Two Announcements

I have two things to say. One important, one not-so-important. (you choose which is which)

1. I understand there has been some confusion over the abrupt ending of my relationship with Tyler last December. Let me clarify for the record that I totally broke up with him, not vice versa.

2. I don't intend to update this blog anymore. You can read about my new adventures as an ecstatically happy married woman at www.harktheharkers.blogspot.com

The Love of My Life

Yesterday afternoon it occurred to me what an unjust thing it is that I haven't posted about Matt yet. I mean, my other two boyfriends both got posts, but not this wonderful, life-changing man who has won my heart and changed my life. That just doesn't seem fair. I think a big part of it is that I just don't feel like I can do the whole thing justice via a blog. Also, normally I like to have a post pretty much outlined in my head before starting, but I haven't even had enough time to flip my daily calendar since April 12, so that hasn't happened either. But I have decided that even if it isn't elegant, I really need to sing his praises here on my blog.

My relationship with Matt has been such an incredible experience. He has just had this incredibly healing effect on my heart. And I don't mean healing from my heartbreaks of the past year, but healing for the bumps and bruises I carry from my childhood, and healing me of these false ideas I've had about love and marriage and relationships. It is just so wonderful. He just loves me like any girl would ever want or hope to be loved, and for this I can't help but adore him in return.

So, here's a little bit about Matt. I'm just free-style typing whatever I think about him, so I hope it goes well.

Matt is wonderful. He is a seeker of joy. He is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. He looks for, recognizes, and follows God's plan for his life. He is a hard worker. He wants to be righteous. He is just so solid and steadfast. He loves dumb puns, just like I do. He is so tall and handsome (I always figured I'd marry a nerdy-looking guy, which I would be fine with, but it turns out "super handsome in a traditional sense" is super awesome). He is good at fixing things. He treats me like a princess. He honestly believes I am the most wonderful woman in the whole world. He loves his family. He wants to have a dozen children. His dream calling is in the Primary. He is always so willing to help me with anything that I need or want. He did such a good job of winning me over. He is a great dater and wooer of women (I guess I should say "woman" since I'm the only lady he's ever tried to woo, but was so so super good at it).

Mostly, I guess what needs to be said about Matt is that I just trust him absolutely and completely. Marriage really is a leap of faith, but I am just so confident in him. I've never just completely trusted in anyone before. It's a surprisingly nice feeling.

If I had been blogging during the last five months, here are some of the stories about him I would have shared:

* that he brought me flowers, chocolates, AND jewelry to work on Valentines Days, even though we weren't even exclusive yet and even though it was my first day at a new office. And later that evening he took me to the ballet.

*that he chartered a plane to propose to me

*that when the ladies at work see flowers at the office they just say, "Oh, more flowers for Holly"

*how wonderful it is that he is constantly working on my house and yard, so I don't have to worry about it

*it's really too bad that a permanent record of our dates wasn't recorded because he is super awesome at planning dates

*how he brings me a Roxburry Juice almost every time he comes over because he knows its my favorite and he likes spoiling me (he even does research on the flavor options ahead of time to make sure he chooses a good one) (PS for those of you living in Utah, seriously check out Roxberry Juice. they're like Jamba only about 10 times better.)

*how he is teaching me what a happy, healthy relationship is like, because it turns out I had NO idea before. His love for me is changing my heart and my life. I am just so thankful for him every minute of every day.

*how he would call and reserve me for a date 6 days in advance (for Valentine's Day he reserved me two weeks in advance)

*how he wants me to have anything I can think of wanting. How he remembers everything about me and uses it to my advantage. How he lights up when he sees me. How he has helped me see that love is so much deeper and wonderful-er and life-changing than I ever would have even imaged.

*that he wants to spend his life proving his love to me. And when I ask him if he's sure he'll still love me in five years he says beautiful things like, "Five years from now, I'll look back and realize that compared to how much I love you, I didn't even understand what love was when we got married."

Even this list embarrases me because it doesn't say or explain even the littlest part of how I feel and so it seems dumb and superficial. But I just want you, my faithful blog readers, to understand even a little bit of how great this man is and how wonderful our relationship is. It's just amazing.


