3/31/18

Everything these past few days has been crazy and I’ve got some pictures that I’ll have to upload later because it’s crazy late and I’m FaceTiming my family at 9:00 tomorrow for Easter! But for real I’m in desperate need of an adequate amount of sleep.

3/28/18

Some of the many reasons I love my mom:
-When I was about to leave for the airport I stuck two packs of gum in my backpack and then right before I left my mom told me that she had put two packs of gum in my bag for me. So I now have four packs of mint gum with me, which is marvelous.
-I can talk on the phone with her forever and not get even a little tired of hearing her voice. Apparently she has other life duties to attend to though and so the phone calls are generally not forever long.
-She is very good at helping me see a different perspective whenever I start spiraling and going all fatalistic on the world.
-We are crazy alike. We would make the same choice in a situation probably like 90% of the time.
-She's my momma, what's not to love?

3/27/18

I have been in Cambridge, MA for over 24 hours now and it’s been pretty good. I’m staying with Pat in her co-ed housing at MIT. It is very different from Heritage Halls at BYU. There is one shower for the whole floor of an entry (approximately eight people.) And that shower is in the communal bathroom with the single toilet and one urinal and three sinks equipped with mirrors. That being said, I’m slightly terrified of taking a shower (although I’ll have to sooner rather than later) because like literally anyone could walk in while you’re just showering and the only thing you have between you and the other person is a sheet of green plastic that's hanging from the ceiling. Plus I forgot a towel. But I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

3/24/18

Only Amelia could go to the temple today so we went to the Baked Bear and got ice cream sandwiches and they were delicious. Speaking of delicious: soup and pie night was glorious! I got to label all the soups this year and the missionaries sang Love At Home with an ukulele to accompany them.

Tomorrow I open my call! I am so excited and nervous but mostly just SUPER PUMPED!! I honestly can’t sleep. I made more truffles because I didn’t have anything else to do. (Birthday cake flavored!!)

*please note that the order of this post and 3/25/18 have been switched*

3/25/18

TEMPE, ARIZONA!!! Today was beyond crazy what with dipping truffles and strawberries in chocolate for two hours straight. Not to mention trying to keep the house looking immaculate while doing so. But it was so so worth it seeing all my friends and family come to support me. My house was cram packed and I loved it! (My mom, not so much.) It was a great reminder that I have so many people I can lean on. Granted, they were mostly from my ward or my extended family, although I did have college and work friends come too.

I'm so excited to open up this chapter of my life and also become a pro at putting on sunscreen. I enter the MTC on May 16th and I will (thankfully) be speaking English. It's insane that it's all finally happening and I couldn't be happier. I can't wait to meet the people in Tempe and fall in love with the place.

*please note that the order of this post and 3/24/18 have been switched*

3/23/18

The greatest news: BROTHER YOUNG GOT THEM TO PRINT IT EARLY FOR ME IT IS A MIRACLE YAY!!!!

3/22/18

It’s been a day. I had two kids genuinely tell me they wished I stayed to help in their class longer. That was tender. And then one of the girls in the musical I’m stage manager for told me she liked my backpack and she thought I was gorgeous and that she just had to tell me to make sure I knew. It was so pure and adorable and it made me so happy.

Sadly like 45 minutes later my dad texted me saying that something went wrong and I won’t get my call delivered to me on Friday. Which means I have to contact everyone and cancel the whole party I planned out for Sunday. But my dad won’t let me tell everybody because he’s trying to get them to make an exception for me because I leave to MA on Monday and won’t get back until April 4th and whatnot. My eyes are still puffy though. I had to leave the middle school auditorium and it took everything in me not to burst into tears before I could reach my car.

3/21/18

I officially have an LDS email account! Meaning that my call has been assigned and everything actually worked out and I’ll be opening it on Sunday as planned!

There are times where I love working at the elementary school, and times where kids do or say things that I almost can’t take. Today had a little of both.

The good: I work a lot with a third grader named Danniel (yes it is spelled with two n’s) and he has trouble concentrating and will often end up missing the beginning of lessons because he has to be at speech therapy. Today I was working with him on using visuals to represent elapsed time. (i.e. a triangle represents an hour passing whereas another shape represents blocks of time less than an hour)  He was having a bit of a tough time at first. He kept adding minutes in the hours place or just changing the hour to however many minutes he added at first. So I wrote on the whiteboard 2:30 and then drew a line over the colon and showed him that the first section is hours and the second is minutes. I explained that you can’t add hours to the minute numbers and vice versa because they’re different units. And then it totally clicked for him, I could see it. After he finished a problem by himself and got it right I told him he was basically a pro. The last problem was different and a lot harder than the others so I warned him that it wouldn’t be as easy. He just waved it off and said, “It’s okay, I’m a pro, remember? So I got this!” It honestly made me so happy. Usually when he comes across a hard problem he’ll get frustrated and not want to do it anymore. But he was so confident and all it took was one sentence from me. These are the things that make me so glad that I work there.

