeway that involve blood and broken bones. I walked away with just a minor burn on my thumb from when the airbag went off and some wicked whiplash (the people in the other car were pretty shaken up, but uninjured). And that collision was probably the cause of the migraines I started having months later, but they seem to have stopped.

There are so many ways it could have been worse. Like, if I hadn't hit the brakes when I did, the driver of that mini SUV would have hit me directly, instead of me ramming into their rear passenger door. Not a fun scenario to think about. This accident was one of many times I felt like I was being watched over by angels during all those years living by myself.

8. The worst showers ever

I started with my favorite thing, so I'll end with my least favorite thing (aside from the noisy upstairs neighbors).

I love hot showers. And for most of my life they've been easy to come by, minus the times I was forced to take a shower right after certain family members (let's just say, early church was a trial for all of us). But when I moved to Royal Ridge, the hot showers I craved were no longer mine to claim. During year 1 the hot water lasted about 15 minutes, which wasn't too bad. But that window of time got shorter and shorter, so that now, in year 7, I can really only count on about 5 minutes of hot water.

I tell myself 5 minutes is still a million times better than no hot water at all, because dragging yourself out of bed a few hours earlier than you're ready just to be attacked by an icy jet of water is the absolute worst way to start your day.

And these wimpy water heaters have certainly made me a more economical showerer—it would take some real effort to stretch a shower out to 15 minutes now—so something good came out of it. But now whenever I spend time in a hotel or sleep over at my parents' house, the thing I am legit most excited about is a luxurious shower.

Getting those in my own house, every day? That would be the life.

One life lesson

February 16 is a bit of a dark day for my family. Eighteen years ago my Grandma Rushton passed away, and then three years later to the day we lost my brother's best friend. We've got death anniversaries spread throughout nearly every month of the year now, but February 16 has cemented itself in my mind as "the" dark day, probably because it the first time I experienced a loss of this magnitude. These deaths were also the hardest, the most unexpected, and came far too soon.

I knew my Grandma Rushton as someone who had one of the most bedecked houses/yards in Payson during Christmas season, who gave wonderful gifts, and who made every holiday special. And her cherry tomatoes and homemade rolls were almost too good for my little body too handle—on at least one occasion Grandma had to come out to the tomato patch to get a hug from me before we left her house.

But I never really knew her when she was healthy—she died of cancer when I was 11—so most of what I know about her now I've picked up from stories. It's enough to elevate her to sainthood: mother of eight biological children (seven of whom are boys) and to anyone else who needed safety and love, the first person I think of whenever a Relief Society teacher asks us to think of someone who characterizes service, a fierce competitor, someone with a diverse collection of talents who wasn't afraid to use them.

I'm fortunate to know her as well as I do, but what I really wish is that I had had more one-on-one time with her. Something of my own to solidify her specific-to-me presence in my life.

Fortunately, I'm not completely deprived; one memory keeps resurfacing, and it's time I wrote it down.

I was about 10 and it was Super Bowl Sunday (I think). Football was the most boring thing in the universe at the time, so after we wrote down our score predictions, a group of us shut ourselves up in Grandma and Grandpa's room to play Hand and Foot. My sister Tiffany and I were on one team, my cousin Shamra and her friend Carrie on the other.

About halfway through our game, Grandma came in to check on us. Tiffany and I were winning, and at least one of us was ready to go out. Shamra and Carrie, on the other hand, didn't even have any canastas yet. Not wanting to be mean, we debated giving them one more chance to get some points.

Grandma passed on a lifetime of card-playing wisdom in two words: "I wouldn't."

We didn't listen. And we paid for it.

Shamra or Carrie picked up the pile on their next turn, which was stacked so high it kept falling over, and ended up beating us by about 6,000 points.

When Dad and his brothers joke about fearing their mom's scolding more than possibly bleeding to death because of some injury caused by stupidity, I believe them. When people tell stories about Grandma taking chili over to a neighbor in need, I'm not surprised. But when the subject of Grandma's merciless card-playing comes up, I know they're speaking truth, because I learned it from Grandma first-hand.

I haven't taken pity on an opponent ever since. Grandma says.

Pearls of 20-something wisdom: Roommates

Standing on Middle-Aged Adult's doorstep has me in a reflective mood these days. My trial run at adulthood is about to expire, and it's forced me to evaluate my progress. Have I met expectations? Will the Powers that Be recommend me for a promotion to "real" adulthood, scratching off the word "young" before my title? 

Perhaps the most important question of all: did I make the most of the last of my youth?

No doubt these questions are inspired in part by the end-of-year evaluations that are coming up at work, but it's also the first time I've entered another decade while being in a position to do a useful reflection on it. When I turned 10, I had fun telling people I was a decade old for a few weeks, but that wore off quickly and I moved on with my life. At age 20 I was still clinging to my teenage years—the years when I knew everything—and was too flustered to look too far forward or backward. 

