my life begins with balloons and streamers

It is New Year's Eve.

I am sitting on the couch next to Paul, while he watches Survivor Man. Survivor Man just caught a fish and Paul is watching all intent-like. I bet he's taking mental notes on what to do should he ever find himself stranded in the arctic with nothing but a canoe and his wiles.

We ordered Indian food, and when I am done posting I will make hot chocolate and I will ask Paul about his favorite part of Survivor Man and then I will fall asleep while reading. Maybe I will be awake at midnight, but probably not.

I am thinking about my brother John. He just turned fourteen and he gets to go to his first church dance tonight. And that makes me think about my first dance, on New Year's Eve after I had turned fourteen.

I curled my hair and I wore this new plaid dress that I got for Christmas and I think I went with friends but I don't remember. I just remember walking into the church building and you could hear music from inside and it was so exciting my heart was beating all fast because I might meet the love of my life.

The room was all decorated with streamers and balloons and the lights were dim and people were dancing and it was like life began right there, like life began with balloons and streamers and boys.

I know I was there with friends but why can't I remember who? It was probably Stacy, or Gail, or Jenn, but I can't see their faces in my memory. In my mind it is only me, in the middle of my life beginning.

We stand in a circle, me and my faceless friends, and it is a fast song and I try to find the beat, try to learn how to move to the music and I am awkward but it gets better and someone taps me on the shoulder and it's a boy.

He tells me I look beautiful and my heart soars because I have waited my whole life to hear that and I have braces and my nose is too big for my face but I can't afford plastic surgery and my mom wouldn't approve anyways and so to hear this boy tell me I am beautiful is amazing.

His name is Keith and he asks me to dance twice and he maybe holds me just a little too close but it's exciting and he's sixteen and he lives in Camarillo. I think Keith is a good name and I wonder will I marry Keith because I'm always wondering who I will marry.

Then the dance is over, and the lights turn on and everyone is standing there, all sweaty, and nobody looks quite as good as they did when the lights were dim. Mom picks me up and I am floating as I ride in the blue minivan because my life just began.

And now I am sitting on the couch and I think about John and I want to reach three-thousand miles to California and give him a hug. I wonder if he'll feel like his life is beginning.

Probably not. I don't think balloons and streamers have quite the same effect on him.

i experience a desperate lack of occupation

I am bored.

I'm kind of hesitant to admit that. When I was a kid and I'd say I was bored my mom would always be like "I'll give you something to do" and then I'd have to sew lace on her bedspread and I'd do a really cruddy job and then we'd both be worse off.

The thing is, I've already done laundry and I baked cookies and made soup and I washed the dishes and made the bed and I fed the cats and made phone calls and now, here I am, dangerously close to dressing my cats up in my old baby clothes.

It's kind of nice to be bored. I mean, I haven't blogged for like the last month because I've been doing all this school stuff and apparently the in-charge people at school are kind of serious about that whole finals thing.

But now I'm all re-charged and stuff and ready to blog, and I have nothing interesting to say. Nothing. For reals. I walked out of my front door a couple of weeks ago and there was this dude peeing into the gutter. And I'm out. That's it. See? Boring.

Does anyone need babysitting? I'll watch your kids for you. Need a wet-nurse? I actually can't help you. Also you might be in a different century. Need your house cleaned? I can do that, although in the spirit of full disclosure if I am sweeping I don't always pull the couch out and sweep behind it.

Yeah, so if you need any of that stuff, or anything else that doesn't involve firearms or confrontation or eating vegetables, I'd love to help out. For now, I think I'm going to eat several oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and pass out on the couch while watching Pride and Prejudice. The BBC version. Because it has Colin Firth.

And that should be the only explanation needed.

how to make moonshine

Just in time for your Thanksgiving festivities:

First, make waffle batter for dinner. Don't make all the waffles, though. Make sure there's a good amount left.

Then, cover it up so it doesn't go bad, but forget to put it in the refrigerator. That step is super important, okay? DON'T PUT IN REFRIGERATOR.

Alrighty. Then, you just leave the bowl sitting on the counter, for like five days. If you feel like you need to wash it, don't. Tell yourself that your husband/roommate/sister/aunt will do it for you.

After it's been like a week and you notice the kitchen smells suspiciously like a brewery, remove the cover from the bowl. If you think there's a good chance that the bowl could grow legs and walk out of your kitchen all on its own, then....great news, you're done!

I submitted the recipe to Martha Stewart. I haven't heard back yet, but she's really busy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

do you like my blog's new lipstick?

I gave my blog a makeover.

Again.

This time, I had help. My friend Jake did me a solid and helped me out. And me likey. Me likey mucho.

Thanks, Jake.

it wasn't me.....

Tonight Paul and I were walking to the grocery store and there was this woman in front of us and she let rip this HUGE NASTY TOOT.

It was kind of awesome, in a really gross way.

I guess sometimes you just really have to toot and you don't care that there are two people behind you giggling.

Eeeeeeeewwwww.

every time i think i know

I thought I knew what it meant.

The atonement, I mean. I thought I knew. I grew up being taught about Jesus, that he lived a perfect life and sacrificed himself, that he atoned for the sins of mankind and because of that sacrifice we can be forgiven of our sins. And because I knew that, because I've always been taught that, I think maybe sometimes I'm a little too casual about it. Kind of like that friend who always pulls through, so sometimes you forget what an awesome friend you have. Know what I mean?

A couple of weeks ago a friend asked me to participate in a musical program for church. It's the stories of women in the Old Testament, women who met Jesus, told through song. They asked me to be a narrator, and I was like, yeah. I have a voice. I can narrate. So I said okay.

