Accepted

Texas from the Amtrak ride I took earlier this month.

I had a conversation today with a man from my law school class. As I talked with him, I learned that life had been hard for him. Many parts of life had left him rejected. He had not found success in some areas of life that are most basic to happiness; family, work, and religion.

Part of my heart broke for him. Because I've watch my classmates be dismissive of him the past few months. Today was my first real interaction with him. We were working on a school project together. I never realized that there was so much silent sorrow from someone right in my class.  I don't think I made his life any easier. But I listened. And it made me realize something. Nothing fantastic. Something I have thought and felt before. I guess I should say it reminded me of something.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own happiness and survival that we forget to look around for others who might be drowning. Who may be worse off than us. Or maybe who are doing the same as us, but don't have the support structure that we may have. We get caught up and find ourselves saying things like:

• "I feel bad for people who aren't as happy as I am"
• "Those poor people on the planet who will never know how good life is. Sucks for them. Sure makes me grateful I'm not one of them. I'm so glad that's not me."

Or, if they're similarly situated as we are:

• "They should've done that differently. Yup, I see them struggling but they wouldn't struggle if they would do it my way."
• "Wow, they're having a hard time. But so am I. And they should really be the one to make efforts to help me out in this hard time."

And I guess these thoughts could fall under either category:

• "Huh. They're struggling. Well, that's messy. I don't want to get involved. I'll just come around afterwards and show them I care."
• "Well... I don't really approve of how they're handling things. I would do things differently so that means I can't help."

Now, I think I'm guilty of this too. I've been in this Practice Court program for just as long as these students who have been cruel to this man. I've heard of my classmate's tragedies and felt indifferent. Or I've ignored their problems. But this is not right. I am wrong. Those people that were this man's friends? They were wrong.

Do you see how much all those statements focus on ME?

It should go the other way around. It should be about them. Regardless of our opinions on how they handle their problems. And I don't think it takes much. 5 minutes to listen. A hug. Baking cookies with a friend, maybe. But not much.

But it makes the world of difference. I saw it in this man as he walked away this afternoon, after we'd talked for 5 minutes. I noticed he had his bounce back in his walk. I noticed that I felt better. As though somehow our 5 minute conversation had lessened the load of reading I have to do tonight.

All we want in this world, as least from each other, is acceptance. And when we listen and serve, we accept one another. I hope I remember this. So the next time I get the opportunity to judge and walk away that I choose to stay, take 5 minutes, and help in some small way.

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If you want to read more about this, Here's a talk that also came to mind for me:

Gifts of Love- Elder Eyring

I love the story of the jar of cherries.

Gift for a Great Man

If you don't know me well, know this: I tend to expect the best in people. I do this to a fault. I am too critical of myself or others. And I'm working on lightening up about it.

That said, I have had a great class from a professor who has exceeded my "great expectations." I have a great appreciation and respect for this man. He is dedicated to academics. He is always respectful of students. He is always willing to listen to whatever silly thing we want to tell him without getting impatient or annoyed. He also knows how to make class fun.

Who's this guy? Why, he's Professor Guinn. Grandpa Guinn. Godfather Guinn. He's my Constitutional Law professor. And tradition at Baylor says that the Constitutional Law class should give this grand professor a gift. Yes, a gift. A little 'thank you' present from his students.

Now in the past he's received some very nice and expensive ties. He's received some bottles of Wild Turkey (it's some sort of expensive alcohol. I'm not really sure what kind). But our class is a BIG class. So we could afford to do something extra special.

That's right, we bought him a shotgun. So he can exercise his 2nd amendment rights. We also gave him a gift card to Hooters (I was less than excited about this part). So he can excercise his 1st amendment right to symbolic speech.

It was a lot of fun. Anytime you can give a 90+ yr. old man a gift that brings tears to his eyes... it's worth it. 

He's a fantastic professor, someone I hope to emulate someday, and I am very grateful I got to take his class.

The Favorite Christmas Gift This Year

5 cans on Stephen's Gourmet Hot Chocolate.

Flavors:

Raspberry Cheesecake

Mint Truffle

White Chocolate

Cherry Cordial

Italian Amaretto

Thanks, Bonnie!

Oh Christmas Tree...

Russ and I have an odd-orable Christmas tree. And there's a story behind it.

Flashback to our first married Christmas (2007).

December 2007 we were paying for a condo in St. George, an apartment in San Marcos, and our first house payment. To be frank: Money was TIGHT! It was a month of transitions and we counted our house as a Christmas gift to each other.

The residual effect was that we had no money for a Christmas tree. Or lights, or anything! I thought we should try to get a little something to celebrate. I had borrowed a tiny Christmas tree for a lesson at church (it was about 4 inches tall). I asked the lady who lent it to me if I could borrow it for Christmas.

This sweet, elderly lady was quite dismayed that we were about to have our first married Christmas without a tree. She told me to stop by her house and she'd get something together for me.

2007

2008

2009

2010

I will never forget her kindness. Sounds cheesy, or whatever, but it was nice to have a tree. And we still use this tree. It's fake, it's maybe 6 ft. tall, it's not pre-lit, and most of the ornaments are second hand.

Oh, and the lights only work if our little elf is plugged in working on his shoe. So.. it also makes noise. I'll have to make a video of this guy and post it on here this weekend. It's hard to explain the elf.

But I LOVE it!!!

I Just Needed a SUNday.

Today has been FABULOUS. Here's why:

• Only 1 hour church today, so people were 'encouraged' to go to the Nativity Display at the Stake Ctr. 
• Friends over for lunch (about 10 of us total!)
• Eating Breakfast for lunch. YUM!
• White elephant gift exchange. I ended up with Bath & Body Works stuff and Russ got some fancy hot cocoa.
• Card games, cookie making, football watching, and group naps.
• Walking to get the mail with Russ
• Working on a scarf for Christmas
• Getting ready for Monday

It's been a great day. And it's not over yet, time to go to a friend's house for dinner to eat some deer meat!

Look what I made

My friends, the Eskanders, have that cutest little boy there ever was. His name is Aidan. We went to movies in the park one night (Coraline) and Aidan asked me to make him a little red bag to put his lego men in. So I did. I didn't have a pattern or anything. I think it turned out pretty good.

Hat

A few blogs back, I committed to Pay it Forward. I have a year to complete this project, and a year is almost up. So here's what I'm working on for my 5 friends:

This is the first one. Russ calls it my Sprout hat. I hope to get better and send them out soon!

The New 'Pay It Forward'

Lucky you! The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It'll be done this year. {might be a little while}
4. You will have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or maybe even some creation I haven't even invented yet (but Heaven knows it will most likely be totally fabulous and creative... :). I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

Let's bake

Merry Christmas, let's mix.