I'd Rather Have a Yacht: A Valentine's Day Guide

    Many people have very specific feelings about Valentine’s Day. Some people love it, some people hate it. Some sit at their homes hoping that an attractive individual they’ve never met is going to ring their doorbell with a bouquet of flowers, and others spend their time weeping through the pages of Twilight. It’s an odd holiday. I, for one, am fairly indifferent. Certainly I enjoy a good holiday, particularly if it includes free chocolate and people watching at the grocery store where grown men are trying to decide between buying a 4 foot tall stuffed owl holding a sign reading, ‘Owl always love you’ and a ginormous stuffed toad with a sign reading, ‘Valentine, you’re toadly awesome.’ However, I do think celebrating a holiday that features a baby with a bow and arrow is creepy and also incredibly dangerous. There are people out there who are spending hundreds of dollars to “baby-proof” their homes with window locks, stove top knobs, and baby gates, but no one seems to bat an eye when they see a picture of an infant with a stick sharpened enough to spear someone. Whatever. Because I would consider myself to have a very successful love life (I once sat through 24 minutes of A Walk to Remember, I spoke more than 4 words to a male in June 2011, and someone once left me a stuffed bunny on my porch, which was probably from my young women’s leaders, but there was no name on it so there is no proof it wasn’t from a boy) I decided to create a list of tips for celebrating this Valentine’s Day.

Tip #1. If you’re single, avoid getting defensive. For every unmarried, single adult, there are 57 married adults asking why they’re not married. Questions like these are often followed with observations of what’s exactly wrong with said unmarried person and advice that is usually as helpful as a lifeguard yelling down to a drowning swimmer to ‘swim harder.’ My personal favorite was when someone told me to at least try to get married this year. If you don’t have a sense of humor, it’s easy to take offense to comments like these. While filling out my taxes, I came across a page where I had to state whether I was married or single. Next to the question read the words “Explain this’. EXPLAIN THIS? EXPLAIN why I’m not married? I began to tick off the reasons: I’m so intelligent I make others feel like dullards. Similar to the sun, my beauty is blinding to others. No one wants to marry a person who would rather travel via elephant than car. In the middle of creating my list, I realized that the ‘Explain this’ portion of my tax form was probably not a free response question, but an explanation for people who get confused when filing their taxes.

Tip #2. Whether you’re single or married, everyone should stop using the word ‘bae.’ For those who aren’t familiar, bae is a word meaning ‘before anyone else.’ People have started using it to describe their significant other, but the only time this word is appropriately used is when saying, “Pizza is bae.” (This is used when your mouth is full of pizza, preferably of the deep dish Chicago variety, and saying “before anyone else” is impossible.)

Tip #3. Some people take Valentine’s Day seriously. Respect that. Every February while in elementary school my mother purchased a box of Valentines cards for me to address to each student in my class. No matter if they were Spongebob, Harry Potter, or Spiderman cards, I always made sure to read the prewritten message on the card carefully and decide which friend should get which card. After all, I wasn’t going to give the boy I secretly liked a card with a secondary character like Hagrid on it that read, “I hope your Valentine’s Day is magical.” Saying something like that is equivalent to someone writing the acronym for ‘have a great summer’, ‘HAGS’, in your high school yearbook. Instead I firmly believed that my crush deserved a card with a main character displayed on the front with a clever and flirty saying such as, “You’ve put a spell on me, Valentine.” On the subject of cards, make sure there is candy on them, or it’s just a waste of paper altogether.  

Tip #4. Take good care of your Valentines cards. Regifting cards rarely works out. When I was in the fifth grade, I gave out Finding Nemo cards, very carefully addressing a very thoughtful card with the fish, Dory, on it to the boy I liked. When it came time to drop each Valentine in my fellow classmates’ boxes, I realized I couldn’t find that particular Valentine. I panicked. Valentine’s Day would be a waste without that card. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I grabbed a Valentine I had previously addressed to someone else, scribbled their name out, and wrote the name of the boy that I liked on the card. To this day I firmly believe the reason we’re not married is because instead of a funny Dory card, I had to give him a card with the clown fish, Marlin, on it, probably next to an ultra-lame and unromantic saying.

Tip # 5. If you’re going to spend your Valentine’s Day feeling lonely and unloved, find a Valentine. This first step is learning to talk to the opposite gender. (Please refer to the image above featuring my incredibly intelligent brother) If you’re going to spend your day alone, but not feeling lonely and unloved, the great news is that you don’t even need to learn how to interact with other individuals! All awkwardness is suddenly gone.  

 

Tip #6. There’s something about Valentine’s Day that makes people obsessed with the shape of a heart. Just because it includes hearts, people think it makes a great gift. Don’t buy a gigantic stuffed penguin just because it’s holding a heart. Time doesn’t need to be spent cutting your sweetheart’s sandwich into a heart, because then there is less sandwich to eat. Heart shaped boxes filled with chocolate taste the exact same as normal boxes of chocolate. Conversation hearts are disgusting. Better gift ideas: large sums of money, a helicopter, or a pet elephant. (If you’re really insistent on the heart shape idea, you can probably ask the elephant to make his trunk in the shape of a heart.)