I guess I could just say that we're so in love, it is ridiculous and I feel sorry for anyone who has to be around us and our crazy shmoopy-ness. I'm just so glad he happened to me. I'm so glad he fell in love with me and won me over despite my skeptism. I'm so glad that God saved him for me. I'm so glad that I have a love story that is even better than anything I imagined for myself. I'm so glad I followed God's plan for me and took the leap of faith to break up with those other men, even though I didn't want to at the time. I'm glad that over the years God has been preparing me and helping me change so that I could be in a mind-numbingly happy and healthy relationship because I realize that I could absolutely not have opened myself to this ten years ago, or even probably one year ago. "Glad" isn't a big enough word.

I mean, I've always considered myself a happy person, but I am just so so so happy now. I never knew love was so wonderful. Well, I guess I always thought love was wonderful, I guess I just didn't know what "wonderful" actually meant.

I feel very blessed to get to marry him in 38 days. Love is better than I ever imagined. It brings to mind how I felt when I first started to understand about Jesus and the atonement. I'd go to church and just look at everyone and wonder, "Do they GET this?!! Do they UNDERSTAND how wonderful this is?! I bet most people don't understand how really great this is." I feel the same way now with relationships. Did other couples experience something like this? Do they know what love is? Have they felt this way? I think the fact that I'm feeling it on this level is a really good sign. I am very very blessed. May everyone find the kind of love and happiness I have now.

The Short Story

Well, there is so so so so so much to tell! But it is 2am and I am very tired and only minimally capable of being coherent, so I will tell the short story now and expand later.

Back in October, I went to a wedding and met a boy named Matt.

(us the night we met)

He fell in love with me on our first date and decided to marry me.

There were twists and turns and unexpected delays and some misadventures, but eventually I became his girlfriend. One day about a week into our relationship, we had this conversation

Me: How would you feel if eventually you wore me down and I decided to marry you?
Matt: I would feel great!!! How would you feel?
Me: Well, if I had decided to marry you, obviously I would be pretty happy about it.

More or less, that's what happened.

And I am so so so so glad because it turns out that Matt is the most wonderful, caring, loving, thoughtful man in the history of the universe. I never knew that love could be this wonderful. His love for me has already changed my life, and I can't help but love him in return. He makes me so happy.

Tonight he popped the question and I said yes. More details later.

(us the night we got engaged)

He gave me a ring that belonged to his grandmother, which I love love love
AND (since this is just the kind of guy he is) he gave me a GORGEOUS ruby ring because he knew I'd always wanted one for an engagement (due to my deep and abiding love of the 31st Psalm). And having been involved in a very superficial way in the search for the ruby, that psalm means even more to me because they are seriously hard to find (he had to order this one from Florida)!
The ruby ring is unbelievably beautiful! The band has twelve sparkly diamonds embedded it in, which I just decided ten minutes ago represent the twelve years of my life that I have been eligible to be married, but have been waiting for Matt to find me. TOTALLY WORTH IT!!! He is the best thing that ever happened to me and we are so so happy. (and we're both pretty determined to just become happier and happier still, which is one of the many things I love about him.)

Happy New Year!

I had been planning to do a year-end review, but it occurred to me that I already did one in September when I celebrated my one year anniversary in Utah, and really not much has happened since then. Well, there was the noteworthy event of falling in love and almost getting engaged again. So let's bulletin point 2010, shall we?

* 2010 represents the first time in my entire life that I have worked at one job for an entire calendar year. This is not entirely true, since I did get that promotion and completely changed my responsibilities and location of work back in April, but I'll only have one W2 and that will be for 12 full months. So, that is an exciting event.

* I fell in love and broke my heart twice this year. Two different men wanted to marry me. That's kind of crazy.

*(this is probably related to the above point) I've probably cried more this year than the rest of my life combined (minus babyhood. maybe.). I've also had some of my greatest moments of bliss. No wonder so many people write songs and poems about love-- it is an extraordinarily complicated, messy, wonderful thing.

* I bought a house. Weird! I never thought I'd do that!

