Favorites: Saturday Edition

Saturday, June 2, 2012

There is a feeling that overcomes you after a day at the local swimming pool. After a day of sitting in the sun, reading a good book, eating pizza, laughing, and of course swimming in cool water, you get home and your body just shuts down. The sunburn settles in, the tan forms, and you become a waterlogged, tired, yet satisfied human being.You take a shower to wash off the chlorine, you come out smelling like coconuts and palm trees. You pull on an oversized t-shirt and shorts and you call it a day. You are too tired to eat food, too tired to go hang out with friends, too tired to write a Friday Favorites post on your blog. So you wake up the next morning and decide that you can't leave your bloggin' friends hanging you have to write a post. So you do it. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm bringing you my Favorites of the week on Saturday. Here we go.

1. Swim day with my sister Krystal. We had a good time. It was June 1st, basically the first day of summer! We had to go swimming. We had cute new swimsuits. When you have a cute swimsuit you just want to go try it out in a swimming pool. That's how we roll. Speaking of swimsuits...this leads me right into my next favorite/disappointment.

2. My swimsuit. It was a favorite when I got it this week. It was pretty swanky. Neon Pink, 40's style one piece, flirty skirt and ruching. It was adorable! Until...I got out of the pool. The neon pink had faded into a pinky/purplish, dull pepto bismol color. NOT cute anymore. The neon color was bright and flattering. This new shade made me look sick. My swimsuit had faded and my tiredness turned into crankiness in a matter of 5 seconds. Right after I publish this post, I am going to go return it. Word to the wise, don't buy an expensive swimsuit that's a fabulous color. It disappoints you.

3. Pizza! Homemade, store bought, take out. I love pizza. My mom makes some pretty tasty homemade pizza. It has to be one of my favorite foods. What are some of your favorite foods? Have you had anything especially tasty this week? Comment below!

4. Roots by Alex Haley
 899 pages of history, slavery, and American saga.

5. My friends, oh how I love them. 

6. Dad
My dad is one of the greatest people I know. He is full of love and compassion. He works very hard and sometimes doesn't get the credit he deserves. He always says the right thing right when you need it. He is the best. I love him.

7. Frankie, my older brother. This summer we have grown closer and it has been really wonderful to talk to him and get to know him. I love him too.

That's all for the favorites today friends. Make sure to comment below with your favorites. Have an awesome weekend. Eat good food, surround yourself with good people, and since summer has started, please be safe.

6 comments:

  1. ( wooohoo! I’ve been waiting all week for this day :) )
    I love the way you described that after-pool feeling. TOTALLY true.
    Aw, Dani! I am sorry to hear about your swimsuit. That same thing happened to mine a month ago. The chlorine got it BAD... Mine was way swanky and cute, too. My condolences to you.
    I want to get to know my youngest sister and only brother better. I feel like the age difference has kinda made it hard. And it's even more of a challenge now that I am at college. I'm glad you're getting to know your bro better :)
    And dads are the best, huh? Especially Heavenly Father. He always has our backs. He's always routing for is. He's the best example of perfect love.
    And I love love. I'm obsessed with love. I can't wait until I can love a man perfectly and have children that I love perfectly.
    Yesterday in sacrament meeting in my home ward there was a baby blessing. It was so beautiful. I have always been like, "oh, yay, baby! Yay blessings!" But I really felt the spirit of WHY we have blessings. Just think of when you go to a new school or get a new job. You're kinda like a baby. You have no idea what you're doing and you feel so out of place and then you get your supervisor to tell you what to do and you don't feel so lost anymore. Blessings are kinda like that. 'Cause our spirits are more aware of things than our bodies are when we're babies. We're freaking out. We're crying. We don't know what the junk is happening. But when our dad gives us our baby blessing, it's kinda like a message to our spirit like, "Hey. I'm your dad here on Earth. It's gonna be alright. You're gonna do great. Go kick some evil butt---Heavenly Father is there to help you out."
    Seriously. Our spirits are way advanced when we're kids, we just aren't really aware of it because our minds aren't developed enough.
    Have you ever really watched a baby?
    I have. I've noticed that emotion on their face--their confusion, their awe, their frustration--as they try to grab a spoon. They smack their little mitt on the table, trying to grab the utensil, but they keep on missing or they can't quite grab it. They cry and their soul's thought process shows through on their face: "Why can't I do this?!!?! Mom made it look so easy." There is so much intelligence and light in babies.
    You know, everything really does testify that He is, that He lives, and that there is a God. Especially babies. And He reminds us every day that He's there by giving us hugs.
    He hugs me every day. He hugs you every day. Multiple times. It could be a person you know that hugs you in His behalf; It could be the color of the sky today that He knows you will just LOVE; It could be a cloud shaped like a pig; It could be your favorite song playing on the radio; it could be the sunrise or the sunset. He is omnipotent and hugs us however he feels we need it. I love that.