Tip #7. Before you post something on social media think to yourself, “Do I really mean this?” Valentine’s Day is filled with Instagrams of red roses, engagements rings, and chocolates, all captioned with “I couldn’t be happier.” I fully endorse people being happy. However, could you really not be happier? A more realistic Instagram caption would read, “I am so happy my boyfriend brought me these roses. Nonetheless, I could be happier if he bought me a yacht. #blessed”

HAGS and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hooked on Phonics: Life Lessons from the 1st Grade

Dear Hooked on Phonics,

I would like to demand a refund. Sure, my mother never actually purchased your educational materials for me, but I watched enough of your commercials explaining your products with goofy xylophone duets going on in the background that I firmly believe I’ve learned all I need to know from your program. I believed this, of course, until I actually had to teach a phonics lesson and realized I don’t even know what phonics is. You see, I’ve spent the past month student teaching in the first grade. My teacher asked me if I could teach a phonics lesson about the long o and the long u sound.   

Easy, right? WRONG. I was only 2 minutes into my lesson when I realized that I had no idea what I was teaching and was in the middle of a detailed hate mail to the American colonists for not making their own language when they founded their own country. This situation made me reflect on life. Is phonics really even important? No. Phonics is not important for first grade. After you make this groundbreaking discovery for yourself, your whole world will feel like it’s falling apart, just like your company. Never fear. Sure, phonics isn’t important, but there’s lots of other very important things people need to learn. There are lots of educational videos to make that have nothing to do with phonics. Here are just a few things that I’ve learned from first grade that should be included in your new curriculum:

1. Humans are born with a certain set of skills. You don’t need to teach an infant how to breath. You don’t need to teach infants how to use their incredibly high voice box to keep everyone awake all night long. One of the skills that humans were not born with, however, is the ability to use a paper clip. During a lesson I asked my students to take the cards they were using, put them in a pile, paperclip them together, and bring them to me so we could move on to the next part of the lesson. One minute went by. Two minutes. Five minutes. MILLENIUMS. I walked over to a child to see what was taking so long, and was horrified to see one hand holding papers, one hand holding a paper clip, and the two constantly running into one another, and if smashing them together hard enough would fix the problem. This skill is a necessity, folks. If six year olds can’t handle paper clips, I’m pretty sure they can’t master subject-verb agreement.  

2. First graders should be taught a lot of words, including but not limited to the words unicorns, ice cream, hot air balloons, and bicycle. First graders, however, should not be saying the F word. I had the privilege to teach a darling class. When I read my morning message to them, they were darling. When they went to recess, they were darling. When I taught them math, they were darling. When I walked them to lunch, they were darling. When I was being observed by my mentor teacher who was grading me on my lesson, there’s a kid saying the F word. The great news is that on the observation sheet there is no space to dock a teacher on allowing children to corrupt others around them. (The bad news is that there’s probably a spot on the observation sheet to note that I laughed for hours afterwards.)

3. Honesty. First graders tell it like it is. One day at school my student said to me, “Miss Hardy, my grandma would like what you’re wearing today.” And then I stared at her, and she stared right back at me, and that was all that needed to be said. The outfit was never worn again.

4. Lying. First grade taught me that you can use dishonesty to make other people feel like the things they’ve done in life are ALMOST as cool as what you’ve done. After telling a student I go to BYU, she said, “That’s cool. I also went to BYU. Except I was two years old when I went.”

5. Speaking of lying, they’ll believe anything you say. Even if what you say is, “Of course your sunflower seed will grow! I gave you dirt, seeds, and water, so why wouldn’t it?!” Let me tell you why it wouldn’t: the teachers did not prepare the soil beforehand AS DIRECTED ON THE SOIL PACKAGE. I hope all those parents enjoy having a cup of dirt sitting at their house for the next 80 years waiting for something to sprout.

6. First graders do not understand the difference between a comment and a question. One minute you’re explaining about the concept of fact families and asking if anyone has any questions, and the next you’re sitting through a three hour story of how one girl went with her family on a cruise to Cabo.

7. First graders are under the belief that they can take over the world. Upon seeing that someone  had accidentally mixed up the daily schedule and put music in front of math, a girl pounded her fist on the desk and said loudly to the class, “We need to change the daily schedule. WHO’S WITH ME?!?” Suddenly I had a raging rebellion on my hands. (Rebels that don’t know how to use paperclips, of course.)

8. Pinterest and Google with catch on to the fact that you’re a teacher. After googling the best ways to teach missing addend and pinning fun fact family games, the “pins recommended for you” section no longer includes jet packs and cookie butter, but instead color wheels, strategies to teach counting, and an Idiot’s Guide to Functioning in the World.

9. Teaching is like living on a comedy show. In the middle of a lesson you ask a student why they’re crying, and they explain to you that they’ve been staring straight into the lights for the past 10 minutes. Soon half your class is in tears and your favorite F-word saying student is frantically commanding everyone to put their arms above their foreheads to create shade from the ceiling lights.


I loved working with some of BYU's best and brightest student teachers! 

