she rides on a broom with her cat

once upon a time, once a year to be exact, halloween comes around.

steven was hp. and i [spur of the moment] found a poodle skirt from halloween in 4th grade.

we so cool.

we helped with a trunk or treat, got 2 for 1 shakes at iceberg, rented sherlock holmes, watched the first part of you've got mail, watched sherlock holmes. prime.

[minor detail that i watched you've got mail again today..gets me every time.]

photo explosion begin:

wingardium leviosa. :

let's go back. back to the beginning. also known as the 50s. :

cheeeeeesy obligated sibling documentation :

we so cool.

pretty sure my hair was drenched and redrenched 12 times yesterday. :

shake run! :

he would :

the only reason i posted this is because we look hilariously ridiculous. hahahaha. :

"for this is halloweeeen."

fear is the heart of love

love much? the answer is yes.
the music says it all.
i'll follow you into the dark.

{skip to 2:00}

if heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied. illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs.

if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then i will follow you into the dark.

mend

i needed this today.

usually i pass over most random links i come across, but this i didn't.

i'm sure glad i didn't.

how beautiful.

"...our days hold scores of thoroughfares leading to the Master and that every time we reach out, however feebly, for Him, we discover He has been anxiously trying to reach us."

"...because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."

"He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way because He is the way."

"If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort. If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended."

-elder jeffrey r. holland.

[here and here are two of the talks quoted in the video. the latter is one of my favorites in existence.]

a few weeks ago on my way to the temple, i was listening to 'come thou fount' and it absolutely pierced into my soul. all the words are so poignant. so perfect. the last four words in particular were ones i hadn't particularly noticed before. how, i don't know.

"Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.

He to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood."

the magnitude of these words is enough to change the world.

interpose.

my recommendation? close your eyes, and listen. really listen:

shall we not go on in so great a cause?

i'm on a humanitarian/missionary kick as of late. i want to change the world.

sometimes

• sometimes i think of saying something. or sharing something. and sometimes it's something really great. but then i realize how much it reveals of how much of a creepy stalker i am. and therefore decide against it. the end.

• sometimes i experience nights like last night. and last night was slightly ridiculous. 3:30, i don't want to be seeing you again anytime soon. don't be too offended.

• sometimes i get beyond super stoked about romania. way beyond. like ecstatic, more like. this also is one of many things that relates to my afore-mentioned creepy stalker self. 

• sometimes i have a good news moment to share: romanian food isn't spicy!

• sometimes there is nothing that compares to fresh out of the pot macaroni noodles. warm, steaming, and slightly slimy. and then plastered with parmesan cheese? you've got yourself a slice of heaven. divine.

• sometimes i go to laur's blog a lot the past couple days to use her for her playlist. and if you take a looky at the view that is given when you scroll down to see the playlist on the side you're given a prime sight. prime, indeed. hahahaha. it gets me every time.

• sometimes i almost die thinking of how perfect that one song is, la. i still can't get over it.

• sometimes e&p needs to stay that way.

• sometimes i realize how much of a saint my brother is because he does nice things like call me from far away just to help me wake up when i need to get up early but was also up way too late doing homework. and he strategizes the most effective alarm methods as a person. i told you he's a saint. why some girl hasn't picked up on that fact yet completely baffles me.

• sometimes i want to go to bed right after my late asl class gets out, but can't because of dumb registration. dumb, i know.

• sometimes i itch to be somewhere else. but sometimes i like being able to just sit and cuddle with my dinosaur blanky that can be seen in the post just prior to this. my brothers weren't very nice to me and buried me in laundry baskets when we were little. yes, this happened more than once.

• sometimes i have a random memory pop into my head. like the one about how mon frères et moi used to ride sleeping bags down the staircase. and we had the time of our lives. oh the simple pleasures.

• sometimes i wish i could read the whole book that i got out of the library to write that research paper a few weeks ago. but know i'll never have time. and therefore resign myself to having to take it back sometime soon.

• sometimes i get super excited about a minor detail that deserves its own post rather than part of a big long crazy list.

• sometimes i can barely feel my fingers because they're so cold and stiff, despite the fact that i'm inside my apartment.

• sometimes i just want a long winters nap. because i'd kill for the feeling of being able to sleep for the joy of it.

where the air is sweet

“There is a garden in every childhood,

an enchanted place where colors are brighter,

the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”

Elizabeth Lawrence

new life motto

fearless

"'FEARLESS' is not the absence of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death."
--Taylor Swift

trends

i have a problem. a habit. all of the following photos were taken in the past month. the past two weeks, mostly.

[click to enlarge]

case in point. point in case.

clearly, i need to take a chill pill with the shoe thing. clearly.

creepy love

"was that the cold one or the smiley one? uhhh."

"nooo. cause that's how i always smile."

hahahahahahahahaha.

i sure do love this girl. and all these surprise spur of the moment visits we're having. yes, please.

this was when she locked me out of her car:

i know. jerk, right?

hahahaha. pretty sure i am still full. and pretty sure i'm still missing you. missing you, my la.

p.s. your life is so much more exciting than mine. keep it up, yo. especially cause it's hilarious, too. oh, and awkward. definitely that.

tell jess she'll be the first to know when i have that prime information for her to add to the list.

hahahhaahahahaaha. mmm. love!

we go together like doom ba doom waa bee daa. doom ba da dooom be doom.

mjean

one time, michelle jean came to visit. and we had a blast. and i realized how boring we are. oopsay. that's ok. it was still a blast. and i can't even believe i convinced her to go to a french international cinema screening with me. miracle of miracles. :) hahahaaa. ohhhh my. love. too bad it was so short. come back sooooooon, michelle jean miller. and i'll try not to be so boring.

misty captured.

i took courtney on a tour of my salt lake today. the parts of salt lake that define me. the essence of me.
and i must say.
it was weird.
so much of my growing up years in one day, i mean.


i showed her fourth south--where there is everything. paradise. litza's pizza. those were the days.
i showed her the u campus--the institute, the pie, pmt where we used to go to so many plays.
i showed her research park--where madrigals would sing to patients in the huntsman cancer institute.
i showed her foothill blvd--the thoroughfare that it is.
i showed her parley's canyon--the good and the bad. beautiful, but scary in crazy weather.
i showed her east canyon--newer part of my life. and still beautiful despite limited visibility.
i showed her my elementary school--eastwood eagles, eastwood eagles rock! eastwood eagles we're flying to the top.
i showed her eastwood drive. and monte verde drive--the beaten down roads my feet are well acquainted with.
i showed her my old house. the one i grew in. the one that will always be the image in my mind of childhood, no matter where i go. the foresty backyard. the neighbors. the hill down the side of the house. the porch. the lawn. the list could go on and on.
i showed her choke cherry--the industrial looking house. the lookout to the entire valley.
i showed her the road to milcreek canyon--the creek itself, as well. the love of my mountains that could never fully be expressed, no matter how hard i may try.
i showed her my high school--skyline high school. the high school that, for better or for worse will always be a part of me. the high school filled with teachers and memories once filled with people that change[d] my life.
i showed her my jr.high--both of them. wasatch's old location and the story behind it.

and then i realized that these are the places closest to where i grew up. yes, there are more places that could potentially define me. houses. people. but so close, those were the places. funny how the memories may fade, but being in a location makes them come flooding back. all of them. for better or for worse. sometimes too much to handle. too many memories. good and bad. and yet, this is what defines me. it is not the good memories only. it is the combination of good and bad that have molded me to who i am. the experiences that took place in these places are the ones that are mine. no one else will share all of them. some are distant, almost forgotten. some were about me. some were about my family. some were about my ward. some were about my neighborhood. some were about my friends. and some were just plain old experiences.
funny thing, memories. the emotions that relate to them, never go away. not really. the smallest things can trigger chain reactions of emotion and nostalgia. pangs of joy, as well as pangs of sadness. for this is life. the pieces of definitions of me are filled with character. and i'd have it no other way.

