'Tis the Season!

So where to begin? As usual, it has been quite some time since my last post.  It would take far too long for me to review all that has happened since my last post, so for news of my latest adventures, just read through Mandi and Carissa's blogs; they are pretty good at documenting my adventures with them :)  Oh what would I do without my sisters?

Well, I finally live in a real apartment! I have a washer and dryer! I have counter space! The ceiling is more than 6 ft tall! And.....I got a REAL Christmas Tree!! I have been waiting for years to have a place where I could get a real tree, and put lights and all my ornaments on it!  My wonderful mother went tree shopping with me last friday and we picked out the best tree on the lot!  It was run by what looked like a couple brothers, and true to form, my mom bargained for a discount on my tree. (it was only $5 but hey...it's great right!)  So we strapped that tree to the roof of my car and brought it home.  Jon came over and helped me get it in the stand, then on Sunday I put on the lights and just finished the ornaments tonight.  I absolutely loved putting up all my ornaments and smiling at the silly stories that are written with some of them.  I am so grateful for the tradition of the ornament exchange.  All of my ornaments mean something, and each one feels like a little piece of family here with me!  Below are a few that had particularly potent memories. (Sorry about the order, blogger does some weird stuff)  With all my christmas decorating it has brought a few waves of sadness that I will not be able to come home for christmas this year.  Sitting at home alone, waiting for the phone to ring and call me into work is not exactly how I pictured spending my first christmas away from home.  But life is life, and you do what you gotta do right?!  I discovered yesterday that I will at least be able to go home on Friday for the weekend and still see all my family together.  It's times like these that I try to remember to count my blessings, and keep in mind it could be a lot worse.

  Aunts Missy and Kristy - 2000,2002

 My first Tree! 

 Good ol' Grandma Great - 1999

 Wouldn't be a christmas without some blue & orange!

 Thanks to Carissa, this is real Texas cotton! Fresh off the plant - 2012

 Hahaha, and Aunt Missy, her tribute to the Swine Flu - 2009

This is a baby Jesus in a manger of popsicle sticks and yarn, I believe I made in Nursery or early Primary - 1990's

Thanks to all my family who sent me presents for under my tree! I feel so blessed :)

 This is for Chandler, front and center :)

 The kitty is not so thrilled with the new addition to my living room...such a good toy and such a shame not to be able to play with it!!

Speaking of cats -- you know how in general I really love my job?  I love to play with puppies and kittens that come in, there's so many pets that I have had the pleasure of watching grow up from babies, or that I have helped to save their life. 

Well, today was not one of those "just love my job" days.  Unfortunately, this kind of thing comes with the territory, and it IS in the job description....but it still sucks when it happens to you!  There is a 5th scratch you can't see well, that is mostly up my nose, and curves around the bottom.  That's the one that actually stung, I think it was worse than putting lemon juice in a paper cut.  And it bled for about 20 minutes! All the clients I interacted with thereafter made comments about it, something I have to look forward to for a couple weeks now.  Awesome.  I hate cats. 

