Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem...

...here I come! Well, hopefully.

Everyone cross your fingers that my attempt for the Jerusalem Spring/Summer study abroad works out!!

Cry For Help

Ok, my pathetic cooking not-skills have been indulged long enough. I am determined to learn how to cook! This new determination has one flaw: I have a very limited budget and no recipes that will suffice for just little ol' me.

This is where you come in:

HELP!

I need recipes that can be made to feed just one or two people that won't break the bank. And healthier food is encouraged, but not necessarily required (yeah, I'm desperate). Whoever gives the best recipes will get free cookies or brownies or better-than-se - oh, I mean...um...Heath Bar cake! Or something else that's good.

Please and thank you!!

A World Of My Own

I love books. I always have. Since I was a little girl, books were an essential part of life. I read them, wrote them, had imprints of their covers on my face from falling asleep with them. I constantly had bruises all over from running into things because my nose was stuck in the pages of a good book. Neighbors laughed as I walked to school because, chances were, I was about to run into a) the light pole or b) a parked car. True story.

In my Human Development class last semester my professor told us that parents should be worried if their children got to be older and still got lost in their own imaginations too often. He was talking about when children choose to play with imaginary friends rather than real ones, but it got me thinking.

I never stopped getting lost in my imagination.

That's not to say that I'm a loner or that I'm underdeveloped. But it is a fact that, growing up, many of my heroes and greatest influences were characters that came from books I loved (as a twelve-year-old I was in such distress because I didn't want to name my daughter Elizabeth, but I didn't know how else to name her after Jane Austen's best-known heroine). My love for books has not diminished over the years. Contrarily, it has flourished.

There are many more things to be said about why I love books, but the one that I've been thinking about most today is how books provide me a place to escape to. When life gets to be too dramatic, if somebody says something that really gets under my skin, or I'm feeling particularly lonely or whatever, I can escape into a book where my problems no longer exist (consequently, this is also why I have a passion for writing, but that's beside the point). It's no longer about the bad grade or the roommate argument. Now it's about finding the beast before the rose dies, catching the snitch when you can't see through the rain, or saving the husband of the woman you love from Madame Guillotine.

It's about creating a world entirely your own, where you can get lost in another person's problem without actually having to solve it, or finding magic when it seems to have taken a temporary sabbatical from your life. Getting lost in a good book is getting lost in relief - a world all of my own.

The Light of Life

This is a poem written by Elder B, and sent along in his last letter to me. He asked that I share, and I feel that it's a message that we could all use a reminder of.

When full of doubt, a time in life begs questions of the mind.
We wonder how or even why our efforts fail to bind.
Frustration reigns, our tongues are sharp, our actions - not so kind
We feel as though our lot is rough, we won't survive the grind.
But in these times of doubt and strife, without an end we feel
There's something more important there - the love of someone real:
His life began so long ago. His star, bright above all.
The birth of Him who'd save us all was in a lowly stall.
The angels sang, the shepherds came, the wise men journeyed from
to witness for themselves the babe whom prophets said would come.
Indeed this babe born on the plains would suffer for us all
But before death He'd show us how to answer our God's call:
To know that He, the Son of God is there to comfort him
Who bows his head in humble prayer when life is seeming dim,
To know that through our faithfulness, our garments can be pure,
To know that life eternal waits if we can but endure
To know He suffered for our sins, for our mistakes atoned,
Then overthrew the bonds of death, ascended, claimed His throne.
Through Him all wrongs can be made right, what joy this knowledge brings!
That only through His sacrifice can we be crowned as kings.
We must remember, as He taught, to put our faith in Him -
That even if our lot is rough, if life is feeling grim,
Christ, our brother, Savior, friend, has borne, Himself, our pain
And if we turn to Him in faith, our pain will have no claim
Remember this, and when we feel as if life's sorrows call,
Know that through the Christ, our Lord, we can overcome all.

Written on Christmas Eve, 2009.

And Bring In The New

I realize that everyone is doing the traditional New Year's blog post, but as I've mulled over the events of the past year, and considered what the new one could hold in store, I can't help but join in. Here are the things that have happened this year:

We welcomed baby Anna to the world and began to prepare for Baby Eddy and Baby Robinson


- I successfully finished my first year of college without too many horror stories
- I said goodbye to old friends and hello to new



- I survived my first ever surgery


- I learned a better appreciation for the world around me




and

- I thanked God that what could have been serious medical disasters turned out to be much easier to handle for many loved ones.




2010 is exciting. It holds an endless supply of exciting possibilities.

I am most excited for the births of number 11 and 12 of the Robinson grandkids. For a possible study abroad to Europe (keeping fingers crossed!), and, of course, for the return of these two:




It's going to be a year of reunions, new beginnings, magic, happiness, and new experiences. But most of all, it's going to be a year full of gratitude and remembrance for the many blessings of happy years past.