10. Kids know exactly what to say. One morning I came to school feeling particularly sad when a girl came up to me and told me I was beautiful. They make sure to keep you nice and humble as well. While I was turning a jump rope for my students during recess, they requested that instead of chanting jump rope rhymes, we sing the songs from Frozen as they jumped. (Things I would rather do instead of singing Frozen songs: eat lima beans, run a marathon on heated coals, or parallel park) But, because they requested it, I belted ‘Let it Go’ for the whole playground to hear. One of my students told me afterwards, “I think you’ll need to practice singing for a month or two before you become Elsa.”

11. First graders are happy. When I asked my students what they wanted to be when they grew up, one boy said, “I want to be a worker at Krispy Kreme!!” and the rest of the students shrieked in agreement. They’re not worrying about making lots of money or dieting or who they’re going to marry or what their major should be. They’re not worried about making eye contact with a person you kind of know but not well enough to say hello, and they’re not worried about global warming or if children should be vaccinated. They’re just finding something that makes them happy and being just that: happy. When I took my students to recess, I noticed my favorite student (Yes, I have favorite students. Obviously it was the kid who said the F word) was playing alone. I felt bad, figuring he was lonely, until I saw him strike a pose in the middle of the blacktop. All of a sudden he started spinning and jumping, waving his arms around like a Kung Fu Master. He lunged, he sashayed, he leapt, fighting imaginary zombies wherever he went. On his face was one of the biggest, happiest grins that I’ve ever seen. There he was, having a solo dance number in the middle of a hundred kids. The next time I don’t want to do something because I’m afraid I’ll look stupid, I’ll remember him, and do it anyway.  

12. Above all else, everyone should spend some time teaching in the classroom. There will be nights where you stay up until 3 in the morning modifying the perfect text about giraffes so your students can actually understand what they’re reading. There will be hours and hours you spend teaching the students the vowel combinations to make the long o sound, and one girl will still raise her hand and claim that the letters ‘ta’ make the o sound. But at the end of the day, the six year old that swears like a sailor will come up to you and wiggle his fingers into yours and say, “Miss Hardy, I love you. You should go to the office and get my mom’s phone number. Then you can come over to my house and we can play.” Moments like that are certainly more important that knowing phonics.

I hope to see my refund in the mail soon in either cold hard American cash or butterscotch brownies.

In the utmost sincerity,

Rachel

 

 

State of the Union

     

On Tuesday evening I sat down to watch President Obama’s State of the Union Address. Apparently this is what mature adults do, or at least adults whose tv shows have been postponed for the address. I’ve watched parts of the address with my parents before, but never have I sat down to watch the entire thing. The first fifteen minutes or so was our president shaking hands with lots of other important people, so by the time he finally spoke I was more than ready to hear every word. Unfortunately, as soon as no more than 10 words came out of President Obama’s mouth, the crowd erupted in cheers. The clapping went on for a moment, and then the president said another 10 words. Again, applause rang through the capitol. After a minute or two the cheers were silenced. Barack opened his mouth again. Not only did he say one sentence, but TWO sentences! The crowd erupted into cheers and THERE WAS A STANDING OVATION. I repeat: THERE WAS A STANDING OVATION DURING THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE SPEECH AND NO ONE EVEN WON A TRIP TO THE BAHAMAS. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good standing ovation as much as anyone else, but I was beginning to think that Barack had planned seven minutes worth of speaking and had allotted 49 hours towards cheering. Fortunately the crowd started to let him speak more, he was able to say more than 12 words without fireworks going off, and he delivered a great address. However, as I was watching the cheering I thought to myself, “If I was President, I would make sure there would definitely be no clapping at my State of the Union Address.” Then I realized that if there would be no clapping at my address, I would actually have time to speak to America, so I wrote down exactly what I thought American needed to know: (Note: I tried to email this to Barack as he was standing at the Capitol, but he must not have had his iPhone on him)

First, I would start off by giving the country the Webster’s dictionary definition of the word ‘America.’ (I’ve learned from every youth talk during Sacrament meeting that this is the only way to start a talk.) There will obviously be no applause, but I will pause .078 seconds for a small chortle.

Next, I will talk about the great advances in technology that we saw during 2014. The most important, of course, being the pulley system. (For those Americans who are uninformed: my kitchen window faces the kitchen window of our neighboring apartment. We got together with them to create a pulley system between the two apartments using some pulleys, a strong cord, and my adorable flower girl basket.) Next to visiting my parent’s home, this has proved to be the easiest way to accumulate free food. Not only are all my neighbors nice, but they’re also good cooks. Unfortunately for them they probably saw the error of their ways the day the system was installed and in exchange for heavenly homemade egg rolls, our apartment offering were blackened cookies that were supposed to be cooked for 7 minutes, not 7 hours. Nevertheless, trade and technology is going well on that front.  

