If We Don't Stand for Virtue Who Will?

Sister Elaine S. Dalton posed that question when the Young Women general presidency added virtue to the list of young women values. A couple of nights ago I had a very interesting conversation with my best friend from high school. She's made some decisions that are very different than the decisions I have made. And she typically spends a great deal of our time together deriding me for being a prude and being too religious. As a result, I don't spend that much time with her anymore. But as we were sitting in my car talking she gave me the advice, "have fun kissing, but don't go any farther- it isn't worth it". I almost started crying because I realized that she regrets the decisions she's made. It also brought home this quote for me, "Often those who publicly deride you for your high standards privately do not want you to violate them. They need your good example." I can't think of any way I can be a better example to others than by being virtuous. President Hinckley said, "there is nothing in this world as magnificent as virtue. It glows without tarnish. It is precious and beautiful. It is above price. It cannot be bought or sold. It is the fruit of self mastery." I am grateful for the doctrine of virtue in my life, it has saved me a lot of heart ache in the past. I am also grateful for all my gorgeous virtuous lady friends- they are wonderful people who are great examples to me- I love you guys! To wrap things up I would like to leave you with an excerpt from Pres. Hinckley's How Can I Become the Woman of Whom I Dream speech, "You are creatures of divinity; you are daughters of the Almighty. Limitless is your potential. Magnificent is your future, if you will take control of it. Do not let your lives drift in a fruitless and worthless manner...For you my dear friends, the sky is the limit. You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Do not dwell on unkind things others may say about you....Polish and refine whatever talents the Lord has given you. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with a great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life and look for its opportunities, and forever and always be loyal to the church. Never forget that you came to earth as a child of the divine father with something of divinity in your very makeup. The Lord did not send you here to fail. He did not give you life to waste it."

WTHeck?

I realize that I'm not exactly a fount of common sense, so there are a lot of things I don't understand... Jason Mraz for example... but how is it that you can know everything about a person and still need them? How can you know that someone is shallow and insecure and totally clueless and still depend on them? How can you let someone so completely untrustworthy have so much of you? You know that you are giving them all the ammunition they need to hurt you, but you still need them? How many times do you need to let the same person hurt you in the same way before enough is enough? How can you love and hate the same person with equal measure? I guess I'm trying to be rational about something irrational. But what adaptive purpose could this phenomena possibly serve? It makes no sense, yet most people experience it.

Things I wish I learned in college (or high school)...or really anytime.

1. How to work blinds. I get how to open the slats but putting the strings off to the side so you can just lift up the whole shebang totally confuses me.

2. How to check to make sure the LinkSys box is plugged in before I freak out about my wireless not working.

3. How to get asked out on a date (by someone appropriately aged- I'm not really asking for much, just somewhere between the ages of 20 and 40).

4. How to avoid walking into the bench at the end of my bed everyday of my life.

5. How to get a job without any experience to speak of.

6. How to flirt my way out of a ticket with a woman police officer (apparently batting your eyelashes and feigning innocence has no effect on your own gender.)

7. How to stop a fourteen year old boy from propositioning me.

8. How to respond to the statement "you have big tatas."

9. How to stop getting hit on by men twice my age.

10. How to stop my parents from comparing me to my siblings.

11. How to stop a moving car from the passenger's seat.

12. How to make a decision.

American Soldiers

So, tonight I was watching this heart wrenching episode of CSI New York (because Danny is freaking hott and he totally beat up this racist guy) about the holocaust. I pretty much just sat in front of the tv and balled the whole time. But, they were showing clips of survivors talking- not real survivors- one of the survivors was talking about being saved by American soldiers and I just had this flash of extreme pride or patriotism or something come over me. Nothing can make me cry like a soldier. Just picture for a minute, you're in a prison, you've been tortured- sometimes for years- most, if not all of your family is dead, you've seen countless acts of barbarism, brutal murders, and there is no end in sight... then one day you look up and instead of your captors you see an American soldier. Just imagine the feeling of relief, safety, freedom. I can only imagine- I've obviously never been through anything that horrific. I don't know if I've ever shown my patriotic side to everyone before, I know most of you are picturing liberal Jessica in one of her- I want civil rights rants. But, without soldiers, I wouldn't have any rights. Without soldiers, we would still be English- paying crazy taxes to the king and drinking tea with horrible accents. And everyday we have soldiers in our country who wake up, prepared to defend those rights- with their lives if they have to. I can't possibly express my gratitude. Or my pride to live in the USA. So, I'm glad you got to be a part of my American soldier soliliquy. Here are the lyrics to Toby Keith's American Soldier. I cry everytime I hear it on the radio. I also cry at the national anthem. Just thought I'd share. Now you all have some ammunition to use against me.

