Thanks for the memories

I had this random memory when I poured myself a bowl of cereal today…

When I was 19, I studied abroad in Vienna, Austria: a foundational experience for me. Everything about that experience, even the most difficult stuff, has taken on a sparkly sheen in my memory, and it’s all happy.

One difficult thing about my time in Vienna was that I didn’t have a lot of spending money, and I also didn’t have much of a food budget. The woman who hosted me in her home for the semester was obligated to provide me and my roommates daily breakfast and one dinner a week, and she did not offer beyond that. So I tried my best to stuff myself at breakfast so that I could last until dinner. 

Every single day, breakfast consisted of cornflakes and whole milk, a variety of breads and rolls, spreadable cheese, and jam. I used to eat as many bowls of cornflakes as I could stand, and then fold up the rolls and cheese and jam packets into napkins and stuff them in my backpack for lunch. (Random aside: sometimes I would buy a bell pepper at the market and make a bell pepper and cream cheese sandwich for my lunch. I did that a lot.)

Up until that point I had never regularly drunk whole milk; I grew up drinking 2%, and got in the habit of drinking skim in college. I still don’t drink whole milk that often; Matt always buys it, but I get 2% at normal grocery stores and only buy whole at Costco because Costco whole milk is delicious (I don’t make the rules).

Anyway so that is a long background to tell you that today I ate a bowl of cornflakes with Costco whole milk, and it transported me to 27 Mariahilferstraße in the fall of 2002. Some of my very best memories. Some of my hungriest memories, but man. What a life.

Look, you’ve started across already

Ok so we are officially out of the townhouse after two furious weeks of packing and moving, and two chaotic weeks of unpacking and losing things, and now that I’ve had two seconds to breathe, I have been thinking about why I had such strong feelings about leaving the townhouse.

We bought the townhouse when I was 26 years old, our first home purchase. Theo was 3, Ida was 18 months, and Lars and Polly were tucked away in the “don’t even know that I want this yet” corner of my dreams.

We bought it from a bank, who had taken it from the divorcing couple who could no longer afford the payments. In 2010 there were a lot of homes like that: mortgage defaults after the house of cards fell in 2008 and families had hung on as long as they could.

The first year in that house was a rollercoaster. I mostly have really happy memories of it. Just Theo and Ida and me, doing our thing, free as little birds.

By the end of that first year, I was heavily pregnant with Lars and back at work during the day. After the furnace broke during a cold snap and the AC broke during a heat wave, we replaced the HVAC. 

Because of course, you have to have a huge expense in your first year in a new house that you already couldn’t quite afford.

When Lars was a baby we had a few more major things in the house, like a big basement flood which impacted three rooms of carpet and baseboards.

In the next several years we updated the bathrooms and the kitchen and added one more baby.

In the next several years after that, we replaced all of the siding and the windows and gutters, reconfigured the yard and the plants a zillion times, dug out a dead tree and planted a new one, and added a fourth bedroom downstairs with a new window and new carpet.

And everybody grew.

You might know that I like to keep records. I have always kept a journal (and/or a blog), I print my instagram into Chatbooks, I make videos every year for my kids’ birthdays with sentimental songs attached. A tradition we’ve kept up at each kid’s birthday has always been to watch all the old birthday videos of that child.

Right around the time we bought our new house, I discovered that the hard drive I had kept alllllll of my data on… including all of the photos and videos I’ve created, audio interviews I’ve done with parents and elderly friends, everything… had malfunctioned and was totally unusable.

“BUT DIDN’T YOU BACK IT UP?!” Well of course I did, but I was not scrupulous. I have some of it in iCloud and some of it in Google Photos and some of it in Amazon Photos and some of it on another hard drive.

And… some of it, apparently… nowhere else.

NO. WHERE.

I have tried Geek Squad, who, after giving it the white-glove clean-room treatment, pronounced the drive dead.

I am going to try a few more companies and see what happens, but I am not optimistic.

Anyway, all of that is to say: I realize that 

(A) my whole life isn’t wrapped up in one tiny little house in a corner of the suburbs, and 

(B) my whole life doesn’t have to stay preserved in photo and video form,

BUT… I am still very sad to lose those things.

