The Hardy Boy

Certain people have reminded me that I haven't thingyed in a while. Certain people should keep in mind that it has also been over a month since their last thingy and certain people should fix this grievous misstep. You know who you are.

Anyway, to business. Today's thingy tells the tale of a casual trip to the local Wal-Mart that ended up being a surprisingly delightful outing. Lewis and I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some items that I needed. After collecting all of the necessary particulars, we got in line behind and elderly couple. As soon as we walked up, the male half of the pair turned around and asked Lewis what on earth he was doing walking around with such a beautiful young lady! Of course he won my heart right then and there. We enjoyed talking with this fellow, named Mr. Hardy, learning that he was born in 1918 and that he'll be 90 next month ("What month is it today?"), which we were shocked to learn (he looks great for his age). The whole conversation was thoroughly enjoyable. He approved of Lewis's Utah Jazz hat and his blue shirt. He told us about how beautiful his wife is. It was a gem of an encounter.

Mr. Hardy and his wife have been married for 69 years. Upon learning this, we of course were curious to know what their secret was; how they made a marriage last for nearly 70 years. When Lewis asked him this, I was expecting the answer to be "patience" or "kindness" or maybe "selflessness". But instead, Mr. Hardy proclaimed that the secret is "to have a good last name!"

So there you have it. Mr. Hardy's got it made. All you Sicks and Deads out there? (those are real last names: I checked) You're screwed.

Redefine Service

I'm a secretary in the Student Leadership Office. It's an awesome job. A lot of people think my office is just the BYUSA office, which is the closest thing we have to a student government on campus. BYUSA just started this new promotion called "Redefine Service". They're going all out with this one (as opposed to everything else) (that was intended to be sarcastic. They go all out on everything); they're giving out buttons, they're having volunteers give presentations in class about it...they even made a commercial! But that's not the point. The point it, I really, really like this program.

The premise behind "Redefine Service" comes from something President Monson said at a devotional, "To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves". Everyone to find opportunities to serve those around them every day. The commercial shows students and teachers employing this idea; one girl goes to talk to someone sitting alone in class; someone helps a guy who dropped a big stack of books; a teacher gives a word of encouragement to a struggling student. We hardly have to go out of our way at all to serve others and in doing so, we can become more Christ-like. We can serve just by being nice to the people around us.

Sometimes it seems that everyone on campus is caught up in their own little worlds. Everyone is just hurrying to class with their heads down, not paying attention to anything. Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing. Heck, I'm willing to bet I just described myself to a T! (Side note: where did that expression come from and what does it mean?) But I know I, for one, could do a lot better to be a nicer person. Instead of rushing to class like I'm the most important person in the world, I can take the time to smile at people passing me. I can hold open the door for the person behind me. I can help someone struggling with a heavy load. I'm willing to bet that none of these things would inconvenience me in any way, shape, or form. And even if they do, so what? At least I was able to help someone: the benefits far out way the cost.

My New Testament teacher last semester challenged us to develop Christ-like love. He said that in order to love others as Christ does, we have to love. We have to love everyone. That means our classmates that share their life story as an answer to any question. That means our roommates who eat all our food. That means our boyfriends who break our hearts. That means the stranger who bumps into us walking down the street. Everyone.

(A note to my readers - all two of you. Maybe three now...: the above examples are not referring to anyone specifically. They are all completely general cases that could apply to anyone. Thank you.)

This teacher told us to say in our minds to everyone we see, "I love you", and to mean it. It takes a ton of effort and it's truly exhausting, but it's well worth it. I imagine you'd eventually get used to doing that and you could develop a genuine care and concern for everyone around you. Then, I think, you'd be on your way to being more Christ-like. Again, the benefits far out way the cost.

So I'm going to try this. I'm going to try and seek out ways to serve other people daily. I'm going to try and love everyone around me. I'm going to try and just be a better person. Even if there's someone who bugs me, I can and should be a nicer person towards them. Who am I to judge? I am far from without sin, so I should not be casting any stones.

I Won The Superbowl

In just ten weeks, ten short weeks from this very day, I will be on my way to the happiest place on earth to spend two days of pure joy and blissful merriment. It's gonna be off the heezy.

In the immortal words of many an NFL player after scoring a victory in the Superbowl: I'm going to Disneyland!

Paul Joseph Epperson

As my dear friend Paul was kind enough to remind me, it's been sometime since my last post. He updates his Pizzy Proverbs quite frequently (to which I owe him thanks since said proverbs have provided me with hours of entertainment) so I decided to oblige and update this lil blog of mine.

First order of business: the word blog is hereby eradicated from this my...blog. Henceforth the word 'blog' shall be replaced with the word 'thingy' to acquiesce to the word-tastes of my the thingy-author. I hate that word. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Anyway, back to the thingy update. For quite some time, I was at a loss for what I should write about. Turns out I'm kind of boring. But then I connected the dots and come up with the subject of this post. See, Paul was the one who reminded me to update. And Paul's the only one who reads my thingy. And yesterday was - wait for it - Paul's birthday! So here's to you, Paul! This is your life...insofar as it has concerned me, that is.