"I'm just trying to be a father,
Raise a daughter and a son,
Be a lover to their mother,
Everything to everyone.
Up and at 'em bright and early,
I'm all business in my suit,
Yeah, I'm dressed for success from my head down to my boots,
I don't do it for money, there's still bills that I can't pay,
I don't do it for the glory, I just do it anyway,
Providing for our future's my responsibility,
Yeah I'm real good under pressure, being all that I can be,
And I can't call in sick on Mondays when the weekends been to strong,
I just work straight through the holidays,
And sometimes all night long.
You can bet that I stand ready when the wolf growls at the door,
Hey, I'm solid, hey I'm steady, hey I'm true down to the core,
And I will always do my duty, no matter what the price,
I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrafice,
Oh, and I don't want to die for you,
But if dyin's asked of me,
I'll bear that cross with honor,
'Cause freedom don't come free.
I'm an american soldier, an american,
Beside my brothers and my sisters I will proudly take a stand,
When liberty's in jeopardy I will always do what's right,
I'm out here on the front lines, so sleep in peace tonight..."

And to all of you American Soldiers out there, I'd like to extend a profound thank you for your service. God Bless You!

If you want to make God laugh...

Tell him your plans.

I'm officially applying to law school in the fall.

Who would have guessed?

I don't take pictures

To the endless chagrin of my best and closest friends- I don't take pictures. Even if I remember to bring a camera- which I usually don't- I never seem to muster up enough desire to capture something on film (or whatever the appropriate term is) to actually take a picture. I don't have children. I don't have a husband. I have two nieces whose dad doesn't want their pictures exploited all over the internet. Therefore, I don't have any adorable pictures of my husband and I making out in front of the temple or my child with a diaper on their head... all I really have is pictures of me and Nicole doing ridiculous things and she usually blogs about them, pretty funnily too. So, I'm extending an apology to all of you lazy blog stalkers out there who only want to view pictures. I'm super sorry that you have to take an extra three minutes out of your day to read the paragraph I wrote instead of simply viewing a multitude of pictures. A picture says a thousand words- my writing says a few hundred. Consider it my version of moderation.

Now, to illustrate my lack of camera-ing skills I will post a few of the pictures on my camera.

Let's start by showing how if I do take a picture, I take about a thousand of the same thing.That is Lexi and I watching Chuck in 3D. Then there is the typical "I want pictures of this- so make Nicole or Bridget bring their cameras" - delightful. Bridget and I went to New York for four days in February. She took close to two hundred pictures- a good third of them were of me. And my camera was in the bag I was carrying the whole time. There were two pictures on my camera. Neither of them were of Bridget. The only reason I have those two pictures was because Bridget suggested that I might like to have some pictures with my own camera. Here are those two pictures.

See how great. Then there's Nicole and I at Hannah Montana opening night. I was so pleased that I wanted pictures. This is what I took.
This is the picture Nic took:
Getting the picture? Ha ha. So until I'm cool enough to remember to bring a camera or have children that I find really entertaining... the point is- don't expect a plethora of pictures any time soon. You know you love me.

Being well behaved

"Well behaved women seldom make history"

“A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.” (or maybe she will) - Abraham Lincoln

So, most of my life I have prided myself on being obedient, responsible, and thoughtful. I don't do things because it might reflect poorly on my family. I don't do things so people won't think poorly of me. Then the other day I was looking through pictures of my grandparents and great-grandparents... and this got me remembering stories that I've heard my whole life. These stories paint pictures of some of the wildest people.

"I’d much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they're the first to be rescued off sinking ships."

From the tawdry to the downright violent- I come from a long line of women who did whatever they wanted. Some women in the early 1960's might have put up with an abusive husband- not my grandma- she took her two kids and high tailed it to another state. When she arrived in the new state she befriended a mob boss. So when the SOB inevitably tracked her down she went to the mob boss and stared the ex down while the mob forced him to dig his own grave- they let him go with the promise that if he ever returned to the state he would take up permanent residence in that grave. Another grandma broke a banjo over the head of a woman for making eyes at my grandpa. My dad's mom was offered everything from a car to a college education (in the 1950's) to not marry my grandpa- their fiftieth wedding anniversary is coming up so you can tell that didn't deter her much. My eighty-two year old great-grandma used to volunteer at the temple but still dropped the F BOMB when watching a Jazz game. One of my great-grandma's was universally feared- by men and women- because she had a reputation for being so tough. I have all of this passion, determination, and pure will-powered flowing through my veins- and being reminded of this made me realize that I can be like these women.

"If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased". - Katherine Hepburn

These women were highly respected, well liked, and fiercely loved. It's almost as though remembering their example gave me permission to be like them. So, I'm not saying I'm going to change over-night- but get ready for some scandal- or at least some impetuousness. It's like their legacy has given me permission to stir things up a little- live outside the box.

“I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.” -Marilyn Monroe