Now would be the time to make promises. Politicians get a bad rap for promising things they’ll never do, so I feel like if they’re going to lie they might as well lie big. During his address President Obama talked about making community college free. I think this is awesome, and I’m all for a more educated country. However, I would not only try to make community college free, but I’d also give every American a free jet pack. How else will people get to college or work? (There’s probably some political minded person out there thinking, “Rachel’s just using satire when she’s suggesting giving everyone a jetpack because she really thinks that sending people to college for free is incredibly expensive and absurd sounding.” WRONG. Jet packs are just super awesome, and so is college.) After this little bit of my speech people will be very tempted to jump from their seats and applaud, but I will wait only .49 seconds for people to breathe in excitedly before I move on.   

My next item of business would be to get rid of the acronym POTUS, which apparently stands for ‘President of the United States.’ Upon reading it the first time on Twitter, I thought it was either a bill waiting to be passed or a deadly disease. This will be the part in the speech where people suggest new names, hopefully with someone suggesting ‘Queen Rachel.’

After that, I will move on to the thanking portion of the speech. This is similar to the Academy Awards, where I will thank my mom, dad, siblings, friends, teachers, and all my peers who created and filled out class google docs during my time at college. The next optional part of the speech will include the unthanks, where I will unthank all those who did not vote for me and the pizza man who promised my pizza would be delivered in 10 minutes and instead arrived in 30. (That part of the speech will only be given if rotten tomatoes have not already been thrown.)

Following is the fact portion, where I will spew off facts about our country, making sure to end all sentences with “…or is it?!” and a loud cackle. For example: “The tax rate is going down….or is it?!?”

After all is said and done, I’d make sure to remind the citizens of the country how wonderful they are. Sure, there are people who lie or cheat or steal. There are people who will just take advantage of others and only look out for themselves. But the good people are outshining the bad. There are people out there that are buying lunch for the person behind them at the drive through, and there are people who are choosing to be honest. There are mothers and fathers everywhere whose first thought when they wake up is how to help their kids. There are people who will let you in on a busy lane on the freeway and roommates who randomly make your bed or text you to let you know they care. There are neighbors that are shoveling sidewalks and strangers smiling and Americans changing the world for better. Let that be you.  

And then, with no applause, I will take off in my jet pack through the secret skylight in the Capitol.

Now is the Time for Revolution

     Last week, as I was spending my Christmas break at my parent’s house with most of my siblings, the topic of Christmas cards came up. Every year my mom sends out a card and a letter, giving a little snippet of things each person in the family has done in the past year. Some Christmas cards have not turned out as well as others. For example, two years ago I sat down to read the card and read all about the incredible escapades of my highly intelligent brother graduating with his highly intelligent master’s degree, along with his highly intelligent wife, who were both expecting a highly intelligent son. I then read about my incredibly talented brother who was the president of an incredibly talented club. I then reached my paragraph of the letter: "Rachel is in her second year at BYU and majoring in Elementary Education. When she isn't spending time with family or friends, she is eating at Cafe Rio." THAT WAS IT. Apparently eating a Cafe Rio pork salad is equivalent in coolness to earning a master’s degree. The letter then moved on to talk about my next brother, who was also graduating, played with his band at Carnegie Hall, was getting his mission call, and solving world hunger in his free time. (In total honesty, this was the best and most hilarious Christmas card my mother has sent out.)

  Because I suffer from middle child syndrome, I obviously believe that my section should be the biggest and best part of the Christmas card. I will be the second person to rave about how talented and incredible my siblings are, (The first would be my great-grandmother, who before passing away a few years ago would insist that one of the Hardy children was going places, and it was definitely the youngest child. Upon receiving school pictures of us she praised me on how beautiful I finally had become. Tragically, I had to point out the picture was actually of my sister, and I still looked the same as always.) but I am always trying to figure out how to make my section a little bit more important. As I was discussing this with my siblings last week, my brother informed me that there was no way I would be taking home the bragging rights for 2015 because he's getting married. (The joke is on them, though, as I plan to insert myself in all of their wedding photos.) My sister did not take my brother's challenge lightly, and informed us all that not only will she be married to make it in the family card, but she will also have a child. I told them all that not only will I graduate college, but I planned to spend some time in jail as to really spice up the card. (Just to clarify, my sister and I were both joking. She will not be a child bride, and I will not be spending time in jail, unless my brother and his fiancée decide to sue me for photobombing all wedding photos.)

     I've never been very good at making New Year's Resolutions. Perhaps this is because the word 'resolution' and I have never been very agreeable with one another. (This is because as I child I gave a primary talk, written by my dad, all about making resolutions at the beginning of the year. I insisted that I would read my own talk, not stooping to the level of illiteracy of the Sunbeams. Unfortunately I had heard of the words 'resolution' and 'revolution' and figured they were the same thing. Wrong. So there I was, standing in front of the primary, telling the other kids that one of the prophets had counseled that "Now is the time for revolution!!" Fortunately I did not create a rebellion, but I did hear my family members laughing for the next 15 years.) However, I figured that if I wanted to reach my goal of being the best part of next year's Christmas card, I needed to shape up, so I've compiled a list.

