Ward Talent Show

Recently our ward had a talent show. I think this was the first good talent show I've been to. A list of the talents we were delighted by:
-a bagpiper
-an industrial design student portfolio
-"Under the Sea" played harmoniously by two recorders each in a nostril of the performer
-Mario Brothers theme played by concert pianists
-hula hooping (oh, if you had any idea...)
-golf club balancing
-hand stand demonstrating
-and incredible songs on the guitar and on the drums with outstanding vocals

I decided to combine two talents: yoga and playing the trombone. So I think I butchered the names of the yoga poses and I'm quite rusty after a 7 year absence from my beloved trombone. But Mom, I finally practiced!

The Beehive Bazaar

I had Elise Capener take pictures of the shirts I made when I first decided to open Coco Sailore on Etsy. I knew she would make my clothes look good. And she did! (Check out her fabulous work here.) As we were working together she told me about a local craft fair here in Provo and suggested that I try and get in. Ha! I thought she was just being really nice. These shirts? I was flattered but had to recognize reality--I was just now building a relationship with the needle and thread again. We had decided 15 years ago that it would never really work out between us. (I'm happy to say that our fights are fewer and much more mild. Respect, respect, respect...)

So one day I got up the guts to just throw myself out there. I felt nauseous through the application process. Yeah, there was an application process because they only accepted 50 vendors. In my mind it was a joke. There are many, many talented artists here with years of experience. Like I said earlier, my sewing accessories and I were trying to put a rocky relationship behind us. So I sent in a silly picture of myself, fumbled through a description of my work, and sent in a few pictures of my work.

And waited and waited and waited. I based my expectations on how things were going with Coco Sailore. My garden of success on Etsy needed more watering, weeding, and care than I had anticipated. Needless to say, the money tree seed I had planted was not even poking out of the soil.

Then one day I received an unfamiliar email. And Beehive Bazaar told me that I had gotten in. And that they had posted my information on their website. And that I should come prepared with plenty of stock to the fair.

Have you seen the other stuff that will be available at the fair?! I feel like I can't even compare. What have I done?! I'm thrilled and flattered and terrified and...need to make a run for the bathroom.....

But we learn through our mistakes, right? I just wish they didn't have to be so public. I'm excited to start this new adventure. I'm excited to meet and be inspired by the other artists. I'm excited to have my own business cards! I'm excit..scared...scared...scared....

Sunday Thoughts

My thoughts: Today during testimony meeting, someone related how God must feel watching us to how he felt as a parent, watching his daughter make mistakes. He spoke about how frustrated and confused he would get as his one year old daughter would crawl right off of the bed or the couch. "Why couldn't she understand that she would get hurt when she did that?" He related it to how God might feel when we don't read our scriptures or pray. He said, "Wouldn't God say the same thing, 'Why don't they read the scriptures?! Don't they understand that it hurts them when they don't?' " hmmm....

Josh gave a portion of the lesson in our combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting. He talked about the purpose behind indexing. Our Stake has set a high goal to index 1 million names. By indexing these names, we're taking them from their paper form and making them digitally available for everyone. There are a lot of censuses to cover all over the world. So Josh talked about being able to do missionary work and temple work when you help index these millions of names. I've been indexing lately, as I've talked about, and haven't had any life changing experiences, but I've really enjoyed "getting to know" the people in the past. I have more respect for the mothers who took several children across the ocean to settle in America (Rhode Island, specifically!). I wonder about the women who have children later in their years. Were they like me and just didn't start having kids until they were older or were there children earlier on who just didn't make it? I wish each of the names came with their own stories. Indexing a batch of 50 names would take hours....

Josh's thoughts:
I am not much of a thinker but I would like to say are a few words. And they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

St. Patrick's Day

I'm working a little bit backwards here but I just had to write about our successful St. Patrick's Day dinner. We coordinated with our fabulous neighbors, the Kmetzschs and the Heiners, and planned a magically delicious dinner this year. Kate and Cameron made a corn beef casserole that they dyed green, Pam and Quinn brought over potato salad (apparently there was not a cabbage to be found at the grocery store) and oatmeal muffins dyed green, and we brought key lime bars (that had green dye in them), lime Jello jigglers, and a green pitcher of limemaid to drink. It was fabulous! We pulled chairs outside and sat in a big circle, giving kudos to all of the contributions. We were able to enjoy the warm-ish weather outside during dinner and had a great time.

Tastebud reactions

Quinn modeling for the camera

I love our neighbors. Like a lot. Josh and I wouldn't have nearly as much fun in our triplex if it weren't for our good friends. We love playing games together and watching movies (I'm sure I'll blog about our summer movies in the backyard). They're just the best.