The not so good: I’ve gotten stuck with recess duty. It’s not too bad aside from having to discipline kids who act out or deal with slightly scraped up kids who are crying and insisting that they should see the nurse. (I send them every time because first aid and crying children are outside my jurisdiction.) Usually I just have to tell kids not to hog the swing sets or not to kick balls as far as they can because they’re upset they’re out of the game of Speed they were playing. But today is the worst I’ve had it so far. I was actually angry. I had a kid come up to me and let me know that there was a boy calling people “a dumb piece of s***” which is bad enough. But then he informed me that this kid was also picking on a boy with autism and calling him a psycho. Oh man did I chew this kid out. He tried to give sassy remarks back which honestly just ticked me off even more. I told him it was rude and completely insensitive to call people names, ESPECIALLY calling this boy with autism a psycho. This jerk had the nerve to say “Well that’s what he is.” I’m not 100% sure I have the authority to do this but I told the kid, “I don’t care if you think that, keep it to yourself. If it happens again you’re going to the principals office.” So being the “cool” kid he is he says, “I’ve already been suspended before.” But my comeback game was strong today so I said, “Good. Then you’ll know what to do.” I turned to the boy that let me know what was going on and said, “If this happens again let me know.” And then I walked away. I’m still boiling inside just thinking about it. Maybe I should have sent him to the office right then. It’s probably better this way though, now I have it set in place to send him the next time he does something like that.

3/20/18

I made three different batches of truffles today. It’s highly likely my house will overflow with truffles. (Our freezer already is!) Mom says I’ve gone too crazy with all the truffles but I don’t see how else I’m supposed to get my excitement out so I don’t explode.

3/19/18

Today I found out that Brother Young can bring me my mission call this Friday! So I’ve obviously been super pumped and have started figuring things out for my mission call opening. (I even made cookie dough truffles tonight and froze them so we can use them on Sunday when I open my call!)

3/17/18

Good news: I should be receiving a call on Tuesday and it should be printed out by March 27th to be sent to me in the mail!

Bad news: I leave for Massachusetts on the 26th so it is highly likely that it arrives before I get back from my trip. But I’ve waited this long, I can wait one more week, right?

3/15/18

Oops. I stayed up til 1:00 AM again. It was worth it though because Em, Spence, Brian, and I ended up driving to Krispy Kreme when we couldn’t find a doughnut pan and my dreams of making homemade doughnuts were dashed. And then we ended up at Spence’s house eating doughnuts and playing this game called “Cover Your Assets” (which Em and I turned out to be really good at.) I kept showing people dog videos while we talked about embarrassing/funny life moments. It was almost fun enough to make me not want to punch Mother Nature for making it snow AGAIN. The last few days have actually been pretty warm and I foolishly let myself have a sliver of hope.

3/14/18

I was gonna make pie today but I had work from 8:00-5:00 and then we had New Beginnings for Young Women’s. So, sadly, I have had no pie on pie day.

I did squats and lunges and whatnot this morning and my thighs are getting their revenge by aching 24/7.

I don’t know why but today is one of those days where even the smallest inconveniences makes me want to scream and throw something. Maybe break some plates.

3/13/18

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s going to take ten years until I can go on a mission. (At this rate at least.)

Fun Fact I Learned Today: Beta fish are crazy about their personal bubbles and will literally kill any other Beta fish that is in their territory. (Like you literally cannot even put them in the same tank.) I actually genuinely cannot imagine how a fish fight would look though. Like what do they even do? Hi five each other’s fins really hard?

3/11/18

Today has actually been very productive and calming and here is why:

1. My YW lesson went great. I had the girls write trials on one side of a paper and later had them write things that bring them joy. And then I had them compare the lengths of the list and see which one was bigger and everybody was like “The joy list!” and I felt so bomb.

2. The weather didn’t suck so I took all my siblings on a walk (minus Alicia) and we pulled Megan in a wagon and stopped at the park and rolled down the hill and pet a cute dog!

3. I did so much baking. I made no-bake cookies in the morning (I know. Not really baking but I used the stovetop and heat and whatnot so we are gonna count it.) and then tonight I made some way cool cinnamon roll cookies and also some browned butter crinkle cookies. Mmmmm. I just love baking.

4. I think I have a game plan for what to do with this whole opening the Pandora’s Box that is my biological family I’ve never met. It still needs fine tuning, but I’m feeling a lot better about the whole situation.

5. Did I mention baking?

3/10/18

My dearest Izzy Reynolds got called to serve in Brazil!! I’m so proud of her and so glad to see how happy she is.

