The Meandering Thoughts of Jan

Is it seriously only Wednesday?  I feel this week has already been much too long.  Pardon my complaining, but in the past 3 days between Danny and me we have had one fender bender, one broken phone that cost more than it's worth to fix, a new job, one nerve wracking discussion with one's boss, a couple of tearful nights and a few college papers to write. I'll keep it a mystery on which events were experienced by whom, but man has it been stressful.  I've also come to realize this is not the week to be on a sugar fast.  Anyway, after work today I crashed on the couch and woke up a couple hours later.  I was exhausted, but hooray for having a couch I can actually sleep on now.  There's my silver lining. Speaking of the sugar fast, I'd be willing to stop such nonsense to try one of these lovely desserts , especially if I could visit the countries they are from while enjoying such delicacies.  I've now added this dessert world tour to my life bucket list.  I s

Throughout my single days, I had around 50 roommates between college, my mission, more college and career single life.  For the most part, I was pretty lucky with the various girls I lived with and I'm still friends with many of them.  Last weekend a couple of my past roommates were in town, so we met up to catch up. First was Michelle, my past roommate from BYU.  We lived together (with Jessica, Marianne and my cousins Julia and Heidi) the year before my mission. That year was such a blast!  Michelle was in town for a wedding, so we met up and went out to dinner.  We laughed and laughed, just like the old days.   (And saying "just like the old days" makes me feel really old.) Me and Michelle! Our second visit was with Mallory and her husband Daniel.  Mallory was my roommate the year after my mission in Provo (with Eliza, Lisa, Megan and Janine) .  Funny story, Mallory's husband Daniel was in my ward my Freshman year at BYU-Idaho and my FHE brother.  I take

You know the time when you turn the corner too sharp and gouge one of your toes on the retro 70's border that lines your home and apparently you have really good blood circulation in your feet, because your toe starts bleeding profusely.  In an effort to stop the bleeding, you limp to the kitchen to grab a paper towel to clean up your poor toe only to track blood all over the carpet.  (But then, luckily the husband comes and helps clean up the blood trail, your sad, little toe and gets you a band-aid.)  So once you have recovered from your messy injury, your really nice husband makes you a smoothie to make you feel better, only for you to drip it down the front of you on one of your favorite shirts.  Yeah, it's been one of those nights.  Sigh. In other news, last week I went to the musical "Little Women" with Talena.  I wrote a review for the Utah Theater Bloggers Association, which you can read here .  It's been awhile since I've done any reviewing for th

This past week was an eventful one.  First off, I want to send out a major congrats to my cousin Charity who just published her first novel, Ten Girls to Watch . It is getting really good reviews and I'm super excited to read it myself.  I went to a book reading featuring Charity at the Centerville Library.  Charity was charming as always and read a few sections of her book that had me cracking up.  Our family really likes to be witty.  I highly recommend you check her book out!  Plus, the main character, Dawn, is a tall red head, so you really can't go wrong there. Charity reading sections from her book Cousins! My second adventure from this week was buying a new couch!  Danny and I have had this little Ikea love seat that we both barely fit on.  We decided now that we are close to 2 years of marriage, it is time to upgrade.  We went to various stores and checked our options.  We fell in love with this lovely sofa... Isn't it a beauty?  It's so soft and p

I recently read Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson the creator of nieniedialogues.com .  This book is a memoir of Stephanie's life, who is a famous Mormon blogger.  She and her husband were in a plane wreck in 2008.  80% of her body was burned and she was in a coma for about 4 months.  This book is about her miraculous survival and recovery after this horrible accident.  Just so you know,this book is a tearjerker!  The book is split up in three parts, part 1 is about her life before the crash: growing up in Provo, how she met her husband, having her 4 children and starting her blog.  Part 2 is about waking up from her coma, remembering the crash and being in the burn unit in Arizona and Utah. Part 3 is about leaving the hospital, moving home and trying to rebuild her life. This might sound weird, but part 1 was the hardest part of the book for me to read.  Her life was almost too picture-perfect, that I felt envious of her.  I'm sure she had trials, but she left most of t

First and foremost, tonight is the end of all my television joy, the Olympics are coming to a close.  Sad day.  Now what will I watch?  I would say there are going to be tears, except I'm all cried out.  I know I've already discussed this, but I'm a teary mess when watching the Olympics.  I cry when people win, I cry when they lose.  Apparently, people fulfilling their dreams is a tender spot for me.  Good thing I own a great brand of waterproof mascara.  I'm also going to miss hearing Danny watching the Olympics.  He's rather audible, which can be heard through out our little home.  I find it rather adorable, a manly type of adorable of course.  And lastly, I'm going to miss a tie to England on my screen each evening.  I know it is no secret of my love for England.  It's been fun seeing areas of the country each night that I have fond memories of.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I get to visit again.  Also, while we are still talking about the

Two years ago the husband was the boyfriend.  He knelt down on one knee, gave me something sparkly and became the fiance.  It was a good day.  I reminded Danny of this momentous event last night while he tried to fall asleep and I chatted.  We reminisced of all that has occurred since that day we officially decided to become husband and wife.  When Danny got home today, he surprised me with these to celebrate our engagement anniversary.  How sweet. We then went to Temple Square with Danny's family, while his parents are still in town. The descendants of Hyrum Smith. Danny and Me. Then, to continue in celebrating of our engagement anniversary, we did a little shopping.  Danny was very patient while I tried on multiple options.  I know I'm a little behind since this style has been around for a bit, but I finally got the guts to buy skinny color jeans.  PS... Danny has learned now that when my hair looks crazy, to tell me before we take the picture.  But ne