But at 10.75 months away from 30, I have some thoughts. So for the next several months, I'm going to document some of the pearls of wisdom I've picked up during my 20s. It's been a formative decade, with unique experiences I think are worth getting down on paper in a way they haven't been recorded yet. (You know, because I'm not doing enough to document my life. And because people just can't get enough of millennials pontificating on their barely lived lives.)

I figured I'd start with a pretty universally 20s experience: roommates.

Let me just get this out of the way right now—most of my roommates were good ones. (Trust me—if you're reading this, you were not one of the bad roommates.) 

Most photoshoots end in pyramid attempts.

Counting both sisters who lived with me away from our parents' house, I've lived with 12 different girls. Those girls came to Utah from seven different states, bringing their own traditions, expectations, and emotional baggage. We were all LDS, which gave us a huge commonality to start from, but blending that many personalities—often with no prior roommate experience to make it easier—was always a challenge.

Amber (the person taking the picture) made us these aprons for Christmas, and we loved them so much we wore them to ward prayer. Yay for roommate bonding! On a completely unrelated note, I miss those pants I'm wearing. They were so comfortable.

Of course, I didn't understand the importance of most of these roommate-melding tips until after I learned the hard way, but I picked up some invaluable roommate rules to live by as the years went by (many of which, I confess, I learned by breaking):

1. Establish right away how you're going to handle chores, from who buys the milk to when the dishes will get done. Most roommate disputes will be eliminated if you follow this simple guideline.
2. Respect each others' boundaries. Especially in college, you're probably living in a space that is nowhere near big enough to handle you, your dreams, and several other people, and the only way to survive is to respect each others' space. If someone doesn't want you to eat their brownies, don't eat their brownies. If someone has to go to bed early because they're one of the poor unfortunate souls with a 4:00 a.m. toilet-cleaning job, keep it down after 10:00 p.m. If you have a boyfriend, remember that he still isn't your roommate and shouldn't always get couch and TV priority over those actually paying the rent.
3. Do fun things with each other, but don't forget to establish relationships with people outside your home, too.

I didn't have that many friends in high school, so some of my college roommate experiences were a shy girl's dream come true: staying up late talking about boys, always having someone to sit by at church, having adventurous people in your life who force you to try new things. At times I put way too much pressure on myself to be as comfortable around my roommates as I was around my sisters, and I never truly nailed that skill, but I learned enough to start knocking down those huge social barriers I had been hiding behind for most of my life.

Jumping pictures are a great way to loosen up.

It was also hard. Living in close quarters with the combined pressure of school, work, and a host of new adult responsibilities is hard on anybody, but doing this without having the solitude I needed was the hardest thing for me. It's the reason I had an emotional breakdown every semester—I could pretty much count on it happening either the first week of school or about three-quarters of the way through the semester. My car became a sacred space during that time; it allowed me to escape to Elk Ridge whenever I needed to and provided privacy when I couldn't get it anywhere else.

I was (am) a complete nerd who genuinely enjoys doing homework and takes "candid" pictures of myself when I'm having a good hair day.

I voluntarily put an end to the roommate phase of my life several years ago, but there are things I wish I had done differently. I wish I had gone to more football games. Gotten into college basketball when I was still a fellow student of Jimmer's. Spent less time hiding in my room. Tried harder at dating while I still had spies to help me and a humongous selection of dateable guys to choose from. Worked harder to repair awkward and contentious (not to mention stupid) situations. That I had spent less time looking forward to the day I would be roommate-free and more time appreciating how special the roommate experience is.

Some experiences are best shared with other starving college students. Such as gathering up your spare change and taking a quick walk in the snow so you can bask in the joy of 7-11 hot chocolate and Dunford donuts.

If I'm being entirely honest, the roommate saga of my life is pretty evenly split between the good and the bad. But the good memories mean so much more to me; I don't think about the hard times much anymore. It's become almost a mystical part of my past, a place where it was normal for people to knock on our door at 11:50 p.m., where Hamburger Helper was a feast for kings, when hang-outs seamlessly turned into dance parties, when grocery shopping and attending a singles ward was an adventure. 

Most of my roommate experiences ended in marriage. Also, this picture is proof that I could never be an actor/model; if someone tells me to look at these people I barely know (minus the woman in white) and giggle, the best I can manage is a "This is the stupidest thing ever" face. Which masks the "I want to kill you for making me do this" face.

I look back on those years fondly, so much so that sometimes I almost wish I could live in that world again, where roommates are your family and everything is fresh and new.

All was right in the world on this day.

But, I'm pretty happy where I'm at.

The mysterious green box: where the cool kids hang out

They sit on nearly every street in America. You've probably asked your mom at some point what they're for. They're ugly and boring, yet shrouded in mystique.

Okay, okay, this box is brown. But you still know what I'm talking about, right?