My Day of Epic Failness

So I think today was the most EpiC FaiL day of my life!!! haha, it started when I came out of the bathroom at work this morning and noticed the other technician already there, when she had another hour before her shift.  When I question her, she tells me that she is the opener.  I woop out my ipod w/ the schedule on it and say no look, Friday - Jacque, 7-6.  She says "um no....it's only thursday!!"  I proceed to bang my head against a nearby door...it hurts.  Oh well, I could use the extra hour, no biggie.  Around 8:30 when Brandie gets there, I have her come w/ me to the car shop so I can drop my car off to have my tranny worked on, and get a ride back to work.  Besides fighting w/ my brain all day about friday really being thursday, all goes fairly smoothly until roughly 4:30-5:00 in the afternoon when I start feeling like I'm forgetting something.  I think it's just something around the clinic, a client I forgot to call back or some such, so I brush it off when I can't place it.  6:15 comes around when I realize what I forgot was my car.  The shop closes at 6.  I think to myself...'wow, I'm really winning today.'  So in the midst of trying to arrange carpools home and to work again the next morning (when I really do open) I decide to give it a shot and hope that someone is still at the shop.  Colleen buzzes me down there, and I get in right as the mechanic was leaving. Whew!!  Crisis averted, I go back to the clinic to help finish closing.  So Sherilynn comes to me and says, "so I don't need to pick you up at the car shop tomorrow morning anymore? Nice that they could get you in a day early"  REALLY?!....  as the realization dawns on me and everyone else, I realize how big of a retard I am.  In lieu of my believing it was friday, I took my car in a DaY eArLy!  and they were even descent enough at the shop not to even question it, but took my car in anyway.  I look longingly at the door again, thinking I should have saved the head pounding for now.  Once the laughing dies down enough for me to be heard, I salute everyone, inform them that I am indeed done for the day and proceed to leave.  On pulling out of the parking lot, i realize I have left the kitten inside.  whoops! at least I hadn't gone far. - - Home at last!! Stacey isn't around, so I sit down with a large tub of ice cream intending to feast for awhile when I see my visiting teaching companion walking up the steps.  Seriously?!?!  I drag myself off the couch, quickly change and volunteer to drive.  Her startled squawk reminds me I left the kitten in the car. -_-  One big sigh, and I remind myself that this day does, eventually, have to end.  At least tomorrow I have some fun to look forward to!  But for now, I'm going to bed early.

About time to get some thoughts out

I have felt for awhile now that I wanted to make a post, but I have neglected it because most of the time when I feel like I need to get my feelings out it's because I'm having a "bad night". Meaning an evening spent down memory lane, feeling very sad and wondering why the start of 2012 had to get off so rotten. I mean, New Year's is supposed to be a happy thing, right?? My last tough night I had was when Lindy posted her poem she wrote for school. And then right after that mom posted about the apples. Earlier in the afternoon I had visited Chandler's facebook page, and read some of the continuing thoughts of his schoolmates and friends. Instead of posting on my blog, I just write in my journal and get all my emotions down on paper. It feels very much like a releasing of pent up emotions and sadness and helps me to talk myself through things. But I also feel that is something you don't all really want to read :) So tonight, I am feeling a surge of emotion at the other end of the spectrum, and I feel this is something I can and would like to share with everyone.

Life has not been all roses and sunshine thus far into the year. But neither has it been all gray and gloomy. While I have experienced the most intense heart-ache I have ever felt, so too have I come to know my Savior in a way I never could have before. Many of the plain and simple truths I have been taught all my life became real to me all of a sudden. The simplest and most important thing I have learned is that God loves Me. With everything going on in the world, all the billions of people going through tougher times than I, He took the time to show me His love and heal my heart. I learned truly what it means to turn my sorrows over to Him who has born it already. Christ has been through it all and more, so that I wouldn't have to suffer alone. At my lowest moment, I was given a blessing through the priesthood and from that moment my burden has been lightened. I have felt a closeness to the Spirit that used to be absent in my day to day life. It's not as hard to remember to read my scriptures every day, and I have found myself quicker to count my blessings and to thank my Father. Just yesterday my visiting teachers came, and she read the scripture
Helaman 5:12 -- And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

I would have to say that the devil himself has given our family a pretty good row this year, but Christ is my rock and my foundation! Through all that has happened, I can't help but feeling a little triumphant at the victory I have won! I know there are still going to be hard times for a very long time, the family reunion this year is going to be difficult, as will Thanksgiving and Christmas, and next New Year's. But the testimony I have gained is engraven on my heart as deeply as was my love for Chandler. At the same time I feel sad, I also feel a little assurance, my family is forever and death itself cannot break that bond. My thoughts have been turned to grandma Koyle lately as well, and I have been recording some of my memories with her so they too can be cherished throughout my life until I see her again. How grateful I am to know the things I know!!