Jenae & Virat: A Love Story (and other tales)

since tomorrow is the last day of the month, here are some highlights from my extremely boring life, haha.

tale number 1.

For some reason myself and the rest of my family have this thing about eating the very last of something. I don't eat the very last of anything because when i was little and did that, then it was obvious someone had been sneaking it. and someone can be blamed for cookies being all gone, but no one can be blamed for the fifth or sixth cookie disappearing...

anyway.

so no one eats the last bite of ice cream, the last cup of milk, etc.

including cereals. 

and apparently the new trend is to just dump a new bag in with the old stuff so that no one has to be tortured into eating the last of that kind of cereal.

but then this happens:

but you know?

 fruity honey marshmallow cheerio comb mateys is pretty good.

2. Jenae and I, SEVERAL times, have had zits on the same day in the same place. so this time, we documented it. pimple twins.

3. speaking of cereal, Jenae eats hers with sprite. gross.

4. Not pictured - Donny, Christine and Evelyn came to visit!!

and somehow i did not take a SINGLE picture!!

Evelyn is PERFECT, though, and she remembered me :) her giggle = the best thing ever.

and as always, Donny and Christine are adorable. Christine got me a super cute skirt, too! champ.

5. I'm a horrible cook/baker. horrible. 

and that is not me trying to be humble, that is me being honest. if it's not something i grew up eating, i struggle making it. BUT i need to feed my family someday, and my mom and sisters are so cute and diverse, and they have little meal calendars with like 235323 different kinds of meals, and i need to be better at cooking. so I've been trying new recipes, and every day that my mom is working past 3, i make dinner. i like it!

this FAILED "Peach Sun Cobbler"

way too much crust, not enough filling. and the wrong kind of crust! not sweet enough. bummer. each of us had a few meager slices and Dad graciously took the rest to work for the dog to spare us all.

not pictured successes: 

Christine's Baked Ziti - (I saw it in her fridge one day and thought it looked good, so i made it when i came home, so it's not actually her recipe. I'm sure hers is even better!) SO YUMMY. it's like lasagna, but easier and less messy, haha.

Home on the Range pasta - AHDFVUKJBAFJNVAFIDHVB i love it. so yummy. 

penne noodles, alfredo sauce, two eggs, chicken breast, and bacon. mmmm. with broccoli on the side.

and this, that i'm still not sure about:

King's Hawaiian rolls thing

so basically you cut the rolls in half and slather them with this sauce, and then you put whatever meat and cheese you want and then you cook it. Simple, but it took WAY longer than i thought because i ad to make a substitute sauce for Dijon mustard, because i hate mustard. haha. 

SMELLED really good, and the first hot bite was amazing! but i was done after my second sandwich. again, dad came to the rescue. i'm sure when made exactly to the recipe, they're super yummy. 

6. this is me and jenae on the front door monitor screen in Walmart. you can't see our faces, but the crocs speak for themselves.

7. AND NOW ON TO THE BEST PART: JENAE AND VIRAT.

so there is a boy named Virat. 

he is the president of FFA here, and Jenae is also on the officer team. they both have heifers right now, and the other day i picked jenae up from school, but she had to move the heifers from one pasture to the next.

so i watched Jenae and virat move the cows, and oh mah GOODNESS it was like a scene from a hollywood blockbuster. the dust, the tall grass, the hay, their silhouettes against the sunset.

*swoon*

so  naturally, i crept:

(can you see the two silhouettes to the left? the barn was kind of covering them up)

 sorry that the pictures are grainier than Sara Lee bread. i was zoomed in as far as i could go.

ANYWAY.

I'm cheering for Virat.

just to be clear: they're not together. they're not allowed to date because they're on the same officer team. FFA rules, and they both take the rules pretty seriously, so i promise they're not dating. 

