SOL: I want the book

Posted on by Sierra

The bed was perfectly, amiably soft this morning. I woke up early to do my homework, but opted to do it in bed instead, so I could appreciate the amiable softness of our Jersey sheets.

I did not accomplish as much as I expected. In fact, I fairly quickly fell back asleep. But I have some new goals this week, so I slithered out of bed, under duress because my new goals take extra hours in the morning to achieve them.

Goal 1: To write every day in the month of March. This is part of a “Slice of Life” challenge for my writing class, and if you write every day of the month, you could win a book. I tested the waters, I waited to see the quality of the books being offered as prizes. After the first winner collected her book, I decided the cover art was satisfying enough to pique my interest. I have resolved to try to win.

Goal 2: Jeremy and I pinky-promised that we would not leave clothes anywhere but the laundry basket or the closet, especially not on the floor, and especially not on the chair. (I know what you’re thinking–I’m an overbearing wife, manipulating husband into learning how to clean, but I assure you, it was his idea, and the double pinky lock was mutual). I woke up knowing this goal would take me some extra time A: to find my clothes in the closet, because they are so much easier to find on the floor and B: Because our laundry basket is difficult to get at sometimes–thus, the laundry on the floor problem. So far, I am doing very good at holding up my end of the bargain. After our first night of pinky- promising, Jeremy still has room for improvement:

Sorry about the poor photo quality. I didn’t want to wake Jeremy up (and let him know my plan to expose him!) by turning on the light. Please note, the somewhat ethereal chair where Jeremy’s pair of jeans hangs, and the church pants that almost, almost made it into the basket.
I love you, Sweetheart :). Better luck next time.

SOL: Life Lessons

Posted on by Sierra
I learned a valuable lesson today. 

For the last two months, the ladies at church have been asking us to volunteer to help one of the older ladies in our ward unpack her new house. Considering they have been asking for two months, I was surprised that there was still work that needed to be done. Still, sensing some availability in my schedule, I decided two months later that I should probably do my part and lend a helping hand.

This morning, I came in with an attitude ready to work. 
“Alright Sister, where can we start?” Me and another girl worked like lemmings, moving boxes and attempting to unpack as much as possible. I didn’t feel the need to get out of there, exactly… I just wanted the time I spent there to be as efficient as possible. There was so much work to be done, I was a little surprised that so little had been accomplished in the last two months. We moved boxes of beautiful possessions, lovely antiques, genuinely vintage stationary, delicate china. It was such a privilege to peak into the boxes. 
“Ok,” I asked, not impatiently, just in the attitude of doing, “Should I wash this china and put them in your cabinets?”
“Oh… I dunno,” the old lady said slowly. “Maybe you can move this box into the living room and go through it with me. There’s so many things I need to sort through, throw away.”
I tracked down some garbage bags and got ready to toss. The first thing on the top of the box was a beautiful, old Bible. She picked it up tenderly, and held it for a moment before telling me all about her Daddy reading this Bible to her when she was a little girl, how she’d jump up on his knee whenever he pulled it out. Then she gingerly held up her late husband’s set of scriptures. She told us what a wonderful man was, how he had helped her pack up all these things right before she moved, when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and three months left to live. 
“He never even felt sick,” she remembered to herself. 
Each item in the box had a memory, even little newspaper clippings and old greeting cards from friends and neighbors from 1973, an exercise book by Richard Simmons back in his glory days. She had little photos that gave us little clues to this woman’s rich life. It took a long time to sift through just the one box. 

We threw away very little.
As we were sorting through anecdotes and objects, I realized why so little progress was being made in the house: This women didn’t need someone to speed her life up. She needed someone to slow down with her. 
Slow down, my friends. Slow down. 

Deep Thoughts: Taylor Swift

Posted on by Sierra

I’m thinking of creating a blog label for all of my “deep thoughts.” For all my posts on like, you know, The Bachelor and like… hair products and stuff.

So, Taylor Swift has committed two offenses against me, but I have recently decided to forgive her for them.

Her Offenses: 
1. Dating Jake Gyllenhaal
2. Having an old boyfriend of mine say to me, “I WISH you looked like Taylor Swift.” (He wasn’t kidding).

So, understandably, Taylor and I haven’t been buddy-buddy for the last year or so, but after seeing her cute self on Ellen singing with Zac Efron (who I NEVER liked before that), I have to say, Taylor and I are back on speaking terms… And I think she’s adorable. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Jeremy doesn’t find her overly attractive.

