beautiful peace.

I haven't felt much like writing lately...actually, that's a lie. I've had tons to write about, and want to write about, but have just been plain too lazy to do it.

 

But today, today something more than worth writing about happened, and so write I must.

 

For those of you who have been thru the temple, and taken out your endowment, there is nothing sweeter than being there with a dearest friend or family member as they participate in their own ordinances. Today I was blessed with that experience. A dear friend of mine out here in California, actually the very first real friend I made when I moved here, went through the temple to receive his own endowment. He had been inactive most of his life, and we met our very first Sunday together at church. My first Sunday in the ward, and also his first Sunday back in church in years. We immediately became close.

 

We spent many nights, talking late into the night about life, the gospel, the atonement, forgiveness, recognizing the spirit, and just working through it all. Going to institute. Eating greasy but the most delicious fried zuccini from A's burgers. Watching the waves crash on the shore. Just knowing the another human being cares and understands in some small way your life. He lifted me when I was struggling in a new place, and I hope I was able to lift him even minimally as he made his trek back toward the Savior.

 

Watching him walk into the beautiful celestial room at the San Diego temple. There. Aren't. Words. Tears. Love. Celestial, eternal, family love. INCREDIBLE.

 

That's all I have to say about it. Because really, no words can describe what my heart felt in that moment. Even though he walked in to his fiancee and family first and foremost, I got to be a small part of it. And i'm so ecstatic.

life

The C Ladies

I have been lacking inspiration for blogging lately, so this post is mostly a mashu-up of a couple posts of friends I’ve read lately, that made me write this. BTW, am I at work and should I be working? You know it. But I figure, I was here until 9pm last night and got in at 7:40am today…this will be my 10 minute Diet Dr. Pepper/blogging break.

My girl Miriam recently posted the following about the types of relationships we have in our lives. She’s living with me for a month on her summer break before she heads to Utah to start teaching again. It has been the greatest blessing to me having her around again, and has made me realize how much I truly miss having all my “Cs” around (see link http://julietteruns.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/a-b-c-or-d/).
 So, this is just a little tribute to my main gals. My girls that truly have made and continue to make my life beautiful, meaningful, full of love and laughter, and bearable thru the tough times. I love you girls.

Kristy Kadish. Conquering the world in NYC. The big apple isn’t big enough to handle how incredible this woman is. You inspire me every day. I love our late night chats, cry sessions, venting moments, and how people constantly ask if we are sisters. My life literally would not be so great if you were not in it. We were literally meant to be friends, and brought together by forces greater than chance.

Megan Neeley Gardner. My little neeley. Oh my dear how I miss you. Married to Sir Toddeth. Teaching biology to the young minds of Salt Lake Valley…have you made them eat worms yet for your entomology section? Nobody gets me in a more quiet, loving, compassionate way than Megan. And nobody knows enough of the right jokes to make me laugh no matter how awful, sad, or cranky I’m being…

Miriam Rasmussen. There is never a second that I worry about anything when I’m with Miriam. Life really is better as a musical. Nacho Libre’s got nothing on this girl. Laughter, joy, occasional appropriate inappropriateness, blissfully honest, down to earth, most thoughtful girl I know. Please don’t leave back to Utah. July has been too magical to let you go…I sound like I’m talking about my D relationship…haha. Love you honey.

Sue Bear Bracken. Loving hands and a loving heart. This girl is constantly teaching me how to be more like the Savior, how to just jump and laugh and love life, and how to do everything with a smile. Married to Sir Adam the Great. Conquering the UVRMC oncology floor one patient at a time with those loving hands and heart. She’s not short, she’s fun size. The best things in life come in the smallest packages. I love you and miss you my dear. Can’t wait to see you at Katie’s wedding?

Katie Wixom. Saint of all saints. Also taking New York by storm…or Ryan Smith by storm…ok fine, both. Wrapping up her Master’s degree. Dietician. The sweetest, kindest, most sincere person I know. Truly a woman without guile. Soon to be married to Sir Ryan. Makes the yummiest tomato bisque I’ve ever tasted. Has never uttered a mean word in her life, and uplifts and serves selflessly without even thinking about it – it’s just her nature thru and thru. Less than 2 weeks til I get to see you…ok wait…maybe it’s something much more important than that…but still true on both counts.

Ladies, I love you. I miss you. I am eternally grateful for the Lord's hand in bringing each of you into my life. There is nothing quite like the comfort and peace of the truest kind of friendship that we share. Thank you for changing my life for the better, each and every day. Even though we are far apart, I know that our "hearts are knit together in unity and love" always.

I LOVE YOU.