*I spent as much time at Home Depot as I do at the temple. Again, weird.

*Although I missed my goal of going on one international trip every year, I did get to travel in the country a bit: I got to visit Seattle, St. Louis, Boise, and two trips to DC.

Well, that seems a bit boring, but that's the bulk of my year I suppose.

Now, please consider taking a few minutes to read Dave Barry's review of 2010. You know how much I love him and this piece is particularly funny.

Also, I did manage to finish my pantry!! Hallelujah, hallelujah! Well, it still needs a few little touches (hang some decoration, change light fixture), but the paining is done and my food storage is out of my kitchen! And I finished one entire room!!




















These are the plates I'm thinking of hanging on the wall next to the mirror. Thoughts?

Break Room Cleaning

Maybe I'm the only one who will think this is funny, but I get such a kick out of the emails my co-workers send on Fridays to announce that they're about the clean the break room, that I just had to share them. (keep reading, the last one is the best)

From the office fashionista:
Subject: Final Sale!! Everything must go!!
In approximately 30 minutes, Randy and I will be conducting a FINAL CLEARANCE on our Break Room! Get your goods, or they’ll be GONE!
Happy (Clean) New Year!

From the Finance Department:
Once again, the finance department will be conducting an audit of the Break Room at precisely 4:30 pm MST. Any items not properly labeled and dated will be disposed of or re-gifted to annoying neighbors.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.

From a politically like-minded individual:
We made a start on cleaning the house and senate. Now it’s time to move the Tea Party into the break room.
At 4 p.m., anything in the fridge that smells corrupt, or that lacks a valid conservative endorsement, will be retired to the scrapheap of history.

And this one is my favorite (hope you can speak conversational computer programming). From the IT Department:

FOREACH item IN refrigerator
IF ( item.label == false ) OR ( item.color == unsual ) OR ( item.odor < item =" garbage">

This must be in my mind today because I barely made it upstairs to save my oatmeal. When I add fruit jam to it, the results are very yummy, but I think we can all agree that to the unknowing eye, it definitely looks like something that should be thrown out. (mostly I just added this because I know posts with photos are more popular)

Happy Birthday to Me!

Last week, I turned 31. It wasn't entirely unexpected. Something like this usually happens to me around December 18th.

I'll start this story the day before my birthday which was Friday. I woke up with a strangely terrifying thought in my head: "What if someone at work tries to do something for my birthday?!!" I then wondered if I'd always been so stupidly and unrealistically concerned about people going out of their way for me, or if it was a new thing. I have decided yet, but since I recognized that it was stupid, I went on with my life.

I was pleased with the receptionist (AKA Amy-who-knows-all-my-business) brought me some potted herbs. It was super sweet that she remembered my life dream to have an indoor herb garden AND she almost froze to death hand-painting the pots for me.
Oh wait, the first thing that happened for my birthday was that my sister Heather and her husband came down on Monday night to help me install my dream closet. I rented a drill that went through cement like a hot knife through butter. It was pretty awesome. I don't mind telling you that I feel like Barbie when I look at my closet. Plus it was nice to see a married couple working together on a project like a well-oiled and perfectly synchronized machine.
On my actual birthday morning I woke up at 4:30 to take my roommate to the airport. I figured it was good karma, plus the airport is half way to Tooele which is where I was spending the day anyway. I safely navigated a snow storm and arrived at Tooele at 6 o'clock. I stopped by my favorite donut store (they hand-fill the donuts after you order them and have a dozen fillings to chose from yum!!) and made it to my sisters house and went back to sleep in their newly finished luxury guest accommodations. I was awakened about two hours later by a niece who wanted to play with my iPhone. It was a good way to start the day.

I played Mr. Potato Head. You would not believe the stuff those potato head people are coming up with these days. This one was my favorite. (please notice the peg leg, parrot on shoulder and hook hand).

Even with all the hullabaloo, I managed to get a nap before 1. I was awaken from this nap by a very excited four-year old, very anxious for me to put on my party hat. As you are probably aware, preschoolers get VERY excited when party hats are produced.