I also went to the temple today which was much needed. It’s a good place for reconnecting with yourself and God.

Fun fact: it is officially Daylight Savings and I’m a little mad cause I’m gonna end up losing an hour of sleep.

3/9/18

Brace yourself, because I’ve had a lot of internal conflicts today.

I got home from work today and for some reason decided to check my Facebook. (Which I hardly ever do.) I noticed I had some friend requests so I thought I would clear them out (I get so many requests from total strangers that live in like India or other places like that.) I notice that somebody named Sue Boston has requested to follow me. My heart starts racing because Boston is the last name of my biological father. I immediately call my mom and ask her what my biological grandmothers first name is and she tells me it’s Susan, but she goes by Sue. 

Mind you, I (and my mother) have had zero contact since the day I was adopted and Todd signed over his parental rights. Technically he and his family too I guess, are still allowed to contact me. They could have at any time. They didn’t even have to wait until I was eighteen. But now I’m nearly nineteen and (hopefully) about to leave on a mission and this is one of those decisions that changes everything. 

I haven’t done anything yet. I think I’m still sort of reeling from the fact that it’s something that’s actually happening. I always thought that if I ever got in contact with them, it would be on my time. I really want to meet her though. The problem is, I know that I am not ready to meet Todd. I’m beyond torn. I talked to my mom and she said that it’s obviously up to me, but I have to be completely selfish in whatever decision I make because this is not about them, this is about me. I know that I can set my own terms though. I can say that right now I’m only okay with meeting her and I’m hoping she can respect that. 

I obviously cyberstalked her, because what else are you supposed to do when a grandmother you’ve never really met requests to be your Facebook friend? She has a few group pictures of all her other grandkids. Up until today I didn’t even think about having cousins that I’ve never met. Apparently one of them is about my age. For the first time I got to see what my aunts and uncles really look like. Todd kept pretty much everything from my first about six months of life. So I’ve never known what anybody looks like. I barely even knew what he looked like. All I have is a few videos from a Christmas and when we moved to Spokane, Washington. Those and a picture of him, my mom, and me from the day I was born. (My face is scrunched up and bright red. Not the best baby picture to have as pretty much your only baby picture. But I still keep it in my jewelry box because it’s all I really have.) 

Todd doesn’t have a Facebook. I cross checked her friend list. Plus I’ve searched him up before and come up with nothing. I even had my dad (the Randy one who adopted me when I was five) help because he’s good with computers and finding things on the internet. (The conversation previous to said helping was a little weird, but I appreciate him understanding that it was important to me.) 

This whole situation (the Facebook thing and the divorce thing all those years back) is actually just super hard. Alicia is the only other person who could relate to what’s happening, but she has autism and can’t fully understand or comprehend. I feel trapped a little, like there’s nobody to talk to that can actually give me advice based on their own experiences. Not even my mom. She was on the other side of it. She had to deal with all the abuse and come to the conclusion that if she wanted her girls to live their best possible lives she would have to file for divorce and get full custody. She even missed her sisters wedding because she had to stay in state while the custody battle was going on. 

But the perspective of being that child is so different. There’s nothing tangible for me. I don’t even have any memories. And as much a I love my dad who raised me and sings songs at the piano with me and teases me relentlessly about my perfectionism, there’s always a part of me that wants to know more about my biological family. Not knowing anything makes me feel like something is missing. I haven’t met anybody else who has never met one or both of their bio parents, but I’m assuming it’s a common thing. I think it’s human nature to want to know where you came from. 

As you can tell from this incredibly long entry, it’s been quite a day. But Rachael and Mary and I had a movie night and watched Newsies and sang along to the songs. I dozed off a few times because my sleeping patterns are still trying to readjust to waking up at 5:30-6:00 every morning. It ended at 11:30 ish and I drove Rachael home and we stayed parked in her driveway for nearly an hour. And she let me just talk and talk. I didn’t even talk to her about this whole situation because it’s so deep and I didn’t want to cry. I worry that it makes people uncomfortable because they don’t know what to say back, you know? I’m sure Rach would have been good with it though, she’s soft and thoughtful that way. You can see how deep she cares about things. I swear she barely got two words in. I told her all my frustrations with my mission call and having to wipe down lunch tables for work. We talked about our younger selves and how much we’ve changed and how we didn’t even know way back when I first moved in that we would all turn out to be best friends. It helped me so much, to just get everything else out. She nods and laughs and smiles with bright eyes and she didn’t even seem a bit upset that I was doing most of the talking or stumbling over a lot of my words because I was so sleep deprived. I’m still anxious as all get out trying to figure out how to deal with all this. But I’m feeling a lot better about things in general thanks to Rach. I really appreciate her and late night car talks.

