Little Big Blessings

I've been back in Utah for over a week now, and I've been very attuned to some little big blessings that have happened. When it came time to leave Missouri, I wasn't all that worried to be heading back here. Of course, I was still with my family! We had an awesome week down at the Rockin' R Ranch (pictures and stories for a different post). But things started getting challenging then. For whatever irrational reason, I was a little afraid to face everyone... afraid of what they would say maybe. I didn't need to be, of course. Only one person mentioned it directly, saying how they thought my ex was awesome.... it did upset my emotions but I know that cousin was just being enthusiastic and supportive in his own way. What I overwhelmingly felt was love and support. Family rocks.

Then it came time for my parents to head back home. Talk about waterworks!! I cried quite a bit just at the thought of being left without my mom. I was just scared. Fear can be extremely powerful... but faith is stronger. I've been trying to keep tapped in to faith instead of letting fears dictate my future. Which brings me to those little big blessings.

One of my greatest fears was being back in the Centerville/Bountiful area - this area so full of memories of him and us. I mean, for the longest time just the sound and sight of a motorcycle woke my anxiety, and that was in Missouri! My testimony in a loving Heavenly Father has been daily reaffirmed by the sweet peace and calm I have felt since "moving" back to Utah. I don't feel anxious when I go past places that hold memories. I visited my storage unit without thinking about why all that stuff was there and feeling that loss; rather, I just felt like I had been away for a while and was coming back. When a picture popped up unexpectedly today, it only brought surprise. I deleted those last few I had missed somehow.... pictures of a guy I only knew for a short time before he changed somehow. 

Forgiveness and the Atonement are amazing gifts. The forgiveness I have felt towards him was definitely a product of the Lord, not myself. Peace came so quickly in the immediate aftermath and has remained with me almost constantly. The Atonement has held my heart together and given me hope and courage to keep pressing on in the face of vast uncertainties.  I love my Lord and am excited to see where He will direct my steps!

A Produce-tive Summer

So while the parents were off galavanting in London, I was working hard at home to keep the garden going! We had a rash of cucumbers come on and one Saturday night I felt possessed to make pickles. Thankfully, I had enough sense to make the easy freezer pickles, not the more elaborate heat-canned variety. 

The vicitms. 

 Let it be known that I tasted each one of these cucumbers in an attempt to weed out the bitter ones.  Ever had a bitter cucumber? It is not pleasant at all. Most of them were good, but there sure were a lot of cukes!!

The green peppers, awaiting the guillotine (and freezer as well). 

Fresh raspberries, blueberries, and the first tomato of the season! I miss those raspberries. 

The whole spread, all across the counter. 

My sliced cucumbers and onions soaking in salt. It does something  to help make them pickles.. draining excess liquid out perhaps?

Talk about thinly sliced!! For a total of about 4 pounds... yeah it took a while to cut those up. 

Vinegar, sugar, celery seed, turmeric, and something else tasty.

All nicely packed in their containers, about 3-4 hours after getting started. That salt bath for the cukes takes a long time! 

YUMMY!! I'm totally craving some right now. 

 Looking out over our backyard with our nifty big tractor. I'm told it really is more than a stationary decoration, but I've never seen it work while I've been visiting. And now, for some garden shots!

Cantaloupe! I think this is the tasty one we took on our trip to Utah. Yummers!

Another one hiding in the vines.

Gorgeous green pepper on the stalk!

Tomatoes from the vine

Another shot of our tractor with the orchard in the background.

Looking out on the back field from the pool

The pool and the homestead

Setting sun

Little trees

Saintes and Bayonne

For some reason, I did not post this after I wrote it last year. I have no clue what happened. Anyways, Clog America is off in Europe currently and all the pictures make me miss dancing with them; I especially miss the festival experience. I'm definitely looking forward to dancing in the Springville World Folk Festival in Utah to get a little of my festival fix.  In the meantime, here is what went on last year at one of the most... interesting.... festivals I have been at! 


Travel back in time to 2011 and hope the ocean over to France......


Well, I hope someone is enjoying these pictures, because here come more! After Paris, we drove down to Saintes, in the Bordeaux region, for our first festival. 

Jam session with Venezuela, Canary Islands, and Mexico

Amanda and I with Eva, from Venezuela. She was very friendly!

Amanda and I with Eva and the group from India. They had a guy doing some nifty magic tricks, which was fun! This first day at the festival was really great for visiting with the other countries. 

With my friends from Venezuela.

So we had a lot of down time at this festival... a lot! This day, rather than wander through the city, Amy and I decided to stay at the school where we ate lunch and just talk and read and nap. This was my view from the ground... quite lovely!

This is Amy and I resting. We had a really great conversation that afternoon, which was so awesome. That was one of the great things about this tour: really having time to get to know people and have more of those deeper conversations.

Jen G.'s awesome friend Amy came on tour for the first little while. She rocks! The three of us were roommates in Saintes and we had a fun time, especially with our self-made booby traps (aka laundry lines). Amy also rocked the bag-watching duty. After our show this night we paraded and she stayed behind to watch our stuff... and ended up having to rescue it twice from the sprinklers! Talk about dedication. 

Jenny and I with a friend from India. They performed some very fun dancing, more towards the Bhangra style, I think. Either way, they did a great job. I wish I could have seen more!

My fun friend from the Canary Islands!  We got to talk a lot in Spanish. He invited me to visit him in the Canary Islands, told me about his house on the beach there, his family, and we even talked a little bit of religion! Chrissy served a Spanish-speaking mission and had talked to him about the Church, and we continued some of that conversation as well. Mom, the minute he invited me to visit and stay with his family, I thought of you and I taking a vacation... :)

Venezuela! Some of these South American dancers have some far-out costumes and dances. In spite of the show-girl-esque costumes, this dance was fairly tame. 

I'm so bad, but I don't remember where this dancer is from. I want to say Taiwan, and I'm pretty sure that is correct.  I should whip out my journal and make sure, but I'm tired and lazy right now. Either way, she is beautiful!

Sometimes the food we got was pretty good. Sometimes we got a lot of mystery meat. This lunch was particularly unappetizing, though. Rice with corn, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, and tuna. I didn't eat much. Food was on our agenda for the afternoon outing. 

We listened to our amazing band rehearse for a little while in the afternoon. Seriously, they know how to jam! They are all super skilled individually, and collectively they make great music. 

Our fabulous show at some chateau with one porta potty for the entire event, rationed food (see below) and stinging nettle in the changing areas.... which come to think of it, the changing areas weren't close enough to the stage so we were in the "woods" behind the stage... with the stinging nettle. And a steep ramp to get on stage. No stairs, just a ramp. Great in slippery clogs. Or character shoes. 

Before we got kicked off the "eating" tables. We didn't know, we just wanted some place to get ready!

Fries, cantaloupe, fried chicken and apple tart: the dinner of champions. One piece of chicken each please, and no more! And no more fries! (It was a strict kitchen.)

Think happy thoughts

I've been thinking a lot lately. The house is relatively quiet without my mom here to keep me busy with errands and cooking projects... and sure, I can do those on my own, but then I'll eat all that yummy goodness! And we don't need groceries, which takes out the need to shop.  Anyways, the free time flows slowly, I guess.  I've been seeing pictures of friends weddings and engagements... 'tis the season, to be sure! I've been thinking a lot about moving back to Utah and trying to find a job. Trying not to think about getting into the dating world. Sadly, I know I can't avoid it either - that solves no problems. Thinking about why I stayed  in that relationship for so long. Wondering if I should share that with people. Thinking about other trials I've worked through in the past six months. Wondering if I should share that with people. Thinking about how I miss academia and have lost some self-direction since not being a student anymore. Thinking about how I'm really missing Clog America right now, too. 

Admiring the intellectuality of friends I have who make excellent, insightful connections that make me feel smart just for reading what they've said. Admiring the spirituality and depth of friends who always lift me up personally and live their lives in Christlike ways.  Looking forward to living with friends who relish every opportunity in life: creating, sharing, loving, existing with so much joy and clarity. Wondering what I offer... am I helping others by how I live my life? I won't say I'm not.... but I might could do better. Sometimes I get filled with ideas, like creating a blog to document my impending dating discoveries, or creating another blog to share intellectual tidbits about art, humanities, philosophy, etc. 

Or, what about really getting that dance company set up? Once a week mandatory rehearsal for group numbers, forum to connect and develop solos/duets/small group pieces, any dance style accepted. Provo/Orem is a land of dance studios. Wouldn't it be easy to reserve rehearsal space somewhere? At a reasonable price so that members can participate with low monetary and time requirements? I guess it gets tricky finding performance venues, but a little ingenuity would solve that problem too. And money. Hmm. 

And I think of patterns. Circularity. Pitfalls. And I think I ought to say something about it to people, like here. But then I think, hey, I'm probably a little negative already, perhaps too personal already, and what will be accomplished by sharing? I haven't decided. It makes me think of spirals. The spiral is an ancient symbol. It suggests eternity, though I often find it relates well to my conception of life as I strive to draw closer to Christ. A finite spiral does have end points. You start at one and progress in circles to the other end. Life is so very circular!! It has to be. We gain knowledge, we act on that knowledge, and a consequence follows. Good consequences encourage us to repeat the acts that caused them, and sad consequences move us to repeat the process and use different actions or different knowledge. Ideally, our circular journey moves us upward and closer to our destination: living like Christ did. And ultimately, living with Him. 

Check out the spirals 

Budhha's got it going on

Ancient Celts had it figured out in the B.C's 

Nautilus by Edward Weston.
Spirals in nature: proof that's not man-made

Well, I suppose it's time to get to the real reason for the post. I saw a link to this great article on a friend's Facebook wall, and I thought it would be an excellent share! 

12 Happy Thoughts for Troubled Times By Marc

People and circumstances will occasionally break you down.  But if you keep your mind focused, your heart open to possibility, and continue to put one foot in front of the other, you will be able to quickly recover the pieces, rebuild, and come back much stronger than you ever would have been otherwise.

Here are a few happy thoughts to ponder on those days when the whole world seems like it’s crashing down around you.

1. Down days are completely normal, and not something you should feel guilty about having.  Happiness is never constant.  Surrendering to your sadness, or whatever negative emotion is trying to come to the surface, does not make you a bad person.  But remember, if you aren’t sincerely thankful for every smile, don’t be totally shocked by every tear.  Keep things in perspective.  Read Happiness Is a Serious Problem.
2. When you are at your lowest point, you are open to the greatest positive change.  Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the strength to deal with them.  Strength doesn’t come from what you can do; it comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t do.
3. There is a huge difference between giving up and moving on.  Moving on doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there aresome things that cannot be.  Moving on can mean that you’re making achoice to be happy rather than hurt.  For some folks, good situations last a lifetime, but for many, not knowing when to move on can hold them back forever.
4. Life rarely turns out exactly the way you want it to, but you still have an opportunity to make it great.  You have to do what you can, with what you have, exactly where you are.  It won’t always be easy, but it will be worth it in the end.  Remember that there is no perfect life, just perfect moments.  And it’s these moments you must cherish; it’s these moments that make the whole journey worthwhile.
5. Most people ask for happiness on condition, but long-term happiness can only be felt if you don’t set conditions.  Accept life unconditionally. Realize that life balances itself between the ideal and the disappointing.  And the disappointments are just life’s way of saying, “I’ve got something better for you right around the corner.”  So be patient, live life, accept what is, and have a little faith.
6. Too often, we carry around things from our past that hurt us – regrets, shame, anger, pain, etc.  Don’t let these negative points from the past rob your present happiness.  You had to live though these things in the past, and although unfortunate, they can’t be changed.  But if the only place they live today is in your mind, then let go, move on, and be happy. Read Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life.
7. You can choose to view things differently.  Pick one part of your life that you are unhappy with and look at it from a different point of view.  See the rain as nourishment for future growth.  Consider being alone for awhile to create the solitude you need to hear your inner voice.  Think of your lack of funds as an opportunity to experience the simple things in life.  Right now, you can choose to allow the light to shine in your life.  It is a choice.  Why not allow it?
8. Once you embrace unpleasant news, not as a negative but as evidence of a need for positive change, you’re learning from it and growing.  Whatever life throws at you, even if it hurts, be strong and fight through it.  Remember, strong walls shake but never collapse.  Life always offers you another chance – it’s called tomorrow.
9. When your flaws are stitched together with good intentions, your flaws make you beautiful.  It’s better to be true to yourself and risk being ridiculed by others, than to be false, and miss out on the beauty of being YOU.  Never be bullied into silence.  Never let someone else tell you who you are.  Accept no one’s definition of your life, except your own.
10. You have the ability to heal yourself.  Just like lava flowing slowly out of a volcano, you must create a healthy outlet for your pain and anger.  It’s important after you’ve been hurt to take some time to think about your pain, and address it calmly and consciously, so you can thwart the possibility of more pain brewing from your own negativity.
11. There’s a lot of life left to be lived.  The real tragedy in life is not death, but the passion we let die inside of us while we still live.  Remember, troubles from the past cannot define you, destroy you, or defeat you all by themselves.  As long as you keep pushing forward, they can only strengthen you.  Read You Can Heal Your Life.
12. You are a work in progress; which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.  Today is a brand new day – a fresh start.  Replace negativity with positivity.  Think happy thoughts.  Exercise.  Drink lots of water.  Fill your body with fuel.  Healthy is happy.  Inspire yourself.  Create.  Laugh.  Play.  Love.  Learn.  Give someone a compliment.  Perform a random act of kindness.  Take a chance on an idea you believe in.  You have the opportunity to do these things every single day – to make the necessary changes and slowly become the person you want to be.  You just have to decide to do it.  Decide that today is the day.  Say it: “This is going to be my day!”