     Rachel's 2015 Resolutions 

Do what you say you're going to do: One of my best friends, Emmie, loves Christmas. She got her advent calendar weeks in advance this year. Every time we went to the grocery store, she would tell me I needed to get into the holiday spirit and buy one. I informed her that I didn't need to buy one because I could make my own personal calendar. A bite sized piece of chocolate every day wasn't enough to get me excited, so I told her my own calendar would be filled with an apple pie one day, 3 bowls of ice cream the next day, a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies the day after that, all coming up to Christmas day. I used this excuse every single time Emmie told me to buy an advent calendar, until one day she pointed out that my calendar doesn't work because I didn't actually eat all that food. This taught me the importance of doing what I say I'm going to do. In 2015 I will make an outrageous advent calendar, and I will eat the whole thing. 

When you start something, finish it: This past year Emmie and I went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, El Azteca. I told the cashier that I wanted the nachos, and we sat down to wait for our food. As we were catching up on the day's events, a small woman with a platter at least one and a half feet long walked out of the kitchen. She had a gigantic smile that covered her entire face and almost started laughing as she neared our table. She was carrying more than her weight in nachos, right over to my table. (Unfortunately the picture does not do the continent-sized platter justice) She laughed as she set it down on the table, and the cashier laughed from the front of the restaurant. Even other restaurant goers were pointing and laughing, because there I was, sitting behind a platter of nachos that could have fed a large mariachi band. Emmie and I got a pretty good laugh, and I hardly made a dent in them before I asked the waiter to get me 29 to-go boxes. This year, 2015, I'm going to finish what I start. I'm going to order the nachos and eat the whole thing. When I say I'm going to take a nap, I'm going to nap all afternoon. When I start watching a new show on tv, I will do no homework until I finish the entire season.

No Regrets: This is a year to live life with no regrets. After Thanksgiving, my mom sent me home with almost an entire pumpkin pie. It was heavenly. I had many delicious slices. Unfortunately, one day I put it in the back of the fridge along with a bunch of vegetables that I pretend do not exist. And then, like the vegetables, I forgot that the delicious pie was in my fridge. A few weeks later I pulled the pie out, mortified. I had ruined a perfectly good pie. I had taken all the sunshine in the world and had thrown it in the back of the fridge with a bunch of black tomatoes. Sometimes there's a voice in our minds that tells us that we're not good enough, and that we never will be. Sometimes that voice tells us that we're not pretty enough. Sometimes it tells us we're not smart or funny enough. The little voice in my head rings loud and clear, specifically on fast Sundays, screaming, "Remember that delectable pie you wasted?! You could've solved world hunger with that, you dummy!!" So then I go home and eat everything there is in the fridge, in order to not be wasteful. In 2015 I am NOT going to let that pie go bad, thus living life without regret.

I was once taught in a seminary class how to make and keep goals. The one particular thing that I remember is that it is important to reward yourself for keeping your goals. So, if I meet all my goals, I am going to have a banquet in my honor, on the moon, hosted by President Barack Obama. There will plenty of nachos for you all. Hope to see you there.  

Sorry You Didn't Receive the Gift that is Actually Nonexistent: A Christmas Gift Giving Guide

Do give coupons: Remember when you were in first grade and your school teacher helped you make coupons for your parents for free car washes and breakfast in bed? My parents thought they were so cute they wouldn't even use them, they just put them in the "cute things Rachel did, but not cute enough to put them on the fridge" pile. The great news is that these coupons never stopped being awesome! I still give a stack of coupons to both my parents every year and they are always greeted with "Wow!" and "I never would've guessed that this is what you would get me!" If you are good at ignoring sarcasm, they sound pretty excited. There are many benefits to giving coupons as gifts. Obviously it fits well into my college Christmas present budget, which is approximately $0.02 per family member. Another great thing is that my track record for my dad using my coupons is currently 0 for 389. I could promise to take my dad to the moon and would be in the back yard, busily preparing for take off and my dad probably wouldn't even use them. This is great because since they are never used, you can promise to do anything and never actually have to do it. Another great thing about coupons is that you can get really creative with them. It is not rare to give my mother a coupon granting her permission to take me to Hawaii, or letting my dad take me to Chicago to see a Cubs game. I have also been known to make coupons offering the service of my siblings, which usually goes over very well. (As long as "very well" means that my siblings get really confused but don't take me to jail for forgery.)

Don't buy something for someone that someone else wanted. When I was younger, I really wanted a life sized Barbie doll. I had seen them throughout the holiday ads and mentioned it to my parents, but as the financially responsible 8 year old I was, I realized it was way too expensive to expect under the tree. Christmas came and went, and I probably wasn't even very sad I didn't receive it because as a financially responsible 8 year old I most likely realized my parents were saving up for my college education. You know, just your mature 8 year old. A few Christmases passed, and my wish list changed from Barbies to things like palm pilots, since every 13 year old needs a good personal digital assistant. (You think I'm joking, but I got one and it totally rocked. I was rarely late to any play dates and I always knew how much my parents should tip the waiter.) The morning of Christmas, my little sister had a gigantic box to open. As she tore off the wrapping, there, in all it's glory, stood a life sized Barbie. And it didn't even have my name on it. I think my sister must have said something like, "Oh, well that's pretty cool." Pretty cool?!? Pretty cool!? Santa brings you a 3 foot Barbie doll with two different outfits and clips for her hair AND YOU JUST THINK IT'S PRETTY COOL?!? A gift my sister didn't even ask for. So there I was, opening up my digital planner and started my first journal entry entitled, 'Santa can Apparently Bring Worse Things than Coal, Like Broken Dreams.'