And I went to rehearsal and there were all these women with these incredible voices, voices that move and melt and do all the awesome things that a voice can do and I was like....uh....hey, guys. I'll just be over here, talking. Don't mind me.

I kind of wondered what I could possibly add. I mean, these women are amazing. I'm a tad embarrassed to admit that I didn't really give much thought to my part at first. I kind of figured no one would be paying me any mind, until after one of the rehearsals the director asked us narrators to really think about what we were saying, about what we felt, what we had a testimony of. And I was like, "right. Think. I can think."

So, I thought about it. I thought about my own personal experience with the Savior. When I was teeny tiny my parents were how I knew about Jesus. They told me He loved me, and I believed them. They told me that if I was afraid, or if I was hurt or if I needed help, Jesus knew how to help because of the atonement. And that was enough. I didn't really understand exactly how, but mom and dad really believed, and that belief was enough for me.

Then this one time I got a summer job. I had to feed our neighbor's dogs and water their lawn while they went on vacation. They paid me a lot of money. And all I had to do was unlock the gate and water the lawn and feed the dogs.Seriously, it was like fifteen bucks. It was going to keep me in Snickers bars for like two months.

So this one morning I went, only the key wouldn't open the gate, and I just climbed over and did my thing and it was fine except for when I needed to go back home I was like, shoot. I can't climb back over the gate.

And I was alone and I was scared and the dogs were just big enough to be scary and the only thing I knew to do was pray. So, I prayed. Maybe that was the first time I ever prayed for something because I really needed it. I knelt on the concrete by the fence and I folded my arms and I prayed like there was no tomorrow, which at the moment felt like a very real possibility.

Heavenly Father, please, tell my mom. Please, tell my mom. I need help. The gate's too high and I'm too small. Just please.

And I sat there and cried and resigned myself to a fate of eating dog food and sleeping on grass and then like fifteen minutes later, I heard the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world:

My mom's voice. And she was like "Andrea, are you okay?" and I was like "noI'mnot okayI'mscared" and I tossed my mom the key and she opened the gate and we walked home.

And I asked her how she knew. She said she was making her bed, and she heard a voice that told her she should go check on Andrea. Only she was sure I was fine, and so she ignored it and then the voice came again, loud this time, and it said GO CHECK ON ANDREA and she stopped making the bed and she found me. I was lost, and she found me.

That's the first time I remember feeling what I had heard my parents tell me for so many years: that Jesus knew. He knew how to help. Not just that He knew how to help, but that He would help.

And I thought I knew it all then, everything about how the Savior loved me.

And then it was years later and I wasn't in such a great place in my life. I was smack in the middle of my angst ridden teenage girl phase and it had been a long time since I'd thought about that morning when I knelt on the concrete so afraid, a long time since I'd thought about needing anything other than exactly what I wanted right then.

But then something happened and it was bad. I woke up and there was someone in my room and then my world changed from one where scary things are only in movies to a world where someone goes into your room who doesn't belong there.

And I was scared, and I needed help. And I prayed. I prayed and I felt love and I couldn't explain it because I didn't feel like I deserved it, but it was there and it was real and I knew where it came from.

Then it was after and sometimes I couldn't stop crying and nobody could make it go away, but then I remembered that the atonement means to forgive everyone and I wondered, could I do that? And so I gave the hurt I had over to the Lord and He washed away the anger and it isn't there anymore.

And it was a miracle. Something so much bigger than me, something so wrong that nobody could make better and a hole so huge it could have swallowed me up and it was like someone had taken a magic eraser pencil to all the hurt and I thought I knew, then, everything there was to know about how the Savior loved me.

Now, it's, well, now. And I have a good life, a good husband, plenty of blessings. More than I deserve.

But I want to be a parent, and I'm not.

I don't understand why. I've tried. I've been patient. I've said things like "it'll happen when it's time" and "I'm just trying to be happy in the moment" and "everything happens for a reason" but there comes a point when all the words don't work and you see it for what it is: hard. Just plain hard.

I've gone to the doctor. I've been poked and prodded and my body has become this crazy science experiment and I am left with only questions and no answers and faced with the possibility that this might be a problem without an answer. A problem with no cure. I feel broken, sometimes.

And one day I was feeling angry and sad and wondering why this is so hard for me, because I can do hard things and then I realized, maybe I can do hard things, but not alone. I need help. And that's exactly what the atonement is there for.

I have to believe that, though. And sometimes believing is hard. Pain is so familiar, sometimes. Pain is real and justified, and hope sometimes isn't, you know?

Maybe this is a problem that can't be fixed. I don't have that answer yet. And while the answer might not be my giving birth, here's what I believe: the atonement can wipe away all that pain and yuckiness and I can be happy.

I believe I'm going to be a parent someday. I believe it. I feel it. I know it. And maybe there is nothing in my life right now to make me think that's true, but I don't care. I so don't care. Because I know it.

I don't think I know anymore. I think the Savior knows. He knows me. That's what I think. That's what I believe.

That's what I know.

heaven is a milkshake

A toasted marshmallow milkshake, that is.

Seriously.

I read on my friend Katie's blog about this burger place that makes toasted marshmallow milkshakes. I know. And so, I thought, what better way to celebrate finally running a mile without stopping than with a frosty mug of blended, refined white sugar?

So, Paul and I went and got us some. It was like a near death experience. There was a light, and Paul was there, and....

Okay, maybe it was in no way like a near death experience. I was kind of lying about there being a light. Although this is New York and there are lots of lights. But it was totally like heaven.

So, for anyone who's interested, if you want to go to heaven, just take the 6 train to Union Square, walk a few blocks to Stand 4 Burgers, and order the toasted marshmallow milkshake.

Mmmmmmmmm.