My family moves a lot. It's a fact of life. Honestly, knowing that is like knowing that sky is blue or that grass is green or that celebrities do drugs. Pure fact. So how is it that Paul and I have known each other since we were six freaking years old? Huh? Answer me that one, Einstein! (To be fair, Paul was probably seven when we met. He's old. Unimportant.) (Paul's not unimportant, that fact was.) So yeah. Long time knowin'. Me and Paul are like this. That's me, that's Paul.

When we met, I was, apparently, wearing a green dress. (See, Paul has a fantastic memory for random details. Just one of his many charming characteristics.) I like think that we were close friends from the start, but we probably thought the other was really weird. We were forced to friendship anyway, mostly because my older brother, Andrew, was less inclined to appearance-based judgement and invited Paul over. Another Paul memory test: ask him to describe my family's basement at the time of our meeting. It's incredible! Of course, no one else remembers what it looked like, so we are all forced to believe him. Huh. What power!

Lacking such memory skills, I myself recall very little from the conception of our friendship at suck young ages. Fast forward to the eighth grade when my family moved back to Paul. At our middle school, each grade was divided into teams that you take all of your classes with and did competitions with and stuff. Eighth grade had the Suns, the Comets, and the Star Trekkies (Go ahead and judge). I took Spanish every morning at the high school so my schedule was all kinds of messed up and my classes were split between two teams: the Comets and the Star Trekkies. My loyalty was split, but I was fortunate enough to reap the benefits from both sides
of the line. (Most unfortunately was the fact that all the over-achievers were Suns. Jerks.) Amazingly enough, the same mistake was made to Paul's schedule and we had all of our classes together. Maybe not all. But several.

That year (and maybe still today) Paul had a thing for Shock Tarts. I enjoyed them myself, so on occasion we would share a roll. Christmas came around and Paul moved from Shock Tarts to candy canes. You should know that Paul is sharey. He loves to share and he is dang good at it. This translated into Paul bringing Alyssa a candy cane every day for probably all of December. January rolled back around and candy canes turned to Shock Tarts. No more did we split a roll between us, but he would bring me my very own roll. On February 13th he brought me an entire case of Shock Tarts for my 13.somethin'somethin' birthday. I was up to my elbows and possibly my ears in Shock Tarts. Luckily, my mother was at the time pregnant with my little brother and Shock Tarts were the only thing that would settle her stomach. So it worked out well all around.

Now, you should know that while I tease Paul a lot for doing this, it was super happy. My day would be made every morning in Algebra when he would zip open his bag and pull out a roll or two for me. Paul's awesome.

Now we move on to high school. Paul and I went to the same school once again, which was a relief since they switched up our wards and we weren't in the same one any more. Paul didn't bring me Shock Tarts any more which was a-okay with me. I was pretty much Shock Tartted out. I don't think we took very many classes together, if any, in the first three years of high school. We went to a lot of stake dances, though, and the highlight of those most definitely involved Paul and NSYNC. See, Paul is a dang good dancer. In every sense of the word (I don't know what that means either). He taught himself and my brother and our other friend Benn three of their dances. They were intense. And awesome. Intensely awesome and awesomely intense. There would be girls screaming, clothes flying, and boys rocking. Stake dances suck. Stake dances with these boys rocked. For the duration of the song anyway.

Senior year, Paul and I took Government together, along with our other friends Adam, Marisa, and Brindy. Mr. Peterson was our teacher and he was just great. We had a fantastic time in that class! As great as he was, however, Mr. Peterson had a bad habit of not noticing when Paul and Adam were bugging me. Paul sat behind me and Adam sat beside me and some of their favorite things to do included poking me and pulling my hair and smacking me and tickling me. Peterson saw none of this. But as soon as retaliation came, he was right there to defend the safety of his students from the likes of me. Freaking Peterson. Freaking Adam. Freaking Paul.

When we graduated, Paul and I both did the Mormon thing to do and came out here to Brigham Young University. We didn't see much of each other the first semester, but we were in the same Biology lecture in Winter. Paul liked to laugh at me every morning when I would get yelled at for reading the newspaper in class. Good times.

After sending in his mission papers, Paul offered a prize for he or she who could correctly guess his call's destination. No one ever does this so he didn't even bother coming up with a prize. Little did he know of my incredible intuition and sense for those kind of things. And also luck. I got it right and I got a dollar. Go ahead. Be amazed.

So Paul went on his mission and now he's back and he comes over to visit all the time. It's wonderful. I may make fun of him a lot, but Paul is one of my best friends. He's always been there for me, even when I said no when he asked me to Homecoming because I thought he was joking. He's one of the best people I know. I am so grateful I've always been able to count on Paul, even when I haven't been a good friend. Just like the time he showed up at my door after going to three different grocery stores until he found a specific kind of ice cream I really wanted. I don't think I ever said thank you for that. Thank you, Paul. I hope we will continue to be friends for the rest of forever.