PS--Two days after the dinner Josh and I still had green poop! I'm sorry. I'm sorry....I just think it's so funny!!

A Fun Day for Us

Yesterday morning Josh and I drove up to Salt Lake in order for Josh to take his physics test. I still wasn't feeling so hot (exhausted after teaching yoga that morning) but I packed up the basics--my laptop and Coco Sailore work--and went up with him. We sat in the beautiful and quiet library. The windows opened up to a view of Gateway mall and the fantastic station architecture. Josh studied his little heart out while I interrupted him with gmail chats. He's so cute when he giggles!

We took a lunch break in the lounge where he made me cute little sandwiches. #1 being a peanut butter and honey sandwich and #2 a turkey and cheese sandwich. I love it when he writes my name on the baggies!

After we ate our delicious lunch of sandwiches, apples and oranges, and peppermints (Don't be fooled, it was the only source of sugar left in the house save from bringing a box of Honeycombs. If we had a 9-layer chocolate cake, we would have eaten that instead--as in instead of a heathly lunch entirely.) we played a game of foosball. Josh whomped me. He always does.

Josh took his physics test and aced it! He's been making such good grades in this class. I'm really proud of all his hard work. While he took his test I took a nap and meandered over to the mall where, surprises of surprises, there happened to be an Anthropologie store. I've given up setting my heart on their clothes but I can't get enough of their home decor and their merchandise displays. La creme de la creme, wouldn't you agree?

Later that night Josh and Jarom had an intramural flag football game. Now, these handsome boys are athletic but tonight they TORE UP THE TURF! Between them both they had 5 interceptions and 3 touchdowns + an extra point to help give The Mosletinators a 39-6 win. Ashley and I could hardly have a flowing conversation for all the hollars and Xena calls we threw out. Thanks, boys, for making it an exciting night!

After the game the boys surprised us with dinner at Red Robin. We had a good time quoting THAT THING YOU DO, talking about summer plans, discussing our dreams, picking at each other's food, contemplating fry sauce, and enjoying the bottomless fries. To thank them, we rented AUSTRALIA. (hehe!)

Thanks, Josh, for a fun day!

"Never Have I Ever" within the last 9 hours

So, this is a little twist on the game. Within the last nine hours I've experienced some things that I've never experienced before--and don't particularly hope to experience again. Rather than explaining in detail, I'm just making a list.

Never have I ever (until recently):

1. Gotten the flu after eating sushi. Okay, more than likely that's not really what happened. But 10 minutes after I finished indulging in my wonderful 18-piece roll I started getting chills, aches, my body temperature turned up a notch (which is dangerous considering how hott I am already), and I started getting all buzzy in the head. weird.

2. Had difficulty sleeping because of two thoughts: "How can I best display my work at the craft fair next month?" and "What is the name of the shade of purple used by most Christian religions to describe Jesus' robes?" Doesn't it have a name besides just "purple"? It's been driving me crazy and the answer is not on wikipedia.

3. Woken up at 12:30am (an hour after having gone to bed) thinking, and hoping, it was time to get up already.

4. Started my day at 3am. I sometimes have trouble sleeping but I think that stems from my new worry that I'll sleep through the 6:30am yoga class I'm supposed to teach three days a week.

5. Been so intent to reach my indexing goal. So starting at 4am to catch up on my goal is sort of new for me. If after this head start I don't take a huge chunk out of the number of names I have left--then I give up. Our Stake gave the challenge last June to index (extract) 1 million names within a year. We have 3 months left and have heard numerous talks about indexing. Sister Dicou gave a talk at Stake Conference that particularly moved me and so I took on the challenge to finish a bunch of names by the end of March. Like, a bunch. The Stake President said his mother does 10,000 names a month. So I'm doing 10,100. Cheeky, I know. But I'm gaining more and more respect for his mother as I'm now having to index 700+ names a day. That's about 4 1/2 hours if I'm not distracted--ha!

Fingers crossed I'll get some real rest today.

The Tourney Begins...

Here we go. The beginning of two great experiences: a new blog and the NCAA Tournament. Can life get better than blogging while watching four basketball games at the same time? Josh and I are hanging out at Jarom's apartment. We watched BYU lose (as I predicted). Cousin Jarom asked me several times to be reverent as I threw jabs about BYU's phenomenal playing. And now we have our fingers crossed for Purdue, Maryland, UNC and UCONN.

Josh caught that I failed to mention that LSU won--against my bracket hopes and dreams.

We've enjoyed watching the games with Jarom, who has more trash talk for the play-by-play announcers than he does for the teams. He often calls the games before the announcers do.

So if you'll pardon the exit, we've gotta cheer on these boys with our heart, might, mind and strength.