hats on

i pretty much spent the whole day editing a new business proposal and looking at pictures of the royal wedding.

except not really in that order, and definitely not in any kind of even proportion.

i spent way more time on the editing.

duh.

(not.)

and i don't even feel badly about it, no matter what this article says. (turns out i am pretty un-american, because i know very well that picture is of chelsy davy, prince harry's on-again, off-again girlfriend. personally, i think he should date pippa middleton, but no one has asked me. yet.)

also, a note to all my wedding guests. please feel free to wear head adornments that look like any of these.

happy weekend, my babies. i hope it's royally good.

best buns

what is it about the airport that always makes you want to eat at cinnabon?

please. enlighten me.

spring sprang sprung

spring has been a fickle mistress of late, teasing us with warm weather and then dumping cold and rain without thinking twice.

the weekend started out gray and drizzling, which was perfect weather for bananagrams and warm chili at bus boys and poets.

but then the sun came out and the sky was blue and the breeze was blowing, which was perfect weather for bluebuck pancakes at eastern market and flowers blooming everywhere (you smell lilacs these days at every turn. i am in heaven) and laura's first bite of an apple since she got her braces off.

it was also a great day for a shopping trip at anthropologie, one last hurrah before laura's employee discount is gone forever. AWD thought it was fun for approximately 1 minute. robert promptly fell asleep in the corner.

the tulips at the temple are amazing, too.

we made grilled pizza for easter dinner and ate it sitting on blankets on the lawn with people we love. it was perfect.

yesterday and today i was flooded with phone calls and e-mails and text messages and even an in-person lemon bar delivery (thanks, emilie!) and my burden felt so lightened by all the people who were thinking of me, thinking of bri and honoring the pain of loss and the importance of human connections. i had been feeling so far away and a little bit alone in the past few days. now i feel loved and remembered and and it has made such a difference.

so, thank you.

after work i walked across the key bridge to georgetown to buy something beautiful and new to wear to the memorial service. it felt so good to be outside, face to the sun, surrounded by people. many of whom were wearing those weird running shoes that look like socks. can someone explain those to me, please?

i leave tomorrow night for my beloved salt lake, where i expect to give lots of hugs, get lots of hugs and share lots of memories to celebrate my beloved briana. i wish there was no reason for me to go, but i will be glad to be there.

i think i'll eat my lemon bar on the plane.

he is not here

yesterday i learned that one of my very most dear and very best friends, briana, died in a car accident.

today i celebrated and marveled at the resurrection and atonement of my savior jesus christ.

my heart is broken.

but my heart is hopeful.

i last talked to bri on monday, to tell her AWD and i were engaged. we made a plan to meet up for breakfast while AWD and i are in salt lake in a few weeks. it has been almost a year since i have seen her face-to-face. i couldn't wait.

but now i will have to wait a little while longer.

it still seems impossible to believe. impossible that she'll never meet AWD in this life, impossible that she won't be with us in person on the day we are married like i so hoped she would be. impossible that she won't deliver my babies like i always wanted her to, that i won't take my kids to visit her.

instead, i will tell my kids these stories.

about how once every six months or so, bri would get a craving for lemon bars that she couldn't shake until she made a batch and ate one. except that she could never eat just one and always ended up eating the whole pan. and then she would say, "i never want to see another lemon bar for as long as i live!" but then, six months later, she would.

or about how one day i came home and there was a sort of strange smell in the house and no one was home but the oven was on really low, and when i opened it up there was a placenta inside, drying out to be ground up into powder, put into capsules and delivered to one of bri's clients. it was the first time i had ever seen a placenta. it was kind of gross.

one of my favorite things to do on cold, wintery sunday mornings was to climb up the stairs and crawl into bed with bri until it was time to get up and get ready for church. we would talk and talk and i would doze off and we were always late on those mornings and it was always worth it. i am especially glad now that i didn't lose a single second.

and then there are the millions of little details that add up as a person becomes a part of you and your life. even these past few years, when we have been far away from each other, we've spent hours and hours on the phone, talking through the joys and sorrows and questions and answers and problems and solutions and epiphanies that make up our mortal experience.

even now all i want to do is call her, to talk to her about this, about her being gone, so we can figure out how to deal with it together. i am finding it difficult to deal with it on my own.

i am also going to tell my children this story.

that on the morning of the third day, mary went to the tomb and it was empty. and the angel said unto her, "why seek ye the living among the dead? he is not here, for he is risen, as he said."

and then i will tell them that i know that this is true. that the savior jesus christ rose on the third day and that through him we, too, can conquer death.

i will know it then as i feel it now, here in the space where the rubber meets the road and the substance of my faith matters. if there ever was a time when believing mattered, it is now.

and believe i do.

i believe that christ the lord rose from the grave, as he promised his disciples that he would.

i believe that because of the sacrifice and resurrection of the savior, we too can live again, forever with him and with one another.

