For a limited mortal time only - personalized trials fit to your very special life

I had an epiphany about trials the other day because of a couple of things in my life, enumerated below:

1. I'm listening to a book on CD called The Boleyn Inheritance which talks about the period just after Queen Anne Boleyn is sent to the block. It talks of Anne of Cleaves becoming queen and Katherine Howard then catching the eye of the king and eventually marrying him, after Anne of Cleaves is pretty much divorced from the king. Katherine Howard is a ridiculous flirt and part of the book is her narration, which makes me laugh. She is the most vain person I've ever read of or even heard of - she's forever saying, "I'm the prettiest girl at court," even when she's just a maid-in-waiting. She even moans a bit about how it's hard to be the prettiest girl in court - and how she wants to be good, but it's hard when she attracts so much male attention.



Eventually, she gets sent to the chopping block for adultery. Whoops. I had a thought while I was listening to her go on and on: "I'm glad I don't have to worry about vanity - I don't have a problem with it, really."

2. I was talking with someone about her friend who has guy troubles. Now, her troubles are different from the normal girl's guy troubles - she has a hard time deciding what she wants because she's always been pretty and popular. When she starts getting serious with a guy, she thinks about how many other guys want to date her, and usually ends up breaking up with the guy she's dating to date someone else. If there's the slightest bump in the relationship, she starts thinking that it can't work out. Now, she's never learned that this is not the way to act in a relationship because there are always plenty of guys to take her ex-boyfriend's place.



I was thinking, "I don't have a problem with sorting out guys and not wanting to make relationships work - when one comes along, I almost have the opposite problem."

3. I was watching a CSI that had show girls on it, and the owner of the establishment was talking about how one of his ladies was getting old - she was 27.

Bottom line: Everyone has their own trials, and some people have the trial of being beautiful and popular. I've never really thought about how it would be hard to be beautiful and popular - but I guess you would have more temptation with the opposite sex, and sometimes you wouldn't know who your real friends were. I'd have a hard time not basing my self esteem on my good looks and people liking me, which could all go away with old age, or even a tragic accident that left me horribly disfigured.

Maybe THAT'S why the Phantom of the Opera turns out like he does! He was a male model, and then...



I guess we all have our own trials. I was reading in 1st Nephi, and I realized that everyone in Nephi's family has their own personal trials, along with generally being in the wilderness and such. Sariah has to deal with her sons not being with her, while they go into Jerusalem to get the plates from a man who's not known as the nicest guy. She's already sacrificed to go to the wilderness, and part of her thoughts were probably that at least she'd be able to be with her family. Lehi has to deal with his son being more humble than him, at a time when hunger had its own voice, and the Lord speaking directly to his son instead of him. Sam and Joseph have to watch their brother Nephi being beaten up by Laman and Lemuel time and again.

I don't think the Lord gives us more than we can handle on this earth, but I do think sometimes He puts us in the situations that are the hardest for us. I can remember thinking a few times, "I'd almost rather have any other trial but this one" and wishing to trade lives with someone - but everyone has their own cross to bear.

This reminds me of one of my fav quotes that I can't find for the life of me. It goes something like this: "If you were to assume everyone was in the middle of a huge trial, and would treat them with kindness as such, 90% of the time you would be right."

Smorgasbord Statements

Time for random snapshots of Amy's life!

Yes, I know I have yet to post pics of my room. It's slowly coming together. I finally fixed my waterbed - draining and refilling one of the water bladders last night, after adjusting its position so it actually lay flat (thanks to Caryn for her help with that). Also, I put away a box of stuff I had yet to unpack from my parents - and I filed some stuff I had crammed under my bed. What's left: file stuff crammed in my nightstand, put up the rest of my pics, get a family pic to put up, sort my nick-nacks on my dresser and other places. Someday soon I might take pics and post them, whether my room is completely ready or not...

I won a Pay It Forward contest, which I think is a fun thing I'm going to try. I won over at my friend Jess' blog. Who will win? I'm kind of excited to see who it is...below are the rules, in quotes.

"The details + the rules:
1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me - something crafty or yummy, who knows?!
2. Winners must post this challenge on their own blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!
3. The gift that you send to your 3 friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the spirit and the thought that count!
4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it! If you are not one of the top three commenters on this post, you can still play along."

I've always assumed that once you get to a certain age, you've got balance all worked out. Now, I realize that you have to adjust when you get married and have children and such, but I thought living on your own was living on your own, regardless of what you were doing. But living on my own without having school is completely different from having school. I now have no time in the day to do things, but several compressed hours from 6-11ish. It's funny - if I cram my night with things to do and accomplish a lot, I feel cheated of my night and exhausted, but if I stay home all night I feel lazy. I guess it's a constant battle no matter your age or marital status. Joy. :)

I'm now a co-author of a blog my brother Brandon started called "Things We Learned From Lost Last Night". It's fun stuff - although, I don't usually think of theories on my own. I talk with Brandon about questions I have and craft them from there, kind of. I've only done one post so far, and it wasn't about a theory, so we'll see how that sorts out.

The Bachelor

I was watching bits and pieces of The Bachelor with my roomies - mostly watching 5 minutes here and there as I made my way around the house.

And all of a sudden, I was thinking, "Why am I watching something I see every day and saw at BYU-Idaho every day?"

I never really felt the weight of the statistic - that states there are more men than women until everyone turns 18, and then there are more women - until I went to BYU-Idaho. I'm told there are actually more men there than women, but many of those men are married. I never got exact numbers.

I was in a ward (66th!) that was an entire apartment complex put together - 8 guy apartments and 16 or so girl apartments. As you can probably imagine, this led to many-a-contest for male affection, and I'm told this was the way it was for most wards at BYU-I: there was "The Ward Desirable" that pretty much got hit on in every modest, BYU-I way possible. Oh the egos of formerly humble men that got inflated to ridiculous proportions because they made rounds on Sunday nights to every girl apartment and received mounds of baked goods.

Oh, the scene of catty women fawning over a male who takes what he can get because, heck, why not? Granted, the rating is taken down a notch because of the gospel and such, but once I started thinking about it, the comparison was still eerie. Thousands of BYU-I students play out episodes of The Bachelor without even knowing it! It doesn't get much better in the "real world," either, after you graduate. Oh, single's wards.

Is there any other reality show that pretty much shows us what we see every day? Why the heck is The Bachelor still popular? Maybe because women think it's nice to see it happening to someone else. I was thinking that a truly original reality show with things that didn't happen all that often in real life would be The Bachelorette, with lots of men fighting over the same woman, but I guess it ran and bombed a few years back.

Church talkers should go straight to...

Maybe I'm obsessed with this, or maybe I can't think of anything else to blog about, but I'm going to blog about the church talkers who sat behind me on Sunday. Or did I sit in front of them?

We got there about two minutes early and I randomly picked out a row, about midway between the pulpit and the back. I thought that was pretty safe, and the other time I'd been to the ward it had been pretty silent and pleasant and we had been in about the same place.

I kind of listened to the conversation of the two guys behind me, talking about one guy's date and how it was okay, and they talked 'til like 3 in the morning, but she's too high maintenance. I'm not gonna lie - I eavesdropped like a bandit. Do bandits eavesdrop? Well, I was and now they do.

And then the meeting began.

And they kept talking.

And talking.

And talking.

Now, I can't say I'm not guilty of talking in church - who isn't? - but I NEVER hold an entire whispered conversation. I have held an entire note conversation, however.

So, there they went, going on and on about something (I could no longer hear intelligible words at this point), and I did the whole act of turning my head several times, looking at them surreptitiously every five minutes or so. I then turned around and said, "Shhhh," while I was smiling, trying to not come off as the quiet police but wanting them to be quiet and kind of not caring all the same.

Then, near the end of the meeting, with more and more anger bottling up inside of me, I snapped. Kind of.

I spun around, and, still trying to keep my cool, said, "Could you be quiet? It's kind of rude to talk right now." Then I smiled - but I'm sure it was rather strained and came out rather maniacal. I don't know that I would want to see what that smile looked like.

They gave me that look like, "Stay cool, sister." And resumed their conversation about five minutes later.

Here are the thoughts that went through my head:

"I wish they would be quiet."

"I shouldn't judge them, but they're kind of interrupting the whole meeting. Not the whole meeting - I'm exaggerating. But I'm sure they're bothering more people than just me."

"Maybe if I were more righteous I could ignore them and focus on the meeting."

"I need to have charity."

"I don't want them to think I'm the quiet police, but I'm not supposed to care what people think about me if I'm doing righteous things. But is it righteous to tell someone to be quiet? Is that charitable? Do I have charity for these talkers? No." *say a little prayer to be more charitable and have Heavenly Father forgive me for being so angry in church.

Dah.

Moral of the story? Sit in the front row.

Half of a Virtual Tour of My New House

Okay, okay, okay - I've procrastinated long enough. It's time for y'all to see photos of my house. But, because it would take lots and lots of pics to show it, and my room's not completely finished yet, I'm only going to give you 3/4s of the tour. Deal with it. ;)

Welcome to my house!



This is my door. If you look to your left, there's the upstairs living room. It's got very comfortable couches and a fireplace, the latter of which isn't working because of a gas problem.



We're moving away from the living room...



To the dining room! This is the smallest room in the house - which I don't mind, considering I don't sit there all that often, contrary to the evidence of my book and food on the table right now...



That door leads to my deck - yes, we have one. It's awesome, but not so much in the winter. I'll try to take a pic of it when it's light and I'm home - if the two happen to coincide someday.



This is my kitchen - well the window seat in my kitchen. My roomies call it the Dorothy Kitchen because it's so bright red and blue. I love it. No more two-butt kitchen - there's actually room!



Here's the actual kitchen part of the kitchen.



These stairs are off the kitchen to the downstairs.



This is the first room you see - which is kind of a hall. It has an electric piano and storage space.



This is the washer and dryer I use in the laundry room. They're pretty amazing - you can set all types of cycles. I'm easily impressed when it comes to appliances.



This is the downstairs living room - it has awesome 70s wood paneling and couches from that same era. I pretty much love it, even though I haven't spent that much time in it so far.



This is the kitchen that's just off the downstairs living room. That fridge isn't actually plugged in yet (it needs to be cleaned out) and I don't think the water works there. Also, there's not so much as a microwave on the counter. Or a stove or anything. Good thing the upstairs one is so big. :)



Downstairs bathroom.



Sink and cupboard and such in the downstairs bathroom.



Thanks for joining me on my virtual tour. Join me soon for the rest of it!

Since I've been gone

Well, since I've moved I've had a lot on my mind. Here are a few points:

I have no idea how to put things together. I read one list of directions for the rack for my file folder box and my eyes glazed over. Even with the pictures on directions, sometimes I'm still in the dark. This makes me feel incredibly incompetent, yet grateful for people who have the logical sense to put things together. Here's to the engineers of the world - I salute you.

It's weird that my home is now still a house, but contains no family - that I know of, yet. When I head home from places now, I have to remind myself I live in Holladay.

Getting organized/decorating my room - I'm awful about it. I still have empty boxes and my old bed hanging out. I get the urge to organize at the oddest times - like 1 a.m.

Trying to organize five different girls' cars, plus their friends' is hard, especially when you have to line them up in order of departure in the morning. Although, when you know you're pretty much the last one to leave, you just try to park in front.

The end, for now. Pictures of my new place to come...sometime in the future.

An ad I actually like

Much of my time at the Park Record consists of building and changing ads for the paper, which is not my favorite thing to do design-wise.

But my favorite things might change because of this ad I just made today.

(Except girls in white dresses still ROCK!:)

It's been CRAZY - what with the Film Guide for the Sundance Film Festival going to the printer on Monday and production having one less day to work on it because we thought it wasn't going to actually happen because there weren't any ads sold for it - until Monday. So, two of us are working on the layouts for the actual Guide, and three of us are working on ads for it and for the upcoming Saturday paper. I've built and changed about 100 billion ads today alone and want to change my name to Ad Amy. What do you think? Or AdGirl. Or AdTastic. You get the idea.

Seeing as I built all the ads, it wasn't surprising that I built an ad for [NAME OF ADVERTISER DELETED] It was going to be built in black and white originally, and I still liked it then, but then the guy from the resort emailed me and asked if it was going to be in color, so I switched out everything to color - and fell in love.

[Picture of this ad deleted because owner of said anonymous company was upset that I put it up here - even thought I built it and I have some creative license attached to it, I just decided because he wanted me to take it off I would - because I work for the Park Record and anything I make for them also belongs to them, so it's legally tenuous and I don't want to have to deal with it.]

I especially love the coupon - it just feels more professional than anything I've made in my life. It was kind of a fluky thing, too, putting the logo in the coupon- it was because I couldn't fit it anywhere else. I also just discovered Onyx font and it just works for this ad.

In moving news: I'm finally moving into my little house in Holladay. I've been postponed from Saturday to Monday to Tuesday to tonight - mostly because the van I'm moving in was in the shop. Oh, and my own car. But tonight's the night and I'm stoked! Pics to come.

In Micah news: He told me he had two brains yesterday.

"How did that happen?" I asked

"Well, I have a brain from preschool and one from kindergarten," he replied sensibly.

I thought to myself, "Wow - that kind of makes sense," and actually said out loud, "So, I have 18 brains? I've gone to 18 years of school, counting preschool and kindergarten."

"Yep," he said.

Then he told Becca his theory and she asked how many brains a person could get.

He said something to the effect of "however far they go in school."

That kid...too smart for his own good and not even in first grade yet. Oy.