The One with the Compliment?

I sure hope Justin was trying to be funny when he told me this morning as I was filling in my eyebrows "Oh there they are!"  It reminded me of another time when I was "concealing" a zit (I know you won't believe me but I get them too.  Hate it!) and Justin said "Wow! That stuff is awesome!!"  I know it was meant to be a comment on the effectiveness of the product but maybe there's a different way to word these comments that doesn't sound like I'm hideous!  Good thing my response is to just laugh at his enthusiasm and awe of makeup.

I'm also quick to forgive right now because Arizona beat Florida last Saturday!!  Woot!!  Now we're even and I hope our teams never play each other again as long as we live!!

The One with the Letter

I do have some other posts in the works but I feel like this one is pretty important :)

Dear Sean Miller,

First off, let me say how pleased I am with what you've done with my Cats after the great Lute Olson retired.  Most impressive, keep up the good work.  Oh yeah, and well done picking up Tarczewski, Ashley and Jerrett.  Nice!

I just have one small favor to ask, please please please beat the Gators on Saturday!!  You see, my husband went to the University of Florida and, while I have the utmost respect for Billy Donovan and his team, if we lose to them again this year, at home, he may encounter some "irreconcilable differences."  So for the sake of my husband, our marriage, the presents under our Christmas tree labelled "Justin" that can easily be returned, the daily tasks of cooking and cleaning that will then be labelled "Justin" and most importantly my space heater* you have to WIN!!

*After pulling off a questionable overtime win in Gainesville last year, Justin threw his shoe.  Which hit the space heater and bent the heating element.  So then my team had lost and I was cold.  It was not a good night.  Justin actually went out and bought a new one that night but was able to fix the other the next day.  I don't think we'll be watching the game together this year.  The trash talking has already begun.  Ok, it's a little one-sided- mine.  Come on Cats!!!

The One with All the Snow

Remember last Friday when I said it was snowing all day?  Well that kept up all day Saturday as well.  And Sunday!  This was probably the biggest snow storm I've seen in Utah.  We took these pictures yesterday after church.

That's the bed of my truck!!

 

Who wants to go sledding?! :)

The One with the Weather, Not the News

Yes, it is 4:30 and I am at work but it is also Friday and it is snowing outside!  Snowing I tell you!!  Do you know why that's so crazy?  Because we live in Utah and yesterday the temperature got up to 70 degrees and I wore a short sleeved shirt.  It started raining really early this morning (while Justin and I were still sleeping) but turned to snow before we left for school and has seriously kept snowing all day long.  Trust me.  My office has a window.

The One with Thing 22

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

I really don’t see our lives changing much between 5 and 15 years.  In the next five they will change a lot though.  Justin and I will both be done with school and he will have a job in industry.  Right now I have the feeling that we’re going to end up in California.  It could be worse.  We’ll have at least one kid, maybe two or just another on the way.  We’re going to try to check a few of our dream trips off between finishing school and having a baby though.  We’ve talked about hiking Machu Picchu since we started dating and Justin wants to do a Grand Canyon trip.  We also want to visit Europe but I think those trips are easier to do when we’re old than a long hike so we can save them for later.  Hopefully we’ll be homeowners in 5 years as well, with a big backyard and a garage full of sporting equipment.  And maybe a boat.  I want to teach a few chemistry classes while we just have one child before becoming a stay-at-home mom but then our kids will be some of the most prepared kindergarteners ever!  My plan is to go back to school (as a teacher) when our youngest (whatever number that is, somewhere between 2 and 4) starts school.  I really don’t see Justin and I moving around a lot.  I honestly feel like Justin is going to like his first job and stick with it a while.  Which means where we end up shortly after graduation is where we will be.  This sounds awesome!

The One with Thing 21

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it first?

I used to always say x-ray vision because my eyes sucked so bad (seriously, I was legally blind for a loooong time).  Since I’ve already admitted what a nerdy comic book superhero fan I am, I’ll just say that in X-Men my favorite character is Nightcrawler, the teleporter.  He’s the guy who attempted to assassinate the U.S. president in the second movie.  If you could teleport you wouldn’t even have to worry about flying, you can just appear wherever you want to be!  No one could catch you and you could take people with you if you wanted.  I would totally use that to our advantage and Justin and I would tour Europe.  We could always teleport back home at night to sleep in our own bed too so then it would be a really cheap vacation.  I swear I don’t have dreams about this.  Nightcrawler is just my favorite and traveling seemed like the best use of that power.

I'd prefer to have more than 3 fingers of course :)

The One with the Recall

Just a few short months ago I was called as YW president in our ward.  I basically served during the summer which is probably the craziest time to work with the youth.  They are all over the place.  As in, summer camps, family vacations, etc.  Everywhere but home.  So I honestly didn't do much.  We tried to have lessons and activities planned each week but half the time nobody came.

