10/31/20

 Abbey put together a seriously awesome Halloween party for the family tonight. (Also a great breakfast where we had pumpkin shaped pancakes!) And since trick or treating was a no-go for us this year Mom got a bunch of GOOD candy and we also had cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin carving and we played mafia and (to my chagrin) watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. (I'm sorry I just don't get the hype, like?? If you're gonna watch a Tim Burton film then Corpse Bride is clearly the better option.) Here are some photos of me in costume (disclaimer the photos of me dressed up are from HalloWednesday but I did dress up today too!) 

10/30/20

 I drove down to Utah today! David ended up coming down with me which definitely made the drive a lot more fun. Watching that kid rock out to music will never cease to be hilarious. He gets so into it and it cracks me up honestly. However trying to choose a place to stop for dinner with him will take about 30-45 minutes and it's all just a train wreck the whole time haha. (We finally settled on MOD Pizza)

10/28/20

 Today was HalloWednesday. Since I would be out of town on Halloween we decided to do a little celebration on Wednesday and make a crap ton of soup and watch all of the Halloweentown movies. When I say a crap ton of soup I mean a crap ton of soup. Mira made a batch of tortellini soup and Macy made some potato soup and I made two batches of Zuppa Toscana (cause it's so flipping good you can't just make one batch ya know?) So yeah. Lot's of soup right? I figured the people I invited would come so the vast amount of soup wouldn't be a problem. I invited Will and Grant and David and Derity and Jerako and Macy had invited someone too. Grant couldn't come cause he had a date and I'd thought that Derity and Jerako were probably coming but then forty minutes after the party started I snapchatted Derity and she told me that they actually decided to stay in IF. And David had said he would swing by too but then he had somewhere to be at 7:00 and didn't want to just stop by and eat and then leave so he just didn't come at all. Macy's friend didn't come either. So literally only Will came. And I'm super grateful he did because it made me feel just a little less sad. I know that I'm an adult and all but I had actually been really excited about it and when nobody showed up I kind of felt like a little kid who threw a birthday party that no one came to. It wasn't the end of the world but it definitely sucked.

Macy, Mira, and I did end up watching all four Halloweentown movies though. We stayed up until 2:00 am and they were about the quality you'd expect from Disney Channel original movies. The first ones were actually pretty good since they were late nineties-early thousands. But the last one they made in the mid thousands and they had a different actress and it was so distastefully cliché. The most enjoyable thing about it was how easy it was to make fun of honestly. It was good to spend time with Macy and Mira though! I love those girls.

10/27/20

I cannot emphasize this enough: this calc course will be the death of me.

10/26/20

I think the guy who pulled out my IV at the plasma center today did something wrong cause there was more blood on the gauze then there should have been and the needle scratched me a little and I was way more exhausted than usual for the rest of the day. I binge watched the show "Marvel's Runaways" on Hulu and neglected my calculus duties and made some all around bad decisions. 

For FHE we went out as an apartment again and picked up dinner at the Panda Express drive through and the drive through chick was SO angry. I would try to order something and I'd start by saying the entree and in an incredibly annoyed voice she would say, "Rice or noodles first." But I kept forgetting and she would get more and more irritated and literally if she waited two seconds I would have told her rice or noodles but she would always interrupt me before I could get to it. Like it shouldn't matter should it? "Orange chicken with rice." is just as each to remember as "Rice with orange chicken." is it not?

Also Macy and I played "Among Us" and there was this other player named "Pattinson" so as a joke I was like, "Robert? Is that you??" And they were like, "Oh my gosh I LOVE HIM!" And basically Macy and I ended up bonding with Pattinson and also another player named Mum (who at one point was the imposter and then ended up just telling us because they felt so bad about killing us haha) and it was great.

10/25/20

 I got to do a phone call with Patri today and it was great and exactly what I needed honestly. We talked about anything and everything and all the in betweens. She told me about Theo and how they started talking and what they talk about and how she likes that they were platonic friends first and then they started liking each other. (It's better than way because you know you get along well with them and it's not just the butterflies of possible romance making you think you like them.)

She also gave me some great life advice. She said, "Anna you deserve someone who would be beyond ecstatic to get half birthday froyo with you." And I kind of love that. 

10/23/20

 Good thing: I got half birthday froyo and drove myself and my froyo to the temple and ate it and read scriptures and thought about things because today has been a rough day. Heck it's been a rough week if I'm being honest. Bad thing: Missing Vince has hit me really really hard tonight. Sometimes I really don't understand why things went the way they did and I still wish that things hadn't ended at all and we were still together. It's pointless to wonder about 'what if's' because they aren't realities but I keep thinking of how things were going to be when everything was going according to plan. If everything had worked out and things hadn't gotten so messed up then Vince would be here with me right now. There's a good chance we'd be engaged and if we weren't yet we would be soon. We'd be looking at apartments to live in and I'd be thinking about wedding colors and wedding dresses and I'd be really really happy. But instead I'm just sad and I'm crying in my room typing this out and relentlessly wishing for something that doesn't exist. Everything hurts all over again and I wish it didn't and I'm tired of hurting but then I think about how much he must be hurting and it makes me cry even harder. I loved him- I still do. And I hurt him so much and I want to take it back but I know I can't. I want to text him and tell him that I'm so sorry and that I miss him and that I love him and that I just want him back. I just want to feel his arms around me again and hear him laugh and I want to kiss his forehead and I want to hear him tell me that he loves me. But instead I'm trying to choke back sobs so that my roommates don't hear me cry and I still have so much calculus homework and I don't know what I'm doing and I just want to not be so sad. 

10/22/20

 Drove Ellen back from work. Also got mozzarella sticks. Ended up not getting half birthday froyo so that will have to be postponed to tomorrow.  I had a zoom call with Spence today and it was actually way way nice.

We ended up talking for a couple of hours and I really think we both needed it. We figured out that he had broken up with his girlfriend literally three days after I officially broke things off with Vince. Isn't that wild? And it took us like a friggin month to figure it out. Our relationship experiences were pretty similar and both of them were relationships that ended over gospel things. We were honestly able to relate to each other in a lot of areas and as much as the break ups have both seriously sucked it's nice to have somebody to talk to about it who understands. We talked about other things too. Like Brevin getting married and how difficult the whole "dating game" is and also how Mutual is dumb and stressful and how Nate McHenry and his fiancée seriously look like siblings and we reminisced on all the temple trips we would take and the giant order of chicken nuggets we would get after.  When I think about it I'm actually really lucky to have the friends that I have. Seriously. Spence and I have been friends since about ninth grade. I've been friends with Matt and Em and Mary and Rachael and Kennadee and Megan for about that long too. How did I get so lucky to find so many great people in those formative years who are still people I consider good friends to this day? Plus Patricia in Provo! And all my other Provo friends that I don't talk to as much but still am able to slip right back into being good friends with when we do talk /get together. The more I look back on my life the more I see how many people God blessed me with and I'm so so grateful for each one of them.

10/21/20

 David texted and asked if he could come over to do homework. I think it went okay. I think I've discovered that we are both naturally flirty people so that's gonna just kind of be our friendship but I can honestly say that now I won't be reading into any of it and I know we're just friends and that's actually pretty nice. He did have me give him a back massage though cause his back was hurting and turns out I suck at giving massages haha. He poked fun at my taste in literature (sci-fi is my favorite and I just checked out the Illuminae Files from the library and was super excited to tell him about it because I think they're just SO COOL but he was not interested in the slightest which did sting a little but I know he didn't mean for his disinterest to be hurtful. But then he has the audacity to tell me that biographies are better than sci-fi?? Excuse me?!? I don't think so. 

Get this though: He goes on to tell me that his favorite book actually isn't a biography. It's a Romeo and Juliet type love story about people in gangs. And I swear I wasn't gonna make fun of him (actually I'd be down to read it) but then he decided not to tell me the title or author so that I wouldn't have any ammo to hang over his head until the day we die which is totally not fair and it is my new life mission to learn what book it is exactly.

10/20/20

My day today was just absolutely packed with back to back things. I woke up and had work and then got ready for the day and then had my calculus group quiz and then more work and then I drove to Maggie's place where I worked from like 2:00-7:00 (I ended up taking on an extra student because the other tutor's car broke down and she couldn't make it in.) I finally got home at like 7:45 and I was starving and still had four calculus assignments that were due and it was all just very overwhelming. 

I need to scream into a pillow. 

10/18/20

Update on the whole David thing: there officially isn't a David thing anymore haha. Last night he sent me a snap and asked if I'd be able to house a 'friend' from Utah if she came up to visit him this next week. I told him I would have to check with my housing coordinator (cause COVID and whatnot) and I was just getting so many freaking mixed signals so I decided I was gonna talk to him about it tonight after we did our Sunday dinner. He ended up having plans right after so my whole idea of maybe taking a drive and talking about it wasn't gonna happen and I was trying to find a good time to bring it up or segue into it the whole evening but Michelle and Ellen were walking in and out and it just wasn't happening so when it came time for him to leave I walked him to his car and literally at the last second I was like, "Hey so just a quick question, quick discussion, um remember a little bit ago when we decided to be just friends? Where are we at on that because I'm honestly super confused." He was like, "Me too. I think what we decided last time was best though."(More than this was said but essentially that's the gist of it and the conclusion.)

It was abrupt and definitely a short conversation. He texted me a couple hours later to confirm that we were good and I was just like the most up front I've ever been in my entire life and told him where I was at and he pretty much was like, "I just don't have any of the same friends right now as I did this time last year and I don't want that to happen again and things just seem to not work out with girls and I wouldn't want that to happen with you." Which I get, whether that's straight up what it is or whether he was trying to let me down easy and not just upfront tell me that he wasn't interested in me like that. So that's what's happening now. We are friends. 100% platonic. And I'm gonna convince myself to be okay with that. 

10/16/20

 I 've officially got Macy and Mira hooked on Killing Eve and now we're all watching the show together and I love having shows with people. It makes me happy happy happy.

10/15/20

 I made a crap ton of homemade mac n cheese today also I feel very overwhelmed and completely in over my head with calculus and I wanna just give up holy crap I cannot.

10/14/20

I was reminiscing and looking through my google drive and found "How Heidi Met Dave" which is an incredibly elaborate story my roommates and I came up with in my first semester of college at BYU Provo and it honestly brought me so much joy to stumble upon this gem. 

10/13/20

 I drove Ellen to work today! She wasn't able to get her usual ride and so I offered to drive her there (even though it made my schedule a little bit crazier it was worth it!) I've really been trying to look for and utilize opportunities to serve and this one fell in my lap today! It was nice as well to spend some time with Ellen. I feel like I don't know her and Michelle as well as I do Macy and Mira. I wasn't able to pick her up since I had work meetings scheduled in the evening but Macy was able to go get her so it worked out!

10/11/20

 We put up the bats!! Also I watched 10 Things I Hate About You and I love Heath Ledger and that movie and also I love my roommates! Macy and Mira are seriously just so cute and fun and I'm grateful for the light that they both bring into my life. As promised, here are pictures of the bats:

*Please note the spider and spider web in the upper left hand corner of which I am also very proud

10/10/20

 Legit such a crazy day. I did have my first day of training for the new job though! I met up with this girl named Sam who works in the Pocatello office and spent like three hours going through all the different sites and resources we have access to and where all the passwords are kept and everything I'm gonna have to learn how to do eventually and it's all a little overwhelming but I'm still excited. A lot of it she says is honestly stuff that I'm just gonna learn as I go so I do feel a little like I'm flying blind but I know I'll pick up on it.

Also I had to take my second calculus exam today and it was so frustrating and I hate calc. I felt like I'd done really bad and my mom laughed when I told her I got an 85% and she says that she refuses to listen to me anymore when I tell her I'm bad at calculus. 

10/9/20

 OKAY BUT LIKE YOU DON'T PUT YOUR HAND ON A GIRLS THIGH WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING UNLESS YOU LIKE THEM RIGHT??

And you definitely don't park the car and then lay your head on their lap and let them scratch your side while you scratch their leg and there's a weird feeling in the air like you both wanna say something but nobody ends up saying anything because life is awkward. 

I wish I'd said something. I should have said something. 

10/7/20

 Macy and I organized a double date type thing. Ish. Basically we both had first dates with these guys on Mutual and then we were talking and realized that both of us were planning to go to Kiwi Loco for the dates and so we decided to try and coordinate them. Unfortunately the guys schedules conflicted so her guy could only do 5:00 at the latest and mine 5:30 at the earliest. So we did a weird thing where she and her date did the first half just them and then me and my date joined and then we were on a double for a while until their date was over and then we finished ours. 

My date was super nice, his name is Mauro and he's from Peru and he told me I was beautiful but like in a way that didn't come off as creepy so that was nice. I still don't know what this thing with David is (or if there is a thing?? Ugh) so I ended up setting up a second date with Mauro next Tuesday. I offered him a ride to his apartment since he had come to Kiwi Loco right after a class on campus. As we were walking to my car David and his roommate were walking into their apartment building and we exchanged brief hello's but didn't actually stop and talk. I dropped Mauro off and then I actually had set up with David to hang out at his apartment right after the date so then I went there and David asked about the date and then we hung out and things are still flirty and I don't know what's happening but I figure the ball is in his court so we'll see.

10/5/20

 I'm trying to get in a scripture study habit and also a habit of asking God what I can do for Him each day. Today one of the things I felt like I should do was text Patricia! So I did! And here is what happened: 

Turns out Patri was going through a bit of a rough patch with things and I was able to give her some advice about it all to which she responded with:

"Anna. Freaking heck. I don't know why I don't come to you as much because you always know what to say. That helps me a lot actually. I'm going to have a dance party for a bit and then put my list of things to do back together and be happy again in a few days. I just know it. Seriously, thank you."

I really love Patricia and I'm so glad we're still best friends, even if our lives are very different and we live basically across the country from each other right now. (I mean she is doing pre-med at MIT and I'm doing stats at BYU-Idaho, not to say that one is more accomplished than the other but *coughcough MIT is so impressive and she is so impressive and I'm honestly amazed by her cough* despite the different paths we take we always find a way to be there for each other and I love that. I love that I have this person in my life that has been there since 8th grade and every time we see each other it's so natural and nice and it feels like home. I'm also really glad I could help her out today just by following a prompting from the Lord.

10/4/20

 You're getting a few long posts in a row cause I have a lot I wanna say today. Again, today was General Conference. I had invited Derity and Jerako and David over for the first session. I had been craving biscuits and gravy so I actually went out and got ingredients for it last night. David came over a little early and we made the breakfast for everyone! I definitely made a mistake in calculating how much milk to put in with the Bisquick mix for the biscuits. It said 2/3 cup for each serving and it had 8 servings. I did the math and I was like, "Okay that's 16/3 then so... 8 cups!" I didn't realize until the seventh cup when things got ultra liquidy that it was actually supposed to be 5 and 1/3 cups. Luckily I had a back up Bisquick box and we added more mix in. It was still more like a batter than it usually was but it had gotten fairly firm and so we just kept it that consistency and it actually ended up so good! They still came out really big but they were all airy and fluffy and so so good. The gravy worked out too and it all tasted heavenly. 

The sessions were really good again (obviously) and I feel like a major theme for this whole conference has been preparedness and selflessness. At least that's what I got out of it. So I started trying to think about what I could do in order to be more prepared. I decided that I really wanted to focus on serving others more. I have lots of extra journals so I want to designate one as my prayer journal and in my prayers at the beginning of the day ask the Lord what He needs me to do that day. I want to spend time after pondering and then writing down what I think I can do. At the end of the day I want to come back and make an accounting and continually strive to be better. I feel like I will certainly be a lot more prepared to receive personal revelation.

I've just felt a lot lately like now is the time to really work on myself. Work not only on becoming and being the kind of person I want to marry but also on becoming and being the kind of mother I hope to be. There's this one quote I found online before heading off to college. Things felt rough and my mental health was fragile. But this quote honestly brought me so much strength. It goes like this:

"In the end I am the only one who can give my children a happy mother who loves life." 

The more that I think about it and the more I think about the promptings I've been receiving lately the more I realize that this is kind of my life motto right now. THAT is what I want to do and I am the only one who can do it. Thinking of my future children and the life that I want for them is a big motivator for me.

Some fun things today though: Mira made chicken gnocchi soup for dinner, like the kind they have at Olive Garden, and it was literally the best thing every. What a good food day! Mira also had a ton of extra black construction paper so we spent a good amount of time cutting bats out of it to put up for Halloween decorations. I'll have to take a picture once it's all finished and on the walls and post it here.

(PS everybody else in my family has tested negative for COVID which is good but also not great cause they're still exposed to it and if they'd all just get sick at the same time then they could all be quarantined at the same time and just get the two weeks of quarantine out of the way.)

10/3/20

I woke up this morning to a text from my mom letting me know that she had tested positive for COVID too. Everybody else in the fam went to get tested this morning so hopefully we will know all of their results soon. Good thing from today though:

General Conference!! I watched the first session with Macy, Mira, and Ellen. (Michelle is in Utah for the weekend) Then I went to Derity's family's house in St Anthony and we did lunch and watched the second session. They had these really yummy tomato slice things. I think it was just feta cheese and balsamic vinegar but it was super tasty. Then I went back home and watched the women's session with my roommates. The talk that stood out to me the most today was one from the afternoon session that was all about the "culture of Christ" and in it he quoted David O. McKay.

"The perfection of the family is worth any sacrifice because nothing can compensate for failure in the home."

It just hit home for me so hard. All of this stuff with Vince has been so difficult and choosing to break up with him was the absolute hardest decision I've ever had to make. I really did feel like I was sacrificing something by following the spirit in breaking up with him. I can't remember if I've talked about already on here but the biggest reason I knew I couldn't marry him anymore was because everything in our future that we disagreed on were things that would have the biggest impact on our future family. It had never hit me so hard before that in choosing a spouse I am also choosing a parent for my children and that's my responsibility. They can't speak for themselves right now so it's all on me and I have to follow the spirit on this one. Hearing that just made me feel like the Lord was speaking right to me and telling me that as difficult as it's been (on me but even more so on Vince) it was something that was worth it. That honestly helped me so much.

Tender mercy of today: Right after the women's session ended I got a FaceTime call from Mary. Just out of the blue. It honestly just MADE my whole day. We talked for a little while and she said that she just had missed me and felt like we hadn't talked as just us and not the group for a hot minute. Honestly the past few days God has really been showing me that He has my back. Or maybe I've just gotten better at recognizing it.  

10/2/20

 So. Today I was supposed to drive down to Utah to spend conference weekend with my family and I was actually so excited. I miss talking to my Mom and I miss Dad's lame jokes and all my siblings. I've honestly felt a little bit lonely lately. While I do have fantastic roommates (which does help a lot and I am so thankful for them) I feel like everybody that I'm super close to is far away. Em and my family are in Utah. Derity is in Idaho Falls and is spending a lot of time with Jerako (which like, they're dating so of course they are and he makes her really happy so I'm glad she has him) and I also haven't seen David like at all this week and it just kind of sucks. Okay WOW I got off topic. What the point of this paragraph is supposed to be is that I did not end up going to Utah. Turns out Alicia tested positive for COVID-19. Which is honestly a little scary but I think that everyone in our family should be okay. I'm not afraid anyone is going to die but there is always that lingering fear because everybody always thinks it won't happen to them until it does. Good news is that I ended up having a lot more free time today.

I actually did get to see Derity today and we went out shopping because I convinced her she should get a menstrual cup. There was only like one option for a menstrual cup at Walmart and it was more expensive than the online ones plus it wasn't one that had a pull tab. We decided she might as well just order the pull tab one. We did find soft soft sweatpants though and we got those and then went out to Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner. Way earlier this year, during Winter semester, I had really wanted to go but then our roommates who we were going out to eat with were like, "No that won't work let's go to this place which should be cheaper instead!" It was pretty much the same price though and I ordered very little food because it was actually pretty pricey for something that was supposed to be fast-casual and I got like two overpriced chicken tenders that were itty bitty. I was so salty about that for forever. And then like the next week everything started shutting down and we couldn't even go any more. So I finally finally got to go today after months of craving it.