These things were the focal point of a lot of my childhood games. The one at our house was at the edge of our property, so it was "safe" when we played any variation of tag, the boundary line when we needed one, even a base if we played baseball in the front yard. (Siblings/parents, this actually happened, right? I'm not just making this up?)

The Payson park had a huge one, and whenever we went there with my cousins the giant green box had a myriad of roles: a prison for (a) a bad guy who was trying to get out, or (b) a good guy we were trying to rescue; a cage for a big, bad monster that had been trying to get out for 100 years; a bomb that would explode if you touched it; a fortress (especially useful when water guns and snowballs were included in our game); or a transformer-in-disguise that was only pretending to be a box to lure us in.

None of us really knew what the thing was for, which might be why we were so drawn to it.

Kids congregating around boring objects—that, I get. Kids can make a game out of anything.

But as I've gone on my evening walks, I've noticed that these green boxes are hang-out magnets for adults, too. I've started avoiding one area of sidewalk because someone is always smoking by the box. Even worse is the one right next to my parking space, which I'm starting to fear is becoming the hot spot of my apartment complex. Half the time when I'm leaving or going, there are teenagers leaning against it trying to look cool, a couple coupling, or a lone person on their phone. Every time I see somebody by the box, I feel like I did in high school when my locker was by the good drinking fountain with the really cold water, which meant I could never get to it because there were always 20 football players blocking it.

The only difference now is that I don't care if I break up the party—I pay 15 bucks for that spot every month, dang it!—so every other day I'm parking a few feet away from strangers who are engaged in various forms of socialization, and trust me, there's no non-awkward way to interrupt them. (The socially gifted might have a shot, but as a territorial introvert I just want people to get off my lawn.)

Maybe it's because the boxes make convenient seats if you want to sit down (I'm still hesitant to do that, since you never know when one could be a bomb). Maybe there really are aliens hiding inside, using their mind powers to draw people into their trap.

Whatever the reason, I hope this trend stops before it gets out of hand. At the very least, the cooling weather will push people back to their couches inside, right?

From wall space to wallpaper

When I moved out the first time, I took a small stack of pictures with me to hang up on my allotted wall space. It was just a few pictures I had lying around, but they brought a little piece of home to a strange environment.

Each time I moved, I brought more pictures with me. They provided a nice spot for my eyes to land on when I needed a breather from writing papers.

When you really need a break from studying, though, the best thing to do is make a chain counting down the days you have until you're free from tyrannical papers.

Even after I graduated and moved into my first post-college apartment, I kept the picture tradition going. Only now I had enough pictures to turn my picture wall into a picture door. Having my own room helped.

When I moved into the apartment I'm in now, I put my favorite pictures in picture frames and hung them up around my living room, because that's what real adults do. But I still had a large stack of pictures on my little bookshelf, generously collecting dust. (You may not know this, but printing simple 4x6 pictures is super cheap. I continued to print my favorite pictures from time to time because I'm paranoid that I'll lose all my digital copies and that would be tragic.) I wanted to put the pictures back up just for old time's sake, but never got around to it.

Until I switched back to 9:00 a.m. church. I've been on 1:00 p.m. church for years and had grown to really love it, so the transition was brutal. But the hardest part wasn't getting up early.

It was all the extra time I had in the afternoons. 

Sadly, I have lost my ability to take marathon naps on leisurely Sunday afternoons, so I've had to find other ways to fill my time. One Sunday I was going a little stir crazy, stuck inside having already done my other go-to Sunday activities, so I decided it was time to liven up my kitchen.

After 2.5 hours of work, I was finished.

For weeks afterward pictures kept falling down due to my sticky-stuff stinginess. Still not even sure if I liked my new wallpaper, I kept re-taping pictures to the wall until I had finally used enough tape to mummify a small child.

Once I got over the shock of seeing so much color where there used to be boring whiteness, I started to enjoy it a little, just like I did in my previous apartments.

There are pictures along the entryway, too—can you see them?

I look at those pictures all the time now when I'm cooking, doing the dishes, and heating up food. I see them and think, "What an interesting life I've had."

One full of laughter, silly antics, and love.

This wallpaper is about as ghetto as it comes, but it follows me wherever I go. It's too precious to just sit in a drawer, unadmired.

If you're having a boring Sunday, here's a challenge for you: see how many pictures you can find that made it onto each of my picture walls. While you're looking, I think I'll go make some cookies.

Enchanted pages

I started reading this book last night that I think I'm going to love. This passage at the beginning really struck a chord with me:

Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a place in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return. (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, pg. 8)

The first book that popped to my mind when I read this was, of course, Harry Potter. I was 12 when I read Sorcerer's Stone for the first time, relatively young in my reading life. Would I love the books as much as I do if I hadn't been a part of the lucky Harry Potter generation? Probably not.

