Spring Cleaning

So it's this funny thing. I was doing some spring cleaning on account of the fact that I am marrying and moving in with the man of my dreams and I came across my journals. Maybe  5 or 7 of them, written between the ages of 18-24, and I remembered. I used to LOVE writing. Enough to fill a billion journals, enough to write flouncy little blog posts like 2-3 times a week. It helped me clear my head and make sense of my life and choose which stories I wanted to be big and which ones I wanted to be small even though all I did was interact with a stranger at the grocery store.

But I also live in Utah, and have maybe 5 friends here, and I feel like I lost a part of myself by not writing to process it all. Not that I think I have this great talent, but it feels oddly vindicating to put my schtuffs into the world. There's this satisfaction that the world doesn't spit it back out like a dollar bill that's too crumpled. (Sidenote: having 5 friends in Utah is probably 75% by choice).

But, another also - if I'm going to do this, I'm gonna all the way do this. I'm going to tell people about the blog and talk about Angel and my spirituality and post a billion selfies and pretend everyone thinks I'm cool. Because maybe that's what I have in my soul. And I know it's not 2008 and no one cares about blogs anymore and selfies are the currency of the Kardashian family, but you know what? Team Khloe forever. (Slash, idk, I've never watched more than 4 minutes of that show at once, but I am the Khloe of my family).

But also (and I'm pretty sure this is my last also), I found my retainer when I was spring cleaning, and it had been missing since I moved to Utah , but it still kinda fit and so I'm wearing it all the time so that I lose the gap between my two front teeth before the wedding and my mouth hurts pretty bad.

But that's kind of what you expected all along, right?

2015/6

I am that mix of person where part of me love to hate on all of the "new year, new me" and part of me is like, "2016 is the year I become everything I've been meaning to be."

2015 was a Charles Dickens year for me (It was the best of times. It was the worst of times). I experienced so many wonderful landmark moments that I know I will cherish into old age and on into forever. I also probably cried more than the last 5 years combined. (To be honest, during the 5 years before that I liked to pretend that I didn't cry). But a little struggle is good for you, or something. Emphasis on the something.

The month of December was the pinnacle of 2015. I got engaged. To the most loving, kind, selfless man I have known. Angel is the kind of man who you can call at 5 AM because you were supposed to drive yourself and your coworkers to the airport, but your car started overheating, and without a complaint, he shows up 10 minutes later, all hero-like and even charming. Or the kind of man who goes to help your brother-in-law with his flat tire twice in one night even though you are out of town and didn't even know he did it. If these examples seem oddly specific, it's because they are not fiction. I am going to marry an angel of a man ;)

We were taking selfies when he started to pull the ring box out of his pocket.

The night before I got engaged, I cried on the entire flight from Midway to Salt Lake. I wonder if I'll always remember that as an afterthought to my engagement story.

Probably gonna be upset that this is on the internet.

But the rest of December followed suit: I took another business trip. Angel and I went to my parent's house for Christmas. I saw my little brother for the first time in almost three years. I demonstrated the "talent" of carrying my 6'3" brother up the stairs piggy back. I almost had to take another business trip despite being promised I could take the two holiday weeks off to work remotely. I saw some good friends from high school. I did way more work than I anticipated or wanted. I didn't get a small promotion that I thought was in the bag. I didn't tell anyone about that.

It was a lot of things. Maybe the best description of my 2015 is, "It was a lot of things." I always did have a way with words.

2016 will have so many more things (and hopefully better ones). Like a change in marital status. Or that tiny promotion later on. Or a return to my pre-consulting (and pre-traveling) weight. Or becoming an aunt again.

So while this year will surely bring on new and more complex stress for me, I am hoping to be able to focus on the parts that have already made me so so happy, even if just in anticipation of those events.


I am hoping that this will be, as 2015 was in its own way, the best year yet.

Random Things I Don't Like

This post is so minimalist.

• When people say, "You Go Girl!" It feels patronizing to me. 
• When girls where short shorts with long-sleeved shirts.  Pick one.  
• Rihanna
• Cake. it's just bread, most of the time with cheap frosting on top.
• Girls with prettier hair than me

Catch-Up (Ketchup?)

So, I'm already off to a bad start on the whole consistent blogging thing, but we're not going to let who we have been define who we are and who we're going to be. Right, team?

(Sidenote: We used to call my brother Marcus "Coach" because he would give us spontaneous pep talks and motivtional speeches on occasion. I think we egged him on.  Second Side Note: you know you missed my side notes and my story-telling ADD.)

But the purpose of this post (yes, there is one), is to explain what I have been up to for the last almost three years of life.  That was a quick three years. And it's been pretty eventful.

So first, and I told you this, I left for an ecclesiastical mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Remember how excited I was to go to Argentina? Well, that didn't quite go as planned. I spent the first 7.5 months of my 18 month mission waiting for a visa in the very exotic mission of Ogden, Utah.

Quite honestly, and to my own surprise, I loved it. I made some amazing friends. I fell in love with being a missionary. I fell in love with the Spanish language. I fell in love with the feeling of caring for other people so much that I cared less and less about myself.

And after I decided I was good and I didn't need to go down to Argentina, my visa came through (which was actually just a tourist visa, but that will be another story for another day). And I was electrified. Argentina was like nothing I had every dreamed of. The people were brusk and passionate, the food was bland but delicious in its own way, the streets were cold and rainy, the language was almost unrecognizable.  And boy oh boy, there will be plenty of stories to tell about all of this.

Then I got home in August of 2014, and I went back to school to finish my last year at Stanford University, studying economics. It was a blast actually. I lived with girls I had never met before from my church and they became some of my best friends, my best dancing partners.

Somewhere towards the end of that school year (I actually know exactly when this last one happened), I went on my first date with the love of my life, the man I am currently dating. I fell in love, actually (I said "love, actually"). But there's more to come on that too.

After graduation in June, I moved to Utah to start working at a tech startup. I have a very vague role, but what I do is loosely consulting, loosely a billion other things that I could never begin to explain, nor would I want to. Because I have had a sea of experiences at this job as well - some good, some interesting, and a LOT of learning experiences that I'd love to share here as well. Some of these are work related, and some have to do with moving to the Utah County community after really enjoying my time in the Stanford community. Its a pretty big leap.

What else? I traveled a ton. I flew free standby flights that made me laugh and made me cry and helped me have some of the most amazing and memorable experiences of my life.

So, if you want to hear more about any of that, as well as mundane anecdotes, unsolicited opinions, and a plethora of selfies, then you should just call me Danny Zuko because I'm the one that you want ;)