Yes of course I'm a horrible person and only snapped one picture during Thanksgiving.

My mom hosted 35 people at her house so I was running around all day helping her get everything perfect, and then Randy and I went to his grandma's house for the rest of the day!

So here's the quick recap. Woke up early, played the traditional Ultimate Frisbee Turkey game, cooked and cooked, had a family gratitude moment, did some work for a client in a rush, had 35 people come, socialized with aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and great aunts and uncles, ate amazing food, drove to Logan, ate more amazing food, laughed and laughed, ate pie, drove home, played games and laughed until we cried, went to bed with a full stomach and heart.

 

So let's talk about gratitude. It's so easy to be the person who complains, who makes other people feel bad for being happy and content, find the bad. It's easy to think that we live in a horrible place, that life is too much, and there isn't much to smile about.

Oh but it's so not true.

No matter what our situation is, we have people who love us. We have a Father in Heaven who not only loves us, but sent us His son to die for us, after suffering all of our pains. And as if that isn't enough, we have so many other things that make us the luckiest.

My little heart has been so full this weekend. I am so lucky.

This month was just not the month for me to do a daily gratitude post on the blog!

I have a confession. The past few months have been incredibly hard for me. It's been hard to find things to be grateful for. It's been easier to feel overwhelmed and horribly sad. It's been easier to stop looking so closely at my life to find the happy things, because when I looked too close I saw so many things I disliked. It was easier to just get through the day then try and have a good day.

There's lots of things about the past few months I don't need to get into detail about.

But I do need to say that finding things to be grateful for in every day has made the days better.

I have so many things to be grateful for.

For notes from the kindest friends, to phone calls from family who love me, gorgeous sunsets, the new Gilmore Girls reboot that has made me excited, youth in church who make me laugh and make me feel cooler than I am, people who listened to the Spirit and said the exact things I needed to hear when they had no idea what was going on with me, a Savior who has let me know time and time again that I am not alone, Huffington Post articles that help me realize I'm not alone in my feelings, kind emails and comments that made me realize my writing mattered to someone, music, plays, ballet, long drives and hikes, photography, candy, pasta, warm blankets, fall candles, new books, movie dates, and of course Randy. I can't write about him right now or I will burst into a thousand tears. So I'll just have to wait on that.

But really, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Hard things happen, and as one of my favorite actors puts it, "Life is crunchy and complicated, and all the more delicious."

I'm learning to savor the crunchy and complicated.

My friends just be careful. Be careful with people's hearts. I have made this confession to people in person and they have told me they are shocked that things have been so rough lately. It has been such an eye-opener for me that we truly never know what someone is going through. So if I snapped at you more than usual or didn't reply or help as much as I should have, I'm so sorry. Thank you to those that love me through it. I'm certainly going to be more careful with people, because who knows what they are dealing with and how they are hurting.

Anyway, rant over. Basically just know that I'm feeling all the gratitude lately.

I went and watched The Clytie Adams School of Ballet perform the Nutcracker on Saturday, and like always it brought me to tears.

It's so hard to be there, it's full of so many memories from the time I was 3 years old, on to when I stopped dancing a few months after my 18th birthday.

There are hundreds of girls who understand how it feels to be a Clytie Girl, and so here's my note to those Clytie Girls who are still dancing there today.

To The Clytie Girls,

Don't take a single second of your time as a ballerina for granted. You are given the tools to make magic happen. You fly through the air in a large leap, you travel across the stage in seconds in a sissone or pique turn.

You spend hours at the studio running through barre exercises, killing yourself over adagio, giggling from the corner, waiting your turn. Your feet hurt, your hips hurt, your back hurts.

You figure out exactly how your toes need to be protected for pointe shoes. You keep band-aids and gauze and extra toe pads ready just in case. You spend hours breaking in shoes and covering them in rosin so they are ready.

You learn how to catch your breath while making moves look effortless.

You spend years with other Clytie Girls, becoming friends and bonding over new leotards and good teachers. A lot of these girls you have known since age 3 or 4. You wake early on Saturday mornings for rehearsal, and know how to perfectly put on fake eyelashes.

You've spent so much time in the basement of the Val Browning Center, getting ready to perform in front of bright lights and hundreds of people. You know the sound of the dances going on upstairs as you run through the hall.

You've stood on stage for what seems like hours during dress rehearsals, making sure the lighting is just right. You've laced up the tightest costumes and pinned in large headpieces with ease.

You've failed. You've fallen. You've gotten back up. Ballet taught you how to get back up and always be proud of what you can do. It taught you to love yourself and trust yourself. It gave you so much confidence.

You remember how you looked up to the older girls who chaperoned you and how amazing it felt to get to be a chaperone for the first time. You remember walking into auditions and feeling so nervous as you pinned on your number and learned combinations quickly.

You'll never forget your first Nutcracker and being unsure of what was happening, wearing curlers to school, late nights and the long hours of games with your friends while the show was going.