But there are other books that I read early in life that have stayed close to my heart. (If you've seen my Favorites shelf on Goodreads, you probably noticed that a lot of them are young adult/middle grade.)

I have my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Applegate, to thank for introducing me to some of my favorite books. There's Ella Enchanted, still the best fairy-tale retelling I have ever read (and I've read a lot). There's The Giver, one of the first books that portrayed the world I lived in in grays, rather than black and white. And there's also A Return to Christmas, a cheesy, predictable Christmas story that always makes the Christmas season feel more complete.

I've read all of these books more than once, and they all still evoke that magical, childlike wonder. I add a few books to my Favorites shelf every year, but the ones I fell in love with in elementary school/middle school get a special spot on that shelf. They're the ones I go back to the most.

Glad for an unexpected reason

The signs are all there: the kids stopped coming to the park where I like to take my lunch breaks; the sports section of every newspaper talks about nothing but football; pictures of freshly groomed kids keep appearing on my Facebook feed.

Proof that Tiffany was in fact taller than me at one point. (Preschool)

School has begun.

Two things: those are skorts, not a skirt (wouldn't want to abolish the tomboy reputation I've established), and Tyrel was the cutest little boy ever. (5th grade)

Except, one thing that usually accompanies this time of year hasn't appeared yet: the tug at my heart and slight feeling of envy. For the first time in many years, I'm actually glad that I'm not one of the many starting school. I'm glad I don't have to figure out how I'm going to cram classes, work, church, and sleep into a too-small space of time. I'm glad I don't have to adjust to a new sleep routine.

We must have felt pretty safe at our high school if we could show up on the first day with Care Bears and duckies on our shirts and not worry about getting beat up. (Senior year of high school)

Sure, there are things I will always miss about being a student, but for once I'm glad I just get to sit back, enjoy the changing leaves, and watch some football.

Technically not a first-day-of-school picture, but it was the first week, I think. (Sophomore year of college)

Good luck to those who aren't so lucky.

Oh, and words can't express how much I love J.K. Rowling:

Throwback Thursday: The stupid Beauty and the Beast and the paper-tree Cinderella

One time I was on a date, telling this guy about my favorite restaurant. He listened with a smile, and then said, "Are you sure the food is that good, or do you love it just because it's nostalgic?"

The thought had never occurred to me, and I was actually a little offended that he would suggest such a thing. But, he had a point. Part of the charm of the place is the memories and the photo wallpaper that includes several of my relatives.

But while I'm still convinced that the best Mexican food in the world is served at La Casita in Springville, Utah (one of the biggest disappointments of my adult life was discovering that not all Mexican food is that delicious), I can acknowledge several things that continue to be the best thing in the world only because of the love I had for them in my childhood. 

Two movies in particular. My family affectionately calls them "the stupid Beauty and the Beast" and "the paper-tree Cinderella." 

Since every fairy tale retelling is unique, allow me to give a brief synopsis of each.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1965)

Cindrella lives in a cottage far, far away with her stepmother who never looks at people when she talks and her two 40-year-old stepsisters. They live in a cruel land; the men are forced to wear tights and the women must wear cones on their heads when they go out. The prince, the son of the King and Queen of Hearts, has just gotten home from slaying dragons and saving princesses, but has not yet managed to fall in love. So the king announces a ball, and all twenty of the lovely maidens in the land show up. All sound is sucked out of the ballroom when Cinderella arrives, and you know the prince is falling more and more in love because his smile gets so big it's in danger of breaking his head. But Cinderella must leave at midnight, and they are tragically separated. But, don't despair; they can still sing duets telepathically. Alas, that isn't enough for the prince—especially since his parents keep trying to join in—and he sets out to find the girl whose name he never bothered to learn. Cinderella's stepsisters are the last to be tortured via forced glass-slipper-trying-on, and just as the prince is about to leave, Cinderella's fairy godmother reminds her the prince is always dying of thirst. So she gives him some cool water from the well, he sees his princess through the dirty cheeks and Halloween-colored wardrobe, and they live happily ever after.

Beauty and the Beast (1987)

Beauty lives with her father and four helpless siblings who are in their thirties. Disaster strikes, and they have to leave their mansion and move into a cute little cottage and do chores. It's the end of the world. UNTIL . . . The father's clerk announces that one of their lost ships has been found. The father is delighted, and plans to leave at once to go claim his ship. Everyone but Beauty demands their father to bring home gifts, but Beauty simply asks for a rose. The ship has been sold to someone else by the time the father arrives after "two weeks' journey later," and then the father somehow ends up in a creepy castle in the middle of a desert. The castle is full of fog and causes him to sing conversations with himself. But he has a grand old time, and he sets off the next morning to go home to his children—but not before cutting a rose from a garden. Suddenly, a beast with an upset stomach runs down 17 flights of spiral staircases and confronts him, a little dizzy. In payment for the rose he stole, the father must come back in two days and offer up either himself or one of his daughters for life. Beauty, feeling guilty about her silly request, volunteers to go, and her father, seeking the Father of the Year Award, tells her he'll accompany her on the journey. Beauty has a lovely time at the castle, dancing with statues, talking to pictures, and gazing sternly at the metal owl in the library. And every night, the beast asks her to marry him, and she answers daintily, "No, Beast." Meanwhile, every night in her dreams, she meets a prince that looks exactly like Beast and he is always sad because he failed his acting class. Eventually, Beauty asks if she can go home to visit her family, but her visit isn't all she thought it would be because they've all learned how to dress and feed themselves in her absence. So she goes back to the beast because he's the only one that needs her, and POOF. He explodes into fireworks, Dream Prince appears, and they live happily ever after after the most awkward kiss ever.

Sorry, I guess those weren't very brief. If you only knew how many gems I left out . . .

Ahem. Back to my point. Over the years, my eyes have been opened to the atrocious acting and terrible sets. But as I'm cringing at performances the actors are probably too ashamed to put on their résumés (especially since most of them are actually quite good in other movies), I'm also remembering dancing in the driveway under the stars singing "A Lovely Night," imagining myself in Cinderella's fur-trimmed dress while I sing "10 Minutes Ago" with a handsome prince, and dreaming of living in a magic castle with a dream prince. I notice the cone-shaped trees and off-key singing, but I'm too busy reveling in the return of childhood innocence to really be bothered by them. 

So every few years, I pull out one of these movies, ready to grin stupidly for 90 minutes and come up with more clever ways to mock them with my sisters. They're terrible movies by any set of standards, but I love them so.

So long, dinosaur

When I got a new phone at the start of my junior year of college, I was excited it had a camera. I have no idea what the elite phones were like in 2008, but at the time I still thought it was a novelty to have a phone with not just call and text capabilities, but that took pictures. Even though the pictures were stuck in the phone forever.

(And there are some great pictures in there: BYU campus at varying stages of weather and daylight, funny signs, Mom sitting on Kimberly while Dad tries to watch ESPN, Tyrel in a SARS mask, an extremely blurry capture of me and Kimberly at the dollar movies after we finished finals (I think we saw He's Just Not That Into You, which ruined any chance I had of ever thinking Bradley Cooper was attractive), me wearing a Relief Society service crown I unintentionally kept for weeks, a selfie of me "sleeping" at work, a close-up of my eye, and documentation of the last Jazz game I went to.)

As cellphone technology outstripped me, my phone got more and more useless. It couldn't send or receive pictures. Group texts didn't always make it. It used T9, not autocorrect. It had no GPS to get me out of helpless wanderings. Emoticons showed up as boring boxes. I couldn't check emails or consult Google. I rarely saw more than three bars for reception. And I never did figure out how to change the embarrassing voicemail greeting I recorded in high school.

Sure, I could still call people—which is the whole point of cellphones in the first place, in case you forgot—but as the world got more used to carrying computers around in their pockets, it got harder to keep up as a dumbphone user. I rather like being disconnected for hours at a time, thank you very much, but you'd be surprised by how often other people are annoyed, offended, and/or inconvenienced by my phone's lack of abilities.

I held on to that phone far longer than was practical. What can I say? I saw nothing wrong with being the last millennial dumbphone user. It made it much easier to not think about work on vacations. I enjoyed the "What the heck is that?" looks people gave me when I pulled out my flip phone that was actually small enough to fit in my tiny pockets.

"So you have an iPhone 6, do you?" I say. "Well, I've been using the same phone for six and a half years."

I think you already know which feat I think is more impressive.

And just like I did with my first car, I was fond of my phone's faults. Everyone else's phones were smug and hoity-toity—my phone was quirky and charming.

But about a month ago, those faults ceased to be cute. In a matter of days, the battery went from lasting almost a week to losing a third of its power every time I sent a lousy text. For four days it re-sent bits and pieces of the group texts I got last Tuesday, telling me several times a day that Kimberly was moments from giving birth, followed up by a stranger's reply-all congratulations text. (Which had five grammatical errors in it, by the way. After receiving the message 23 times, I think I'm justified in resenting that person for several more months.) And it chose now to get its revenge for all the times I dropped it—the back won't attach snugly anymore.

TO HECK WITH IT ALL—I'M JOINING THE 21ST CENTURY.

My iPhone 5 arrived in the mail today.

As a last show of respect for the phone that worked well enough for over six years, the first thing I did after I activated my phone was take a picture (in HD!) to immortalize its existence.

So long, dinosaur. I might have been a little more sad about this parting if you weren't so irritating at the end.

When $100 is magical

Once upon a time, I accompanied my mom to the grocery store. She grumbled something about only having 10 dollars, and then quickly went into the store while I waited in the car. Though confused by my mom's tone of voice—she made it sound like 10 dollars was a useless lump of change—I imagined all the wonderful things I would buy with that kind of fortune. Why, I could get 20 candy bars for that much money! I could get 10 things off the dollar menu at Wendy's! I could buy a beautiful bag of marbles, a book, maybe even a Barbie.

Ten dollars was all it took to open up a whole new world of opportunities.

It wasn't long before people started tossing bills at me in exchange for watching their kids for a few hours. Payment for my services soon turned into checks that went straight to the bank.

In no time at all, money went from being a treasure to a commodity. I needed much more than 10 dollars now to imagine a life of riches. One hundred dollars would do it.

As a poor college student who now understood the feeling of helplessness caused by having only 10 dollars for groceries, an extra 100 dollars had enough power behind it to change my entire month. I could buy enough food to last for weeks, fill my car with gas several times, or even splurge on fast food just once without feeling guilty. It would be 100 less dollars I would have to save for tuition, or would pay for a nice chunk of books for one semester.

This time, though, the money wasn't a medium to get frivolous things. I stood in awe of it because every little bit made a noticeable difference in my quality of life.

Well, I graduated from college, and soon even the magic of 100 dollars disappeared. Now that I had established some stability with plenty of wiggle room, my dreams suddenly got a lot more expensive.

So the last four years when I've gotten my Christmas bonus (always $100 or less), I've stopped for a minute to think about the responsible things I could do with this extra money. Buy Christmas presents for other people. Put it in savings. Make an extra student loan payment.

But none of those options ever sound appealing. One hundred dollars isn't going to make much of a difference, no matter which good cause I try to dedicate it to. (Not to mention the bonus always comes in cash, which means a 20-minute trip to the nearest UCCU branch if I want to be boring and responsible.)

But there is one thing that has high potential for personal satisfaction: guilt-free indulgence. It's how I started my Harry Potter wand collection. It's paid for a couple extra movie tickets and delicious restaurant meals.

And this year, it allowed me to live one of my fantasies: a bookstore shopping spree.

This $100 was magical.

It started out like this:

Usually I'm more impressed by $100 bills, but this was the most
enthusiasm I could muster on a Tuesday right after work.

And turned into this:

This was before the BYU-Utah game happened.
Obviously.

I love Christmas.

The aftermath of a bold move

This year, I've focused a lot on enlivening my social habits, which often requires all the boldness I can muster. For some people, making friends is so natural they don't think twice about it, but I have always struggled in this area. Sometimes I feel like every cell in my body is fighting against my having any sort of social life at all. Pushing back against my introverted tendencies is almost always exhausting and discouraging.

It's often a battle I don't win, which doesn't exactly inspire me to try harder. (Which is why it's important to recognize when it's time to take a break.)

But every now and then, I score a victory. And the euphoria from that victory is strong enough to last for days. Weeks, even, if I roll with the momentum.

This week, my goal was to go to Cornbellys with my ward. I have loved corn mazes since the first time I went to one about 15 years ago. I was a brand-new Beehive, and didn't really have friends in the ward. But when your dad is in the bishopric, it's hard to get out of going to activities. (It's even harder when your mom is the Young Womens president—but that came later.)

My worst fear came to pass when everyone clumped into groups and darted into the maze, leaving me to either hang out with my dad or go through by myself: equally humiliating options when you're 12 years old. I entered the maze anyway, mostly to satiate my curiosity; I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about. In front of me were a few girls in my ward. One of them saw me ambling along, and immediately invited me to be in their group.

And just like that, I was part of a laughing group of girls, just like I hoped I would be. Every year I went back, it was a similar story—I would somehow find myself in the middle of a group of teenagers, having a great time.

So I had a lot of good reasons to go to the corn maze with my YSA ward. But those same fears I had as a teenager were still there: I would have to show up alone and sneak into a group. There would be three solid hours of socializing. No one would understand my sense of humor, and I'd spend the whole time wishing one of my sisters was with me.

It didn't matter that I knew the activity would be fun. It didn't matter that I've been longing to revisit a corn maze for years. It was still a social activity with people I hadn't cliqued with yet—my instincts were screaming at me to stay home and crochet instead.

But this time, the need for something different—even if it was uncomfortable—won out. And the payoff was better than it usually is—I planted a few seeds for new friendships, saw the stars and some wicked awesome pumpkin carvings, and burned my tongue on 7-11 hot chocolate. (Completely worth it, in my opinion.)

It's another good corn maze memory to add to my journal. But the euphoric feeling I had when I went to bed that night—knowing that I took a risk, which paid off—that's what I'll remember most.

This blog challenge may have been what tipped the scales for this particular battle.

The bold apostle: Elder Holland

Elder Holland's talks are consistently among my favorites. I always feel a little cheated when he speaks in the priesthood session instead of one of the general sessions. Good thing that didn't happen this year.