the long and winding road of a life.

elle ne connaît pas sa force

{"the public, when naive and sincere, only loves the art of his time and his country, for the simple reason that he could not understand the other. the taste of ancient art, exotic art, is scholarly and refined, and it is to appear scholarly and refined that the large public [general public] gets caught up in the ancient and exotic."}

{"music is so young still that it does not know its force, does not suspect its power.

what is music then? who will define it? it is an architecture of sounds; a plastic art that models, as clay, the vibrations of the air;

it has color in its own way, like a painting; but it passes like wind, a second prevails, it is no more."}

-camille saint-saëns, harmonie et mélodie

plus belle dans sa première langue, bien sur. mais qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire?

{more beautiful in its first language, of course. but what can you do?}

U

yesterday i ventured to salt lake to drop courtney off at the airport.

and then swiftly made my way to the U for some quality time with

miss. can't-walk-normally {aka lauren}.

hahahaa.

we went to noodles&co and luna berry. and what did we learn?
we both always get the same thing everytime we go. and apparently it's the same thing for both of us. haaaa. yes.

and then she told me all about her life and how much of a girl she is. and a stalker. she's that too.

and then we went {after much indecision} to temple square. the temple was a beaut, as usual.

and then there were some [more] shoe pictures. i don't want to talk about it. haaaa.

beauty-fallll world.

i've seen la la a lot lately. and this is how i feel about it.^ meaning, pretty stoked.

we may or may not have gone through a hardly-any-speaking, seeing, anything-to-each-other phase for the first half of the semester. sad, i/we know. not like an 'i hate you, you drive me crazy' kind of phase. more like a 'we never ever see each other and are doing completely different things in our life right now' kind of phase. you know the one. the kind where life gets in the way. both spending all our time studying. her hanging out with jess because, unlike me, jess is in salty lakey. and me having probably my most anti-social semester ever--by choice, mind you. 'i've got better things to do than look in the mirror.' [name that song, win my love as a prize.] anyone who takes careful notice of pictures that are posted of me recently, will probably notice that my hair is the same in almost every single one. in a greasy bun as pictured above. a side greasy bun. or air-dryed messy waves. the past two weeks particularly, i feel like my hair has been in that bun on top of my head every single day except for sometimes on wednesdays after going to the temple my hair is the air-dryed mess. i'm a beaut, i know. the point is-i have spent all my time reading and studying or quality time with myself. and myself doesn't care what my hair looks like. i mentioned to kaitlin yesterday that i had to think hard to remember the last time i had washed my hair. yeah. not a joke. and i probably should not be admitting this. oops. anyway. what am i trying to say? i don't know. i do know.

sometimes [a lot] i wish-don't hate me-i went to the u. there, i said it. i do love byu. and the campus is beautiful. but it is unique, of course. i love the campus in salt lake. it's so close to the city. just the simple vibe is so different from that found at the Y. there is so much more diversity and tolerance. yes, byu does have people from all kinds of countries. this is true. but at the same time, look around while on campus and you will notice quickly that almost everyone is a white 20ish year old girl or return missionary or pre-me. andddddd. they're [almost] all mormon. which is something i love/hate. it's nice, but at the same time---drives me absolutely crazy. just people-watching at the U, there is just a different variety. a different air to everything. andddd if i was in salt lake, la and i could get an apartment together. and i could hang out with her and jess. and did i mention apparently jess changed her major when lauren did and hers is the same as mine? yeah. i love byu. but i also love salt lake. a lot. mmm. grad school, grad school, grad school.

i dont even know what i'm saying. or rather, i do. but i'm failing in eloquence. and i should try to fix that. and yet, i find something about the lack of eloquence oddly beautiful. and that is my story. i love byu. but the other side of the fence is just as beautiful.