MIA

Ok friends, I realize that I haven't blogged in almost a month...I've been just a little busy to say the least, but in a good way...or so I tell myself.

And I'm heading out of town at 4:30am tomorrow to go to Lake Powell for another week, so I thought I'd give you a quick update and sneak peek of some of my pics from floral design school.

I started classes back on the first week of June. Heavenly. Basic floral design. Weddings. Special Events. And advanced floral designs and techniques will be in September...I just couldn't pull off missing work for a whole month...oh wait, I was still working nearly 30 hours/week while in school 9-5 everyday for the past 4 weeks. Haha. Silly me. 

What was I thinking? I'm crazy is what it comes down to - crazy about life though! And crazy about flowers! Love love love love love it. 

So my days have consisted of getting up wayyyy too early, heading to work at some early, God-forsaken hour of the day...(sorry, that's how I felt every morning), working a couple hours, driving from 8-9 to Anaheim (peak rush hour - BOO!), going to class from 9-5, driving back to work from 5-6 (again at peak rush hour - again, BOO!!!), working for a few more hours, sneaking to church stuff a couple times a week at night, then back to work, and even squeezing in the gym a couple times a week...the first 2 weeks...I gave up on the gym after week 2. Too exhausted. 

And the past week since I finished classes for the time being, my body has gone into total reject mode...I've been winding down and feeling like my body has just been giving up on me all week. It knows it's going on a blissfully peaceful, rockin', gorgeous fun vacation tomorrow. It gave up on me so much this morning that I totally played hookie and didn't even go to work...Shame on me. Instead, I slept in, did laundry, packed my bag (very small bag full of swimsuits, a pair of pj's and some undies), and went to the beach.

I would still be at the beach, but the plumber is here fixing my broken garbage disposal. So what better time for blogging than while trying to avoid seeing the nasty crack in my kitchen???

I repeat, I'm pretty stoked for vacation. I'll be in Lake Powell for 8 days. No cell phone reception, no Internet, nothing. Just me, good friends, God's beautiful creations, glassy water, sleeping under the stars, and decompressing from my life.......and I'm trying really hard to mentally feel okay about being in a swimsuit all week with 20 other people in my ward, and not feel like a fat cow (because that's generally how I've been feeling about my body lately...I'm the heaviest I've EVER been in my entire life, which is ultra depressing.) Oh well. I'm not gonna date any of these people anyway, so I need to continue to mentally work myself into feeling good and having a little bit of confidence in my womanly, needs some work body.  :)

Ok, that's it for now. 

possible disaster will soon ensue

my computer crashed at work today while i was gone at school. i haven't seen it yet, because i refused to go back to work after school because i was too scared of what is waiting for me. but one our other legal assistant who we just recently hired called me this morning, and first thing he said to me was, "you should be sitting down for this..."

that is never a good way to start a phone call.

then he told me that he was printing something from my computer (because it's the only one in our office hooked up to the color printer), and in the middle of it, it just froze up, crashed, and when it rebooted, everything was gone. every document. every piece of software. it was like it was a brand new computer. hard drive completely wiped clean.

this means a lot of bad things basically. but i'm crossing my fingers, praying hard (please also pray for me) and calling a smart IT guy tomorrow, in hopes that we can recover something, anything.

and yes, you're all asking yourself, don't you have a backup you dummy? well, yes and no. i have all of our client files (which is the bulk of our materials) on our network server, and also on a backup server. but my personal computer's hard drive? why would i ever think to be worried about that? oh wait...dummy. all of our accounting, billing, etc. is on MY computer. dumb. dumb. dumb.

but, in good faith, i'm still crossing my fingers and praying that my most recent backup was recent enough that not too much damage will be done.

wanna know what makes it all even worse though? this past monday night, after a busy weekend of church stuff/ward conference, stake relief society meetings and visits, and a full day of classes...monday night i'm sitting in my office working, and i get the very clear distinct thought, "beth, you should look into some sort of online data backup services in case your systems at work ever crashed." i had the though once and only once, but with great clarity. it didn't feel like a warning, and thus i didn't think too much of it. it was one of those things that i would "get to later" or even just next week when I'm back in the office full-time. should've listened. won't ignore that type of thought again.

pray for me. thanks.

the end.

amazing week. amazingly exhausted.

this will be short and sweet, but I'll write more later tonight probably.

floral design school = a dream come true. i'm loving every second of it. once i figure out how to get my pictures off my phone i will post them from this past week.

working early mornings, school all day, and working late nights, while trying to squish in everything else in life is making me completely and utterly exhausted. but in a good way.

today is ward conference. and i have to go to meetings early.

the end.