Even though 

(A) I have a new house now which I am so thankful for and so excited about (despite the pouring of money and sweat into things we didn’t anticipate and haven’t anticipated yet)

and even though 

(B) I have living breathing children who are still growing and laughing and crying and running and skipping and falling and talking and all of those things that happened in the last 17 years whether or not I took videos of it.

I guess I want to keep everything locked up where I can access it anytime I want. 

I am a little mad at myself for removing myself from that little home and VERY mad at myself for losing that precious data.

I want to snap my fingers anytime I want and watch videos of my babies.

A Bible verse that has always pulled at me: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

I think I am pretty good at living in the moment. I would say it’s one of my strengths. But I also value the past, a lot. 

And saying goodbye to part of my past (the physical walls of the home where my children learned to walk, talk, feed themselves, tie their shoes, play the piano) feels like maybe a little too much to ask of my heart right now. 

Yet it’s done. Look, I’ve started across already.

"At the Border"

by Carl Dennis

At the border between the past and the future

No sign on a post warns that your passport

Won't let you return to your native land

As a citizen, just as a tourist

Who won't be allowed to fraternize with the locals.

No guard steps out of a booth to explain

You can't bring gifts back, however modest,

Can't even pass a note to a few friends

That suggests what worries of theirs are misguided,

What expectations too ambitious.

Are you sure you're ready to leave,

To cross the bridge that begins

Under a clear sky and ends in a fog?

But look, you've started across already

And it's one-lane wide, with no room for U-turns.

No time even to pause as drivers behind you

Lean on their horns, those who've convinced themselves

Their home awaits them on the other side.

Shake it to the left, if you’re having a good time

In 2013 I embarked on a running journey as part of an effort to make “30” special. It was an amazing year for running, in terms of stretching and growing and working hard. 

Unfortunately (and not coincidentally) I also had a sort of emotional/mental breakdown toward the end of that year, which brought me on another journey which was what I’m just now realizing has been almost exactly 10 years of therapy. Whew! 

You know, I would never change it. I actually kind of hate going to therapy but I can’t imagine my life without it. I’ve been to 4 different therapists in that time, only because the dang therapists kept moving out of state. Pretty sure they didn’t move away just because of me, but who knows? 😆 my favorite was Adina. She “got” me, and she also “got” Theo (Theo and I tend to share therapists, it’s efficient). I cried when she left. She was like a decade younger than me, too, but wise beyond her years, I guess!

But anyway, now I’m 40, and I’m embarking on another running journey (marathon in November), and it feels good. I’m even slower than I was at 30, but I don’t mind. I feel strong. I feel focused. I feel my body adapting. I feel a little overwhelmed at the miles I still have in front of me, especially when I look at my Saturday runs scheduled in September and October.

Came across this post from 2013 detailing some of those same feelings when I went through that 30-year-old running year. Felt happy to see a comment from Jenn, who’s been on my mind a lot lately. https://lizer.blogspot.com/2013/08/shake-it-to-right-if-you-know-that-you.html?m=1 

Years are going by. It’s a little wild.

Thanks for my parents

I’m incredibly grateful for my parents.

A random yet fairly deep thought hit me suddenly yesterday, seemingly out of nowhere, as I was driving to the grocery store and my kids bickered in the backseat. The most random and deepest thoughts seem to hit like that when I’m locked into a mundane task.

I spent the most important years of my life (in terms of shaping my brain, shaping who I would be as a person) thoroughly steeped in love. Drenched in it. My parents were not perfect, but they loved me, and I always felt it, I always knew it, from the time I was very small, despite any (perfectly normal) mistakes they may have made, despite any outside forces that may have tried to sneak in, the home I grew up in was fiercely protected by their love and their desire to do what was best for their six kids with our varying needs, and I can’t imagine a more precious gift.

They showed me by example what to do for a child. Imagine a movie montage—no music though, that’s just cheesy 😉

I can picture sitting in the living room as a preschooler, brushing my mother’s hair in the dim light while she sat on the floor and dozed. 

I picture being in the Santa Anita Mall parking lot at 6 am on a Saturday with my dad, learning to drive his truck (years before I was legally old enough to drive, mind you). 

I see my mom walking into my bedroom where my friends and I were hanging out, picking up an empty laundry basket, putting it upside down over her head with a big smile and prancing out triumphantly as we laughed. 

