also, i am famous

do you want to see some amazing examples of my astounding skills at journalism?

how about looking here? or here? or here or here?

bylines by me all over the place!

obviously, cary magazine loves me. not that anyone actually reads these stories. if YOU all read them, it'll probably triple the number of people who have clicked through on the cary magazine website!

i just figured i'd document for posterity, and my grandparents.

I AM SUPERWOMAN

(this was the least offensive photo of superwoman i could find. don't image search "superwoman.")

i think i've gotten more done this week than i have ALL SEMESTER combined. i am just knocking things off of my super-long to-do list like it's a game of whack-a-mole. i feel awesome. I AM SUPERWOMAN.

i think it's the prize of spring break hovering around the corner that's keeping me going. we leave in one week from today for california! BOOYAH.

also, it's supposed to hit 77 degrees today. there may be thunderstorms later, but what really matters is that it's warm and sunny outside and it sure feels like spring to me! i love you, north carolina. winter is just a fleeting moment in between better seasons here (unlike utah, where it takes up half the year).

smiley face!

T.J.L., violinmaster

one of the very greatest things about tommy is how willing he is to try new things. for example, he has never liked seafood because he never had any GOOD stuff when he was growing up (only fish sticks--poor child!). i, on the other hand, grew up with my dad barbecuing shark and salmon along with the sausage and steak on sundays, and like all of my siblings, have a love affair with shrimp of any flavor. although tommy still hasn't been truly converted to seafood YET, he has definitely put up with our family's fish affinities and gamely tries everything we have. he even liked the garlic shrimp we had in hawaii, so i think we've got a seafood lover in there yet.

however, this post isn't about seafood. this post is about tommy's violin recital on friday.

to recap briefly, two years ago, our first christmas being married, i gave tommy a violin and signed him up for violin lessons for his last semester at byu. this SOUNDS like a weird gift if it's not clearly explained--like i just wanted him to start playing the violin and got it for him. but the whole time i'd known tommy, he had always loved violin music, closing his eyes during violin solos and lamenting the fact that he'd never taken lessons like his sisters. in late november that year, we went to a christmas concert (at the provo tabernacle, may it rest in peace), and he was once again shaking his head at the beauty of the violin solo when i realized that THAT was what i wanted to give him for christmas.

he loved it. he just skipped past all of the really awful/screechy/warble-y things that kids do when they're learning the violin and started to play real songs even in that first semester. but after that, we moved to north carolina and didn't have much hope that we'd be able to find a violin teacher (or that we'd bother to do so) that we could afford or if he'd be too busy in his phd program to do something so extracurricular. but it just so happened that we found out that chris, another lds guy in tommy's phd program, had a wife, melissa, who taught violin lessons. and it also just so happened that chris and melissa were some of the coolest people we've met. and everything fell together so nicely that tommy couldn't HELP but continue taking lessons, which he's been doing on and off since we moved here.

and, all of this long backstory ends with the fact that tommy had his recital on friday. it was SO fun to see him go up there (with all the little kids taking lessons from melissa) and play. and it sounded amazing! even though i've been hearing him practice for months, it really sounded extra-great. he's going to try and start learning some real songs (ones you've actually heard of outside of the suzuki books) and doing vibrato soon.

i just wanted to tell that whole story to illustrate how much i love, love, love that tommy is doing this. learning the violin is something he's wanted to do forever, and he's actually doing it! how many people actually work to achieve their random goals? although he's busy, he practices his violin as often as he can and he really is getting good at it. i love it and i am really proud of him.

to finish this novel, a few pictures of tommy the performer:

and with melissa, his excellent teacher and our good friend:

NCSU vs. Duke

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WOLFPACK!

okay, i don't count as a true state fan. i haven't gone to a single NCSU sporting event, and i've only heard the fight song once (at the obama event back in september). but tommy got us tickets for the duke-state game last night (at duke), and OF COURSE i had to wear my one and only NCSU t-shirt and proudly represent my school. i am spending countless hours and two years of my life just so i can say that i'm an alumni of NCSU--i might as well root for them when we go watch them play.

for some reason, i'd had this impression that state was just not very good at basketball. i guess that came from only going to duke events? but man, they were actually really great! they did SO AWESOME for the first thirty minutes of the game, while duke was stinking it up--state got ALL the rebounds and one of their players blocked about 10 shots by duke's players. unfortunately, duke turned it around and outscored us 3-1 in the second half, so there wasn't much of a chance. they won by just three, though--i was pretty proud of the wolfpack and their showing.

state was still winning at this point, so i took a picture since i could tell where things were going. they'd been up 20 points just a few minutes earlier!

we managed not to fight over the game and keep happy despite our respective teams' failings. we went with the towers, some friends in our ward who have the same affiliations as us (aaron's at duke and angela graduated from state) so we had a good time discussing the game. all in all, i'd say that my first (and likely only) state sporting event as a student was a pretty great experience.

happy day after v-day!

today marks the four-year anniversary of our first date*.

that's right, the day after valentine's day. tommy's sneaky like that. that was the valentine's day my friends and i all went to the stake valentine's day dance, and wore all black to celebrate being single:

(notice no boys in this picture.)

at that dance, i talked to tommy, hoping/being nervous that he would ask me out.

he didn't. but he called me the next afternoon and left the longest, most awkward message i have ever heard, asking me out to dinner.

i wish i still had that message--i should have saved it somehow. (it was seriously five minutes long.)

we ate pupusas and rice pudding, and i remember thinking he was so cute.

and now look at us, four years later.

*technically, our second, but our first SOLO date. our first date was a giant group date a few weeks before.

things i would rather do than get a phd

several people in my program are hearing back from phd programs nowadays. i'm happy for them, but it also reminds me that there are nine billion other things i'd rather do. like:

die

move back to provo

work as a garbage collector for the next five years

go on bedrest forever

run a marathon

eat asparagus EVERY DAY

do the krispy kreme challenge twice in a row

have triplets

flush all my money down the toilet

move to qatar

stick thumbtacks in my eyeballs

read all of the twilight books

give up chocolate

vomit in public

have our house burn down

die

i'm serious.

99 days

there are OFFICIALLY 99 days until my graduation. yes, this is in the double-digits now, people.

this is also the end of the fourth week of the semester. after another four weeks, it will be SPRING BREAK! and we will be heading to california to relax and do nothing for a whole week.

(not. that is not what we will be doing. we will be babysitting, but mostly we will be working frantically to finish my capstone (me) and get caught up on research (tommy)).

i don't really have anything else to say, but i thought this was a worthwhile milestone to mention.

back to work!