Another reason I like Taylor Swift so much: She is a TOTAL dork, and in my family, being a dork is a really good thing. You might not know she is a dork by just looking at her on the red carpet looking like this:

After all, she looks INCREDIBLE here, and dorks aren’t usually this beautiful.
 But I assure you, Taylor Swift is a dork. Let’s examine the evidence.
1. Lyrics/ Music Video to “You Belong with Me.” — 
“But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts

She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers.”
–The music video depicts a pig-tailed, band geek Taylor, totally owning her bleacherism. I think this speaks to a past life of social awkwardness, that Swift can now embrace, and win best female music video over.
You Belong with Me

2. She occasionally sings… awkward things. It’s ok to out “Drew,” whoever he is, because no one knows him. But it seems a tinsy bit too forthcoming by singing about John Mayer (way too old/perverted for you), and Taylor Lautner (besides, you can do better, Taylor S.). And I’m not going to get into the forgiveness song she sang to Kanye at the 2010 VMA’s, because the awkwardness makes me feel a little uncomfortable, to be frank.
*If she sings about Jake Gyllenhaal, her career is over.

3. The most indicting evidence for the geekism of Ms. Swift is here, and this is the one that makes me love her more than anything: The Girl Can’t Dance.

And just as she seems to be America’s sweetheart right now, watching her geeking out, totally aware of her enthusiastic dorkdom, I admit she’s capturing my heart. This may be because I too (and hold onto your knickers, because this may surprise you), am a total dork who cannot dance, who is way too white, and who, if she ever went to high school football games, would have certainly been on the bleachers too.

So yes, Taylor. Let’s be dorks. We can have a slumber party, and wear our retainers together. 

Facebook Me

Posted on by Sierra

Every time I get a new facebook friend that is particularly interesting, I do a re-scan of my most recent posts on facebook and try to see me from their eyes. Admittedly, I do this less now that I am married, and know that there are no new boys perusing the old FB. But recently, just for fun more than personality dialysis, I went back to check on my married life persona. I realized the following:
“If you were to judge me by my 2012 Timeline you would think: I am a baby animal/ Ellen freak that blogs all the time, who recently got married and whose friends are having too many babies, and who has a love/hate relationship with “The Bachelor,” and is still holding out for a new Harry Potter.”
All of the above is completely true. I do love Ellen (because she espouses kindness for all and she’s downright hilarious). And baby animals make me happy when I’m having a miserable streak. And it’s true, three of my favorite friends and my sister just had babies (well, Tiffany will have a baby soon) and I’m feeling the sweet baby feet and feeling like I should be feeling something about a baby. Mostly I just like kissing baby’s feets that are not my own baby’s right now. And it’s true. The Bachelor has been… addicting even though I think Ben is, perhaps, the most disappointing Bachelor ever. And Harry Potter. Well. I will always love Harry.

 

 

 But I wish it was easier to portray how much I love being a wife, while recognizing that this is the newest, craziest, and (occasionally) hardest frontier I’ve ever traveled to. I wish I could tell the world how much I love my husband without being one of “those wives” that comes across as silly and insincere. 

I wish I were brave enough to share my religious and political beliefs. I wish I could tell people WHY I am a Mormon and WHY I’m a Moderate Liberal, but experience has told me that both of those topics get backlash (and usually the liberal people and the Mormon people have very different comments than the other).
I wish people found the literature that makes me salivate as interesting as I do. I wish I could blog about John Donne and start a fascinating conversation about metaphysical conceits. I wish the whole world would read Fahrenheit 451 so we all remembered what happens to a society that watches The Bachelor  on their TV walls all day long.
I hope my readers, and I guess viewers, knew a little more about me. I wish I wasn’t so limited in my ability to share.

Maybe I Should Just Go Barefoot.

Posted on by Sierra

It wasn’t the overly-telling suction to my chicken legs. It wasn’t the apparent contour of my booty that I was worried about. You wanna know the real reason I was stressed out about embracing skinny jeans?

The Shoes. 