3/8/18

I’m so so tired.

Turns out that after waiting nearly five weeks to get a mission call, I still don’t have one! Woohoo. Instead I get told that I have to schedule an appointment for a psych evaluation. And fill out more paperwork, and it’ll be probably another week (or more) before I can even think about finding my call in the mailbox.

3/7/18

Matt texted me at 9:00 pm and asked me if I wanted to see where he was going on a mission. At 11:00 pm a bunch of us went to his house (which was fully equipped with delicious hot cocoa for everyone) and we all put our guesses down for where he would be going. At first I was gonna put Nashville, Tennessee but then I decided I’d have a better shot at winning if I guessed California. Lo and behold, the call is opened and guess who is going to Nashville, Tennessee. Still sort of mad I didn’t win because I would have been SPOT on which would have been so cool. But Emily won by default (technically Skylar guessed the closest but he left before the prize was handed out) and shared her Kit Kat winnings with me.

It’s great because now whenever I see him I can make some dumb joke about how he’s “the only ten-I-see.” I’m actually probably more excited about that than I should be.

3/6/18

My call still isn’t here yet and I am stressing out. It’s been five weeks since I first thought it was submitted, four since it was actually submitted (once I took a page back to my physician that had to be filled out but had been skipped over.) It’s not supposed to take so long, and I’m trying not to cry every time I try to log in to the missionary emailing system just to have it tell me I’m not a missionary so I don’t have an account. My parents keep telling me that I “just need to have more faith in God’s timing.” And I get that, but until I get that call I can’t know when I’m leaving and thus can’t plan things for after my mission or apply for an actual missionary deferment for winter semester. I’m not good with having my future be so up in the air and not being able to do anything about it.

3/5/18

Today I took my siblings (minus Leesh) to the Puppy Barn that just opened up in Saratoga. Everyone loved it except Megan who was mad that she couldn’t hold the puppies and upset that they didn’t have a drinking fountain.

John texted me this morning to see if we could hang out, he’s back for a while living with his family. (Significantly cheaper than paying a monthly rent.) So we went to Roxberry and he bought us both smoothies. I ordered the smallest size but they messed up and ended up making them both mediums. Then we went to Target, spent some time smelling candles, and tried to find mugs but to no avail. They’re doing rennovations so things are sort of random and all over the place in there. Plus the lighting is dimmed. It’s like being thrown into an alternate reality that’s just different enough to be noticeable. It was good to catch up though. We talked about college and jobs and roommates and my mission and memes. We seriously considered sending friend requests to Peay on Facebook just to see what would happen.

I am once again awake at a ridiculous hour considering I have to be at work at 8am tomorrow. But at 8:30 tonight I started re-reading this book called “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” and I can't put it down. They’re making a movie of it right now, plus I just got access to the third book in the series. It’s unlikely the movie comes out before I leave on my mission considering it’s still currently in post production, but I still want to refresh my memory of it. It’s probably one of my favorite books of all time. Jenny Han is an amazing author.

I’ve officially come to the conclusion I should have come to months ago: This whole salvaging my friendship with Hunter thing isn’t gonna happen. And that kind of sucks. But I think it’s important to know at what point its gonna be worse for you to keep trying than it would be to give up. It’s weird to think that I can picture the whole layout of his house, I’ve been there so many times. And there’s just so many memories at all these different places I pass when I’m driving and now we don’t talk. And it’s likely that we never will again. It’s a strange feeling to realize that you can spend so much time with a person and then one day just have it all be gone. It didn’t even seem like a progression, we were friends and then suddenly we weren’t.

Sorry this entry was so long and turned into a bit of a sad rant that last paragraph. This sort of counts as a journal for me so every now and then something like that will happen. Just bear with me.

3/4/18

I took about five naps today so that’s how my life is going.

3/3/18

I take it back. Spencer is not my fav. He is the worst and he needs to stop putting disgusting things in people’s drinks when they aren’t looking.

3/2/18

Spencer is my fav because he will split 30 nuggets with me and not judge me when I eat more than my fair share. He’s cool, even if he plans trips to malls to try and find cute girls which I think is the opposite of cool.

Also: I ordered some clothes online last Tuesday and they originally weren’t going to come until this next Monday BUT they arrived today and I’m so happy!!

3/1/18

I always grossly overestimate how much FroYo I can eat. It’s becoming a tad expensive of a  problem to have.

Also: never ever volunteer for recess duty or cafeteria cleanup. I forgot that the cafeteria is where nightmares are born. And it was so cold outside that I couldn’t feel my fingers, even with gloves. Once my 45 minute shift was over they announced that it was too cold and the snow was getting too strong for them to have outside recess anymore. I didn’t even sign up for this, I got roped into this terrible situation and can’t see a way out. Please save me.