Twin Falls, Hero, and a "New" Dress

Twin Falls
A couple weekends ago, Karen and I decided to get away from Boise for the day and headed to Twin Falls. It was lovely. We did a session at the Twin Falls temple, checked out Shoshone Falls and the Perrine Bridge, and visited her aunt and uncle in Gooding. I love little escapes.

Hero
Karen and I were out shopping and she asked if I wanted to make a stop at the Humane Society. I didn't see the harm (especially since we were wondering if a cat she had adopted previously that had run away had shown up). Unfortunately, that cat wasn't there, but there were some adorable kittens. And as soon as Karen realized one was a polydactyl, I knew we were coming home with a kitten. Meet Hero. He's adorable.

You see his little polydactyl paws, right? 

He makes this face a lot. Definitely likes his meowing. :-) But he also likes cuddling, so it's ok.

However, we're now outnumbered... just two people to three animals. But we're surviving so far.

Dress
My sister (Aubrey)'s wedding is coming up, and I was really struggling to find a dress. I don't look great in two of her wedding colors, and the third color is really hard to find right now, since it's more of a fall/winter color. Then I realized that I had a dress in my closet that my mom had given me that I had never worn, since I didn't like the color and it didn't flatter me at all. I heard about using Rit Dye to dye clothes and decided to give it a try. Look at this lovely (ha) before picture. See my not happy face? Understand why it's just been sitting in my closest for a couple of years?

Karen helped me to remove the belt loops for the sash (I couldn't find the seam to remove them myself... I'm not that talented in sewing yet) and then I used the washing machine method and mixed two different colors. I moved the sash up a bit (I look great in empire waists) and I had a totally new dress that I'm really looking forward to wearing at Aubrey's wedding! It's a bit lighter than I meant it to be, but I still really like it.

The side effect of using Rit Dye? I now want to dye lots of my clothes that are faded or that I don't wear as often as I could because I don't love the color it is right now. Hopefully I don't go too dye crazy...

Photo a day for a month- Boise temple

For my 101 list, I made the goal to do the photo challenge of taking a photo every day for a month.  I ended up doing that during the month of April.  As I started to do it, I decided to take a picture of the Boise temple every day for the month.  I accomplished it!  I took pictures from lots of different angles and perspectives, as well as at different times of day.  And as I wandered the grounds each day to figure out where to take my picture, it was so neat to feel the Spirit there constantly.  (Fantastic side benefit of the photo challenge... I highly recommend it.)

After I finished the challenge, I made a little collage where I took every photo (or two) that I took each day and I placed them in order that I took them.  It was a very fun project.

And after I made that, I decided to make another collage, but this time highlighting some of my favorite pictures out of the ones that I took.  After taking forever to arrange them, I ended up with a blank space that I figured I could fill with a quote relating to temples.  There were a lot of awesome quotes to choose from and it was a hard decision.  I finally did pick one, and you can see it on the completed collage below.

I ended up picking that specific quote because I could so completely relate.  It comes from a great talk given by Elder Stevenson in General Conference in April 2009.  I've identified with that quote a lot lately.  Being new to Boise (and still getting lost more often than I'd like to admit), it's been so nice to know that I'm close to home when I can see the temple.  I especially remember one time that I went running around the neighborhood and I wasn't sure where I was.  (The streets in my neighborhood truly don't make much sense.)  But then I saw the temple and was able to find my way home quickly and easily.  That analogy fits perfectly in to our lives.  When we go to the temple, we can find so much peace and direction that we would truly be eternally lost without, and it makes it so that we can return home to live with our Heavenly Father.  I love the temple so much.  I love going to participate in baptisms and confirmations every week and it makes me so sad that I won't be able to go the next two weeks, as it's closed for scheduled maintenance   (At least I can still see it every day!)  But I am so grateful for the peace and direction I am able to receive in the temple and I'm so looking forward to receiving my endowment later this year.  I feel so blessed to a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to know that this life is not the end to family ties, thanks to the ordinances performed in these holy houses of God.

I'm not really sure how to wrap this post up, since I feel like there is still so much I can testify of and share.  I have a whole list of quotes and scriptures that I love about the temple and maybe I'll have to share those later.  But I'll just end with the other quote I almost used for my collage... "Let us truly be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people." --President Howard W. Hunter

NaNoWriMo

I put "completing NaNoWriMo" on my 101 list. When most people hear about NaNoWriMo, they just ask, "Uh... what?" And then I have to go on and clarify what NaNoWriMo is. (And some people still think I'm crazy after the explanation.)

NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is a challenge in the month of November to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. This averages out to be 1667 words a day to reach the goal. Quite a bit of writing, and it can definitely be a bit intimidating. But I did it!

I know my novel wasn't anything special, especially considering the fact that I officially decided to participate on October 31 and had no real plan or outline going into it. However, it was really fun to just be a bit creative in my free time. I forgot how therapeutic writing can be for me. I was able to actually work out some personal issues, in a way. Amazing how just writing can do that. And it's so liberating to just ignore your inner editor for a while, because you need to get your word count. (Sometimes, it does become more about quantity than quality.) It doesn't matter if what you write doesn't make complete sense. It doesn't matter if you have the perfect phrase to describe everything. It doesn't matter if the characters aren't completely fleshed out. As some NaNoWriMo participants have been known to say, "December (and beyond) is for editing." I'm not entirely sure how much editing I'll ever end up doing, since I don't really have plans to publish it. But maybe. We'll see. And I'm already considering doing it again next year. Maybe with more of a plan.

But for now, I'll just be proud of this win. I mean, how many people can say they've written a novel? It was always something I wanted to be able to say, and now I can! It feels so great to set goals and achieve them.