Skinny Jeans come with the commitment that you must also buy a specific sort of shoe. This just felt like a large fashion commitment. So I was, admittedly, a late adopter. 
I find these shoes REPUGNANT and blister-inducing.
No offense. Image Source
And while I think I have somewhat navigated the world of skinny jeans, I think I am still working out the shoe part (and the sock part for that matter). 
I have come to realize that I am not the best accessorizer of feet. 
I don’t consider myself a “fashionista” but I’ve always considered my style “comfortably cute,” to say the least. I mean, I get compliments on what I wear, so I can’t be a horrible dresser. But recently I’ve had an epiphany. I don’t get compliments on my shoes. I get… comments. 
It all started in ninth grade. We did this thing called “The Issuing of the Faults,” where everyone went around in a circle and told one another their faults. It was a bonding experience. I don’t remember what anyone else said really (well, Elaine told me I had ugly hands, but whatever), but something that Ruth said stung me to the core. 
Before I tell you, I should probably paint a character sketch of Ruth…. and Ruth, you must understand, I mean this very lovingly and with extreme affection. Ruth wore the Muppets on her clothes. Usually she wore a long-sleeved striped shirt underneath a short shirt and sometimes overalls. All her clothes were purchased at Savers. Truth be told, it was one of my favorite things about her. She was a hipster long before it was cool to dress… like that.
My point is, it blistered when Ruth announced  that she didn’t like my shoes. It was the first time I gave into peer pressure; I bought new shoes that weekend. 
But I still remember these very shoes with nostalgic fondness! 
Here’s the best image I could rustle up.
If you can’t tell, these shoes had a one-inch foam platform, and were cobbled with brown striped suede. They gave me the needed height to navigate the high school halls with dignity. Apparently my dignity was misplaced. 
Years later, my feet are still getting comments, though I am realizing that the bulk of my trouble comes from my sock issues. Jeremy has REAL issues with my socks. 
Most Recently, the comments have been:
  • “Sierra, your socks.. don’t even come close to matching.”–Jared
  • “Jared, haven’t you noticed? Sierra’s socks never match.”–Kristy
  • “Sierra, those are boy socks”–Chloe  (To which, I scathingly reply, “No they are not! I stole them from my mom’s sock drawer.”)
  • “Sierra, you’ve got to stop wearing my socks.”–Jeremy (yesterday)
  • “Are those really the shoes you want to wear today?”–Jeremy (he says this every time I want to wear my beloved moccasins). 

I thought all was fair in socks and war, as long as Burkenstocks or Jelly Sandals weren’t involved. 
But you know what, I have cold feet, so I need warm (boy) socks! And I get ready in the dark, and so I can’t be asked to locate socks that match in the dark in the immediacy of the cold feet issue!
Jeremy told me I needed to purchase these special (flimsy, piece of crap) socks to accompany my skinny jeans shoes. But honestly, I don’t see the major difference between 
This:

and This:
Honestly, you can still see my socks no matter what, but in one pair my feet are cold and the other are not. 

And you know what?! If Moccasins had platforms, I would certainly be buying those too. 

The Hormone Cocktail

Posted on by Sierra

In fourth grade, when we got a new teacher (before the days of picture roles), Rachael Miesen and I switched names. For the whole day, I was Rachael and she was Sierra. It was hard to get used to, but we sure did get a lot of laughs.

Today, at the high school, I got my comeuppance, with interest. 

For those of you who don’t know, which is probably most of you, I got my school placement for next year, complete with a “Big Girl Wardrobe” (which involves khakis, I am sorry to say) and the title “Mrs. Penrod” (or PR as one student called me all day). I am delighted to announce that I will be teaching English at a local High School with an ambiguous degree of permanence. I am thrilled for this opportunity. Since I still look like a high schooler, I figure I may as well own it, and make my life out of being in high school. I really thrived there back in the day, anyway.

Admittedly, however, today as I entered the “hormone cocktail” that is the 10th grade English classroom, I almost reconsidered my career choice. It was first hour and the students came in with real chips in their sleepy, slouchy shoulders.

“I thought she was a new student, not our teacher!” said one, when he found out that I was teaching that day. This is a prime example of something that is OK to say about yourself, but cuts a little too deep whenever someone considers you to be their 15 year-old peer.

Lemme tell you about high school tenth graders. They like attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s from the girl they are sitting next to, or the rest of the bros in the class, or even negative attention from the teacher. They just want it, and lots of it. And “PJ” and “New Zealand” (their names are changed), were in fine form. They were the “Name Switchers.” When they weren’t busy harassing the girls in class or making racial slurs, they were actively busy not doing the assignment and persistently distracting others from doing the same.

I suppose this story doesn’t have a real arch or anything. But just as I almost began to reconsider my teaching career, I was delighted that second period clapped at the conclusion of my lesson instead of glaring, and several of them asked me to make sure to teach 11th grade next year. They also grasped the concepts I was teaching quite nicely.

I am learning that teaching is probably a lot like that. One minute, you might lose all hope in the youth of the nation, but the next, they always reward you with a little bit of kindness and a whole lot of potential.

Image Source

PS: Bethany had her baby today! And he is such a handsome little devil. Momma Bear and Little Cub are both doing well.

