New Place, New People, No Worries

As some of you may know, I am moving to Utah in January. My dear friend Nikole is taking a "traveling nurse" position in Provo and I am tagging along. We still don't know the specifics about where it is that we will live, but we are doing our homework. byu.edu has two or three pages of housing listed that we have been looking through.

Anyway, it seems as though January is coming as fast and as slow as it possibly can. When you think of it on a twelve month scale, two months really isn't that bad. Especially since they should be flying by super fast because of the holidays and finals and what have you. However, these two months seem to be dripping by as slow as molasses, almost as if time knows how anxious I am for this move and wants me to suffer. Suffer is kind of a strong word...it just seems that when there is something huge going on time slows down.

I have never lived outside of Missouri, or outside of my family's homes for that matter. This move is a pretty big step in my little life. I hear a lot of really neat stories from cousins and siblings about how wonderful Utah is and the people and the activities and how full of life and young adults it is. I am kind of nervous though now that my expectations are a little high for Provo. Sort of like when everyone talks about how great a movie is and you get all excited for it and then you finally see and it wasn't that wonderful, you know? But I hope that it is everything that everyone says it is.

I think that moving to Provo will be a great opportunity to really find myself. To break free of the small-town mentality where everyone knows everyone and just have at it. Words cannot express the excitement/nervousness/anticipation that I have been feeling over this move. I can only hope that it will be everything that I want it to be :)

Tribute to Askinosie

A few weeks ago Nikole, Julia, and I took a trip to the Askinosie chocolate factory in Springfield.It not only proved to be an extremely educational experience but also a very touching one.
Mr.Askinosie, the chocolatier, started out as a lawyer. He got really big into baking and was really interested in the workings of chocolate specifically. He "left no stone un-turned" in his quest to find out all that he could about chocolate. Askinosie decided to leave his career as a lawyer and began from the bottom up in his new chocolate business, "Askinosie Chocolate".
As I read the story behind Askinosie, written by Mr.Askinosie, I was greatly impressed to find out that he had made his decision a matter of prayer. He wanted to know what it was that God wanted him to do. They didn't mention that in the tour probably to avoid any disagreements on the subject, but something they did mention was that Mr.Askinosie calls chocolate "the means to his ends". I totally did not understand that when I first heard the tour lady say it, in fact, it took me a few days to really understand what it meant. Mr.Askinosie wanted to do more than make chocolate. That was just a perk. He wanted more than anything to help people who have fewer opportunities than most of us do. Being able to do what he enjoys and help people at the same time was his dream come true.
I have not even skimmed the vast surface of the good that Mr.Askinosie has done, and he isn't near finished yet. He is the prime example of what a business man should be. I have been truly inspired and hope to one day find my own "means to and ends".

My Very First Post

I deliberated greatly on what my very first post should be. I think a lot of why I had such a hard time posting on my last blog was because I was afraid of who might read it and what they would think. But no more of that! I will post what I want to and pretend that no one else is reading.
So for my very first post I am going to talk about a tea party...(minus the tea, please we are LDS)
For my soon to be cousin-in-law, or whatever the title is, her very dear friends put together a sweet little tea party for her bridal shower. We all wore hats and dressed up and were quite silly.
The food was stupendous, the outfits were wonderful, and the food was as any tea-party-minus-the-tea should be: Delicious!
We are all very excited for the wedding of Jenessa and Marshall and the tea-party-minus-the-tea was a great way to celebrate that.