Then last month it was announced that our stake was undergoing some major changes.  Almost a year ago we had a tri-stake meeting with one of the 12 apostles who informed us that one of the stakes (which happened to be mine and Justin's stake) was going to be dissolved and all wards reassigned to either Granite or Sugarhouse Stake.  No big deal.  We got moved to Sugarhouse but our ward stayed the same.  The final big change came just a few weeks ago when we had another stake meeting and they announced that 3 of our 8 wards would be dissolved and the members added to the remaining wards.  This meant a huge overhaul of ward boundaries and also that all callings below stake level were released.  Yay!!  I was having such a hard time with my calling!  I am seriously not good with teenagers!  This was good for both them and me :)

Or so I thought.  The Sunday after the stake meeting we only had a bishopric.  It's been a little crazy forming our new ward.  The new bishop called Justin Saturday and asked if we could meet with him before church.  I have to admit I was half hoping to not be called to YW again and half hoping that I would so I could do it better.  Well, if you didn't guess from the post title, I'm getting a second chance.  And this time I'm actually kind of excited.  I met 4 of the new YW on Sunday and they are all great!  There are a few more on the ward list for a grand total of 8 YW!  8!  We had 4 before and really only 2 who lived in the ward boundaries.  We also got some new YM.  I think the youth were a big reason for the boundary changes and this is going to be a big help for all of them.  I don't know who the new YM president will be (or even some of the counselors I've called- crazy!) but I think things will be better this time around :)

The One with Thing 20

Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

I actually have a horrible memory when it comes to events.  I can remember things like the speed of light and how to take partial derivatives but I often can’t remember what I did last week.  Unless it’s something big, like our wedding day, I probably don’t remember it happening.  So let’s see…

When I was little we had an aboveground pool in our backyard.  We weren’t allowed to swim on Sundays so we would float across the surface on innertubes on our hands and knees, trying not to get wet/fall in.  It was actually pretty tricky.  You had to have enough speed pushing off from the deck to get to the other side and then someone would push you back across.  Sometimes that second push would be your downfall.  We played this game a lot.  We couldn’t play with friends on Sundays either so it was just us Taylor kids.  One Sunday somebody fell in.  I can’t remember who.  Mom came out and instead of getting mad, decided to just let us all swim that Sunday in our clothes.  It was a blast.  It’s funny how those times your parents let you break the rules are things you really remember.

Growing up there was a boy in my grade named Michael Chapelle.  You could tell his family didn’t have a lot of money and he was really picked on.  He’d been bullied for as long as I can remember him being in our grade.  I always felt really bad when people teased him but I also remember being glad it wasn’t me and not doing anything to stop it.  In 5^th grade Michael was actually in my class and the teacher usually assigned him to sit by me, probably because I wasn’t openly hostile toward him.  One day we were working on some assignment and Michael asked if he could borrow one of my markers.  It was such a silly thing but I totally froze.  Everyone turned to look at me and I could see what would happen if I let him.  He just wanted to borrow a stinkin’ marker for heaven’s sake!  I wish I could say I just let him but I took the out.  Michael told me it was ok if I didn’t want to and moved on to something else.  I really wish I’d stood up for him and handed him the whole box of markers.  I think Michael moved after 6^th grade because I don’t remember him after that and our class was small enough that we all knew each other.  I get really emotional when I see stories on the news about kids being bullied in school because it reminds me of Michael.  If I ever see him again I will buy the biggest box of markers I can find and sit down and share them with him.

In middle and high school I was “quite” the athlete.  I ran track and played volleyball, basketball and tennis.  Safford is only 3A level and our teams usually did pretty well.  I remember Mr. Burnside, the athletic director, announcing at a pep rally once that our school had won at least one state championship every year since the 1960’s (I can’t remember the exact date but it was a 30 or 40 year streak).  Pretty cool for a small school.  I was even part of two state championship tennis teams.  We weren’t always great at everything though.  Our girls’ basketball team in 8^th grade was horrible.  I think we may have only won one game the entire year.  I remember the season being pretty fun anyway because I had a lot of friends on the team but we really sucked.  Our worst game was against our biggest rival, Thatcher (oooo).  We were the visiting team at their old middle school gym and we could not score or get any calls our way.  At halftime the score must have been 30+ to 0.  I don’t know how or why I ever made the basketball team because I was always too scared to shoot in the games.  So obviously I had never scored in a game that season.  Maybe that’s why we sucked, I didn’t really play when I was playing!  I was getting really mad during this game though because I really felt like the officials were calling it one way.  So I finally decided to shoot!  I was actually just hoping for a foul (which did happen) but the ball went in!  And the foul wasn’t called.  The final score was something like 63-2.  We totally lost.  But those 2 points were mine!!

The One with Thing 19

If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?

On the same street as the rest of my family.  I don’t even care what city or state.  It would probably be warm and sunny 11.8 months of the year though, no snow for us!  I would love it if family get-togethers weren’t so hard to finagle and I could just walk across the street to see my sibling/parent.

Mom used to say it would be so fun to live in a reverse cul-de-sac with us all sharing one big backyard.  That would be cool.  Of course if this really happened we would probably get sick of it really soon.

The One with Thing 18

What has been the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?

At the end of my junior year of high school three girls that I thought were my best friends really hurt me.  Just imagine what it would feel like if three people that you thought you were close to got together and pointed out every flaw they thought you had.  The ones that hurt the worst were those I was already aware of and wished I could change.  Needless to say, we weren’t exactly friends after that and I’ll be honest, it still hurts if I think about it.  Eventually one of them apologized to me and she and I were able to move on and had a good friendship.

The One with Thing 17

What is the thing you most wish you were great at?

Maybe it’s because the Olympics just happened and we watched a lot of volleyball matches but I’ve always wished I could have been better at that sport.  I’d have to grow almost another foot taller to even get close to professional hitter height.  I feel like volleyball was the sport I was best at though (at least it was the one I had the most fun playing) and sometimes I really miss it.  We need to have at least one daughter and she better not want to be a cheerleader!  (Sorry Lisa and Andrea!!!)

In case you were wondering, I totally looked like this when I played volleyball in high school.  In fact, I still do.  Minus the bikini :)

Ok, maybe not.  These ladies are Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings who did the unthinkable this summer and three-peated Olympic gold medals in women's beach volleyball.  Ho-ly crap.

Despite my lack of height I was an outside hitter.  This moment here is one of the best parts of volleyball.

Because afterward you get to do this.  Celebrations after a hard spike are awesome!!