50 Ways to Say... (Goodbye, 2013)

She went down in an airplane

Fried getting suntanned
Fell in a cement mixer full of quicksand
She met a shark under water
Fell and no one caught her
I returned everything I ever bought her
Help me, help me, I'm no good at goodbyes!

Furthermore...

She was caught in a mudslide
Eaten by a lion
Got run over by a crappy purple Scion
She dried up in the desert
Drowned in a hot tub
Danced to death at an east side night club
Help me, help me, I'm all out of lies
And ways to say you died!

These are words to the hit mariachi-sounding Train song that was really big last year, kind of big this year, and took me quite some time to warm up to, but fortunately I finally did: "50 Ways to Say Goodbye."

Today, whilst I was reflecting upon the fantastic year that 2013 was for me, for some funny reason I was inspired by this song, to compile a list "50 Ways to Say 2013 Rocked My Socks." Here comes the 50:

1) Made it through yet another Christmastime without witnessing or experiencing a kiss under the mistletoe. What the @%#^$*&!? (OK, that's not an awesome quality that 2013 possessed)

2) Became a full-fledged member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and have had innumerable touching and life-changing experiences in just one MoTab year alone

3) Dressed up like Bellatrix Lestrange (the baaaad Harry Potter lady). Little did I know that I have ancient Lestrange blood in me (thank you FamilySearch!)

4) Welcomed beautiful baby niece into my family

5) Was introduced to the movie Austenland and my life since then has never been the same

6) Ate my birthday lunch at the Little America with my mom

7) Played in the Bryce Canyon hoodoos with my friends, and scared the bejeebers out of some random girl who was a stranger, but she was wearing a Basic High School T-shirt, so what could I do!?

8) Met Bronco Mendenhall, BYU head football coach. Say whaaaaat!?

9) Gained a few new favorite scriptures, including all of Mormon chapter 6 and 1 Chronicles 19:13 (behave!)

10) Held my brand new baby cousin Sam when he was only three hours old

11) Made literally hundreds of new friends, with some of my favorite ones being ones I explored Alaska with

12) Flew a flippin' airplane in Alaska! Over glaciers!?

13) Saw my first wild black bear (and puffins!) in the wild! It was wild!

14) Saw a real red fox --- he was gorgeous! I still don't know what he says!

14) Completed my fifth consecutive year with the Jenny Phillips Fireside Choir

15) Ran a marathon! (OK, fine, it was two half marathons separated by three months)

16) Rode public transportation in this state for the first time, and became pro at it

17) Discovered that Michael Bolton is indeed Caucasian and not the ethnicity that I originally thought he was

18) Continued to learn more about myself and about life through the positively interesting dating experiences I underwent

19) Got a new job, and it is my favorite job I've ever had

20) Welcomed my youngest brother home from his Salta Argentina mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

21) Continued my life-long streak of never breaking a bone, never getting stung by a bee, and never suffering from a bloody nose

22) Got a flu shot on my half birthday, woot!

23) Crashed a wedding reception of someone I didn't know (and still don't know). Um... But the people I went with knew who it was, so I didn't feel very bad

24) Moved to a new city, and it was a righteous move!

25) Made friends with very cool Australian people

26) Tried Emergen-C for the first time in my life, to see if it would aid me whilst I was dealing with my colds and such, but it didn't do squat

27) Began getting gladly antsy for my upcoming high school reunion --- I'd like to attend it!

28) Attended a surprise birthday party for my former seminary teacher of two years

29) Discovered that I make the best salmon dish in the universe

30) Discovered that roller-curlers-to-sleep-in is a fabulous idea for my hair

31) Fell asleep in church for the first time ever

32) Went to a relative's wedding reception, and after the bride tossed the bouquet and I did not catch it, my little cousin Cam came up to me as I was sitting on a garden bench, patted me on the shoulder and said "there's always next year, Alison"

33) Participated in my first ever MoTab recording session (made a CD with Bryn Terfel!)

34) Met and actually exchanged sentences with John Rhys-Davies. He is a true and genuine sweetheart! (Gimli!)

35) Spent lots of quality time with my family

36) Played on an inner tube water polo team and made a few really sweet blocks with the monstrosities that are my arms (and by monstrosities, I mean they are monstrously long and gangly and fairly agile)

37) Made a "You Might Be a Redneck" film with my Family Home Evening group (don't worry, it's better than it sounds!)

38) I got a boy to watch the long Pride and Prejudice with me --- triumph!

39) Uncertifiedly (but not illegally) started teaching a Zumba class with my friend Cynthia!

40) My toddler nephew finally arrived at the stage where he loves to snuggle me

41) My friend's first novel came out and I read it and he did a really good job (#ecksdot)

42) Went to Big O Tires for some tire/rock chip fixing and happenstancely met a guy whose dad went to university with my dad... a guy who was my exact age, born in the same town, in the same hospital!