Do wrap your present in an even bigger box, and then put puzzle pieces in said box. This completely throws people off when they're trying to guess what you actually purchased for them.

Don't ever ask, "Well what do you think I got you?" This gives time for people to list off things that they actually wanted to receive from you, instead of the coupon you created for them granting them permission to do your dishes. Set low expectations.

Do think things through before giving a gift. When I am purchasing a gift for someone, I like to think, "Would the person I am giving this gift to use it to make my life miserable?" For example, my mother is a big fan of practical gifts. She loves receiving gifts that make her life easier, and doesn't really mind receiving household items. However, if my mom asked for a vacuum for Christmas, I would most certainly not purchase her a vacuum because then she would actually make me use it. It's important to remember everything is a risk, unfortunately. One year my mom mentioned she would like some Christmas-y dishes for the holiday season, so I made sure to purchase the dessert platter instead of the vegetable tray. Imagine my dismay when the day after the platter was opened it was used to hold carrots, none of which were covered in Nutella.

Don't forget to make/buy gifts for people you probably should give to. If you do, that person you forgot to shop for will probably stop by your house unexpectedly to give you a super thoughtful gift featuring everything you like in the world, probably costing 7 trillion dollars. You will then be forced to run into the other room, grab something from your stocking that Santa Claus just delivered to you, put a bow on it, and give it to your friend. Your family will be in the other room, laughing at you. This experience once again showed that my decision making skills start to crumble during pressure, joining the many times I've been walking in the dark and have started to run away from dark, dangerous animals that turn out to be people on skateboards.

Do talk up your gift if it can't be fact checked. More than once in my life, someone has said, "I can't wait to see what you got me! I'm sure it's awesome!" More than once in my life I have also explained that I have shot off fireworks or rented a plane to write in the sky, 'Congratulations!' or 'Happy Birthday!'. This is totally fine because it can't be fact checked. If someone said they never saw it, I explain how sad it was they must not have been looking at the sky because the gift was THE COOLEST THING EVER. This way the receiver of the nonexistent gift feels sad, not you, the thoughtless person that you are.

May you all give dessert plates that are used as dessert plates, and may you receive the life sized Barbie doll you always wanted.

The Little Engine that Couldn't

     Last week I was able to spend my Thanksgiving in the beautiful land of T-Rex (Rexburg), Idaho with my family. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, along with Christmas, National Donut Day, and Columbus Day. But Thanksgiving is by far my favorite because it incorporates my favorite things: eating a large meal, spending time with family, playing and watching football, napping, and eating apple pie for breakfast the next day. All the while, people are counting their blessings and taking time to notice what they do have, instead of what they don't. Here are a few blessings that I counted during my Thanksgiving break:

Friends: The week before I set out to drive to T-Rex, one of my car tires looked incredibly low. I've never filled my tires with air before, so my best friend Cami offered to come help me. She didn't even complain that we had to go fill the tires in the freezing cold! I also got to see my good friend Melissa when I got to T-Rex. Melissa is one of those people that makes you want to live up to your potential and I was so grateful I got to see her.

Maps: When I mentioned that I needed to look up how to get from my apartment to Idaho, my dad just said, "Rachel. You get on the freeway. You get off the freeway 4 hours later. That's all." But since I'm the person who called my mom when I couldn't find Target last week, I was pretty sure I couldn't handle driving to another state. When I arrived in T-Rex and hadn't called my parents OR begged some random farmer for directions, I gave myself a big pat on the back and told myself that I was truly a prodigy.

Temples and my family:  While in town I got to do a lot of fun things with my family, but one of the best parts was going to go do baptisms for the dead with my entire family (minus one of my brothers, who's on a mission) at the LDS temple. It was such a great experience to do that as a family, and I'm so grateful to have family around to always help me become my best self.

Birthday Cakes and Mom: Even though my birthday isn't for another 11 months, my mother made me my special lemon birthday cake because we weren't together on my last birthday.

Costumes and my sister: Continuing our tradition from last year, my sister and I dressed up for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we were not met with the same maturity that the original pilgrims and Indians were met with. I'm grateful I have a sister who does such random things with me!

Warm Weather: When my family was moving to T-Rex, all I heard about was how terribly frigid the winters were. "Wait until your nose hairs freeze!" my brother would always tell me. Just the week before I got there, the wind chill was supposed to be between -20 degrees and -40 degrees. However, when I got there, the weather was pretty nice! We even got to play football in our backyard in short sleeved shirts. However, the last day or two I was there the weather started to get nasty again. And whenever I went outside to get to my car you could hear me screaming against the wind to my dad, "COULD YOU HAVE POSSIBLY WORSE PLACE THAN THIS?!?"