BUT. here is why i'd be 95% okay if they were:

on the day pictured above, it was only jenae's turn to feed, not virat's. but he drove the hay over to her (via a tractor, looking very manly and adorable) so she could unload it faster. it wasn't his turn to move the heifers, but he helped her anyway because he knows she's afraid to move them herself because they're getting so big.

he is the MOST polite boy i've ever met. hands. down. 

just so kind and happy, even my mom loves him.

also...

(stole this from weasel's instagram)

HE LET HER TEACH HIM TO KNIT. AND HE LET HER WEAR HIS HAT.

okay.

yeah, okay, cool.

also? he's indian, and goodness KNOWS we need some color up in this family. 

and he's a genius

and he's a farmer

He owns a store. 

let me repeat that, HE OWNS AND MANAGES A FEED STORE. IT IS HIS, and it will be his for the rest of his life until he gives it to is son like Virat's father gave it to him.

his last name is kang. so king. so he's a king. 

also:

 THEY'RE PERFECT. 

roller coaster selfies = awesome

his teeth = awesome

jenat = awesome

all in favor of this boy as the newest brother in law say, "Aye!"

 also tomorrow we're going to see this movie on it's opening night in Fresno, and i'm so excited!!!

Disney Movies

**Unnecessary picture overload**






I'm home all day everyday, because i don't have a job (yet).
to make it a little less boring, i'm watching every Disney movie (that i like) in order. I'm only to 101 dalmations. and you know what I've learned?

All Disney good guys are hunks

And they all ride horses, sing, and dance. okay.

The girls are all really young and beautiful, obviously. and they all sing, too.

The romance is swoon-worthy

Best friends forever:

Disney movies with loving Siblings > those without

ALSO? Prince Phillip has always been my favorite classic Disney Prince. come on, he beat a dragon "armed with all the powers of Hell" with only his trusty steed, "a shield of virtue and a sword of truth". 

so there, Snow White's prince. 

there.

AAAAND? classic disney animation = BEAUTIFUL

And Finally, a Narrative on life at BYU-Idaho by Lucky the Pongo Pup:

The Chronicles of Catsbane

if you're a cat lover, flee now. because this is the beginning of a cat-hating rant/series.

since last winter when i was home, MUCH has changed, bu the only thing that actually bothers me is the amount of cats that decide to hang out on our property. I HATE THEM. I HATE ALL OF THEM.
i have ZERO sympathy for these pathetic wastes of oxygen and i will do anything and everything it takes to get them off my land.

I might know how the Native Americans felt.
which makes me Crazy horse, and "Lucifer" (the biggest, baddest cat of the neighborhood who bares an uncanny resemblance to the aptly named feline on Walt Disney's Cinderella) is Andrew Jackson.

bring it on, lucy.

when i was home over the summer, i was disgusted by the cats but too depressed to do anything about it. ho ho ho, that has changed, i promise you.
I HATE THE CATS.

there are more and more every day, and i'm only being slightly hyperbolic.

Sunday afternoon when i came home from church, there was one on my driveway (good old fat Lucifer) who refused to move, even when i drove up to a foot in front of him. I got out of the car and gave him my best impression of an angry Susan Boyle, so he bolted, and took with him a brown calico from behind the almond trees. I kept after them for a few steps, so i went around to the back of the house, where a gangly grey furball was curled up on the bottom of our slide. my eyes about popped out of my head, and i jumped toward it, so the cat jumped out of the slide and over the fence. I walked onto the porch, looking out past the little brown fence to see 2 MORE cats beyond it! one by our citrus trees and one just outside our wire fence, sitting smugly out of reach. i ran toward them, and they both retreated to behind our neighbors infamous cinderblock wall. (which has been a cat safehaven for years, ugh.) shaking my head i walked to the back door, but it was locked. so i sighed in exasperation and walked around the OTHER side of the house by the walnut tree to the front yard, and as i turned the corner, ANOTHER 2 CATS bolted out from under the bush by my bedroom window into the lot to the left of me. i screamed "LEAVE!!" at one when it paused and glanced back. i marched up to the front door, yanked it open, stomped inside and slammed it shut.
7 CATS?! REALLY?!


