close your eyes, and picture

a house in magna. just a two story house, with a carport. the lawn is dead and brown. you drive around the corner and what's this? a little towhead girl putting in a sprinkling system? wait. yes. it's little girl, and she's digging the trenches all by herself?
now imagine that 6 year old, 15 years later. the scene is almost the same, she's alone, she has a shovel, only this time she's shoveling snow. she's trying to get her car out of a snow bank because her brothers think its funny when she shovels alone.
luckily a kind man with a bronco showed up, and said "want me to pull you out of there?"
"thanks, none of my brothers will answer their phones" "well i'll be your brother today"
i guess i just see how the Lord works in mysterious ways, there was a reason i shoveled that trench at grandma's all alone, it was so that i could know how to shovel my car all alone.
oh and so that the sweat of the righteous (me) will cry from the dust for the punishment of my brothers. except for my foster brother with the bronco and winch.

Christmas is THIS week
I'll be 21 (officially) in 6 days
there is like 1.5 feet of snow on the ground- it's gorgeous
sibling sleepover this week! predigious!
there will be music sharing, office/earl/youtube watching... and now thanks to eric and the HMDMSTV cable we will be watcing them on the BIGSCREEN
there will be diet coke
garrett!

Phillips family: get ready to get the business

mike

come home. i can't wait to see you.

shattered record

yesterday's math final took me 4 hours and 45 minutes. it was a glorious testing center experience, and my longest to this day

my last post was wicked long

so i'll try to entertain you for a moment in not so many words...
this past friday, tickets to WICKED went on sale for the play which runs through the month of April, 2009. because of some failed attempts to get tickets on the internet by my sister-in-law and her family, we had to go get some physically. which entails waiting in line. just some info about the night before: i got garrett in his carseat in the back of my car and set off trying to find brian's house (nat's brother) at around 11. come midnight, i am somehow in parley's canyon and nat and brian said "just pull over, we'll come get you." anyways... we went to bed at about 1:30 (because we had to play with garrett) and woke up at about 3 (because garrett was upset about something) then we woke for real at 5. nat and i stood in line at abravanel hall and sparky and jan stood in line at captiol theater (mind you, sparky was like the 600th person in line. seriously) nat and i made some BFF's in line and hung out with them until 10 when the doors opened. we ended up buying 24 tickets (the limit was 8 per person, and we actually convinced one of our BFF's to put 8 tickets on her card for us) totaling a couple thousand dollars. it was quite a day! BYU should rename the reading day-- go waste your time by standing in line day. just kidding, because i get to go see WICKED. so i guess it was worth it. and of course nat and i were being hilarious as usual so it was fun you see. we are probably going to start hanging out downtown around 5:30 am more if you'd like to come.

this saturday was glorious, just glorious

I rode to Helper for our family Christmas party with Brian and Cathy, and we decided that our conversation on the way through the canyon was emotionally, politically, spiritually, socially and artistically enlightening. I know you want to know what we talked about. We talked about the energy crisis, and nuclear legislation in the US versus the former Soviet Union's. We talked about our new president, and Jimmy Carter. We talked about Glenn Beck and Ezra Taft Benson. We talked about global warming and Annabelle's stroller. All the while Chris Ledoux played softly in the background (that's where we were artisically enlightened.)
We made a pit stop at Workman's market, where we selected some fine Ruffles, and Ruffles brand ranch dip for the grand occasion. (remind me to tell you about the time Cathy was a little skeptical about whether or not the ranch dip would be a good purchase for our possibly limited access to a kitchen and said "do we have to heat this up?"-- I'm sorry if you just threw up. I did too.)
We got our bowl on, and I annihilated my brothers. Don't act so surprised. I missed Dad, Mom, the Fergusons, and the Davisssss (yeah that's a difficult plural word) and Mike, but after about four seconds of eating, I completely forgot about them. Just kidding, jeez.
I was eating with James and Kaylee, and I was trying to fill in for Dad, and tease her and I don't think I was as effective, but I definitely made progress.
So many things happened that day, and I'm trying to keep this under a million words, so if you'd like more detail I can fill you in later.
It was so fun to be with Mainie, Chris and Michelle, Richie and Jen, and everyone else. Congratulations to Michelle and Levi who are getting married!
I wanted to stay all night, but alas we had more enlightening to get to in the car. This time, Eric and I just got ourselves all enlightened about sleep. Sorry we were so boring Brian and Cath.
Eric and I made it to the Energy Solutions Arena during the second half of the BYU vs. USU basketball. I hope those aggies... just kidding, this blog is G rated. We won. That's all. Same old, same old. ;)
Eric and I played with Garrett for a few minutes when we got back to my parents house, and let me put it this way, I am planning on kidnapping Garrett because he is too too cute. He giggled and we tickled him, and he chased my phone around the floor, and life doesn't get much better than that.
And for the grande finale, I had an interesting night (which is normal under the circumstances.) When it comes to love, its usually really awkward and hilarious with me. I really feel like this maneuver should be named after me. Ok, we were both sitting on this couch. He was trying to flirt with me by putting this disgusting chihuahua on me. I kept getting really grossed out (its a dog! ew!) and pushing it away and telling it sweetly I was going to kill it etc, etc. At one point I almost lost it because I thought he put the dog on my hand/wrist so I jerked my hand away, flinched, and probably said ugh! So I turned to get mad at this guy for letting that rodent touch me and the dog was calmly sleeping in his lap, and my friends hand was outstretched.
So ladies, (gentlemen too I guess) just pull your hand away fast and act grossed out, works everytime.

everytime

i see someone ride across campus on a unicycle, i try so hard not to yell "what a fag!"

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

quentin l. cook quoted that in his last conference talk called "i hope ya know, we had a hard time" he mentioned how we all experience this very phenomenon. i have to agree. often i feel like this is the worst of times:

• i have no money
• no new shoes
• no boyfriends
• no time to play
• i do homework all day
• i'm a little exhausted
• i just failed a test
• it's so blasted cold
• i'm late for class
• i have a headache
• i am freaking out
• etc, etc!

sometimes i have a little harder time remembering that this is the best of times:

• i get to stay out late
• i get to crack up with haylie late at night
• and wake up to her in the morning
• i get to meet so many people in this little city thing called campus
• i get to pray in class
• i grow so much from having to do really hard things
• there are fun people all around me
• absense from my family makes my heart grow fonder (i really love seeing them when i do get to)
• i've gotten really good at doing laundry when pressed for time at my parents laundro-mat
• i have heard from various mothers that your time is no longer your own when you are mom- i am so looking forward to being a mom, but for now i get to work on all my shortcomings with relatively few obligations that require me to distribute my focus

i pretty much love conference, and this talk specifically. my problems don't go away just because i'm choosing to feel happy, but life is so much more enjoyable. i love everything right now. including you.

the aussies call them fringe,

not bangs. Sister Roberts told me today "ay lack yuh fringe". Sister Milburn said "oh they'a fringe becauz they frame ya face". "they'a not bangs" "no-ay. they'a not"

if you want to say "no" like an aussie this is what Sister Roberts taught me:
say "no-you" but cut off the ou. Just say the y at the beginning of the word you.

good luck. Haylie made fun of me so bad for trying to say that like 10 million times.