    I know that was kind of a gigantic tangent. But anyway. God is marvelous. :)


    Anyway. On to my Saturday/Friday Favorites:

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  2. 1. Talking to my dad one-on-one on a two-hour car ride.
    My dad picked me up from Provo on Saturday night to take me to Ogden for my friend’s wedding reception. As much as I love taking public transit and making new friends, I love strengthening friendships I already have---like the one i have with my daddy.
    My dad always asks me how my love life is and stuff. I always tell him what’s going on. I’ve always had a love interest, and I’ve always told him all the things. Each time he would express worry that each man I told him about would break my heart, or not be a good provider, or not be good enough for me.
    This time ‘round was different.
    I told him that I don’t have a love interest and that I’m not dating anyone. But I did tell him about my man best friend. And this was the first time I saw him worried that a man would be so good to me, that a man would be a good provider, that a man would be so perfect for me. The funny thing is that I am not even dating this man. But I’ve never loved anyone so much in my life, no one has ever made me so happy, and no one has ever been such a good influence on me as he has been. Sooo.....that's it. We're just friends that love each other. And I am just fine with that. I don't need more. But that doesn't mean I don't want more.
    (Haha, sorry that my Friday favorites always wander to the topic of my man bestie, but he’s my favorite part of my hectic life right now. He keeps my world at bay and stuff.)

    2. Seeing my high school best friend at her wedding reception.
    I cried a lot. I ate the entire table of refreshments twice. She’s moving to the east coast, so it’s pretty likely that I won’t be seeing her for several years...or until I get married. Ahaha. But this girl is great. She was waiting for a missionary (that she didn’t marry) when I was semi-waiting for one as well (I haven’t married him and I won’t ever be marrying him) and she and I shared pains and hugged me while I cried for an entire month. I’ll never forget that.

    3. Hearing my mom bare her testimony.
    This is a rare occurrence for her. Although I know my mom has always had a very strong testimony of our Savior, she usually only shows it through her actions. It was nice to have her up there as an example to our family. I’m really glad I went home for the weekend.

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  3. 4.Breaking the honor code.
    Ahaha, that sounds really bad. But I promise you, it isn’t. I was talking to one of my guy friends at his apartment. He is the chair of the council I’m on -- temple/family history and temporal/spiritual welfare-- and we started out just talking about random fluff. Just how our weeks went, then we started talking about our goals in life, our worries, then our most influential people in life (i, of course, mentioned my man best friend and actually you and your blog as well), and then about our calling--he had some concerns about the people in our ward and he was asking me if I knew how to help them and stuff. We talked about other things, too. The spirit was really there while we were talking. It was a really deep, uplifting, good conversation we had that strengthened our friendship. We started talking at 10:30 and stopped talking at 1 AM...so I was at his apartment an hour past curfew. We didn’t have a clock around, so we didn’t know. But I think Heavenly Father understands and it’s kosher and stuff. We were being righteous and stuff. :)

    5. Finding out that I actually might be able to let another artist have my heart.
    So. . . something that has been the battle of my heart MY WHOLE LIFE is deciding whether or not I could ever marry another artist. There has always been the fear of too much emulation or jealousy of the other person’s style or skill. Spending all Tuesday and Wednesday doing art with my man best friend helped me realize that I could ACTUALLY get along with another artist as a partner. He invited me over to do art with him. He was working on a digital piece when I came over. He was "done" and asked me if I had any suggestions. I gave him some and then he applied them. He had 3 other "done" drafts, each time taking my advice and applying it to his art to change it. The end results were AMAZING.
    I had piece that he helped me on as well. You might have seen it. It’s the sunlit room I did. It wasn’t a sunlit room before he told me to fix a couple things. Now that piece looks way better than I ever could have imagined.
    Seeing how he and I helped each other solve those problems lovingly, without jealousy--with complete unselfishness--really opened my eyes and heart to the possibility of marrying another artist. I guess with some artists it still wouldn’t work, but if he has the disposition and personality of my man friend, it’ll work out quite nicely.


    6.Sitting around the campfire at the ward campout and singing.
    There were about 20 of us gathered around a guitar player. We sang/swayed/hummed/whistled to some Beatles, Sufjan Stephens, John Mayer, and John Denver and some hymns.
    While we listened, we laughed, socialized, and cooked things over the fire. It was so relaxing and unifying. I just looked around at everyone’s faces in the glow of the fire, and watched the body of the guitar glinting in the flame, and listened to the laughter of my friends rise like the fire embers into the sky--and then I thought: life is beautiful. Yes, life is hard to handle sometimes. Sometimes your heart gets broken, sometimes your loved ones die, sometimes you don't want to go to school. But it's times with good people, good music, good food, and good hearts that make all the bad junk in life worth it.

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  4. 7. Carving a watermelon with my man best friend.
    I had a really long, good, hard workout at the gym Monday afternoon. When I got out of the gym, I had a REALLY intense craving for a watermelon. So I bought one and texted my friend to ask if he wanted to help me eat it. He said that, well, HECK YES he did. At first we were gonna just eat it, but then he had the idea to carve it. Both of us had never done it before, so we just kinda dove in and started to carve some guy's face....and it was HIDEOUSLY HILARIOUS how ugly it was. But we were still proud of it. We took a picture with it and stuff and then cut it up and ate it. Good times.


    I have more to say, I am sure, but I should stop here. I've said enough. HAHA.
    But I am sorry I am a couple days late replying! Been with the fam. :)
    I am sorry for being a

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    Replies
    1. hahaha...disregard that last "I am sorry for being a"....it was an accident ;)

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  5. Isn't it wonderful that we can find things that we just love during the week? We can reflect and realize: Wow that was horrible, this was great, he was cute, that feeling was the best, my Heavenly Father loves me. I LOVE that! Thank you for sharing all these beautiful things with me Karly!

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