Then Heather and family arrived and the real celebrating began. Heather brought a chocolate Costco cake because, as she said, "to know Holly is to know her love of Costco cake." She also brought approximately 20 pounds of baked good left over from the Christmas cookie plates she made for the neighbors. There was no shortage of edible goods.

Ellie somehow got the idea that I needed to break through a ribbon (similar to the end of a race) for me to arrive at the party. The nieces put one up and guarded the dining room vigilantly so that I didn't run through the ceremonial ribbon early. The adults decided breaking through the ribbon was symbolic of me breaking through my year of various heartaches and entering into my best year yet. In this picture, you can also see my favorite new sweater that I bought at Target for $4.

After the eating and singing, the sisters and I decided to celebrate by going out on the town. We went and partook of everything Tooele has to offer-- Walmart, DI, and even the Dollar Tree. Although the idea of being out of the house sans 3 or 4-year olds was not as novel for me as for my sisters, it was still nice to be out with them. And at the Dollar Tree, following the age-old tradition of the Bluemlein family, they bought me gifts! A spray bottle (for removing wallpaper) and index cards (to use as recipe cards). Just what I wanted!

Upon returning home, I engaged in some tickle wrestling with two of the nieces.The third niece was on to me (and apparently doesn't enjoy tickling as much as the others), so she wouldn't come downstairs. But she did saddle up and come as the cavalry in an attempt to rescue the other two. The evening was spent mining for diamonds. Ann and Josh had bought a bag of dirt from a famous diamond mine when they were in Arkansas a few years ago and had been waiting for the right occasion to bring it out. We figured no time like a single lady's 31st birthday to hunt for diamonds.
That night I went to sleep and had a dream that Mel Gibson was madly in love with me and determined to marry me. Very interesting on many levels for a amateur Freudian analysts such as myself.

I arrived home and found my annual package from my friend Jamie (goodness, I haven't reported on her big fat Greek wedding yet. I need to do that.....) which included a brand new Ronald Reagan mug! So now I have a matching set, which is good because there have been arguments in the past over who gets the Ronald Reagan mug. It is much better to have two of such things.

My mom sent me money to put towards my dream closet (see above) or to spend on a CD player. Decisions decisions!

I got sick two days after my birthday, which is totally weird for me because I NEVER get sick. My sister Heather pointed out that it could be because I haven't been my usual self lately. And that could certainly be-- I am probably not being protected from illness by my usual cloud of joy, cheer, and endless optimism. My mom said it makes sense that I would get sick since I've such an emotional rollercoaster of a year, but that once I was feeling better I would probably be healed not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Now that I'm on the other side of it, I believe she was absolutely right. The last few days, I have been feeling a profound and inexplicable sense of joy and calm. I've also been feeling very close to the Savior, which is wonderful. I know for sure that wonderful things are coming to me. This year and for the rest of my life. I know God will help me stay the course so that with His help, I can welcome every good thing into my life. I am excited to be alive and a disciple of Jesus Christ.

NOT overly personal

Well, since the break-up, a general sense of malaise has settled over my life. I know it's for the best and I'm confident (most of the time) that I made the right decision, but I'm just sad. It's probably especially potent because of the switch from floating on a happy cloud of love, straight to sad.

Anyways, I have been learning a lot and I think I've figured some good stuff out. I realize I'd subconsciously made the decision not to process any of my thoughts on my blog out of respect for Tyler. (I realize now that I was able to vent and process on my blog after Michael because by the time it was over I didn't have much respect for him anymore. Also because I knew he wasn't emotionally invested enough to care. The fink.)


So I'm trying to work on my house, but am having a hard time with it due to all the other demands on my time. I will tell you the updates on each room as I finish it. The bedroom is coming close! We've (meaning I've) run into a bit of a problem with the living room-- I've decided it needs to be refinished ("finished" would probably be a better word since there is currently no finishing on it as far as I can tell). So everything else has been postponed until that gets done. Well, not everything, but the living room for sure. And I've decided to give up on the kitchen until everythign else is done. However, I am doing the pantry-- wall at least the walls, but not the floor (even though they desperately need some attention).