I see my dad standing in front of us kids on a Monday night, with a white board behind him on an easel, reading a verse of scripture to us that had touched his heart.

I remember feeding ducks at the arboretum in the shade with my mother and assorted little friends. So many times. Preschool; Girl Scouts. All roads lead to the arboretum.

I remember sitting on the kitchen table around age 11, around 9 pm, Hannah and Noah in bed already,  everyone else out for the night, picking up the receiver from the (corded) wall phone to call the pay phone number at the stake center where my dad was playing basketball, asking whomever picked up to find Harry T, so that he could assure me that I was safe and that he would be home soon.

I see my mom puttering around the house late at night in the summer, whole-house fan blaring, waiting for us to go to bed so that she could shut off the house fan and go to bed herself.

I see my dad wrapped in an afghan, dozing on the floor outside the bathroom as he waited for me to finish up (because why wouldn’t a preschooler wake up her father to accompany her to the bathroom in the middle of the night?)(he was also the go-to whenever the pukes hit me)

I feel my mom hugging me when I broke down crying after I got back from girls camp and realized she had removed everything from the bookshelf from my room and put the bookshelf in the kitchen to hold pots and pans. 😂 (I was leaving for college the next day; she was just being efficient. 😂)

I feel my dad’s large hands on top of my head as he said blessings of healing over me dozens of times throughout my childhood, whenever I felt sick or afraid.

I can hear my mom’s voice cracking with emotion as she said a family prayer with us on the morning of my wedding.

I can hear my dad telling me the stories of his father that I hold close in my heart, stories of a man who changed so completely and left behind a life of anger to become a man of peace, then suffering however briefly from Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s before he died.

I can picture driving my mom (in her 15-passenger van) to her evening classes at a local university when she went back to school to get her teaching credential.

I can picture my dad popping up out of the ocean as a big wave came at sunset, pointing to the wave and yelling “This one’s mine! H.T.!” and then riding the wave in to the sand. 

Maybe I’d better write these all down into a book, since it’s already too long for a blog post and that’s only the tip of the iceberg! I’m endlessly grateful for these two strong and brave and goofy and faithful and life-loving humans who raised me to become—I think, I hope—the same kind of human, offering the same gifts to my own children.

Happy days

I can’t remember how I ran across this photo recently. Maybe my mom sent it to me. What was it like to have such little kids? My life is flying by so quickly and yet I barely remember 5 years ago. This is nuts.

Happy bloggiversary to me

I started this blog exactly 20 years ago.

You’re welcome! 💁🏼‍♀️😂

Thanks for Hester

Hester and I go way back. All the way back to 1983. We spent lots of time together during most childhood summers when her family was visiting our grandparents, and then we lived together in college. She was a great roommate… thoughtful, silly, always up for shenanigans, quick to forgive if I threw a Winnie the Pooh doll at her head in the middle of the night to wake her up from snoring. I saw her in France last month after 6 years (!!!) of not seeing her. It was like no time had passed. I’m so thankful for her friendship. And cousinship. Love you, Hester!!

Breathe deep

I came across this list in my blog drafts. I don't remember writing it, but it's apparently a list of my favorite nostalgic smells. What am I missing?

• Gardenias
• Geraniums
• Goldfish crackers
• Chlorine
• Fresh oranges
• Newly cut grass
• Tar (one of my favorite quotes from my dad about this particular scent is that it “smells like money”)
• Gasoline (general gas station smell)
• Yoplait (reminds me of long childhood road trips)
• Old grocery store smell. Only specific (older) stores have this and I want to say it’s heavily influenced by the deli area. I think of it as an Albertson’s smell, specifically; not sure why.
• Outdoor woodsy pine smell on a hot day. This is the smell of girls camp. Or any camping trip. I smelled it recently at the beach, oddly enough, because there were woods nearby with some sort of specific evergreens in them. And I don't smell it in Virginia woods. Might be a warm climate thing. Or maybe the woods around here just don't have many evergreens. Note: this is a different smell from Christmas trees.
• But I do love the smell of Christmas trees
• Avon Gingerbread Joys
• Teen Spirit Berry Blossom (may it rest in peace)
• Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers
• cK One
• Gap Dream
• Victoria’s Secret Strawberries & Champagne
• Victoria’s Secret Heavenly
• John Frieda Beach Blonde shampoo and conditioner (a very pleasant minty scent)
• Coppertone sunscreen. (college summers of lifeguarding)
• There’s a very specific old-musty-building smell that the old Cannon Center at BYU (where I spent many hours in college) used to smell like. The SWKT also smelled like this, but I haven’t been in there in 15+ years, so I couldn’t swear on it. I can swear that the elevator at our local rec center in VA has this exact smell and I hope they never remodel it away.
• Witch hazel (postpartum)
• Pampers (clean ones...)(postpartum)(I only ever bought the scented Pampers for newborns; after they outgrew those I was all Kirkland-brand diapers all the time)
• Three specific candles from different times in my life. An orange-vanilla scented candle that reminds me of college. A pineapple-cilantro scented candle from my friend Sarah, that reminds me of the summer we lived in DC during law school. A plain orange candle that reminds me of our apartment when we first moved to Virginia. Whenever I need a shot of nostalgia, I take a sniff from one of these beauties.