It wasn't a hard decision to feature Elder Holland in this series on boldness. (The only other apostle I considered was Elder Oaks, whose "Thou shalt not hang out" talk of 2006 still rings in young single adult's ears.) He's not afraid to call us to repentance, to broach uncomfortable subjects, or to bear his testimony to a sea of doubters. He continuously makes me want to cheer, while forcing me to confront my weaknesses at the same time.

It's hard not to imagine such a powerful speaker as being powerful in stature, as well. 

About 10 years ago, Elder Holland presided at our stake conference. Between the only stake president I could remember being replaced by our old bishop and Elder Holland's appearance in little ol' Payson, that meeting was the most memorable stake conference I ever attended.

In typical Elder Holland fashion, he bluntly told the youth of the congregation that we weren't smart enough to make all of our own decisions. I wasn't the only teenager who looked around uncomfortably when he commanded us to trust our parents and leaders because they knew what's best for us.

But he didn't spend his whole time yelling at us, as one of my seminary classmates complained about the next day. He also introduced us to a novel concept (novel to me, anyway): love is multiplied, not divided. I'd like to blame my teenage-girl mindset for my surprise and awe at this statement; I had a hard time picturing someone acquiring a new best friend without shafting the former best friend. I loved my favorite people fiercely, but there was a part of me that thought I had a finite capacity for love. I didn't want to spread myself too thin. 

Even now, I have to remind myself that love isn't like a cube of butter, capable of enriching the taste of only 12 pieces of toast before running out. Love is its own miracle; it increases the more you use it.

After the meeting, Dad escorted his wife and five shy children to meet Elder Holland. I was torn between wanting to slink out unnoticed and wanting to meet my favorite general authority. 

When we finally made it to the front of the room, I was a little disappointed by how old and frail he looked. Here was a guy who could make people cower with his words, and he was shorter than me. He didn't even have a firm handshake (I suspect he was trying to preserve his energy). But when he looked me in the eye and thanked me for coming, I saw the boldness he lacked in his handshake burning in his pale blue eyes.

So when Elder Holland speaks, I shut up and listen.

The index is still here.

Song of the Week: Friend Like Me

Friend Like Me, by Robin Williams (from Aladdin)

What the song's about: How much more awesome it would be to have a genie as your best friend than a real person.

Why I picked it: Robin Williams has always been one of my favorite actors. He's an immensely talented guy, and my childhood wouldn't have had as many laughs as it did without movies like Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, Flubber, and Jumanji.

But for me, the Robin Williams genius started with Aladdin, in one of Disney's most clever songs.

Best line: "I'm in the mood to help you dude."

Mood trigger: This is a great song to blast when you need to get some Saturday cleaning done.

Random observation: I couldn't stop cracking up when I looked up the lyrics to this song. Not because they're funny, but because the real lyrics are so different from what my seven-year-old brain thought they were. Even after watching our beloved Disney Sing-Along tapes, I still had no idea what the genie was saying half the time.

Examples (the ones I can remember because I'm still trying not to sing them this way. But I'm positive there were more misinterpretations):

Actual lyrics: Well, Ali Baba had them 40 thieves
My lyrics: Abacadabra and—40 thieves!

Actual lyrics: You got some punch, pizzaz, yahoo, and how
My lyrics: You got some poof [insert your own string of syllables here.] I thought the purpose of this part of the song was to make up your own words; I didn't think he was saying anything that was actually in the dictionary.

Actual lyrics: We pride ourselves on service.
My lyrics: We fried ourselves on purpose.

Actual lyrics: Say what you wish; it's yours, true dish
My lyrics: Say what you wish; it's yours to wish

The only time I remember asking my mom for clarification on the lyrics was when I asked her what a baklava was. Obviously, I got the rest of the song right.




And, since it's two of my sisters' birthdays today, I thought I'd mention a couple of songs that always remind me of them. I tried to pick just one for each, but that was too hard, so I narrowed it down to four each. Which was still hard.

Tiffany

1. "Winter Wind," by Jon Schmidt. This is Tiffany's signature Jon Schmidt song. I've never been able to play it as well as she can. And she made a really cool arrangement of it on the Clavinova that thrills everyone who hears it.
2. "My Sister," by Reba McEntire. I don't know if it's because Tiffany introduced this song to me or because Tiffany is my only older sister, but this song makes me think of her more than my other two sisters.
3. "Everything I Own," by 'N Sync. This was Tiffany's favorite 'N Sync song back in the day. We once made a tape of our favorite moments of each 'N Sync song from their first album. This song had two moments, I think, because we were teenagers and thought Lance's little speech in the middle was hot. But the other moment we wanted to include was the part where Lance sings "everything I own" in that deep voice of his. We were both certain it was in different parts of the song, but we were both wrong. We must have rewinded and fast forwarded the tape (remember when we still had to do that?) for a half hour before we finally found it. I really hope we still have that tape somewhere.
4. "Will You Be There," by Michael Jackson (from Free Willy). We watched Free Willy a lot as kids, and we always had to watch the Michael Jackson music video at the end. Tiffany and I would get into arguments over whether Michael Jackson was a girl or a guy, and several times we went to Mom to settle the disagreement. She never gave us a straight answer.