So that's my life right now. Rather unexciting, mostly because I'm still in mourning and thus not creating much excitement for myself. But, I'm planning for future fun adventures and excitement to do once I'm feeling more like myself.


Oh wait! I have been having adventures: for example, I went to the Swedish Christmas Smorgasborg at Ikea. As I told a co-worker, "This is the thing I'm most excited about for this month. Christmas is this month-- I don't care. My birthday is this month-- I don't care. I am most excited about the Swedish Smorgasborg at Ikea." And it did not disappoint! Here's a pictures of little children on parade in their traditionally Swedish garb. St. Lucia even made an appearance and sang. Also, the food was really fun and extraordinarily plentiful. I totally felt Swedish.
Also, here's a picture of the sorting of my food storage going on as prep for the pantry re-model

And a pic of the beginning of the painting of my bedroom. (Why doesn't my new carpet have any protection on it?!!!). You can't tell from this picture, but I'm actually painting over some other blue paint that I didn't like.
So, as you can see, my house, like my life, is a work in process. And I'm beginning to think that my house, like my life, might not be finished until I'm dead =)

No Use Avoiding This Any Longer

Well, I might as well just say it: Tyler and I broke up.

It's quite tragic really. A lot of people have expressed surprise because just a week ago right here on my very own blog, I was going on and on about how wonderful he is. Well, all of the stuff I said about him is still true, so you can imagine how sad the break-up is. But we were just too different. We didn't have much in common, including whether or not it mattered that we don't have anything in common. Even more than that, I think we were just on different wave lengths. He is a phenomenol man, but (much to my chagrin) it just was not a good fit. I wanted it to be a good fit, and we could have made it work, but I think marriage is hard enough without starting it with such very different people (even if they love and respect each other very much). I like to sum it up with the classic phrase "You can't fit a round peg in a square hole." (someone told me that sounds dirty, but there's just no other platitude that says that it so succinctly.)

So I'm just trying to carry on with my life. I'm allowing myself some time to be sad about it. I mean, it is kind of crazy-- a month ago I really honestly truly and sincerely thought I would end up marrying him and moving to DC. So this is a very different place to be in mentally and emotionally.

I decided to throw myself into getting my house decorated. I've been in re-painting chaos for about a month and of course that throws off a person's groove. I've set the very lofty goal of having my bedroom, living room, kitchen, and pantry painted and organized before my birthday. That will keep me busy and give me something to think about. Hopefully I'll even be posting updates on the blog.

So, that is what has been taking up most of my emotional energy for the week. It has also sent me on philosophical quests, such as the one I posted here yesterday. I have been learning and experiencing a lot lately, so that is good. I think by next year, I probably will have figured out everything about life =)

You Gotta Want It

I have other more important, life-information posts that I need to write, but this is on my mind very strongly today, so I want to share these thoughts now.

This morning (not that I was surfing the internet at work), I came across a series entitled "Best Holiday Gift Freak Outs." I'd recommend it to anyone. This was my favorite (WARNING: there is swearing involved)



While I consider myself a more than unusually happy, joyful and enthusiastic person, the level of excitement shown in these video clips surpassed anything I can remember experiencing. But I think I would like it! Thinking about it made me realize: perhaps there is joy in really wanting something. Is there anything I want this much? What on earth could make me this excited? I mean, I'm not sure I'd have that sort of reaction when/if St. Peter lets me in the pearly gates.

I wonder if part of being this excited is getting something with no strings attached. For example, I'm sure that I will be super duper uber excited when I get married, but there's some nervousness involved too because marriage (as wonderful as it is) is scary and a big risk too. Would that stop me from being this excited?

I also think of the line from "Pride and Prejudice" where the sister says she wishes there were another such man so her sister could be as happy as she is. And Elizabeth replies that even if there were a hundred such men, she couldn't be as happy because "until I have your goodness, I can never have your happiness." It seems like the most of the really joyful things in life are spiritual in nature and it takes a good amount of spirituality to appreciate them. I know for sure that the Spirit does intensify feelings of joy, excitement, and gratitutude. (Not that this applies to the Play Station example above, but it's still an interesting thought.)

