it's february

third already. I have three minutes to write before going to get my hair trimmed. I ran with Marmee this morning. Didn't see any deer friends. Ate two grapefruit (do I pluralize with an s or not? I'm not sure...) and some scrambled eggs for breakfast. Yum. Did some reading and a little cleaning. Today we're going to the temple with our padres and Sierra. She got here late Monday night and we spent most of yesterday with her and Eli. Arlette, Samuel, and baby Sarah arrive today. We're pretty much done with all the planning. We have a little grocery shopping to do and a few other things to accomplish, but we're almost there.

Less than three days!

Huzzah! does not even begin to capture how happy and excited I am, but, "Huzzah!"

Happy Wednesday!

the day after our first date

I wrote this in my writer's notebook:

"What has made this week good is that I'm at peace with myself. I'm happy with who I am. I'm not vain in this--I hope. But I really feel like this week I've been mostly living up to my potential. I'm not living for show or for anyone else. I don't have anything to prove to anyone but myself and my Maker. So no pressure."

I've been reflecting for a while now about the words I penned that first whirlwind week. I'm grateful I wrote because it's quite nice to look back on.

Today I'm so very thankful for Andrew who makes me feel what I described. There wasn't ever any pressure with him. I'm so comfortable and at ease with him. I'm my true self when I'm with him, and that means more than I can even begin to describe.

I'm also thankful today for running and swimming, for peace, for sleep, for students, for friends, for family, for love, for prayers.

unspeakably happy

Yep, that's me right now.

Happy Wednesday!

rushingwriting

The sun's light has left me for its western ways leaving me with a desire to compose a paragraph about how I'm feeling in this moment. Things are really shaking up for me. Big change is coming. Happy change is coming. I feel like I sense only a hint of everything that's going to happen. I was released from my calling in my ward today. It felt so strange to walk home without my binder in hand. It feels even stranger to know I won't be looking at a new ward list practically every week. I already miss my dearest dears. I feel afloat. I'm on top of something so light that I can't capture any fluff from it to take a good analytical look. I know none of this makes much sense, but this is me right now--not making much sense even to myself. I have five days left of teaching my lovely students. I will miss them. In two weeks I will be a wife. I will have a husband. In three weeks I will be in Jerusalem. I won't be here. I already miss my famdam; maybe Guya's right about this whole bittersweet taste. Yep, big change. But peace fills me up that it's alright. It's more than right. Right? Yes. So when I lay me down to sleep in a few hours, I will kneel before I close my eyes. I will pray. I will thank. I will thank forever. Even when I'm not kneeling I will go about my day remembering to have my heart drawn out in gratitude. At least I hope to remember. If I find myself forgetting, I will plead for aid to remember, to never forget all the blessings--countless they are. And so it all comes back to thanks. It always circles and cycles round. Thanks to the Father, we will bring. For he gives us everything. Merci. Spasibo. Gracias. Gratzi. Danke.

thanks for the sun

Why I Wake Early

by Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

back to the bike

It's Wednesday. It's slightly snowing outside. I'm at school. I'm pretty much ready for the day. I just need to write stuff on the board and pick up a stack up copies from downstairs.

Yesterday I enjoyed a glorious bike ride. The last ride I took was in the middle of November. So when I stepped out of school yesterday afternoon into the crisp and clean and clear air, I knew I had to go if it was warm enough to brave the briskness. There's a freedom I gain on my bike that I can't experience elsewhere. It's a pause while hurtling. It's a lull while zooming. I savored the solo nature of it as I gazed at the mountains to my left, then in front of me, and then to my right, as I completed my ride.

Anyway, biking makes me happy. (Yep, stating the obvious...)

And now something else that makes me happy: words.

Here are some from Rilke:

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

Happy halfway through the week!

stargirl

Here at school. Getting ready for the day. We're reading Stargirl (in Sophomore English) for my last few weeks here and I simply love some of Spinelli's passages. Thought I'd share a couple:

"And each night in bed I thought of her as the moon came through my window. I could have lowered my shade to make it darker and easier to sleep, but I never did. In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn't the opposite of day, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert" (12).

"She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew" (15).

Happy Tuesday!

(One week and Andrew's back!)