i believe that families are eternal.

i believe that friendships are, too.

i believe that a loving heavenly father knows each of us, loves each of us, and takes care of each of us.

i believe that hard and painful and incomprehensible things happen to us here in mortality.

i know that the spirit of the lord can comfort us whether we understand our pain or not.

my heart is broken.

but my heart is hopeful.

as president thomas s. monson said, "in our hour of deepest sorrow, we can receive profound peace from the words of the angel that first easter morning: 'he is not here, for he is risen.'"

i know i am not alone when i say that my sorrow at this particular loss feels very deep indeed. and i think i will be sad for a long time. in fact, i think i will miss bri for my whole life. but i trust in the words of the angel, in the peace of the lord.

i trust in his plan.

and, above all, i trust him.

crooked teeth

i went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago for the first time in six years.

and yes, i know that is 12 times longer than i should have waited.

judge away.

i mean, i could make up a bunch of excuses like that i was poor and i didn't have dental insurance and then i didn't know how to use my dental insurance and then i was too scared to go because i was pretty sure it was going to be big, bad news.

but i won't.

instead i'll tell you that, for six years of no professional dental intervention, it went pretty well.

hurrah!

i had a cracked filling that needed to be fixed (didn't even know i had that filling, so oops there i guess.) and then i went back today for a second filling. they also filed down my first filling because my jaw was closing all wonky and crooked and giving me headaches.

my face only stayed numb for about five hours each time. it's cool.

the most important news is, major dental catastrophe averted.

i celebrated by eating jelly beans.

and scheduling a cleaning for october.

i believe the term for this is all the nauseating details.

well, my babies. you probably thought the wedding of the year was going to be william and kate's. turns out, it's going to be mine.

(though i have yet to receive word that someone has found my likeness on a jelly bean. these things take time, i suppose.)

this is how it all went down.

friday was the one-year anniversary of when AWD and i met. and, if you will recall, we met on a bike ride. so, we decided to go on a little bike ride to mark the occasion.

i will do full truth here and tell you that we were running super behind schedule and we were supposed to be somewhere later that night and i didn't think we had time for a bike ride so i was in kind of a cranky mood. sad, but true.

so, of we went on a (very) little bike ride just down to the edge of our neighborhood. we stopped at a little park and sat down on a little bench and talked for a few minutes and then AWD said, "will you marry me?" and because i love him so dearly, i said, "yes! i will."

he cried, i cried.

then i wished i was wearing more flattering pants.

then, because i liked the sound of "will you marry me?" so much, i asked him to ask me again.

i said yes the second time, too.

and that was that.

i am sure i will have a lot more to say about all of this as time goes on, but for now i will say this.

i feel lucky and blessed and ever-so-grateful that AWD found me and picked me and that now i get to be with him for the rest of forever. he is a fit for me in ways that i could never even have imagined were important, and that now i can't imagine living without. it feels totally normal and easy to be with him now, and i suspect that, although hard things will certainly come into our shared life, it will be normal and easy to be with him for always.

the only weird thing about it is that this is it. it's done. this is the end of the line. though i suppose it is also the beginning of another. i don't feel like i spent my single life pining away, living "plan b" or feeling disappointed at the way things had turned out for me, but i would be lying if i said i didn't have moments of wondering if there was a person somewhere in the world who would just like me best and stick around for a while. it took a long time for my carefully protected and mended heart to really trust AWD when he said that he was playing for keeps.

but he is and i am and here we are. to eternity and beyond. and it feels pretty good.

as for the ring (this is for you, kate), i am sporting a $15 stand-in until the real ring is ready. at which point i have been promised a third proposal (third time's the charm?). seems like a pretty good deal. and i promise to post pictures then.

because i am definitely not posting pictures of me in those pants.

i believe the term for this is zam-zowie.

wednesday weekend recap

we spent most of last week getting ready for the government shut down that wasn't. i kind of wanted the whole thing to go down so that i could tell my grandchildren that i worked for the government during the great shutdown of 2011, but once i found out that i would be working no matter what happened, i mostly wanted the whole thing to blow over. which, in the end, it did.

for my trouble, i got a letter from barack obama thanking me for me service to the government, even when the government can't get anything done. (my words, not his.)

it's hanging on my fridge if you'd like to see it.

on friday night EH and i went to see "bill cunningham's new york." we highly recommend it. it's about the new york times photographer who shoots all the street style columns and it is both fascinating and hilarious.

it's playing at the e street theater if you'd like to see it.

on saturday morning i headed downtown for breakfast and some feminist empowerment with my girl KJ, in town from the salty city. then i took a quick turn around the japanese street festival going on in penn quarter, but it wasn't much to look at and they were selling funnel cake, which i thought was sort of weird. i did, however, give $5 to the red cross to help tsunami relief and they gave me a sticker in return.

i stuck it in my wallet if you'd like to see it.