I also wonder-- is part of the joy and excitement of getting something you want the fact that it's unexpected? Maybe I don't get so excited about things because I usually just expect that things will work out for me so I'm not surprised when they do. But I like to think that I don't take things for granted when they do work out. And I think I'm still grateful and happy when they do.

Also, I think there's not really a lot of things that I want. I don't have anything on my birthday or Christmas list. After some pressure from my mom on this point, it did occur to me that I'd like a CD player. (That's right I do not own a CD player, or even a computer. I'm sort of backwards that way.)

But maybe I should say there aren't a lot of material things that I want because there are lots of other things I do want. I want to get my house looking all cute and organized. I want to go jogging before work every day. I want to put in the time, effort, and energy to look cute every day. I want the people around me to feel loved and valued. I want God's light to shine through me. I want to be a source for good in the world. I want to have adventures and experience new things. I want to be surrounded by things that are beautiful.

The interesting thing about all of the above is the only thing stopping me from having each of them is myself. It's my own laziness that prevents me from doing and having anything I want. So I think I want these things, but so often I short-sightedly think I want to sit in bed and do nothing more. I am the only thing preventing me from having them.

I wonder, is there something (material or not) that I want as much as that man wanted his Play Station? I hope so! I hope I want eternal life that much. I hope I want to build the Kingdom that much. I hope I want to have joy in my life that much. And if I want them that much, what is keeping me from them? I heard a speaker at church recently who said the only currency we have with God is our desires-- if we desire righteousness, if we desire to serve him, etc. There is nothing else we can really give him. And if our desires are strong enough we will act in such a way to get the things we desire. Are my desires strong enough to motivate me to go and get the things I want? Is that keeping me from having all the joy I could?

I wonder also, how much that man would have gone through to get himself a Play Station. Surely he could have gotten an extra job or budgeted his money in such a way that he could have gotten one for himself. Was he so excited because someone loved him enough to get it for him? Would it have meant more or less to him if he had worked for it and gotten it for himself? I have a hard time accepting things from other people-- maybe I am depriving myself of joy in that way?

Whatever the reason, I want to have more full-hearted excitement and gratitude like this man did. I will put myself on a personal quest to find my own personal play station 3 and to have that level of joy in my life.

It does occur to me thought, if I lost my iPhone and was without it for a few days, I would probably be this happy when I get it back. So there is hope that this sort of emotion could be elicted in me. =)

Why God Is My Favorite Person

Last night after work I spent (by actual count) five hours on the phone with four different people resolving issues with everything from selling used food to analyzing the new (completely horrible) FDA legislation that was just passed. While talking on the phone, I was also making two loaves of homemade wheat bread (to mail to my sweetie) and three dozen chocolate chocolate chip cookies for a co-worker's birthday.

My night of tele-a-thon telephoning ended around 11pm when I finished a call with friend who needed advice and support about not being able to pay her rent. I was pretty tired, practically comatose in bed wanting to just fall to sleep.

BUT! I have just recently resolved to be more diligent in my daily scripture study and, alas, I hadn't done my 30 minutes yet. I was thinking it over in my mind-- while I really wanted to take the time to have some formal sit-down time with God, I was really super duper tired and I was justifying not getting up because I was still feeling warm fuzzies from helping people via phone and thought that might be enough for the day (excuses, excuses). I was toying with the idea of praying for strength to do the right thing, but, you know, once you ask for help, you have to be willing to do something about it (ie, get up), so I was avoiding the idea.

Then I remembered that my freshly baked cookies were still sitting out. I knew that if I left them out all night, they would not be quite so yummy in the morning. I really wanted to have something nice to give my wonderful co-worker, so I decided to muster my strength and get out of bed. The irony of being more dedicated to pleasing my co-worker than pleasing God was not lost on me.

I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. Then, I remembered that I had already put the cookies away. As soon as I realized it, I received this prompting from God: "Gotcha!"

I laughed and laughed and then went to my desk and read scripture for 30 minutes.

I just love how God is willing to work with us and help us for our good, even using non-traditional methods. When we are striving to be closer to Him, He will help us in any way we are willing to receive. And I'm thankful for that.