You bought so many new pairs of tights, shows, leotards, warm up outfits, bags, boutique items from Nutcracker and recital. You know the drive to the studio better than almost anything.

And one day you won't pull into the alley for class every single week. And it will break your heart. You'll go to the shows and realize you have forgotten what the name of that move is. And it will break your heart. You will watch The Nutcracker like I just did, and you'll know so many of the dances from memory. And it will break your heart. You will see teachers and even Clytie herself, and you will want to weep. You will thank them for creating you, molding you, and giving their all to you.

There will be a time you walk out of the studio and won't go back in to dance. There will be a time you stand on the stage to take a bow for the last time.

But you will always be a ballerina. You have the scars and the collection of costumes and toe shoes to prove it. You have years of memories. You have the friendships. You may keep dancing after you leave Clytie's, or it may be pirouettes in your kitchen from now on. But it doesn't matter which path you take after you're done there.

Once you're a Clytie Girl, you're always a Clytie Girl.

Love,
A Clytie Girl

This weekend was another busy but amazingly fun one!

Friday Randy and I got home from work with nothing on the agenda, which was a shocker! We texted some friends and eventually landed on going to dinner with Alexon and Sean. We stopped at Target first (it wasn't even my choice! Sean needed to go there!) and then it was off to Mo Bettah for some Hawaiian food! Delicious food and lots of fun chatting. We then elected to go back to their apartment and the boys played Mario Party (it was HILARIOUS) and then we watched Sing Street (great 80's music movie. I highly recommend)

Saturday Randy and I got to sleep in which was beautiful, we cleaned the apartment and then went down to Kaysville! We did our laundry and visited with family, went and took some photos for one of my wonderful clients Amy, and then it was off to see Mary Poppins at the high school!

It's always a treat to get to go back and see the musicals at the high school, and this one was no exception. It was so well done. The leads were fantastic, the dance routines were amazing, and it was just a giant show. It gives me all the feels to be back in that auditorium. I know how it feels to wait in the wings, to dance on that stage. AHH I can't go into it any more or I'll start crying (and I'm in public so that would be bad) but really, it was such a pleasure to see the show, and to bring my experiences from doing theater there. Huge shout out to Andra, Bonnie, Syd, Chad, all the people I did shows with, all the people who performed in Mary Poppins, my fam, and of course Randy, who all made my theater experiences a dream.

Sunday we taught our class and had a super relaxed day, which was so needed! We made curry and watched movies, went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and took some amazing photos, and spent lots of time just talking and laughing. It was a perfect day.

Thankful Day Fifteen:

Today I am thankful for big warm blankets. There's nothing better than just cuddling up and watching a movie, drinking hot chocolate and having a fun night! Especially in November I just love those big yummy blankets and having reading or movie parties with Randy.

Thankful Day Sixteen:
Today I am thankful for a dad and husband who can help me with all the financial things! Guys, in college they should totally teach you about IRAs and Roth IRAs and 401Ks and all that stuff. It's insane how much I have needed to learn post college that I wish I would have been taught before! But I am so thankful for a husband who is studying this very stuff and can help me, and a dad who also studied finance and can help me get it all figured out.

Today I am thankful for writing. Writing has been a creative outlet for me for years. I remember writing stories when I was in the 1st grade and loving how imaginative I could be. How it was possible for me to write whatever I needed to say. It gives the inner me a voice, that sometimes can't come out in any other way. Writing connects me with who I really am. I have started and abandoned a million novels, from the age of about 10 on. One day I'll finish one. I have written a million poems and songs that will never see the light of day, and this little blog contains some of the most precious memories. I am so glad that when I'm afraid or sad or extra happy, I get this itch in my fingers and I need to write. It's something that really and truly just makes me happy.

Guys. I have been STINKING at this gratitude daily thing! So here's the catch up and the intention to be better.

Thankful Day Ten: CANDLES. Especially in the fall and winter. Man I love it when our apartment smells delicious and festive and cozy.

Thankful Day Eleven: Latter-day prophets. There are so many things that we could be afraid of today, but I am so happy to know that I can be guided and advised by my Heavenly Father, through prophets. The words they give us are so important for our day and I just couldn't be more grateful for them!

Thankful Day Twelve: I am thankful for musicals. Randy and I were lucky enough to participate in theater in high school, and the things that I learned there about myself have impacted my life! Not to mention I fell in love with my future husband there. But really, the people, the music, the backstage feels, the rawness of performing, all of it was perfect. And I am so lucky it's a part of my story.

Thankful Day Thirteen: Dance. Oh my heavens I am so thankful for dance. I don't know who I would be if my wonderful mom didn't start me in ballet at 2 years old. I had teachers who made such a huge impact on me, made friends there that are still my close friends today, and the principles of grace and elegance that it taught me have stayed with me. I miss the hours in the studio and the excitement of being backstage, and I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. I think my memories of ballet are some of my most vivid. I felt so alive.