watermelon in winter

Hello friends. Long time no contact, right? Yeah, my bad. Here's a very brief summary of the last 2 1/2 months of my life: -Christmas -New Years (started that off right!) -Renato's birthday -came back to school -got a new job (I'm back at BYUTV, hooray!!!!) and quit my old one -school is keeping me ridiculously busy, more than I'd even thought it would -I only have one roommate this semester -I'm cooking more -I have my first Portuguese student (I start teaching on Monday) -I've learned a lot about trust in the Lord (again) and about how having priorities in the right place can make a huge difference in all aspects of life -bought a plane ticket to Brazil- I'm going there in May! -fell even more in love with Renato :) So, that's the short list of everything that's happened.  There has been a lot going on.  I'll try to be better about keeping this updated again, especially now that I have a few big things to look forward to, es...

It's that time of year again!!!! As I sit here, my mom just commented that we have a peaceful house.  Pops already went to bed for the night, I am sitting here reading some things, the cat is sitting on the couch and purring, Mom is knitting, and the clock is ticking.  We really do have a peaceful house, and it's really good to be home again!  It's nice to not have to worry about school, though I am still keeping busy with my end of a deal with my parents.  :)  I love my family, and I love how supportive they are to me and the decisions I make. Today was busy, but this evening has been nice and relaxing.  I got to talk for a little while with my other half (Renato), and then I set up the Christmas tree with Mom, while listening to Josh Groban Christmas music.  After that, we worked on some Christmas planning (you know, getting in touch with Santa and all), which is great.  Tomorrow should be another bu...

So once again I am blogging from somewhere new.  Well, it's not really new to me...this is somewhere I've been far too many times, but I've never blogged from here!  I'm in the Salt Lake airport, heading home for Christmas! And the best part...I get almost  MONTH at home with my parents! I even get to spend my birthday with them! So, finals are behind me, stress is behind me, and now it's time to relax.  I'm on freedom time right now, and can do whatever I want!  I've got a list of miscellaneous things I want to do while at home, people I want to see, projects to finish with Mom, walls to paint with Pops, movies to watch, books to read, and obviously probably the biggest chunk of my time: lots of Skype time with Renato!  It'll be nice to just relax.  This last semester was all kinda of crazy with all kinda of stress in unexpected places and times.  Surprisingly, it wasn't even all about school.  It was a lot of learning that as much as I pl...

It's the final countdown.  I've been looking forward to being home in NH for MONTHS....and now that's only 7 days away!  I have to be perfectly honest and say that I'm not nearly as excited as I was, though I'm still excited to go home and goof off for a couple of weeks, with no worries whatsoever, nowhere to be, projects to finish, maybe some walls to paint, family and friends to visit....yeah, that part will definitely be great! :)  Plus it means I'll be one semester and 20.5 credits closer to graduation! But in the meantime....with the exception of Sunday, every single day of the next week will be absolutely INSANE, especially tomorrow and Thursday, as I try to finish up last projects (5-page scientific paper to write tomorrow, as well as a 65-mineral test to take tomorrow, plus a concert on Thursday night) and get everything in before their deadlines.  Funny thing happened, I had a short assignment due today for one of my classes that I had completely spac...

When you think about what "eternity" means, and what it means to have an eternal family (one that NEVER ends), it's kind of mind-boggling.  The greatest blessing, to me, about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, is the knowledge we have of eternal families, and the authority we have to perform those sacred ordinances in bind families together forever.  This doesn't mean all just being together...it means maintaining the same family relationships we have here, eternally.  Mom and Pops will always be my parents.  James, Steven, and Michael will always be my brothers.  When I get married (and sealed in a temple), my husband will always be my husband, and our kids will always be our kids.  And so on.  It extends backwards to Adam, and forwards to the end of "time."  It is a wonderful, amazing, HUGE blessing, and is the purpose of life.  It's the purpose of everything we do.  God created the earth so we could come here, gain a body and exper...

...and we REALLY don't understand why. And, at least for me, I ask not only WHY some things happen, but also WHY does Heavenly Father think I can handle so much?!  I was thinking this morning that every trial I go through is harder than the last.  And it makes perfect sense, actually, because of our purpose on this earth.  We're here to progress, to learn, and not to sit stagnant.  If I didn't have challenges, I wouldn't learn how to deal with them, I wouldn't learn to trust the Lord, I wouldn't grow the way the Lord knows I need to.  But golly, I just want to understand!  The scriptures and prophets all talk about righteous desires, and mine are righteous desires, things I've felt good about for a LONG time, and yet....I guess the Lord knows what's best, but I wanna know too! So amid my trauma of the last couple of days, and my failure to understand WHY I've been faced with this new trial, with oh-so-many complications and no easy solution, I re...

Today at church I heard a definition of forgiveness that I'd never heard nor even thought about before, and it stuck out a LOT at me: "Forgiveness is repentance for a failure to love." Love who?  Love of God.  Love of others.  Love of self.  We are our own worst critics, and often the hardest person to forgive is ourself.  But as we learn to love ourselves, we learn to love God, and to forgive ourselves, implementing the Atonement in our lives.  As we learn to love God, and love as God loves, we are more open to speedy forgiveness of others.  I think Nephi had this down...his own brothers tried to take his life, and he "swiftly forgave" them.  That is just incredible.  And often we are slow to forgive (others and ourselves) for even trivial matters that really don't matter in the eternal scheme of things. As we learn to love others, we automatically learn to expand out capacity to forgive.  And that brings blessings beyond compare!!!...