each day this week i have chased cats from the yard hollering like a banshee and waving something over my head, usually our porch broom, a broken hockey stick, or a shovel. they run away into the fields and i spit like a cowboy.
i also found out that the area surrounding our citrus trees by 10 feet in each direction is their litter box.
I HATE THEM.


tonight, after we'd just finished Davy Crockett (how fitting to my cause) i heard the oh-so-familiar screech of cats getting at it.
THE WORST SOUND IN THE WORLD, MIND YOU. LITERALLY THE WORST.
it sounds like a cross between a screaming child and a devil-possessed child being played back on a very old cassette tape that's gone wonky.
i tore open the front door and ran out to the bushes where they usually lay in their filth, but found nothing, i heard scurrying and flipped around, just in time to see 3 of satan's animals SKIMMYING DOWN OUR MAPLE FROM THE ROOF. THEY WERE ON OUR ROOF. THAT IS MY TURF.
YOU HAVE GONE TO FAR, CATS. TOO FAR.

UGH.

for years, Derek's trusty bbgun, which he proudly dubbed "Catsbane" (and by dubbed i mean etched into the barrel with a Swiss army knife) kept our yard clean of riff-raff of the feline kind. but in the last year or so, someone put it away in the wrong spot and we couldn't find it. well I found it last week, but the loading mechanism is jammed or something. IT DOESNT WORK.

The days of our beloved Catsbane are over.

(and for the record, we never actually killed the cats. just shot near them to scare them off, and it worked.)

screaming and waving a stick doesn't really cut it.
so, now i'm going to chronicle my attempts to clear my land of the devil's species.

and a fair warning to my neighbors:
I HAVE WARNED YOU BEFORE! I'll not do it again! SPAY AND NEUTER, my friends. spay and neuter. please. secondly? I HATE YOUR CATS. KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME OR I WILL NOT HESITATE TO TAKE MURDEROUS ACTIONS. (on your cats of course. I'd never kill a human being over a cat. I like my neighbors.)
i'm not kidding, i'll do anything to get these nasty things off my property.

I'll try a bunch of nice methods first. 'natural' ones i find on the internet. but if they don't work, and you all ignore the flyers i'll be distributing tomorrow morning about keeping your pets in your own stinking yards, i will put out radiator fluid. or rat poison. or both. i will do it. i am not afraid.

FOR CATSBANE!!

missed connections

Ever since i can remember, before each school year, my dad gives me a 'Back to School Blessing'. Since I've started college it's been every semester, because i've ended coming home in between each one.

***So when mormons use the word "blessing" in the context of one person giving another a blessing, what they mean is that someone prayed for them. 
so when i say "My dad gave me a school blessing"
what i mean is "My dad said a vocal prayer for me, with me, to give me comfort and guidance for the school year."

Blessings are prayers spoken by someone with authority, and are significant because they are specific to the receiver of blessing. Its like a set of instructions straight from God for the person being prayed for.***




I'm almost finished with my current journal *tearful sniff* so i was flipping through, and i found the pages where i took notes while my dad was giving me a blessing for school. and i was happy. i went back and looked at the past few blessings, and was surprised because looking back, i see connections that i'd missed in the moment.

Fall 2012:
among other things, my dad promised me that if i was not judgmental of my roommates when we first met, i would gain a life long friend.
the summer leading up to this, i'd been worried about one of the girls i'd been assigned to room with because she had several cats in her profile pictures; Jaylene. but when we met, the words from the blessing popped into my head and i pushed the cat-thoughts aside. I didn't think of the blessing after that, but looking back, if i had kept the pretense of Jaylene being a wierdo cat lady, i wouldn't have wanted to hang out with her and we wouldn't have roomed together again every semester following.
My dad also said that if i was kind to my teachers, i would love my classes. a general turth, but it applied heavily that semester, because there was one teacher who I got annoyed with in the beginning, but consciously chose to be nice to. and i ended up LOVING him and the class. (I'm looking at you, Christopher Williams.)