43) On the same evening I went to Big O Tires, I took a pic of this sunset (ermahgersh ert's sehr berterferl!!!):

44) Grandmother sent me a harmonica for Christmas (it was my grandfather's), and I called her up on Christmas Day and played her songs over the phone (best moment ever!)

45) Received a tennis court for a front yard, and played tennis on it

46) Watched my little niece play tennis. She is great. She could probably beat me

47) Leg wrestled said niece ... and her 3-year-old brother. Pure hilarity!

48) Penned a poem about flossing

49) Kayaked through icebergs for an entire day (AMAZING!), held an iceberg in my hands and actually licked it, "used the facilities" in the foliage of the fjords, and flirted with the handsome kayak tour guide (don't judge me; you'd flirt with him too if you were me! ehh but it's over now; I left him in Whittier ;)

50) Accomplished the magical feat of trilling my tongue/rolling my R's for more than 1 second! I did 1.5!

Many, many, many more wonderful things happened during this past year, but for the sake of relating to the Train song, I'm keeping the list down to 50 :)

Here's to a just-as-wonderful (and even wonderfuller) 2014! It is my sincere hope and wish that your 2014 is a glorious one! May the good Lord continue to bless you!

Every Mother's Child is Going to Spy

Tomorrow I embark on my life’s twenty-eighth Christmas Eve. As I’m prepping for the occasion, the “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” song is a plane that relentlessly loops the loop in my brain. (By the way, Alvin still wants his huuuuula hooooop.) How that song relates to what I’m about to write in this post, ye soon shall see.

My memory is wandering far away to my Christmases past, back to when I and my four siblings were all little. Every Christmas Eve, we kids would don ourselves in our brand spankin’ new Christmas pajamas that Mom and Dad lovingly gave us, go pick a basement bedroom for us all to set up camp in, hook up the TV and VCR, plug in our favorite old-tyme claymation Christmas cartoons (as well as the Grinch and the Smurfs and the Magic Flute – can’t forget those!), and stay up forever late watching until we zonked out. Click here to see what our all-time favorite cartoon was:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTD0XHRLCOs

But we would never be sleeping for very long, for late-late-late Christmas Eve/early-early-early Christmas Morning was not just any ol’ average timeframe. It was always a timeframe packaged with a serious and dangerous mission.

I think we maybe did not have a tangible alarm clock to utilize, so maybe we relied solely upon the merits of one or the other elder sister’s body clock. Approximately 4 o’clock ante meridiem seemed to be the traditional hour we five children would unanimously agree upon for waking from our forty winks, for to silently parade back upstairs to the living room to spy on the Santa droppings – er, um, drop-offs.

And it came to pass that we’d wake up unreluctantly at 4:00, not necessarily wishing we didn’t have to briefly leave our snuggly blankies (because HELLO! we’re going to see what Santa brought us!). As I said before, we took our yearly Christmas Morning mission quite seriously, and soberly understood that if we were to have ever gotten caught in the act by our parents, there would've been eightch to pay. Days and days in advance, I would carefully identify what specific tools would play perfectly to my personal advantage on the eventual journey upstairs. My childlike reasoning deduced that the following two items would be mandatory:

1) Miniature flashlight, because the shining of any flashlight bigger than the size of half-a-Barbie-doll would be much too conspicuous in the dreaded case that our parents almost catch us red-handed

2) Extraordinarily soft socks, because any ol’ regular white socks worn on any other ordinary day simply were not the softest of the soft, and surely would make too loud of a sound when colliding on the carpet as I tip-toe

We five kids were so expert it wasn’t even funny. Not once—not one year—did we get caught. In fact, till this very day Mom and Dad probably still don’t know of our schemes ;)

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight

They know that Santa's on his way
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh
And every mother's child is gonna spy
To see if reindeer really know how to fly

Now, as decades have passed and I’m fondly remembering those golden childhood years, what is more dear of a memory than all of the magical Santa gifts combined, is the memory of the loving regard we five tiny tots had for each other. We had so much fun together all the time, especially at Christmastime. I can’t help but believe that, because we jointly maintained a special bond as we grew up together, it’s not hard for us to value and keep that bond now.

I feel like that is what Christmas is all about: love. Love, and the person who is the prime source of love and light: Jesus Christ.

Advice from Céline Dion and Alma the Younger: Don't Save It All for Christmas Day

In my workplace we have a very nice, spacious, well-lit, and comfortable lobby that can seat several dozen people. It is a yearly Christmastime tradition for high school choirs from across the state to come each workday at midday to perform in the lobby, while workers gather ‘round on their lunch breaks. I’ve been going down there at lunchtime for the past few days to enjoy the music. Each time I go and listen, especially when I listen to the songs about the Savior, I can’t help but be full of bliss. Those young students sing the songs so beautifully, with an attitude of gentle humbleness because they understand the holy nature of the songs.

