The 10 unfinished blog posts of 2013

Yes, I have 10 drafts sitting here in the abyss of my blogger account. That's what I have to show for blogging in 2013. The number of unpublished posts says more about me than the number I actually posted, I think.

Some posts got lost in the fray of coming up with new things to write about. And at this point they're just not important anymore.

Some posts aren't time sensitive, meaning they'll be published some day in the hopefully not too distant future.

Some posts were too time sensitive. I didn't finish them within a week of the event happening so they probably won't see the light of day. At this point I don't remember enough details to really do the events justice; I mean, I remember how I felt on those days but it's hard to put those feelings into words. Those things are best left as memories for me alone.

Some posts just became too hard to finish. Even looking back at one now, far-removed from the day I started writing it and the circumstances that provoked it, I wouldn't be able to finish it. And not for lack of words to say what I want to say; I still have those words.

In a sense, I'm glad a number of blog posts were never posted and that I blogged very little about life in the ending months of 2013. It means I was busy living life and not just recording it for people to read online. While I do believe that if life is worth living, it's also worth recording, there are also some moments that just need to be experienced. (Don't worry, the big events were still written down in my personal Moleskine journal)

On New Year's Eve, Stacy, Becca and I went to the beach, sat in the sand, wrote down things we wanted to let go of from 2013 and then burned those pieces of paper. My first two things burned I kept secret; they each burned something secret as well. All the rest we shared with each other out loud. Once it passed midnight, we then burned our hopes/dreams for the new year. They shared all of theirs and all four of mine were shared, and yes, there were only four.

But here's the thing: I won't be sharing any of those four things with anyone again. Those two pieces of paper I burned for myself alone and the four pieces of paper I shared and burned and the words on all of them are for the three of us alone in those minutes after the clock struck midnight. So yes, I'm sharing that overall experience here in this post but the actual experience of burning those hard times and those dreams isn't something to be recorded.

So here's to 2014, a year in which I hope to balance the living and the recording. And maybe I'll have even more unfinished blog posts to look back on.

Candy association

One of my roommates works at the candy counter in the bookstore here on campus. This semester she's been working the close shift so that means any candy that was spilled or couldn't be sold, she gets to bring home.

I sit here this fine evening, not doing homework because I've basically finished all of it, eating some of this fabulous candy. And I realized tonight how much I associate certain candy with certain people. For example:

The only package I ever sent a missionary was to my lovely Jordan. He's serving in Scotland. I sent him Reese's Pieces because he was so subtle in one letter at expressing his love for them. Today's bag of candy Stacy brought home is full of Reese's Pieces and as I began eating them I realized how I automatically began thinking of Jordan.

My friend Chelsea and I love the MadTV skit that goes something along the lines of, "Can I Have Yo Numba'?" We quote it often and have for the past few years. Ergo, whenever I eat Mike & Ikes, which I happen to love, I automatically think of that skit and then of Chelsea.

At the beginning of last semester, one night Hank and I went to the grocery store and bought candy. It was his idea. (He is very much so a child in the fact that he loves sugar.) It was quite a good idea, though. We bought, rather, he bought for us, Swedish Fish and those fruity flavored Tootsie Roll dealios. (Does anyone know what are they called exactly?) Swedish Fish already held a special place in my heart because my friend Brooke loves them so much. (She registered for them when she got married.) Now it's double memories since Hank and I had a great time hanging out that night.

My dad is a fan of those Milky Way Midnight bars. Therefore if I am having one I think of the time when they first came out and he said he liked them.

Perhaps my favorite candy memory comes from Matthew. We went on a date in November of 2009. Before going to this improv show, we stopped at the grocery store because he thought he wanted a snack. So we're looking at the candy aisle and there's a king sized Kit Kat bar. He decided we'd just get something to eat after the show, which was fine by me, so he didn't get the Kit Kat, but for the rest of the night he kept going on and on about that candy bar. And not just for the rest of the night, for the rest of forever. We still talk today about the date we went on when he didn't buy that giant Kit Kat bar. I'm pretty sure I mention in most of my letters to him whether or not I've eaten a Kit Kat bar lately.

And those are just the beginning. Candy is something special in my book, apparently. I like that idea.

Last YouTube video I watched: George Watsky - Go Big, Young Friends
(Okay, so technically it was the "Can I Have Yo Numba" skit because I just had to watch it after mentioning it. But I did watch George Watsky before that. I've been on a gwatsky kick lately.)

Code Name: Awesome

In an effort to not do homework/study because a) I really have nothing important due and b) I have been in the mood to blog lately, I find myself in the library before 11 AM, listening to Pixar movie soundtracks, writing this, and somewhat distractedly answering questions for my Spanish class when I feel like it.

Basically, in the last few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about code names. I think first of the names my friends and I gave people in high school, usually boys. Around junior and senior years, the boys we were acquainted with and the boys we found ourselves interested in got the names of various freshwater fish. I kid you not. I distinctly remember referring to a boy as "The Walleye" for at least a few months. For some choice ex-boyfriends we gave them names like "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" and "PoS", which stands for something not very nice so we (almost) always stuck with "PoS."(At least I did.)

My brother and his good friend from church used to talk about girls as if they were colors, especially when it came to church dances. I feel like I heard the names "Maroon" and "Yellow" a lot. (I still don't know for sure who these girls were but I've got a few good guesses on account of how there weren't that many girls around their age to talk about.)

As far as collegiate code names are concerned, I wish I remembered more of them, that my freshman roommates and I had written down more of the crazy things we said about boys. But if I'm not mistaken, during winter semester of freshman year we took to calling my interest at the time (one of my now best friends) "Jeremiah" due to the fact that his real name starts with the letter J. That was really the only reason we picked it. I'm pretty sure Brooke came up with it because I never wanted to talk about him out in public or even when I could be over heard by people who knew either of us.

It wasn't just boys we gave these names to, either. We gave them to ourselves. We have Soft Hands, Red Hawk, Arctic Fox, Dancing Squirrel, Screaming Eagle. Those aren't so much code names as they are fun names we actually do sometimes call each other. When I think about it more, we also christened a kid "Crutchy" since at the beginning of the year he used, you guessed it, crutches.

This year there haven't been really been any code names, at least not yet. It's somewhat disappointing to me. The only name Lorraine and I have is "Wade," because a kid in our ward looks exactly like our friend Wade Wade. (Seriously, his first and last names are both Wade.)

It's just strangely fun to give people code names, especially boys.

Last YouTube video I watched: Fast Food Chinese Food

The open mouthed smile

Tonight I was looking through photos from my birthday earlier this year. You know, the one where I threw a freaking cake on the ground and then my friends and I all ate it. I came across this photo.

The lovely young fellow goes by the name of Jeff and he's one of the only friends I truly made sophomore year of college but that's a story for another day. Jeff really has nothing to do with this story either; he just also happens to be in the picture.

The point of this story is my smile. In all honesty, I didn't know I would be in this picture. I was just looking at my friend taking a picture of Jeff holding up a beautiful frosting flower. That makes it all the better. How often are real smiles ever captured on camera? We all know it's not that often. It's one of the reasons why I try to take lots of candid pictures.

I don't mean to get even more self-centered and narcissistic with this post, which isn't that much of a leap since this is a blog about my life, but looking at this picture again made me realize that was the night I found out I could pull off an open mouthed smile. My upper and lower teeth are not touching. And it works.

This leads me to believe that my true smile is not a teeth clenched together dealio like people seem to do so often. A great number of people can pull if off as well. Not everyone can pull off the open mouthed smile, though; I've seen my fair share of not so great pictures as evidence.

Reading back what I've just written makes me feel kind of weird. It was just one of those things I kind of noticed and wanted to point out to everyone else; when I look at this picture it's like you can feel how happy I was. That's not something you see with random pictures. Sure, engagement photos and wedding photos you get that, but not in photos you were unaware were being taken.

I should probably just go to sleep . . . But another thing I love about this picture is that Jeff and I are kind of matching. It was completely unplanned, I assure you, but we totally are.