Serendipity...

 No. I don't mean the Kate Beckinsale movie. Okay fine. I'll explain it better:

-noun: an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. 

Good fortune; luck.  

Sunday, I had one of those serendipitous days where all sorts of things just seemed to come together. It wasn't one thing in particular, but a series of excellent conversations, lovely moments and little realizations that made me understand something incredibly important.
But first there's a few things you need to understand:

1) I'm a busy person.
 I have this...disorder, I guess you could call it. I have an insane desire to fill every single ounce of my day with stuff to do and taking a chill pill usually isn't on the list. Lately, things have been slightly more hectic because...
b) I live with and take care of my 80 year old grandmother. 
She's fantastic, wonderful and amazing, but it can be a lot of work sometimes. Especially because she doesn't drive and has been having memory problems.
 It's a go with the flow kind of thing, but I'm not really a go with the flow kind of girl. 
3) Most weeks, I end up working 7 days.
 I do this because I adore mentoring. My aunt teased me because I once said that it was my guilty pleasure. She says that the nerdiest thing she's ever heard, which can't be true because her husband plays World of Warcraft.
Anyway, I could totally get by money wise without it, but that's not why I even work with the students that I do. 
d) My ward (congregation where I attend church), while pretty awesome, is tiny. And is mostly girls. Which means no dates.
Okay, so now that you know all of that, let me tell you about my Sunday. Lately, I've been feeling kind of stuck. And completely ineffective. Which makes me crabby. There's nothing in this world that I hate more then feeling out of control. Call me a controlist if you must. It's true. But Sunday, as I sat and waited for my grandma to be ready for church I was reading this fantastic book by an amazing woman. In one letter, written during the twilight years of World War II to her husband who was living in another state, working for a railroad company, she says, 
"Guess your more essential in my life than I would have guessed. I just done seem to be able to get along without you." 
I, of course, don't have a husband to say that to, but I started thinking of all the people that I just don't seem to be able to do without. It's a LONG list. Here are a few people that I thought of:


My madre,
who that very morning, while we were on the phone made me laugh so hard I cried.
My daddy, 
who has endless quantities of advice, welcome or unwelcome and is always willing to put aside important things to help me.
KMJ, 
who goes to dinner with me just about every Saturday night and even though shopping isn't her thing, is willing to do some retail therapy with me because she knows I love it. 
Sara, the theatre fairy,
who not only keeps me in theatre tickets, but will spend hours searching for good pictures to add to my hot boys screen saver.
Lisa,
who I swear has a sixth sense because whenever I'm having a bad day she shows up and makes it all better.
My tutoring/mentoring students,
who fight over who gets to study with me and tell each other that I'm "hella cool" when they don't think I can hear them.
Megan, the DVD pusher,
who is always up for a Slurpee and never mocks my insane TV obsession.
Beth, my boss at the tutoring center, 
because she always makes me feel like I'm doing my job well and reminds me why I was chosen to participate in a program that is reserved for grad students only.
Lindsay, the darling and fantastic girl who cuts my hair 
because we always have the best time chatting and laughing. She never makes me feel unwelcome when I stop in to visit her at work.




Basically, the list could go on and on. Throughout the rest of the day I was reminded, in very subtle but unmistakable ways, that I am in the right place. I am exactly where I need to be, doing the things that I need to do so I can become the best version of myself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how truly serendipitous my life is. 

A Whole Bunch of Amazingness...

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! Do I have things to tell you! Let's start with our amazing ward activity on Saturday night. We had a murder mystery dinner, set in a speakeasy in the 1920s. I was a gangster and Karlie was a flapper. I owned a brewery (shocking, I know) and I sold my liquor to her...it was pretty much amazing. We had a blast dressing up and playing the part...

Everyone thought that I was the killer, which was kinda fun to play up, even though it didn't end up being me. We're thinking that we're just going to keep the same costumes for Halloween next week...I mean come on, how often does a girl get the chance to wear a leopard print fedora? Exactly my point. :)

Sunday Karlie and I headed down to Pleasant Grove for Max's birthday dinner. Going home is always fun, but this weekend was especially great because not only were we celebrating Max's 14th birthday (can you believe that? 14! Wow, that makes me old...) but my dad got a new job! He's working as a paralegal at a small law office in downtown Pleasant Grove and he loves it. So there was all sorts of excitingness going on at the Mecham house.

To make the week even better, I got my test scores back for the midterms I took just before break... And for the most part it was good news....except for one class. Just so you all know, I'm not infallible, I received my first ever D+ this week. That's right, there's no typo there. But fortunately I don't have to worry about getting a bad grade in the class because I got an A on a paper in the same class and extra credit is my new best friend. :)

To end this insanely long post, I'm going to tell you all really quickly about the opportunity that Karlie and I had to clean the Salt Lake temple last night. Our ward had a cleaning assignment from 9:45 to 12...at night. We both decided to suck it up and go, figuring that at the very least we'd be happy to do some service. Well, I'm here to tell you that the Lord blesses us in ways that we never could have imagined. Not only was it neat to be able to serve in the temple and see rooms that I've never seen before, our sweet temple worker (who was from the Dominican Republic and spoke Spanish to me!) took us downstairs, underneath the temple. I was able to see and touch some of the original floor plans of the Salt Lake temple. How sweet is that?! I loved it!

Well, thanks to all who actually read this whole post...I know it was long. I hope that everyone else has all kinds of amazingness going on as well!!

Tune My Heart...

Today, I'm going to focus on something extra positive. I love the song "Come Thou Fount". On the mission, everything time I was sad, down, having a hard day or was super happy, excited about life, basically whatever mood I was in, I would listen to it. It brings peace to my soul when I need it, adds joy when joy is already present and helps bring the Spirit, so it's always good to have around. I love the idea of tuning 'your heart to sing his praise.' It suggests something finite, something small and simple, but yet still difficult to do. It's a part of you that takes time to get to the right place. That idea gives me hope. It's the whole idea that perfection is a slow process, attainable, but not in this life. As we move closer to Him, we can truly learn to sing His praises, to worship Him the way that we should, in the right 'key' if you will.
Part of it reminds me of a phrase in the scriptures that I never really saw until I was a missionary. The phrase 'in fine'. I love it. I love the image it conjures in my mind. In fine...to me it's all the small little details, the idea that with all things considered this happened or that happened. I love that the Lord takes it all in. In fine. All the small, minor tuning we do to our lives to make the key what it needs to be. Sometimes it just hits me how perfect it all is, how large, yet how small. How majestic, yet how simple what He has created for us is. I love when things hit me like that. It helps me to feel small and sheltered by Him, yet at the same time, so important, with such a mission to fulfill.

The light at the end of the tunnel...

Hello friends! I am still alive! I know it's crazy to think, but I did survive midterms. As a present for finishing, I received a lovely cold. I haven't had a voice for a couple of days which meant that I had an excuse to stay in my bed and watch Grey's Anatomy for hours and drink lots and lots of tea. So all in all, it wasn't all that bad. Living at my grandma's house has its perks while being sick. I swear she cleared off an entire shelf of tea at the store, bringing me home every kind that she could possibly find. I also taught Sunday school this weekend, which I loved. And to top it all off, tomorrow kicks off my week of fall break. I work for part of it, but I also get to make sugar cookies, read, sleep and watch my new found favorite crime show, Bones. All in all, life is pretty darn great.