Spring 2013:
my favorite school blessing so far, probably. just very reassuring and comforting!
among other things, i was highly encouraged to pray before and after i studied. AMEN AMEN AMEN. i studied really hard that semester, and took several tough classes. prayer in study = effective study. best study habits i've ever had, most i've ever learned in that amount of time. my. goodness.
ALSO i was told to make friends with someone quieter than me. someone unexpected and very different from me, because it would prove to be one of the most enriching relationships.
rachel rachel rachel rachel rachel.
i love her.
ALSO i was told that if i was having trouble in a class, i should get to know the TA well so that i would feel comfortable asking questions.
well well well. my most stressful class was Teachings of the Living Prophets, so like the first week of school i emailed the TA and asked him a bunch of questions and warned him that this would be a common occurrence. the TA was none other than Christopher Michael Moen, and we became best friends that semester. and that became my favorite class.
"This semester will hold many epiphanies for you"
Mid. West. Trip.

Fall 2013:
"get to know your Relief Society President right away so that you can get the ward calling you need"
met Dawn first day of school, clicked instantly, served with her the rest of the semester.

I was uplifted by this blessing, because it basically just told me over and over to find joy in the little things. But that also kind of worried me, because if i'm finding joy in the little things, does that mean that the big things would be hard?
YES. haha.
but, i DID "find joy in classes and learning". i loved all of my classes except math. because it's math.
and i DID "build rapport with teachers" loved them all. even my math teacher.
i did "maintain old friendships & build new ones"
I did acclimate well (and quickly!) to the air, unlike other semesters
and (my favorite part of the blessing) i DID "find joy in the cold! See the Lord's hand in the weather."
Hoar frost and knee-deep snow *fond sigh*

I was also promised that as i read the scriptures, "ages [would] open up to [me]." truth. I have never loved the New Testament, but now it fills me with hope and love, and a peace that i can't begin to describe. Oh, to read the words spoken by Jesus Christ while he ministered on earth!

and finally, in the blessing, i was reminded that God knows my heart, an hears my prayers.
I needed that reminder when the blessing was given in September, i needed when i re-read it in October, and i needed it again tonight.

______________________________


God is in the details of our lives.
I've seen it, and felt it, in mine.
and these instances, though i'm sure they're insignificant to you, mean a great deal to me because they prove to me that He cares about my life.

and He knows my heart.

mah homie Shaun White

I posted a picture of Shaun White, the Olympic snow/skateboarder on instagram last night ALL excited for Sochi. (which is in 19 days, by the way.) and this girl comments, "baaaaandwagonerr"

I realize that i'm being just as immature as she was by blogging about it, but i don't care.

she cray.

I promptly deleted the comment and pulled out my 2006 journal to verify to myselfthat i wrote embarrassingly infatuated things about him long ago. hahaha.

and that, kids, is a perfect example of Melissa getting unreasonably bothered over a minuscule thing.

I know mom, i'm ridiculous.

future husband, I'm sorry.

a little.

rough start great finish

1. I really wanted to do something tonight, because i've been home alone every day this week. So I tried to jump with Jenae going to a high school basketball game, and she shot me down. I asked my parents to go see a movie, and they were busy. let me repeat that- My cinephile father turned down Saving Mr.Banks. So i went by myself.

2. My maps app is seriously faulty, i swear. when i got to the address it said was the movie theatre (after leading me on a wild goose chase through deepest parts of sketch-to-death Fresno) the movie wasn't being shown there, so I pulled into a Walgreen's and called my mom to vent, and decided to go home.