Kimberly

1. "She's In Love with the Boy," by Trisha Yearwood. Kimberly was a Trisha Yearwood child. I cannot listen to this song without seeing eight-year-old Kimberly belting out the lyrics. Or remembering that time Kimberly and Melissa sang this on karaoke at Grandma and Grandpa Jackson's house, and Aunt Terri had to leave the room to cry.
2. "I'm Wishing/One Song," from Snow White. Kimberly does an amazing Snow White singing voice. Ask her to demonstrate for you some time.
3. "Far Longer than Forever," from The Swan Princess. Kimberly loves The Swan Princess more than anyone I've ever met. And this song was almost the song she and Jeremy danced to at their wedding. If Jeremy's name was Derrick, it probably would have been.
4. "Here's to the Heroes," by the Ten Tenors. This song is so beautiful and powerful I almost float away every time I hear it. Kimberly gets that. One time while listening to it in the car, we discussed at length what it would be like to conduct this song. We concluded that it would involve conductor after conductor passing out from joy. So now when I listen to the song, I always envision dignified conductors dropping like flies, and remember the giggling fest that came from that discussion.

The first appliance I ever bought

As a college freshman living at home, a half hour away from the big city, I often wondered what it would be like when I moved out. A part of me still couldn't believe that my classmates griped about roommates and grocery shopping instead of parents and siblings, and my stomach flip-flopped every time I thought about the day that I would complain about grown-up stuff like the cost of milk.

I imagined thousands of scenarios: roommates who would become my adopted sisters, BYU's giant pool of returned missionaries who were suddenly contenders for my own Eternal Prince Charming™, late-night adventures with study groups and grocery shopping mates, cleaning checks done by someone other than my mom, classes with students from exotic places like Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Maybe I would cross paths with one of those football players I saw on TV (though I wouldn't know it if I did), or I would be on a first-name basis with someone who helped compile the 1985 LDS Hymnbook.

I imaged horrifying scenarios as well: roommates who would steal my shampoo and leave the light on all night, living quarters the size of my parents' kitchen and living room, college-level science classes and teachers who don't know their students' names, homesickness that would hit at the worst times, like when I'm at a party full of people who all know how to socialize better than I do.

I wanted it all. I wanted to start with nothing—no friends, no dishes, no furniture—and build a new life to stack on top of the foundation my parents had already built for me.

When I moved into Miller 6 on that August day, I took in everything (though I tried not to breathe in too much—visits to other college apartments had warned me that apartments don't always smell nice) from the stained, shaggy blue carpet to whitewashed walls. It wasn't exactly the grand welcome I had envisioned in my highest-rated fantasies, but it was my new life, nonetheless.

It took me a few days to notice that we didn't have a toaster. Me and the five other girls living there had all assumed a toaster would come with the apartment, bolted into place like the fridge and microwave.

It was my first crisis as an adult. How would I have my after-school snack (toast) without a toaster? How would I make tomato sandwiches with the tomatoes from my grandpa's garden?

I took it upon myself to furnish our apartment with a toaster. To my great surprise and delight, I found one at Walmart for just five dollars. A white, dinky little toaster.

When it perfectly toasted its first slice of bread, I spread the good news to my family and roommates and wrote about it in my journal. I had bought my first appliance, one that made a simple delicacy like toast a part of my new adult life.

I used that toaster for years. It switched owners a couple of times, got a little tired as the years passed, but it was still my toaster, the talisman of my adult life.

Today, I bought a new toaster. I needed one with longer slots to accommodate the fancy bread I make with my bread maker. I almost grabbed a toaster very similar to my dinky toaster model, but then I saw the shiny silver toasters that had settings for "bagels" and "frozen." I forgot about the single-digit-priced toaster and got this thirty-dollar one instead.

This newer, shinier model means that I don't have to cut off sections of huge bread before toasting it. It has features I didn't think I needed until I found out they existed. I won't have to push the toast down twice anymore, which will deprive me of daily thoughts of one of my favorite Hugh Jackman movies.

I still try to stick to my buy-no-article-of-clothing-over-twenty-dollars rule, I still use a dumb phone, and the promise of free food still affects my meal schedule days in advance. But the good-enough-for-now mentality I had in college has been replaced with the this-is-cooler-and-you-can-have-it mentality I slowly adopted after replacing my hourly student wage with a salary and benefits. My life comprises more than just the simple necessities of life now.

It's a good place to be in, but I'm sure going to miss that little toaster.