[S]He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (William Butler Yeats)
HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
The First Page of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eye away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time."
So much of Christmas to me, most likely like in the case of many others, is based on the experiences I had as a child. Being with my family this year for the first time since 2006 has shown to me the things that signal the celebration of the birth of Christ to me.
Being Goofy with Family (I guess this goes with any Salt Lake visit)
Making Multiple Visits to the Library (Okay, this also goes with any Salt Lake visit)
Seeing Temple Square Christmas Lights
Having the House Decorated
Mom's Sweet Cinnamon Rolls
Lots of Goodies
Dad Giving and Receiving University of Utah and Dodgers Gifts and Sneakily Converting the Grandkids to Ute-ism
The Christmas Pageant with the Glauser Family (we sure missed Grandpa, though)
And something extra that I added to the family traditions this year:
Baking Stollen
I'll add a little video I made on Christmas morning later.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir puts together an amazing Christmas concert every year. Tickets are free, but you have to put your name in for a drawing because it's so popular!
Several weeks ago, I got an email saying my entry in the drawing had been accepted, and I smiled, knowing my dad must have done that. A few weeks later, he emailed me saying I had won and had four tickets to the concert the morning after I arrived in the states.
I could only find one person who could go with me: my mom. (My dad was lucky to have already gone earlier in the week.) The morning was snowy and beautiful as we made our way downtown.
While we were waiting for the program to start, the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, walked in. All 21,000 audience members (yes, the house was full, or filling at that point) and the hundreds of performers went silent. If you haven't been to the enormous LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, you don't know how impressive it is to hear someone that far away talking. Imagine someone at the bottom of a sport arena. Natalie Cole sang with the choir and David McCullough was the narrator for the program. They were contributed greatly to the fabulous program, though we only saw the mini concert (the real thing was already over), and were very gracious when President Monson thanked them personally. They both remarked on how impressed they were with the last few days and how they had learned to love Mormons and how they felt a wish to excel among everyone they'd gotten to know.
Oh, and Richard Elliott (I think it was him) played a self-arranged medley of Nutcracker and Good King Wenceslas on the organ. Wow. He had a lot of different settings with bells and horns and his feet flew over the pedals. I want to play that too.
We did a lot of clapping at the end (Charly, who always wishes clapping was allowed in church, would have loved it), and every time I stood up I felt dizzy, but I survived thanks to my mom's elbow.
The temple looked so cool in the snow, I had to take a lot of pictures.
Deep clean the kitchen, which included risking my life by standing on the window ledge to clean windows that haven't been cleaned ever since the sink was installed (who knows when that was?) and knocking over the mop water right as my roommate came home, thus soaking my house shoes and everything else and annoying me to no end. Check.
Re-awaken my carpal tunnel, even with my wrist braces, through a lot of writing. Check.
Look all over for a very German, very cheap nativity scene for my mom. Check on the look. Get some tips from a lady on facebook. Check.
Sluff Chinese and training at the gym to get stuff done. Check.
Show up for appointments at the voice doctor, physical therapist, and other doctors, and get the swine flu shot. Check.
Go to Dresden to hear Vocalis Chor sing and get Antje to pose so I can get a good picture of this very Sunset Boulevard-ish lady. Check.
Pay the last of my tithing and sign with the bishop. Check.
Give out some random presents to some good people. Check.
Try to get this cutesy boy to smile at the ward Christmas party. Check on the try.
Pick up my semi-damaged suitcase from Mike. Check.
Pack that suitcase with things for the family at 6 AM on the day you're to leave. Don't forget the ingredients for Stollen. Check.
Leave a little something on the table for the roommates, hand over my keys to a friend, and be ready to make it to the train station before 8:11 AM to make it to Frankfurt airport on time. Check.
I recently set a huge goal for myself to accomplish something I've wanted to do for a long time. And because I reached my goal (more on that later), I had a chocolate party with some friends.
If you don't know about my relationship with chocolate, you may not realize what a huge deal that is. I quit eating chocolate in June 2008, for several reasons. First, I wanted to help a friend who wanted needed to quit smoking. I told her I'd quit chocolate and she laughed, "ha ha ha, like that's possible." The second reason needs a little more explanation. I have always been a huge chocolate lover; I've never had the feeling that chocolate is unhealthy the way candy is, because it doesn't leave your mouth with that sticky, unclean feeling. And thus I ate a lot of chocolate. It became my substitute for meals. And I became a Nutella junky. I would put it on my heater til it was nice and smooth and warm and then I'd eat it with a spoon, straight from the jar. When I ate Nutella from a jar that had fallen onto the cobblestones and shattered pieces of glass into the Nutella (the glass felt like sand when I chewed it, and no, I did not cut my tongue or anything else), it seemed like my extreme use of chocolate needed to end until I could learn to control myself a little better. For me, the Word of Wisdom included my chocolate addiction.
Thus, the last year and a half has seen me using a cold-turkey approach. It's definitely easier to say "no" than to say "a little bit." I always ended up saying " a little bit more" until the chocolate's all gone. But I knew the entire time that 1. I wasn't learning any kind of self-control and 2. I still loved chocolate (I smelled Nutella whenever I saw someone's jar). It seemed like the time would have to come when I would need to learn how to live with chocolate.
So, after reaching my goal (again, more on that later), I got together with a few friends. I brought along all the chocolate I've collected over the last 1.5 years. And they told me to dig in.
But I refused to start until they helped me establish some chocolate rules. Here they are. I think I'm pretty satisfied with them:
Schokolade Regeln 1. Darf nicht Schokolade essen statt normalem Essen. Nur nach dem normalen Essen. 2. Kein eigenes Geld für Schokolade ausgeben (als Geschenk oder Nachtisch schon). 3. Belohnungsregeln: wenn, dann Schokolade 3.1. Sport/Rad fahren (statt Straßenbahn) 3.2. Tagebuch upgedatet 3.3 Zimmer aufgeräumt 4. Kein Supersize me (keine zweite/weitere Portion annehmen)
A.K.A.:
Chocolate Rules 1. I'm not allowed to eat chocolate instead of normal food. I can only eat chocolate after having had normal food. 2. No spending my own money on chocolate (I have to receive it as a gift or as dessert somewhere). 3. Reward rules: if, then . . . 3.1 exercise/ride my bike instead of the tram 3.2 updated journal 3.3 clean room 4 No Supersizing. (I'm not allowed to accept second portions.)
Then Mike, who has tried to convince me to start eating chocolate again for a long, long time, interviewed me and filmed me eating Nutella. Yum!
I actually didn't eat as much as I thought I would and so far I've stuck to the rules. I'm not going to tell people that I eat chocolate again, though. It seems like everyone else is better at limiting my chocolate intake than I am, so them not knowing just helps me (so keep it on the down low, beloved blog readers). And you knowing about my rules helps too.
While I was chatting with a friend and opening up about my fight with depression, he sent me this video:
Isn't it awful? But in a way it's a good awful. You know exactly how much hurt is really there. His voice sounds dead. After listening to it, I asked, "Oh man, do I sound like that?" Apparently I do. Or did when I asked that.
These are the lyrics:
I hurt myself today to see if I still feel I focus on the pain the only thing that's real the needle tears a hole the old familiar sting try to kill it all away but I remember everything what have I become? my sweetest friend everyone I know goes away in the end and you could have it all my empire of dirt
I will let you down I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair full of broken thoughts I cannot repair beneath the stains of time the feelings disappear you are someone else I am still right here
what have I become? my sweetest friend everyone I know goes away in the end and you could have it all my empire of dirt
I will let you down I will make you hurt
if I could start again a million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way
I really enjoyed my interview last week, and it sounded quite like I'm going to get a job. The only disappointment is the fact that the boss thought I needed more experience and would only offer me the assistant position (which means less responsibility and much, much, much less money--even less than I made at the FHL when I started part-time, if you go divide the monthly wages into hours). I keep thinking that with so much education, you'd think I'd be able to get a real position. But the promotion chances are good, he assured me. So now I just have to decide if it's worth it to stick it out in the lower position until I have the experience I need. The company looks really cool and I'd really like to work for them.
Oh, and I also have to try to forget the fact that my side-effected dry mouth caused my lips to stick to my teeth as I was trying to answer questions. Awesome.
Here is the company. They do internet media, communication, marketing, etc. for companies.
You know what? That whole "I'm 29 weeks along" means nothing to me. I wish people would start saying things in months. I'm too lazy to divide by four and I have no idea how many weeks a pregnancy is. I guess some day I'll be the one telling people how many weeks along I am. Isn't that weird that your body can do something like make a baby? You might call me out on the use of the word "weird," but that's what it is.
-khaki-colored cords -khakis (dark blue or khaki) -pajama pants (I'm still sporting the blue snowflake ones from Christmas years ago) -black tights (yes, you know I hate tights, but Germany . . .) -brown tights -Old Navy undies -headphones so I don't have to keep pressing play every few minutes -a silver necklace chain for my YW medallion and the pearl Tanya gave me (I've been wearing it on a piece of bent-out-of-shape fishing line) -classy pearl earrings -warm, waterproof brown shoes (preferably plain, flat, shiny brown boots that are nice enough to wear to work) -black sunglasses (you know the ones I like that I always break or lose--the last pair came from All-A-Dollar) -computer speakers so I can enjoy my music and watch movies -material for my couch cover and pillow covers -help painting my furniture and wall -white curtains -mixer/blender (tricky because of the whole differing electric plugs thing)
A few weeks ago, I noticed that I had a blank post-it note on the side of my shelf, surrounded by many other filled notes. I had no idea why it was there but left it and forgot about it. Last Friday, a friend of mine suddenly needed a place to shower in Leipzig, so I gave him my keys. Later, when I got home, I found a thank you note from him on my desk. I thought, "I wonder where he found this paper?" Later, he told me, "I was looking around for somewhere to write you a thank you note, and I found this random blank post-it note on your shelf!" Inspiration.
These are the kinds of stories that I've been reading every day ever since I discovered MLIA, My Life Is Average. They make me so happy.
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