I'm sure there are lots more, but that's what I have on my list. Good smells from a happy life.

A memory

Polly is starting preschool this week, and I was reminiscing about the fall of 2014 when Lars started at the same school. I was newly pregnant with Polly and soooo sick. I had to force myself to eat so that I wouldn't feel sicker, and I ate so many terrible salty nostalgia convenience foods, which were all I wanted to eat. By the time I was pregnant with Polly, I learned that choking down an egg first thing in the morning, and more throughout the day, helped a lot. Must have been the protein, I guess.

So anyway, I would drive Lars to school, then head straight home and get back into bed with a bowl of Top Ramen and/or a hard-boiled egg to listen to the newest episode of the podcast Serial.

I don't remember specifics of when the season finale was of that podcast, but I do think that around Thanksgiving I stopped listening for some reason (I probably decided to sleep during preschool instead) and then, once I finally felt better around 20 weeks, I could never listen to that podcast again, so I never finished it. I still don't know if Adnan did it. Just typing his name brings that twinge of nausea. I think if I Googled it I might accidentally throw up.

The lasting effects of morning sickness are so weird. When I was newly pregnant with Theo I used to use Redken's Blonde Glam shampoo, which I loved. By the second trimester I had to throw it away and avoid the Redken section of the shampoo aisle any time I was at the store. I also had to give away the clothes I wore in my first trimester because they made me sick just to look at them.

Anyway the point of all this is that although I will be working most of the hours that Polly is in preschool, I will have one morning a week to do what I want to do. And when I was pondering what that might be, I felt immensely grateful that "what I want to do" will not include languishing in bed, forcing myself to swallow food. And no Serial. Ever.

The good old days

I got the itch to go through allllll my digital photos. I can't remember what triggered it. Summer, I guess. The need for a project, despite having a ton of real stuff to do. I just sat down and started going through them, deleting extras like gangbusters, and a week later I have emerged a little dazed, but triumphant. I've only gotten through the end of 2015, but that's the first 12 years of our marriage, so I'm feeling pretty good about that effort. I have deleted thousands of photos, my friends.

THOU!

ZENDS!

And yet, I still have thousands of keepers.

It has been really fun, and has also hurt just a tiny bit, to go through these. Watching my four babies grow up in front of my eyes again, on a micro level. It's fun and it hurts and it stretches my heart until it can't stretch anymore.

Want to know what else I did...? I ordered a photo book. AND I'm contemplating getting my blog printed too.

I'm having all the Creative Memories feels. (please remember Creative Memories)

Now the videos are another story... But I'll get to those someday.

Bloggiversary

Did you know that I started this blog when I was 18 years old? Also, did you know that several years ago I deleted about 75% of my blog entries written between 2002 and ~2005. Mostly due to sheer volume (I didn’t like all the random traffic I was getting from strangers), and also due to sheer volume of idiocy. 

I saved the deleted posts somewhere else, but I don’t remember where. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Sometimes when January rolls around I remember my bloggiversary. And I celebrate it. Today I’m celebrating it by staying in bed all day because I have a cold. I always forget how much it stinks to have a cold, until I get one. Sorry to my husband and all of my children for complaining about it this entire week. Also, I hope I don’t pass it on to you.

Happy 17th bloggiversary to ME!

The “Web”-savvy youngsters of today would do well to familiarize themselves with Homestar Runner


Me, not in January (and not 18) ^

Time capsule

I'm working from home this morning, blasting the 90s Rock Anthems playlist and occasionally looking out the two big windows in my clean, sunny, pleasant living room.

I suddenly remembered when I worked at the Church Office Building right after college. I loved that job, but I worked at a cubicle under fluorescent lights in a windowless room, and I remember when my boss once asked us all to describe our "dream work area" for him to submit for capital improvements. I can almost visualize Eliza of Yore rubbing her hands together in anticipation for this exercise in imagination and optimism. I can't remember everything I wrote, but I know I filled up the entire page with very small writing, and that my plan involved big sunny windows, music, plants, and soothing colors and art on the walls. (I found out later that there's a Liberal Snowflake Diagnosis for this kind of preoccupation with environment, which is Highly Sensitive Person.)

I'd like to go back in time and tell my 20-year-old self that my 35-year-old self is working next to big sunny windows with music and plants and soothing colors and art on the walls.

Maybe my 50-year-old self would like to go back and tell my 35-year-old self that my "dreams" will come true. The only thing I can think of that I'd wish for future me--now that I have all the big sunny windows I could ask for--is that my grown kids are happy and safe and productive. That's not too much to ask, is it??? IS IT??? Fingers crossed! And prayers said, and wishes written down. If I remember, in 2033 I'll let you know how it worked out.

Last day of two

You may or may not know that I turned 35 last month. And Matt gave me a laptop for my birthday! So, after however many years of blogging on my phone and iPad, I can blog on a real live computer. (we have a desktop computer but it's in the basement and it's slow and those two things mean I'm very unlikely to use it.) I guess I'll see whether that means I will post any more than I have been. I guess I am just in that Sarah Prine mode of journaling where I write a ton, and then I write nothing for a long time.

Polly is turning 3 tomorrow. That sweet child is a tornado of moods but she is darling anyway. And... I am exhausted at the end of the day. And she refuses to stay in bed when I most need her to. She is SO MUCH like Ida was at that age. Lars was soooo much more easygoing than either of them. I think Theo was too, but that's way too long ago for me to remember for sure...

Three years ago today I was busy cleaning my house, mowing the lawn, making cookies, and getting the nest ready for that last baby. It actually does seem like three years ago. It seems like forever ago. I'm grateful that my life is passing so slowly in some ways. Because it sure flies by in other ways.

Almost there

Well hello again!

I was talking to my sister, who is due any day with her second baby. She was feeling that feeling that I personally had at the end of each of my pregnancies and I imagine that most pregnant women feel: anxious, curious, a bit overwhelmed. Easily led this way and that by whatever casual remark and/or doomsday prophecy that the doctor makes. (Darn those doctors.) When is this going to happen? What is going to happen? How is it going to be? Can I just get this baby in my arms already??

I was thinking about 2 years ago today when my mom had just arrived for Polly's birth. This was the first time she had come before a baby arrived. It was the day before my due date, and for whatever reason I was majorly anxious that the baby would somehow not arrive until my mom was scheduled to leave, which was a week or two later. I remember we all went to Theo's baseball game, and then my mom and I took Lars to his swimming lesson. We walked around the teacher's neighborhood during the lesson, then went home and took another walk, about 3 miles total. When we got home we found that the kids had been busy in our absence

I can't remember what anyone else did the rest of the day, but I know I painted the ceiling above Theo's bed as well as the basement stairway (I specifically remember I caught my mom taking a picture of me as I pregnantly painted the stairway and I said "Don't you dare post that on Instagram!" and she said "I wasn't going to post it!" uh-huh. sure) Anyway, as the day went on I got crankier and I worked more furiously. I mowed the lawn, weeded all the garden beds, and transplanted a bunch of hostas because my yard is hosta-land. Once it got dark and I had to come inside, I vacuumed every room and made cookies. Matt and my mom sat on the couch and chatted with each other and occasionally laughed at me... in a loving way of course. I ate some cookies.

I finally went to bed after midnight and woke up a few hours later in labor. I ate more cookies. I cried. I wondered if it would ever end. Some other stuff happened which I will spare you the details of. Polly arrived at 9 a.m.