My Husband, the Night Owl (or Penguin)

Posted on by Sierra
Even though Jeremy, without fail, tucks me in each night around 11:30 PM, he, himself stumbles into bed every night between the hours of 1:00-5:00 AM, and some of those nights are late, even for him. He pauses a moment to read some scriptures, and sometimes, if I am lucky, I will wake up when he kisses my forehead. Some might worry about his nighttime exploits. I know that without fail, I can find him on my couch, working on ServeSurfer. 
What is ServeSufer, you ask? ServeSurfer is an amazingly cool website that connects people with service opportunities within minutes of their homes. It’s an altruist’s dream. It’s an NHS student’s ultimate hook up. It doesn’t hurt if you need a tutor for any subject at any age, either. It’s a website started up by several brilliant (and remarkably charismatic) Stanford grads, and designed and programmed by a bunch of talented computer geeks, of which my husband happens to be a part.

And it launches today. 
Image Credit: Carly Geehr, ServeSurfer Foundation.
I shamelessly stole this from the website. 

I highly encourage you to check it out at https://www.servesurfer.com, and see all the hard work that has gone into this awesome search tool.

Jeremy and I have been so honored to get to see this project through, and Jeremy has learned so much. I am so proud of him for all of his truly hard work. This project has supported us through our first couple months of marriage, and we are eternally grateful.

But, admittedly, I am also a little excited for Jeremy to come to bed a little earlier. 

Here’s a Slice of Senioritis

Posted on by Sierra

I legitimately have a list of things to do that is taller than me, and before you insert a short joke here, consider how daunting 5’3″ tall To Do list would look, even if it was written in a big font.

I have A LOT to do. So I scripted my To Do list, which was enjoyably stressful, as always, and I planned on going to the store to start our crock pot dinner, and then start the crock pot dinner and then get started on my 27,000 list of things to do. I was feeling as optimistic as a bright young cherry might if a cherry knew how to feel. I was planning on conquering the world tonight. I saved myself a Dr. Pepper, which I try to only drink now when the world needs conquering.

It looks worse in person, if you’ll believe it.

But you see, I got derailed. First, I had to find out who went home on The Bachelor, and now I think Ben is an idiot. So I had to mourn for a minute about who went home on The Bachelor. And then I thought I should get started on my homework, but instead, I took a nap, watched this Ellen video about fifteen times, got hungry, ate instant soup, tried to start my homework, showed my husband the Ellen clip, took another nap, cuddled with my husband, and then made a Lean Cuisine (which, I don’t even like, and didn’t really eat). This whole procrastination process took six hours. I have become a procrastination expert. 


I am choosing to blame Super-Senioritis, which is what happens to you when you were supposed to graduate a year ago, but then you had to stay even longer, and your brain is so addled that if you ever have to read another poem or critical essay again, you might decide to intentionally run over a trashcan with your car just because you’re horribly fried, and for some reason, that sounds like a good idea, and also use run on sentences because that also sounds like a good idea. That’s what Super-Senioritis does to all your thoughts and sentences that used to be neatly organized inside your brain and out.

I don’t remember having Senioritis this badly before. Certainly not senior year of high school, although admittedly my senior high school teachers were quite obliging; you’d get an A for participation if you said “Bless You” when the teacher sneezed. But in college, I still have 16 grueling credits, all of which would be totally awesome if I had taken them any semester except for this one.

And here’s the thing. My To Do list is still 5’3″ and this blog did little to help (though I think I will count it as a Slice of Life to make myself feel better).  I think it might actually be time to start on my homework.


After I watch that hilarious Ellen video one more time. 

Brace yourselves. It’s world-conquering time.
My poor untouched backpack, casually flung
 and disregarded on the floor

Animal Therapy

Posted on by Sierra

When I was a little girl, I opened the door to go outside and play, and found that my front porch had become the resting ground of a baby bird who had flown the nest much too early. I closed the door and broke into sobs, so devastated by the crumpled wings. Later, when I’d gathered my emotions, I went out to give the baby a birdie burial. But I heard my dad on the other side of the door.
            “Uh oh,” he said to someone, I think my brother. “We better take care of this before Sierra finds it.”
            He knew about my tender nature. He knew that my first love, before I loved writing, or theatre, or movies, or hanging out with friends, I first loved animals. I even wanted to become a vet before I realized that I had no brain for science whatsoever.
            I still think that the very saddest day of my life was the day my dog died. Now, you might say that I haven’t had a very hard life, which might be true, but I tell you that to illustrate that really, I have a deep and profound love for animals.
            The love lay dormant for a few years. Once I got into college, I didn’t have time to think about pets or animals of any sort. But a little over a year ago, my friend asked me to pet/house sit their dog, Sadi, and it was easy to remember why I love dogs so much. I was having a sad day, and Sadi got up onto the couch with me (I assume that was allowed) and very intuitively placed her paw in my open hand. I didn’t ask for it or prompt it. The dog was just a good. And it made my whole day better.
            Our current apartment is not conducive to any sort of critter, and Jeremy doesn’t have paws, but he has found a way to help me through sad days.
Today, I was having a bad day. He sent me this: