6

I have six:

• of the best siblings in the world
• finished semesters of BYU (almost to lucky number 7!)
• pretty vases lined up on my mantle piece
• final exams in the testing center this semester
• half-weeks until I go home for Christmas (I know this one is a stretch, but 6 1/2 weeks= 3 whole weeks. The math checks out, I promise)
• cans of tomato sauce in my cupboard- I always forget that I already have some of that stuff.
• days until fast and testimony Sunday
• favorite colors (or more...)
• DVDs (yeah, not a lot, I know)
• finished, 100% checked off diseases for my Plant Pathology class
• dirty plates stacked on my counter (messy kitchen roommates, you see)

But there is a particular reason I am celebrating the number 6 today. Today marks 6 fabulous months with Keith. Yay for love!

Thankfully...

So, Thanksgiving just happened. What a great day! You get to get together with people you love, and be really cozy and eat and eat and eat, and then digest while watching football and movies, and then you get to eat some more! What a fabulous day!

This Thanksgiving, I was in Cokeville, Wyoming. You're probably asking "What is in Cokeville?" Well, I will tell you:

Not very much.

Also, a couple of Keith's aunts and cousins and visiting grandparents. So, that is where we gathered for the holiday.

It was delicious.

Also, Thanksgiving-eve was delicious. Keith and I made our own turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy, and (as my sister Em would say) "Oooh-la-yum!" it was good. I am glad to report that I will not be nervous about cooking a turkey ever again. Unless I don't have all the proper tools, i.e. an oven, roasting pan, and a Reynolds oven bag.

Side note- there is a whole webpage dedicated to Reynolds Oven Bags? Weird.

Anyway... we did a great job. Keith was so proud of our turkey.

(Also thankfully, we didn't let the University of Utah beat us at football. Almost, but not quite. Last home game of my college career, and our rivalry game, so this one was a huge deal. But the cougars pulled it off in the end!)

Stadium Cleanups

So, my LM Club at school cleans the west stands of our stadium after football games as a fundraiser. I just got back from one of these cleanups about an hour ago, and am starting to assess my current condition.

I have 3 massive bruises from bumping into things and slipping on the slick, wet bleachers.

My legs are still itchy from trying to adjust back up to a normal temperature.

My clothes are filthy.

I'm pretty dried out and dehydrated. Typical.

Luckily, I have showered and hopped into my warm bed full of blankets, and plopped my computer down on top of my lap, where it is radiating heat from its bottom. We made pretty good time tonight, considering that there weren't many people who stayed. Also, I got to be bossy. I bossed plenty of people around. Including some yelling... yikes! I was getting a bit testy... and lost patience with a few of my more stubborn colleagues. Anyway, all in all it was a good stadium cleanup. If anyone is going to be around on Nov. 28 and wants a chance to play football on the LaVell Edwards Stadium field, you're welcome to come. Just after the BYU game finishes, we'll start sweeping. When we get the stands clean, the field is all ours! It'll be good...

Worried Sick

Now, those who know me can attest to the fact that I am a champion worrier when it comes to those I love. I get stressed about my school, work, etc., but if anything is going wrong in the life of those people who I love, it becomes a much bigger deal. So it is surprising for me to say that I have never really felt "sick" with worry before.

It's not a nice feeling.

You know how when you have the stomach flu, you can feel the pain swirling dully in your gut, and pounding relentlessly at your temples? And fever burns behind your eyelids, and you know that somewhere in your body you're hot but feel just icy? And then it's not even like you're really there, because you float in and out of consciousness so fluidly that you can't even tell if you still have a body? And you're in so much pain that everything is irritating and annoying and wrong?

The phrase "worried sick" is an allusion to stomach flu.

You can feel the anxious tension all through your core, and nasty, nagging thoughts of horrid conclusions bombard your mind constantly. Your eyelids burn with pricking tears that you have to try to suppress, and there's part of you that's boiling mad, but you just feel cold and desperate. And your mind just wanders, disconnected from everything that is real and solid in front of you. And you just have to try not to talk, because you know you'll snap at everyone for any tiny little thing, and any phone noises or people near your door make you that much more tense and nervous all over again.

Today, Keith was supposed to come down to Provo from Logan. The plan was for him to get here around 2. By about 3, he still hadn't shown up, and I just assumed that he'd been delayed an hour. My roommate Steph distracted me at about 4 with a major house cleaning project- our apartment gets pretty messy, so I was able to channel my worry into productive cleaning and less-productive complaining about how fast our kitchen gets filthy for a while. When it got to be about 5 and I still hadn't heard from him and he wasn't answering the calls that I made every 5 minutes or so, I started to really worry. KSL.com said that there had been a crazy accident around 1 in the afternoon involving 8 cars and a reckless driver. That offered a possible solution. Not a very positive one, though. Keith's Jetta wouldn't hold up to very much if he was hit just right. I called his roommate, the only contact number I had. He didn't answer, but sent me a text message a few hours later to say that he was in New York. We had some lovely adventures in miscommunication for the next hour or so while I tried to get Keith's brother/roommate Calvin's number, who also didn't answer my calls or text messages. By10:00 when Keith finally called me, you can imagine the state I was in. If your imagination really isn't that great, go have a stomach flu or food poisoning. Then you'll catch the metaphor.

Anyway, all is well. Some jumble over an 18-month-old vehicle registration issue that the legal system can't seem to record the resolution of... anyway, Keith spent his evening worrying from jail in Ogden about me worrying my head off here. Not a very great day. But all's well that ends well, eh? That's the phrase, anyway, and he's not in a hospital somewhere, or a morgue. I get really morbid when I worry. I should work on that.

Plus, for an extra bonus, now I know just how literally physical the feeling of being "worried sick" really is.

Our Pumpkin

So, in keeping with my photography goal of at least once a month, I took pictures of the pumpkin Steph and I carved!

Here's how the conversation went:

What should we carve?

How about a spooky tree? And then we can do leaves around the pumpkin!

We would make a tree on our pumpkin.

Anyway. This is it!

Missing the Moose

So, I watched the movie "The Proposal" last night. It was cute, but more importantly, it was set in the great state of Alaska.

Now, at this point in my life I am used to missing my gorgeous Virginia home.

Blue Ridge Mountain Autumn

In fact, GOAL: I want to be home for an East Coast autumn again sometime in the next 5 years. Fall in Utah just doesn't have quite the same impact- less trees, and most of them go yellow, instead of having the whole spectrum from red to gold blazing down the streets. Being home for the heart of springtime would be nice, too, but I've caught the tail end of the last few springs. I'll just have to go home to celebrate... Columbus Day, or something. I don't know.

But that's turned into quite a tangent.

Anyway, I never realized before that you can be homesick for more places than just one. And I am homesick for Anchorage. I love that teeny tiny little city, you know? Not in a "let's make this permanent" sort of way, but a part of me wants to go home to Alaska.

Of course, this is not realistic. I've got responsibilities here right now, for one thing, and for another, it's winter there. Meaning it's darker and colder there than it is here, by a lot. Yesterday, the high was 25 degrees. Yikes! I don't really want to go to that Alaska. Just my gorgeous summertime Alaska, thank you.

I would love to go home to Virginia today, too. If it weren't for the fact that I don't have the time or money for that, either, and the other fact that I hate airplanes and airports and more or less all facets of travel, I would be there right now!

Photo courtesy of D L Ennis. There are lots of even more amazing shots at his webpage, Visual Thoughts. Thank you for allowing me to share your beautiful work!