Ski Boot Story

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I certainly did. I flew back to Austin on Christmas Eve and Bryce and I had a great day. I'll give more details about my time home in another post, but I had to share this story first.

The day before I came back to Austin, I went skiing with my parents. I decided to borrow my older sister's ski boots because mine always hurt my feet. So the night before I went and got her boots which were up in the garage in the house she used to live in. When we got to the mountain, I got ready to put my boots on in the locker room. Left foot went in fine. When I put my right foot in, I felt something that felt like sticks or leaves in the toe, so I took my foot out and put my hand in to pull it out. To my HORROR as I began pulling whatever it was out, I discovered that it was a DEAD FREAKING MOUSE. I dropped it and squealed while my parents looked at me like I was crazy. I told them what I had touched and my dad disposed of the mouse in the trash. DISGUSTING. The rest of the day was great, but I still get the heebie jeebies thinking about touching a dead mouse with my bare hands. Looking back it's pretty funny, but oh man, I was freaked out. Hope that gave you a chuckle.

Here's a picture of my dad and I all matchy-match at the end of the ski day.

Tradition

Without a doubt my favorite Christmas Tradition is reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Ever since before I can remember, my dad would start reading to all of the kids on December 1st and finish on Christmas Eve. When I was little, I really loved looking at all the beautiful pictures in the edition that we had. It was this one:

As I got older I started to understand the story more and appreciate how beautiful Dickens' words are. There was one year that we all decided to memorize the first paragraph of the book, which we can all do I'm proud to say. Every year my dad tears up in the same place in the final stave and every year I can't wait to start reading again.

As all of us began getting older, moving away, and getting married, my dad thought it would be a great idea to get each of us our own copy of the same edition of A Christmas Carol. However, it was out of print. So he got on ebay and found four copies. One for each child to continue on the tradition in our own families.

It's been wonderful to continue on this great tradition in my own little family with Bryce. I'm not sure he fully appreciates it yet, but I think he will eventually. It still feels a little weird not to listen to my dad reading every night, but I just love the fact that I can re-create a childhood memory every year, no matter where I am.

P.S. I go home in 3 days!

'Tis The Season

After a very successful Thanksgiving with great friends, I was excited to get into the Christmas spirit. We didn't get up super early to partake in the Black Friday sales, but we did make it to Nordstrom Rack (we had groupons, got some great deals!) and Target. Our apartment is kind of small so the only place that we had to put a Christmas tree was on top of a bookshelf. As soon as we got home from Target I set it up, and it's really starting to feel like Christmas now! Christmas is my favorite part of year and it will be kind of fun to start our own traditions this year since we will be in Texas for Christmas. Break out the Christmas music!!!

Count Your Many Blessings

I've been doing a lot of complaining lately. It's bad and I'm trying to stop and to turn the things that have been getting me down into positives. For example:

Complaint:
I hate how busy I am. I'm at school all day, every day, including most weekends.

Positive:
How lucky am I that I'm in a great program and I get to work with awesome musicians everyday and develop my talents?

Complaint:
I miss my family.

Positive:
I have a wonderful husband who I love and adore and we are a family. I get to talk to my family almost every day and they love and support me in everything I do. I maybe be away for a while, but it's only temporary!

Complaint:
Because of Bryce's new job at Costco, we will be in Austin for Christmas. I've never spent Christmas away from home and I don't know how Merry it will be this year.

Positive:
We are extremely blessed that Bryce has been able to get a job. Now when bills come in the mail, it's a little less stressful than it has been in the past. We can start our own traditions and spend the whole day together rather than splitting between two sides of the family. It may be a humble Christmas, but that really doesn't matter in the large scheme of things. We are blessed to have each other.

I could go on, but I won't. I'm very thankful for everything I have been blessed with. Sometimes it's easy for me to look at what other people have and be jealous, but I really have so much to be thankful for.

My favorite talk at General Conference this year was given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Even if you don't share my religious beliefs, I encourage you to read or listen or watch this talk. You can read it here, listen here, or watch here. It only takes 10 minutes but I think his message can apply to everyone, regardless of religious affiliation. This talk really struck me and I've re-read it several times since it was given at the beginning of October. When I heard it I immediately knew that it was written for me and was exactly what I needed to hear. I love it when that happens.

I'm a lucky girl. I just need to remind myself of that more often.

I Am Champion Of The World

Ok not really but that's how I felt after today.

Everything was going normal until when I was packing up my things from practicing to go to a rehearsal, my phone fell off my music stand and landed face down. I thought that it would be fine, but no, there were two cracks beneath the screen and the display didn't work at all. Crap. I had just gotten this phone less than a month ago. I was sure T-Mobile would do nothing to help me. Expecting the worst, I went into CostCo (where I bought it) after I was done with my rehearsals to see if they would do anything for me.

When I got there, I explained what had happened and asked if there was any way that I could just buy a new phone for the upgrade price instead of the full $500 for it. They said they couldn't do anything for me. I explained that I had just bought it less than a month ago and tried to look as pathetic as possible. Lucky for me, it worked. One of the workers looked at my phone and said that you can't really see the crack unless you're looking for it. He said not to tell customer service and said, "You're the spitting image of my daughter, we'll exchange it for you."

That just made my day. I was so worried about having to buy another new phone, because that is definitely not in the budget right now. Thank goodness for kind people with a soft spot for sad looking red-heads.

All I'm Gonna Say Is...

I made this to break our fast today. It was delicious.

To get the recipe, go here.

It reminded me of Panera Bread's soup. Next time, I'll serve it in a breadbowl. So good. Make it soon.

Lunch of Champions

This was my lunch today.

Today was one of those days that I would rather sleep an extra 10 minutes than make myself a lunch. Between going to classes, four different rehearsals, and practicing today, this is all I had time to eat. Grad students are busy people, and I would argue that music grad students are among the busiest of all. I have to somehow juggle classes, practicing, rehearsing with different ensembles and pianists, PLUS teaching my own students, going to young women's and church every week, and somewhere in there find time for my husband! It's a crazy life. It's great, and I love being busy, it really makes me appreciate when I do have down time. Usually I don't get home from school until around 8 pm so I'm usually pretty tired by the end of the day. It's good that I actually like this music thing... I'm going to bed now. Another 11 hour day awaits me tomorrow.