next up was lindsay's bachelorette weekend in annapolis. i had never been there. it was lovely. we strolled along main street, took a little harbor cruise, and then stuffed ourselves silly with crab.

here are some pictures if you'd like to see them.

and, for the grand weekend finale, we walked halfway across the wilson bridge on sunday night to watch the fireworks going off at the national harbor. we think they were to mark the end of the cherry blossom festival, though no one could say that for sure.

what i can say for sure is that it was a totally awesome show.

i have pictures of that, too, if you'd like to see them.

and now suddenly it's wednesday and soon there will be another weekend to recap.

in the meantime, maybe you could tell me what you've been up to?

wordy

i watched a documentary last night called "wordplay," about people who are obsessed with crossword puzzles. these people are amazing, and amazingly weird. they include jon stewart, bob dole and bill clinton. and the indigo girls. plus a pitcher for the yankees.

who knew?

other puzzle fanatics include a friendly dad from fort collins, a professional pianist in new york, and a college student studying computer science in new york who states that crossword puzzles are one arena where computers can't perform better than humans, because computers don't get nuance and double meanings and, well, wordplay.

but the thing that stuck out most to me was something clinton said, which i guess should come as no surprise. he said he approaches a crossword puzzle the same way he approaches any complex problem. he goes straight to the answers he knows, the clues he can solve, and then builds on that to figure out the other pieces.

maybe i was just hypnotized by his kind eyes and his electric blue tie, but it sounded like a pretty good approach to me. in fact, i think i am going to use that theme in my relief society lesson on sunday.

because if there is anywhere the wisdom of bill clinton belongs, its in church.

the government is falling, the government is falling!

all the talk around the office today was government shut down: will they or won't they?

i thought it would be sort of great, because who doesn't want a surprise vacation, but today i found out that i would probably still have to go to work even if the government "shut down," so now i think they should just work it out already. if i don't get a trip to costa rica out of it, it's not worth it.

also today i had four extremely violent cases of the hiccups.

but i guess john boehner doesn't care about that.

how can i miss you if you won't go away?

i know, i know. it's been too long and all my excuses are worn out and tired, so let's just move on to the main event, shall we? here is what has been going down around here.

after months of jimmer-mania (i'm totally on board now that i have figured out he is a basketball player, not a football player), i watched my first BYU game of the season a couple of weeks ago, wherein the cougars were crushed by florida. so, i have to say, not sure what the whole jimmer worship thing is really all about. seems to me he sort of dropped the ball (pun intended). but, then again, i went to get my hair cut in the middle of the game, so i guess you could argue i don't know-slash-care much about these things.

and, speaking of my hair, it is a totally cute, new cut and not a single person i work with noticed. sad trombone.

AWD and i decided to have a saturday adventure the weekend before last. first we had brunch with dana and jess and chris at pint meridian in columbia heights. it had been a while since i'd gone to columbia heights, and i had forgotten that i actually kind of like it up there. the weather was warm and there were lots of people out walking and riding bikes and doing stuff. the city is really starting to come alive in the spring. i dig it.

after brunch we went to the hirschorn. i was thinking how much i was enjoying the blinky palermo retrospective when AWD said, "i guess there is some art i just don't understand." but then we decided you don't necessarily have to understand art to enjoy it. and then all was right with the world again.

after the hirschorn we went to the national gallery, along with half the population of the national capital region. that place was crowded. the sculptures were our favorite.

we also hit up the outdoor sculpture garden and got our first peak at the cherry blossoms. i love cherry blossoms. the end.

after the national gallery, we headed over to crumbs to get a cupcake, which we ate in the sunny delight of the courtyard at the portrait gallery. count 'em up kids, that's three museums in one day. and that is how you have a saturday adventure.

though it ended sort of anti-climactically, with AWD mowing my lawn and doing my taxes.

i spent last week at a summit at the national conference center in leesburg, va, which is sort of a cross between a dormitory complex and a prison. it was my first big solo communications project since moving to my new contract last fall, and i think i nailed it. special guests included sean astin, also known as samwise gamgee, and holly petraeus, also known as the wife of the man who runs the military. i am sort of hoping he runs for president so i can cross another first lady photo op off my list.

this weekend we braved cold, windy weather and confused wandering tourists to see the cherry blossoms for real. it is more pleasant to stroll among the blossoms in warm weather, but i still love cherry blossoms (the end) and they were really gorgeous this year, despite the bluster.

saturday and sunday were general conference (church on TV!) which also meant eating non-stop. my biggest culinary success was baked red velvet donuts. don't be jealous.

the final piece of important news is that the squirrel city removal has (finally) begun. they have taken out two enormous nests so far, and there is one more to go. the bad news is the squirrels chewed a hole through our roof. the bad news is, there were no babies in the nest. so, i am counting that it as a win for us.

and now you are up to date!

whew.

i feel better. do you?