Anyway, that last couple of weeks were hard, and I worried about everything, and then all of a sudden the baby was here and that part of my life was over. On to new challenges and new ways to worry and grow. I think that anxiety at the end is a normal and necessary part of pregnancy. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier at the time. But recognizing it later is helpful. It feels like a parable of sorts. Darkest before the dawn and all of that. And when the dawn comes it is usually right when you're thinking it never will.

Thanks for Matthew.

In case you had forgotten. I have filled up a good portion of this blog with posts about my husband, Matt. I just don't run out of stuff to say about him. He is the love of my life. He is the most important person in my life and my favorite person that I've ever met. He challenges me every day to be a better person. Not like deliberately, as some sort of project... just by virtue of being him. And he shows incredible love to me and to our kids by his dedication and work ethic and just--solidness.

I remember an email he wrote me back in 2002... Or perhaps 2003... When he said "Maybe you can't be everything to everyone, but you are everything to me." Had I been quoting the band Everclear to him? It's possible. Maybe even probable. Maybe I was thinking that I knew all the right people, I played all the right games, I always tried to be everything to everyone. But my intimate knowledge of '90s grunge-pop is neither here nor there. The point is that I hope I still live up to that for him. He definitely does for me. He is everything to me. I'm so thankful for him every day and especially on his birthday. And I'm sorry for quoting Everclear on a blog post about him but maybe he's not offended because he probably doesn't even know who Everclear was. He missed all the worst of late '90s pop (and by "worst" I also mean "best") while he was out preaching the gospel in Brazil and I was getting my braces tightened and carrying my Discman in my Roxy shoulder bag. Whoops, there I go making it about me again. Can we all just agree that Matt is the man? I lucked out big time.

9-month-olds

Clockwise from top left: 2007, 2009, 2012, 2016. Confirming my suspicions that of all the babies, Theo and Polly look the most alike. And Ida and Lars look surprisingly like each other here too. Especially the hair and skin tone in both pairs--two redheads with ruddy cheeks, two blondes with paler skin. And the redheads had longer hair and the blondes were kinda baldies. Genes are so fascinating.

Thanks for my dad.

Whoopsies...second missed day.

Of all the blessings to be thankful for in my life, my father, Harry, is way up there near the top. I have inherited a few traits from him (as I type this I am sitting here in my living room wearing my winter coat over my pajamas, for example, and also eating peanut butter) and I want to become more like him. The older I get, the more often this memory pops into my head--which he probably doesn't remember--of when I was about Ida's age, and we were standing in the hallway outside his bedroom and I was recounting to him *In Great Detail* the plot of the book I had just read. The Dollhouse Murders, if you must know. He nodded and asked questions, clearly captivated. At the time I truly thought I was doing him a service by filling him in on this fantastic story. I know better now, and I think of that whenever I want to interrupt Ida (I swear that girl only needs to take like 1/3 of the breaths that an average human needs when she's telling a story) and say, "I really want to hear about this, but can you please go empty the dishwasher?" 

I'm still working on that, but I'm still working on a lot of things. Every day I'm thankful for this wonderful father of mine and thankful that I still have some time to develop that kind of steely patience when my children want to upload to me everything they're thinking about at the end of the day. When I was a child, my father provided for his family that listening ear, along with a safe home, good books, a hopeful outlook, respect for authority, a sense of duty, the benefit of the doubt, stories from the past, an affinity for kitty cats, and above all, an unmatched generosity of spirit. He still does. So thankful for that good, good man.

Thanks for my college.

Did you have as much fun in college as I did? Maybe you did. Or maybe you didn't.

I am so thankful for my time in college. I know BYU isn't for everyone, but it sure was for me. Not even including the super-important stuff evident in this picture, like how I rented my computer (the dorms rented out refurbished used PCs with minuscule hard drives) and used it primarily to chat on AIM and download songs from Napster. Class of 2000 forever! The hard drive could only hold about a hundred songs at a time, so I rotated through.

Besides that, I also made lifelong friends, met my husband, discovered some of my very favorite books which I still love and reread and cry over to this day (The House of Mirth, I'm looking at you), certified as a lifeguard which was one of the harder things I'd made myself do, and got my first job in a library, which led me later to become a librarian. I learned how to run. (Not until my senior year.) And I gained the requisite "Freshman 15" by eating waffles and donuts every day for 9 months. And I lived in Europe for a semester. And occasionally I went to class. 

I lived in that bubble for 4 years, and these days I can see pretty clearly what a bubble it was, but I'm thankful for that aspect of it too. I'm very thankful that my parents made it possible for me to go in the first place by handing me an application; waking me up at 5 am to register for classes over the phone; and paying my way.

I wouldn't say I "grew up" at BYU, because for me I think that came later. Or maybe it hasn't actually come yet, who knows. But I started to grow up there. I wouldn't trade my memories and lessons and experiences at BYU for anything.

They drive slow, they sit low.

I realized in looking through old photos that I have more pregnancy pictures than I thought I did. In fact I specifically have documentary evidence of myself at 7-8 months for every pregnancy. No photos past 8 months, though, except for Theo. Can you guess which is which? (Not hard to do.) Also--my babies sure like to sit low.

Easy come, girl; easy go.

So flattering. (Summer 2002--or maybe 2003? No idea.)

I forgot to mention last month that it was my 13th anniversary of blogging. 13th bloggerversary, if you will. Social media apps come and go, but blogging just might be forever (for me). I like to report things and dissect things and take as many words as I want to to do so. Lengthy Facebook and Instagram posts feel weird to me, but lengthy blog posts? Totally normal. Also, blogging and I have a history. I love remembering the days when my sister Hannah and our friend Nicole read each other's blogs and talked to each other through them, asking and responding to questions through posts on our own blogs, because you couldn't comment. Until you could (through a third party, which I can't remember the name of--those comments are now lost forever) and then you could for real, probably around the time that Google bought Blogger.

In case you didn't know, I have ruthlessly edited the first 2 or 3 years or so of this blog's archives. I blogged multiple times a day back then, at my desk at work or in the LRC or in the basement computer lab at the Wilk or at my ancient PC in my bedroom. Revealing a little too much of my 18- and 19-year-old self and the people I knew and dated. So most of those posts are gone from the blog (saved on my hard drive), but I left a few that give a little snapshot of life back then.

Here's a post from 12 years ago. Matt and I were reminiscing about how, after a few breakups, we got back together for good on Valentine's Day (well, during about a 2-week period surrounding Valentine's Day) my junior year at BYU. I was 19. Sheesh! I felt so old.

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Tuesday, February 25, 2003

I've been making a list of "I feel good about the breakup" songs. Let me know what you think, and feel free to add to it! 

OK some of them are kinda sad. But mostly good. 

I think I'm going to make a CD of them and call it "Just Break Up Already!" haha. On Sunday night Hester and I drove to Provo from Salt Lake and in the entire 40-minute drive, almost every single song on the radio was a "breakup" song. I thought it was kinda funny. So I was inspired. 

Easy Come, Easy Go - George Strait 
St. Patrick's Day - John Mayer 
Knowing Me, Knowing You - ABBA 
Popular - Nada Surf 
Don't Speak - No Doubt 
Goodbye to You - Michelle Branch 
Cry Me a River - Justin Timberlake 
No One Else - Weezer 
Bye Bye - Jo Dee Messina 
Your House - Jimmy Eat World 
We're Not Right - David Gray 
I'll Never Fall in Love Again - Burt Bacharach 
Bye Bye Bye - N'sync 
The World Has Turned and Left Me Here - Weez 
Pink Triangle - Weez (okay, this one's bitter, and it doesn't really apply to me, or any girls for that matter, but it's still funny) 
Debra - Beck (this one isn't really about breaking up I guess...more about pointless relationships, but hey, it works) 
Ex Girlfriend - No Doubt 
Get it Faster - JEW 
Everything's Not Lost - Coldplay 
The Hardest Part of Breaking Up (is Getting Back Your Stuff) - 2gether 
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - David Gray 

I'm sure there are more good ones. Let me know. When I have time I'll add more links to the lyrics. Boo yes! haha. Can you tell I have homework to do but I don't feel like doing it? "It's not a pretty picture. I don't like doing it!" - Genie, Aladdin 

Speaking of links, I liked this one. I love those dang Brits. 

So anyway, I hope everyone's having a marvelous day!

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Hey man, I'd still listen to that CD. Timeless stuff, amiright?