Antifreeze, Cell Phones, Prayer, and My Parents: When my mom asked me when I was driving back to Utah, I told her I would stay until the last minute possible, as per usual. Obviously that meant staying until at least dinner, so I could maximize the number of home cooked meals. Multiple times my mom would tell me how she wanted me to leave earlier, because she didn't want me to drive in the dark. She constantly said over and over again how if something wrong happened with my car, she didn't want me to have troubles in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. She didn't want me to have to drive through a snowstorm. She didn't want me to fall asleep at the wheel. My mom loves me a lot, which is why she worries about me a lot. Every time after she expressed her worries, I would say, "That's okay. I'll be fine." Then I would remind her that I've driven in the dark and the snow, I sing very loudly to keep myself awake, and I have the ability to consume pounds and pounds of pasta, just in case someone kidnaps me at the creepy gas station in the middle of nowhere and won't let me go until I eat 10 bowls of three cheese ravioli. Obviously, I was not worried.
      I set off to Provo right after dinner, and planned to get to my apartment at 10. I made a wrong turn when I was trying to find the freeway, but eventually found the entrance. "Well that started this trip out on the right note," I said, and laughed to myself longer than necessary, because I wasn't worried about getting back. I was cruising for 45 minutes, and then my 'Check Engine Soon' sign turned on. I didn't let that bother me, because my car has a history of that light turning on and off again, with hardly any reason at all. In fact, I mentioned it in my previous blog post, laughing at the fact that it finally turned off again.
     I drove for another 45 minutes and had reached the city of Pocatello. The speed limit is slower there,  so I started slowing the car down as I drove through the city. Just as I was leaving Pocatello I tried to accelerate my car, and nothing was happening. I couldn't go any faster. In fact, I was going slower. Then my car started jerking. I was still moving forward, but it was somewhat reminiscent of the day I first learned to drive, when I would move two feet and then slam on the breaks. All of a sudden my car could only go 60 miles per hour. Then 40. Then 30. The heater turned off and freezing air started coming through the vents into my car, and immediately I think that since it's getting colder, dementors are coming to steal my soul, like in Harry Potter. The independent college girl who had assured her mother that driving at night would be no problem, and that she could inhale 50 plates of pasta on demand was all of a sudden driving 30 miles an hour on the freeway in a car that was jerking more than the Dinosaur Drop ride at Lagoon with dementors after her. I started to pull over, but as I did the car stopped jerking, so I got back on the freeway. No more than 10 feet later, it started jerking again. Fortunately there was an exit just up ahead, and I was really looking forward to pulling into a gas station and looking at my car. As per Idaho stereotype, the exit instead led me to a middle of nowhereish road, no people, and no gas stations in sight. I found a place to park and called my parents. I specifically called my dad, as to not worry my mom. However, when the person picked up on the other end, it was definitely my mom. After our hellos, she asked if everything was okay. Obviously I started off by telling her that everything was great!

Then I looked out my window and remembered that the only other thing that that could hear me were cows, so I told her what really happened. When I was talking to my parents, however, I started my car and it was acting fine! I decided to see how far it would take me, with a promise to call back if there were problems. I got back on the freeway at normal speed. I had gone less than a mile when the car started jerking again. I called back home, and my dad promised to come get me. We also agreed that my mom definitely should have warned me that I shouldn't drive at night in the middle of nowhere, because there may be problems with my car. (Obviously not. But when I was on the phone with my dad I'm not sure if it was my mother or the voice in my head that sounds exactly like my mother that said, "This is why you don't drive to Utah at night!!")
     So there I sat, on the side of the freeway in the middle of some Idaho farmland right next to mile marker 60, losing feeling in my feet because it was so cold. Just as I was beginning to wonder if I really was in a state where people actually lived, or if I truly was the only one left during a zombie apocolypse, a cop pulled up to help me find the problem of my car, which was that I was all out of antifreeze, even though I had just filled it up the week before. (He also gave me some flares to put around my car, which would be awesome if I wasn't terrified of fire. Unfortunately, he gave it to the girl who made her roommate light her jack-o-latern on Halloween so she wouldn't have to get too close. Nevertheless, it was a nice thought.)

And then, two hours later, my dad arrived at mile marker 60, a container of antifreeze in his hand. Not only did he help me get the car up and running, but he followed me for the next 45 miles to make sure we thought my car would last through the night, with the promise of following me all the way to Provo if he needed to. Once the antifreeze was full again, my car was seemingly back to normal. (I found out later that I had a cracked radiator, which is why even though I had filled the antifreeze just a few weeks prior, it was completely drained.) Once my dad and I reached Malad, he drove the two hours back to T-Rex, and I drove the two hours to Provo. Yes, I arrived in Provo in the early hours of the morning in a car I knew I would need to take in to the repair shop for hundreds of dollars in repairs. Yes, I was exhausted and had seemingly just wasted a lot of time doing nothing. However, I was grateful. I'm so grateful that my car broke down in a place where my cell phone had service. I'm grateful that I have a dad that left the house to come save me without an extra thought, and didn't even seem to mind that he would be up all night. I'm grateful for a dad who works hard, and let me know that making sure I was okay was more important than his workday the next day. I'm grateful for a mom who waits up to make sure I get where I'm going safely, even if it's hours away. I'm grateful for a mother who insisted I take half a pumpkin pie back to Provo, along with half of the family food storage. I'm grateful for parents who give me a glimpse of how much my Heavenly parents must love me. I'm grateful that I could get back to Provo safely from spending a lovely week with the people I love most. I'm grateful for all the friends that I can count on that could've come to help me with my car. I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father who listened to my constant prayers when I asked him for help to know what to do. I'm grateful for a sense of humor, so not only can I laugh about the experience now, but while it was happening, in the dark, beautiful fields of Idaho.