So your night has gone askew? here's how to fix that:

3. go to the McDonald's drive through to get an ice cold powerade. when they say they don't sell powerade anymore, scream like a banshee and floor it out of the drive thru to Walmart instead. buy some new socks, luke warm powerade, and swedish fish because it's almost 11 now and there is a big trolley blocking the pringles.

you're almost cheered up, so blast Les Mis to get the job done.

4. when you get home, eat 10 Christmas m&m cookies that you made last night while watching Arrow with pops. realize you bought the wrong kind of socks. bribe your mom with swedish fish to trade you the crew socks your mistakenly bought for ankle socks she was keeping in her 72 hour kit (so mormon). talk your dad into watching another episode while mom cuts his hair because you're addicted, even if you don't want to admit it because the show is about a super hero and you're picky about which super heroes you put time into. Superman basically composes the entire list.

5. Remember that tomorrow you get to go out for real, to a scheduled thing and the cute boy you're dying to meet might be there. remember that Sunday you get to see Donny, Christine, and homegirl Evelyn. and that monday morning, first thing, you get to watch the the first episode of the new series of Sherlock.

fall asleep 1834765 times happier that you were two hours ago.

Seth is Blessed!

stole these pictures from Allison's blog. Love her. Love them. Seth is perfect. miss them already. 

not having a job or babies to look after at home is pretty boring.

 good thing the house can always use cleaning and my room can always use scouring and my 'book' can always use writing and my piano can always use playing. at this rate, i will be the perfect mix of Danny Tanner, Louis Stevens, JK Rowling, and Wolgang Amadeus Mozart in no time.

a positively plain day

written on Saturday the 11

1) Allison and the kids left this morning, I've been with them for a week and i missed them as soon as they were gone. i love babies. Baby Seth just smelled so baby-y and good. Luckily, Donny and Christine are coming home soon, BFF Evelyn in tow.

2) I hate spending forever trying a new recipe only to have it be mediocre.
I'M JUST TRYING TO PREPARE MYSELF FOR (A VERY FUTURE) WIFE-HOOD, DANG IT.

3) Jenae and i laid on the roof for the greater part of the day and read into the Wild for her winter assignment. it was a-ight. actually, i thought it was kind of boring. interesting concept and some really great quotes about 'The Wild', but i'm a sucker for a happy ending.

4) I miss the Rexburg snow. although, This light-sweater weather in California is nice.

5) I love the sound of my watch ticking. it soothes me.

Justin

I was waiting for just the right thing to be my first post of 2014, but oh well, i'm tired of waiting. ha. 

My siblings have had some great friends over the years, and there are few who i have enjoyed so much as Justin, one of Derek's best friends. he's certainly the longest friend (besides Jonathan, of course.) 

I was going through old photos of me and my oldest sister Rebecca for a Christmas present that failed (ha.) and i kept finding pictures of Justin.

I chuckled, because they looked SO tiny. 

and i'm glad that he has been in Derek's life for so long, and really in all our lives. My family, that is. 

(sorry/not sorry for the very poor resolution pictures)

call me a creep, Derek. Call. me. a. creep. 

And just to clarify, i love Landon and Anthony, too. So grateful for them that i can't really explain. and countless other friends of siblings over the years! Rebecca's Gina Dawson, Allison's Theadra Gaufin, Katrina's Andrea Viramontes, Donny's Brady Dibble - my first crush. ;) Jonathan's Tony Williams, and Jenae's Tara Harford. love them all, learned from them all, cheered with them when their first child was born, marveled over their PhDs, rejoiced in their faith, was filled with gratitude for their heart and understanding, and overcome with pride in their perseverance. 

but today i am especially grateful for Justin.

Grateful that he has been there for my brothers for so long, all three of them. He was there when i started kindergarten and when i got braces and all my haircuts. He was there before and after High School, before and after Derek went to Denver for two years, before and after Landon. And he will be there for a long time, maybe ever. hopefully ever. 

Thanks Justin, for everything, and for being pretty much a part of the family.