Our Stories

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I went to BYU. Okay, so it's not really in a galaxy far, far away, but sometimes it feels like it was. Right around now, I got an acceptance letter to BYU (yes, the one in Provo, I wasn't daring enough for Hawaii and Idaho was still Ricks College) which I personally did not expect. My grades were fine but not outstanding and I applied just because it was the thing to do. Once I got the letter I had to choose between BYU and Ohio University in Athens (Ohio). I leaned toward OU because it was closer to home and heck, I could say I went to school in Athens without even getting my passport.

Then I found out two interesting things about BYU. For one thing, they taught Swedish as a language. And better than that, if I were to take enough Swedish, I wouldn't have to take very much math. That right there put BYU over the top. But then, somehow, I discovered that BYU had an off-campus newspaper called Student Review. I don't know how I found out, remember the internet was basically limited to Prodigy users and wasn't even called the internet yet. But finding out about Student Review made up my mind on which college to attend. I would go to BYU, take as much Swedish as I could and work on the Student Review.

Somehow it took me until my second semester to go to a Student Review meeting and I still remember my first one. We met on the steps of the Maeser Building because we weren't allowed to meet inside for some reason. It was significant for many reasons--most of my good friends at BYU came from the staff of Student Review, it helped form how I saw myself at school, and it gave me something to do when BYU drove me crazy. But it was also significant because at that meeting I met Joanna Brooks. I'm almost positive I was too shy to say anything to either one of them both that night and for the rest of the semester. It was her senior year and I was a freshman and I had no idea what I was doing at the meeting. As evidence of that I volunteered to write for the Campus Life, the comedy section. Huge mistake. Everyone there was and still is hilarious. I was and am not.

The story is getting really long, sorry about that. I'll fast forward a bit. I worked on Student Review for my entire college career, eventually becoming the editor (mostly because no one else wanted the job). After I left BYU I went to work for Sunstone Magazine on their symposium. I had no further contact with Joanna and am confident that she wouldn't be able to pick me out of a line up if asked. I've always regretted that I let my shyness keep me from talking to Joanna and learning from her. There are a few things I would do differently if I could, and not talking to her is one of them.

Let me now fast forward about nineteen years. Joanna wrote a book called The Book of Mormon Girl. It's about her experiences growing up in the church, leaving, and coming back. It's a truly amazing book and I highly recommend it. I heard that she was speaking tonight in Temecula and decided to go. I didn't think she'd remember me or anything, but I wanted to hear her speak about her experiences and expand on her book.

Her discussion was fabulous. I so enjoyed hearing her talk. If you've been in any of my Relief Society lessons you've heard me say how much I love words and how they are used. I do. And Joanna uses her words beautifully. She read from her book (which I bought as an ebook from amazon the day it came out) and I almost cried. We don't have the same experiences growing up in the church, but it didn't matter. There's more I could say about her lecture, but I'm still processing it for myself. (Sounds lame, but it's true.)

So here's the really exciting part. I got up the courage, yes it took courage twenty years later, to say hi to her after the lecture. The first thing she said to me was, "you look familiar." Totally threw me off, I had planned out what to say and suddenly I was a stammering mess. Anyway, there wasn't much time to talk (basically none) but I did what I wanted to do. I talked to someone that I've admired for a long time and told her how much I enjoyed her book and that I was glad for the chance to tell her that.

But more importantly, she remembered me!

(And yes, I could use an editor myself now.)

One of the reasons we liked this house was the large loft at the top of the stairs. I figured that even if we didn't always do lessons up here, we could at least corral all of the stuff I amassed.

Jason though saw the loft as a reason to buy tools. A loft that we did school work in would certainly need a desk and who better to supply it than Jason.

So he bought the tools last month and got to work on the biggest, most beautiful desk. Now the only trick is to get it up the stairs.

Annika and I were able to have an hour just the two of us the other day. This really doesn't happen much, but her brothers were in their classes and Emma was at preschool. The hour flew, but I wanted to make the most of it. Annika chose to have a picnic.

Actually she asked me if we could have "a picnic outside, where we eat outside and everything." Even after I said yes, she kept asking if we could eat outside. Apparently it's a big deal and I don't say "yes" enough.

So she got a blanket, her lunch and some books to read. I put some water into a goblet with a lemon slice on it and the picnic was automatically fancy. Which was good, since she chose three Fancy Nancy books to read. She also chose If You Give a Pig a Pancake and a Magic School Bus book.

It was just an hour, but I'm glad we had it.

This is the box that has held all of our Valentine's Day mail.





This is Emma telling me "how beautiful" her Valentine is.





This is Annika opening her Valentines and gasping for joy (seriously)





This is the display the girls created so that anyone who walked through the door could see their beautiful Valentines.





This is the pile of Valentine's Sam opened. No pictures, but trust me, there was excitement!





This is Harry's stack. He's too cool for pictures and gasping, but I heard a bunch of "oh cools" and "I love this ones."

(We took part in a Valentine's Day trade with other kids around the country. It was really, really fun to get so much cool mail.)

In January I started running again. It felt great to get up early, tie my laces and go out for a while by myself. I loaded a running program onto my phone to follow each morning and felt myself get stronger each day. I remembered what it was like to feel as though I could do anything and liked that feeling.

Then I got a cold. And before you laugh, this wasn't like any cold I have ever had before. I couldn't breathe, sleep or eat. I got a sore throat and an ear infection. So I stopped running.

After a two-and-a-half week break, I started again. I had planned to start on Monday, but didn't. Restarting is much, much harder than simply continuing.

That applies to this blog as well. I stopped writing here and just couldn't start again. Maybe it is embarrassment from letting it sit, maybe I have nothing to say, maybe the blog has just run it's course.

But I'm trying to start again; both running and writing. I don't know if it will last or if this will be the last, but I'm trying. It comes in fits and starts, but I'm trying.