There are always things to be grateful for, and from now on, I'm going to act like it.

P.S. Mom, you were right.(Again)

Pardon My French: Things People Should Never Say

If I was the president of the world, there would be a few things people wouldn't be allowed to say. Teachers wouldn't be able to give unnecessary lectures about how you shouldn't start a project the night before it's due, and dentists wouldn't be allowed to tell your parents that you've neglected to floss for the past 37 months and therefore have a mouth full of cavities. Unfortunately I have been a little too busy to be campaigning for president, but in the meantime I have created a list of things that have actually been said to me in the past month that would not be okay under my rule:

1.When my birthday rolled around I went to the DMV to renew my driver's license. I gave the man at the front desk my documents and sat down to get my picture taken. After the man instructed me to say cheese and the camera clicked, he said, "Looks great! Let's just...oh. Sweetheart, you have a darling smile, but we're going to need to take that one again." Apparently when I smile too big, it's a tad bit difficult to see my eyes, so the man told me to not smile as big. Sorry world, I am apparently too happy to have a driver's license. He took the picture again, this time with me trying to smile with my eyes wide open, which slightly resembled a face that Ronald McDonald would make. The man looked at the picture, then up and me, and said, "Um, okay. We'll see." The Ronald McDonald photo is now on my license. I wish I could say that this was the only time I've ever had to try to take a good driver's license picture multiple times, but when I first got my permit the lady taking the picture sat me down and told me, "No big smiles." When she was just about to snap the picture, my mom jumped in to fix my hair, so the picture ended up being a nice memory of my mom always having my back. (At least that's what I thought, until the grumpy DMV lady deleted it and insisted we take a new one.) By that time I was laughing so hard that my eyes couldn't be seen at all.   

2. How's everything going, sir? This is something completely fine to say to a man on the subway, a father waiting for his meal at a restaurant, one of those 9 year old prodigy billionaires who thinks they need a butler, or a grandpa playing golf. This is NOT something that should be said to a college girl at the grocery store. But after the cashier asked me this, I flipped my hair and girlishly giggled as I daintily swiped my debit card to pay for my groceries. Then I happily pranced off with my food. By the time that I got home, I realized I had devastatingly left a bag of groceries at the store. But I refused to go retrieve it because I AM APPARENTLY VERY MANLY AND HUNT FOR FOOD ON MY OWN. Really though, I didn't go back to get my last bag of groceries because I figured that an establishment that mistook me for a man is also probably an establishment that would want to poison me.

3. What's that smell? Again, this phrase is okay in specific cases, like if someone has bought you a surprise burrito and they are giving it to you as a surprise. You should not have to ask yourself, however, what the stench emitting from your backpack is, because you should NOT have left oranges at the bottom of your backpack for a month. In the morning when I pack my lunches I think I'm being really awesome because I'm being healthy by packing fresh fruits and vegetables, but let me say that this has only ended in pain, heartache, and toxic fumes. I formally apologize to the people I take classes with and the entire campus of BYU. Fermented orange juice is on me.

4. "Rachel, this looks like something you would definitely wear!" This sentence is usually proceeded by someone holding up some weird sweater that looks like it was knit out of rodent hair. There truly is no better way to tell someone that their style was actually never in style.

4. Check Engine Soon. The 'Check Engine Soon' light in my car is almost there as often as the steering wheel is. It turned on years ago, and every time I go get it fixed it turns right back on again. I now use the word 'soon' very relatively. For example, some people say, "I'll see you soon." when they are five minutes away from their friend's house, but then you hear reports about how 'soon global warming will destroy our entire atmosphere'. I prefer to take the global warming approach, and take my car in to get fixed as little as possible. I learned this week when the light randomly turned off that 'Check Engine Soon' actually means to check your engine soon, or wait 11 months and it'll all get figured out on its own.

5. People often use air quotes when they are saying something that they don't believe themselves. For example, I would use air quotes when saying, "Eating eight donuts for breakfast is a bad idea." I usually use my 'why am I surrounded by fools?' tone of voice and then attempt to roll my eyes so hard that they get close to falling out of their sockets. This, however, that I found at the school I teach at, was not the best use of quotes:

I'm sure the students would "love" to have "yummy" pumpkin pie. I'm sure they would also "love" if the whipped cream was made of brussel sprouts. Quotes just add confusion and sarcasm.

In case you are reading this and thinking that I'm only accusing others, please know that I asked a group of guys today how their freshman year was going, when it turns out they are in their third year. Needless to say, that was the end of the conversation.

May you all have perfect driver's license pictures on the first try.