This 2013 Christmas I’ve been pondering something that I’m not sure I’ve ever consciously pondered before. I’m pondering how it seems to me that the dear Savior Himself puts a great big stamp-of-approval upon the offering of any sweet Christmas carol or story about Him that is shared in respectful reverence. I sat down in the lobby this afternoon to listen to the choir sing, and I felt the bliss, and I noticed the singers’ veneration, and I don’t know what one word with which to describe it all, but it was just super good, as if God Himself beheld it and saw that it was good (book of Genesis reference intentional, jajaja).

Maybe that’s why we feel so much joy at Christmastime—because at that season we sing things and do things that are particularly pleasing unto the Lord, and in return He seems to smile upon our acts, which smiling we can often sense in our hearts.

As the intensely talented Céline Dion sings on track #2 of her 1998 album These Are Special Times: “Don’t save it all for Christmas Day. Find a way to give a little love every day.”

Fabulous song. If you don’t know it, look it up; I urge you.

These Céline lyrics remind me of a favorite verse of mine in the Book of Mormon. Alma 37:36 reads “…let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.”

When today's high school choir honored Jesus Christ and His life and service in song, they did so with great care, and I really do think God smiled upon the concert and saw that it was good. :) But I'm gonna be Captain Obvious here and make the suggestion of "Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could honor the Savior and do good works as He would do (and would want us to do) not just at Christmastime, but all the time?"

The Céline and Alma advice, my dear friends, is the way to go: to not "save it all for Christmas Day" but to try to be giving and loving every day. I think it would be a pretty swell thing to be able to sense the Lord's smiles always! In January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and all those -ober and -ember months! Uh huh!

P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! I hope your New Year resolution will be to become a lover of flossing!

Using "School of Rock" to Speak to Me

So right now I'm sick and I'm home, lying in bed, soon to go to sleep. But before I doze off, I want to record a little miracle that happened to me last night, and trickled into this morning.

By the way, I just finished off a bag of THIS, and it is delicious, and I highly recommend it:

On to the miracle.

Many a morning I write to my awesome friend Sara. I write to see how her day is going, and I also, for some reason (don't ask me why, okay?), write to her the lyrics of the song that's stuck in my head for the day. It's usually a different song each day.

Yesterday the song was a song about being sick, because I had just become sick, and I am still sick, as I've mentioned earlier. Anyway, the song is actually more about being "heartsick" as opposed to head-cold sick, but still sick just the same.

The song is called "Heal Me, I'm Heartsick," and it is from the 2003 American film School of Rock, which stars the one and only Jack Black.

Heal me, I'm heartsick. Hungry. Thought I could survive on you. Hear my heartsick, hungry cry. I'm heartsick.

Pretty eloquent, right? ;) Those are the lyrics I wrote to Sara yesterday. Again, I'm not sure why I feel the need to write out the songs that play in my head to her; it's just a quirk of mine. But a reason I'm thankful for her is because she just takes it. She takes my crazy song lyrics. She even says she enjoys reading what songs play in my brain. Blessed she is. She's a trooper.

Following my writing to Sara yesterday, I felt like poop. And I looked like poop, even when I tried my best at the start of the day to not look like poop. It's just what happens sometimes to a person who feels like she could just keel over from her cold at any second. It was a long day, with so much I just had to get done. When I finally got done with everything, it was dark outside. And as I hopped into my car, turned it on, and turned on my super-old iPod, the miracle began.

Heal me, I'm heartsick. I'm hungry and I'm broken...

I like to put my iPod on shuffle when I drive. This time I chose to start a whole new shuffle, instead of continuing forth with the shuffle that was already in progress. Yes, I chose to start afresh, to start with a brand new song #1. "Heal Me, I'm Heartsick" had a 1-in-4,052 chance of being song #1 in this shuffle configuration. And guess what. It totally won the lottery. And it cheered my sickly self right on up!

Because song #1 could've so easily been any of the other 4,051 songs in my iPod's music library, I counted the "Heal Me, I'm Heartsick" song-number-oneness as a miracle ... as a way of my Heavenly Father saying to me: "Here's something to cheer you up, my child!"

When I heard "Heal Me, I'm Heartsick" start to play in my car at that moment, my heart leaped for joy because I suddenly got the gloriously happy assurance that Heavenly Father knows exactly who I am, He's mindful of me all the time, He knows I'm a music nutcase and sort of a rockaholic and He's okay with that, and He knows the best ways to cheer me up when I need some cheer.

I indeed was in need of some cheer last night after my long busy day that I accomplished in pure illness, and Heavenly Father was fully aware of that, so He did something to help me out. I'm pretty sure He's the one responsible for letting "Heal Me, I'm Heartsick" --- the same song I typed-sang to Sara earlier that morning --- be song #1 of the shuffle configuration.

THIS morning I had to hop into my car again for to transport myself to a place I needed to go, and I turned the iPod on once more. The next song in the configuration was yet ANOTHER song that clearly Heavenly Father understands makes me happy, and because I was still sick and poopy this morning (as well as this afternoon), He seemingly manipulated the iPod again to let that song be the next to play.

I sure do love Heavenly Father, and I know He sure does love me back, and I'm so glad to know that He knows the best ways to cheer me up.

At any rate, here's that other song from today: