thankful.

mmmmm. is your mouth watering? mine is. stole this picture from an old williams sonoma catalogue. yum. yes please.

thanksgiving is maybe my favorite holiday. i'm pretty obsesssed with christmas too though. i can never decide. but i love the food, i love being at my mom's house, i love the family, i love the smell that fills the house when you're using cloves and cinnamon to bake a pie, and i love that it reminds me to think of things i'm thankful for.

i am thankful for:

my grandfather who did the summer reading program and instilled a great love for reading which helped me develop reading comprehension, writing and editing skills.

my car. nothing like driving a beater for 5 years that leaks when it rains or snows, doesn't have heat or AC, and smokes when you drive it for more than 20 minutes on the freeway to help you appreciate a car that has sealed windows, warms up in the winter, cools off in the summer, and rarely breaks down!

my brother stephen who has a huge heart and is so loving and supportive to me. everywhere he goes, people who meet stephen comment on how nice and how happy he is. i am thankful for the special relationship we have and that we've been able to grow closer in the past few years.

my piano teacher bonnie. she taught me discipline, determination, patience, good habits, endurance, losing gracefully, and a deep passion for music. i will be forever grateful for her influence in my life that continues to impact me.

my mom, who is the best cook in the whole wide world. i am grateful she made food and cooking and family meals such an important part of life for me. i am grateful that she is around for me to call and ask for tips on recipes and suggestions on what to make for different occasions, and for her cooking blog that inspires me to try new things, and that she takes the time to document her talents for me and many other people to enjoy. i am grateful that she taught me to serve, to give to others, and to be the person who just shows up with a meal in a crisis, instead of just saying "call me if you need anything." i am grateful for her example of love and service and selflessness.

my dad, who is my hero. i'm grateful for the lessons he taught me about hard work. i'm grateful for his passion and love for life. i'm thankful for the memories he created with me as a little girl and all growing up, going on backpacking trips, long talks, and supporting me in everything in life.

my parent's marriage. they are the most amazing example of two imperfect people who love each other perfectly. and two people who have kept love alive. i love seeing my dad flirt with my mom and then watch the way my mom looks at my dad. i love it that they're still in love.

my adventurous little sister who is totally okay with life in a double wide, or halfway across the world, sleeping on a 1/2 inch barely mattress in middle of nowhere china. i am grateful for her friendship, for her love and her forgiveness, and her compassion. i am grateful she forgave me for being a mean sister for so many years, and that she's allowed me time to try and make up for being really stupid when we were younger. i am grateful for her spontaneous, fun, loving, infectious, free spirit and welcoming personality. she is a friend to everyone she meets and is the most popular, loved girl i know.

my job. i work for the nicest people in the world who make me feel appreciated, respected and needed.

my piano students. they make me laugh, they challenge me, and they give me something to look forward to every single day. teaching fulfills me so much that, if i didn't need the money, i would do it for free. maybe someday :)

my friends. i know everyone says this, but i literally have the best girlfriends in the whole entire world. you know who you are. thank you for letting me vent, for making me laugh, for understanding and validating me, giving me a shoulder to cry on, for letting me be a part of so many fun memories and unforgettable moments, and for taking such a genuine personal interest in my life.

my little brother jacob who is always the life of the party and the class clown of any group. i am grateful that every time i come home he makes me feel wanted and loved. i am grateful for his sweet testimony and that already he has such a strong conviction and love for the gospel.

my digital camera. i love love love pictures. i love capturing moments and savoring them again and again later on.

my piano. my cookbooks. my chi hair straightener. my very comfy bed. my adorable little house. my dog hershey. utah football. family traditions. seasons. change. second chances. love.

Y stands for YUCKY.

i heard this my whole life growing up. even during the years i lived in Washington... which was until about age 10. i remember my parents teaching me from the time i was very little that the Y on the mountain stands for YUCKY. and then somehow i ended up going to school there.

i dedicate this post to my best friend brittany. i LOVE the utah utes. my loyalty will always, ALWAYS lie there. i wore RED to the utah-byu football game ALL FOUR YEARS i attended BYU. i love going to the utah football games with my family. i love clapping during the fight song, singing along, and cheering for my team. that team that busted the BCS twice in the past 5 years. yes. that one. the one that went UNDEFEATED last year and was the ONLY team in the nation to go undefeated in 2008. the team who deserved to be ranked #1. you know its true. not the one that's still hanging onto their 1984 glory year. i remember FREAKING OUT the first time i went to a football game there when the band played "popcorn popping on the apricot tree." gag me! are we in primary or at a football game? i also did not waiver one little tiny bit with my loyalty to UTAH football even when i went out a few times with a BYU football player. i made it a point to let him know on our first date that i was a die hard ute fan and that was not going to change. nope.

but the point of this post is to actually credit some good times and great memories to that weird place we call provo. can you beleive i was miss provo? when that happened all my friends said, you better stop making fun of provo so much since you now represent the city. HA. and i did. i represented well, i think. i loved the parades, the people in the mayor's office, and getting to know the residents, not just the students, of provo. i loved going to local businesses and shooting "business spotlights" for the mayor's tv show. i loved interviewing the business owners about their roots and yes, i loved the free food that usually came with the standup shot.

and i had great friends in provo. i found my best friend BRITTANY in provo. we were two peas in a pod. we had way too much fun in the no shhhh zone. we hot tubbed. we studied (sometimes). we met boys. we went on double dates. we shared clothes. we shared boys. we shared notes for the many comms classes we had together. we supported each other through good times and bad. and we still do. and i love her like a sister.


i found some really delightful things in provo too. i almost wrote a book about it. i wanted to suggest my favorite places to eat, good places to study on campus, fun things to do, etc. needless to say, it never happened. but i do suggest to anyone who's a new (or old) student at byu, or to anyone who is stuck there for a day (ha), you try a hot dog at jdawgs. make sure you get the special sauce. go to the joseph smith building (not to be confused with the joseph smith memorial building downtown salt lake) and read the plaque outside of the statue on the main floor. hit up world of dance in the fall. try the chocolate milk from the creamery. wind up on campus early to see the 7 am flag raising up by the ASB. sit in on the last day of the semester in american heritage where they play the video montage. it's powerful. make it to the devotional where the prophet comes and everyone dresses up. i miss that. go sledding in the middle of the night. never go tunnel singing. ha. if you need a nap, there are some awesome long padded benches on the 3rd floor of the JSB where it's really quiet and you can for sure catch some zzzzs in between classes. pita pit, despite its fairly unfortunate name, is pretty darn good. the 4th of july parade in provo is really long and really fun. and byu football fans are just obnoxious. but i do have to hand it to them, they've never lost a fireside!

the end :)

xoxo,
c

ps. it may or may not be a coincidence that this utah - byu rivalry post comes a couple weeks before the big game.

follow up

thanks a lot true blue. i still like you. but you are annoying me right now. why do you have to create drama in our relationship? why can't you just keep it simple with the old terms and conditions. seriously, am i just a dummy or does this confuse anyone else?

"If you have 60 old TrueBlue points and you earn 10,000 points in the new program. You can convert some of those new points into old points in order to reach a total of 100 old TrueBlue points for an Award Flight. The conversion rate for new TrueBlue points to old TrueBlue points is 200 to 1. That means you would need to use 8,000 new TrueBlue points to get 40 old TrueBlue points. You would then add those 40 points to their remaining 60 points to reach 100 points for an Award Flight. The remaining 2,000 new points would stay in your new TrueBlue account balance."

yeah. totally makes sense. simple. thanks a lot!

huh?

ok, i've never been great at math. i guess i did get straight a's in my math classes until calculus. AP calculus junior year. it almost ruined my life. well not really, but i felt like it at the time ha. i always wondered why i wasn't better at math though. i'm asian! part asian at least. aren't we supposed to be math geniuses?

so anyway, jet blue just emailed me and told me that they changed their policy on reward points. their reward program always confused me anyway from the get-go. read this and see if it makes sense...

"Starting November 6, 2009, you will no longer need to accrue 200 Award Dollars before they can be transferred into a TrueBlue point. For every eligible dollar you spend, you can earn one TrueBlue point."

it used to be that every $1 you earned turned into a fraction of a point basically. award dollars did not = true blue points. you had to spend $200 award dollars to = 1 true blue point. 100 true blue points = a free flight. i think?

so, if i get what they're saying now, the deal is, it still takes the same amount of cash to get a free flight, it will just look different on your true blue statement. whatever.

well just so everyone knows, i do love my jet blue amex. it's great. i like that i get double points when i eat out, or if i go to an event, or a golf course. ha. you can imagine how much that happens. and i can use it at costco, the happiest place on earth.

diet coke and babies

my one true love. i will never ever break up with diet coke. except maybe if i ever get pregnant. which i'm not trying for right now. ha. thank goodness.

but it does bring me to the subject that weekly, if not bi-weekly or even more frequently sometimes, i find out about a new friend who's "preggers," "expecting," my mom used to call it "PG"... i haven't heard this one in a long time though so i think that's a little outdated :) i always feel really excited when i hear this, but it also makes me feel a little like "oh, man." kind of like wow, i really took a step back in life. however, my therapist and i talked about this today. she helped me see that the learning and growing i've experienced in the past year, although it's a backward progression in the path of having a family, is really a step forward in my personal life.

i actually do feel like it's a blessing that i'm not totally overwhelmed with the desire to be a mother at the moment. i know that it's very possible at age 25 i could feel that way, a deep desire to be a mom and a "void" in not having that option right now. but i am ok with not being there yet. i do get sad sometimes when i see really, super duper adorable pictures of my friends brand new babies. but usually only for a minute. i count it as a blessing. that that sadness only lasts a minute. and then i move on. and i'm totally alright.

have you ever seen the movie "baby boom?" it is hilarious. diane keaton throws a complete tantrum in the middle of it, passes out, and wakes up in what she thinks is a doctor's office but ends up being a vet's office. the whole movie shows her trying to get used to motherhood and her struggles with trying to be an insta-mom. she completely freaks out a few times and it's really funny if you've spent time around babies at all. i am sure my friends who are moms would love this. i think i'd actually be a few steps ahead of this character in that i was the oldest child, i nannied and did more babysitting than i can even remember, and i know how to take care of kids fairly well. i'm clearly not an expert, but i'm experienced at least at a moderate level. which is why i've never been afraid of being a mom. i've always looked forward to it and been really excited about it. i'm just grateful that i'm not aching for it and dying to be a mom so bad that it makes me super sad or anything. because i know some girls struggle with that. maybe i will eventually. but today i'm ok with it and like i said before, i feel like that's a blessing.

and in the meantime of being single and not anywhere close to having babies, i'll keep enjoying my diet coke. twice, sometimes three times a day. yes. once for breakfast, for sure, every day. and usually a lunch diet coke too. and one in the afternoon. aahh.