Pondering on a late night

In case you haven't heard, seen, or otherwise experienced- it's snowing in VA. Real snow, not just this fake stuff. The roads are legitimately slick. I love the snow. I love to watch it snow. To be perfectly honest, I loved to watch it snow in Colorado and Utah more than here. Here I look out my window in the front and see a parking lot and endless townhomes that look just like mine and out the back I see a fence, a muddy nasty shared back "yard" for the townhomes and the back porches of the townhomes behind me. A bit less inspiring than Pikes Peak or the Wasatch front. When I lived in Belmont I could lay in this specific place on the floor of our front room and I could see the tops of the trees and no buildings and I loved to lay there and watch it snow because it was all natural, beautiful, and perfect. The thoughts of snow also made me think of Christmas. I am playing the organ in church this Sunday, so I am thinking about Christmas carols more than the average individual. Here's the two I have been thinking about:

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;

heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

but his mother only, in her maiden bliss,

worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

if I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

I think I love the humility of this hymn. It's easy in life and in Christmas to get caught up in the complexities, but the text here is so simple, so peaceful and so profound. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ- so powerful and eternal that heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain, and yet, a stable- that is where we find him. The simple image of His mother, Mary, holding her sweet infant child, tenderly loving him, and giving the Son of God a kiss and the kind of love that only she can give. I just love it. I love to think about those lyrics and the music that goes along with it just stirs my soul!

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
So this is the one that I am playing in church on Sunday and I was looking it up tonight because there are two verses that are not included in the hymn, so this is the text from Longfellow's poem "Christmas bells"

I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

I love this hymn/poem because it shows both the hope and despair of this life. He beings by describing the clear and sweet sound of the church bells, certainly a sound that would be associated with hope and goodness and peace. Indeed those bells sing of "peace on earth good will to men". But then the cannons bellow! Life happens. Here we are, imperfect beings, all trying to get along and make it through life and sometimes doing it painfully so. These verses describe a Christmas day during the Civil War and those dark verses about the battle can apply to the battles of life. BUT that is not the end. The peace and hope that those bells sing overpowers the darkness of the battle. Yes. the battle of our life is long and tiring and hard sometimes, but there is hope and good and right. There is beauty and goodness and love. And why is that? It's all because of that little babe, born in a lowly stable, who grew into a Man that would show us the way and lead us to light.

The Roomies

Just some AWESOME! pictures that my roommate took. (I take absolutely no credit for them.)

Kaleidoscope

I just might have had the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream that I never even knew that I had. Amazing? Yes, it is. On Monday night I went to the Verizon center in DC and saw an ice skating performance filmed for a TV. Um....it was AMAZING! You can experience what I saw on Thanksgiving night on Fox TV, but I will first tell you about my excitement. Opening skating number=Scott Hamilton=my hero. I remember watching him skate when I was little and I just loved him. He is awesome. And I got to see him skate, in the flesh, in real life. Love it. I also saw Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan AND I got to hear David Archuleta sing live. Jealous? You should be. It was SO fun and SO awesome. I can't even say it enough. So, next Thursday night on Fox- check it out (and think about how cool it would have been to be there sitting 15 rows back).

Kaleidoscope

"No Contact" Sports

I was sitting in the student lounge on Friday and someone had ESPN on. I heard them say something about BYU so I glanced up to see the story and this is what I saw. It was what everyone was talking about by the time that we got back to class. Wow- someone might need some anger management. One of my classmates summed it up nicely. How embarrassing to be nationally recognized because you are being "downright unsporty".

BYU-UNM soccer

The Capital Beltway

The Beltway:aka I-495



As much as I am enjoying the greater DC area, I have discovered that I'm not really a city girl. #1 problem I have with big cities: traffic. It drives me absolutely crazy sometimes!! For example, today. I got out of school early so I decided to take a trip up to the temple in Kensington MD. From where my car was parked to my final destination is 20.3 miles, an expected 24 minute drive (as estimated by Google maps, which by the way is maybe the most frequented website in my life since I moved here). I left at 1pm and the beltway looked like this:



Just how I like it! It took just under 30 minutes to get there. I love living so close- right? Right.

I finished up and headed home at about 4pm- thinking in my head that this was perfect, I would miss the worst of rush hour traffic. It was the perfect plan! The drive home is 24.0 mi, 33 minutes (and I can attest that this is accurate, based on previous experience. Unfortunately as I pulled on to the beltway, this is what I saw:



Alas! Rush hour starts by about 3:30 to 4 out here, especially on the beltway. Google maps is so kind as to warn you that the estimated time for driving can me longer in traffic- for this particular 24 mi route it estimates up to 1 hour and 20 minutes. Let me also tell you that I know that it can actually take that long to drive those 24 miles. I was lucky enough today that it only took 1 hour, but as I sat completely stopped on the interstate I just had to stop and think...ugh- why do people want to live here and how can people stand to drive this every single day? It would drive me bonkers!! I have a whole new appreciation of what it means to live "close" to something. Before I moved here I thought that anything within 5 miles was really close and 20 miles really wasn't far. Alas, I feel like where I am now, anything more than 2 miles away is kind of far!!

Oh Canada!

I used to be able to sing the entire Canadian National Anthem (title Oh Canada in case you didn't know), but I don't know that I can...actually it is one of those things that I sang in choir years ago and still probably resides in my memory, but would need to be dusted off! If only I could remember the names of every diagnostic test I need to know for school as well as I knew my choir music... somehow the choir music has stayed with me for years, but the random facts that I am expected to know for school don't seem to carry on so easily. Anyway, I didn't get to go to Canada, but I did get to see it for the first time! Some day I will get a passport and go up there! But alas, not yet. So here are the pictures I have from Niagra Falls- I stopped here in August when I was driving cross country with my friend Laura. It was a beautiful place to see; yes I have heard that the Canadian side is even better and next time I won't drive through the city of Niagra in a Penske moving van because that definitely cast a negative shadow over the afternoon!!

The Simple Joys

I bought a new lap top this week. I've been considering it for a while and seeking out my options, but I decided that I definitely don't want to wait until my computer completely dies because that will inevitably happen at the worst time possible- like finals. I don't think I could even make it through a few days of grad school without a computer at home because I am expected to communicate through email so frequently. As such, I got a great deal on a computer and I have been trying to play with it ever since- trying because I have had to study for and take two midterms and say goodbye to a friend who is deploying to Iraq in the last 24 hours while I have had the computer. That said, I am loving not getting in a fight with my computer every time that I get on and I did get to put my pictures on my computer. Here are a few of my favorites, more to come...



Me at Niagra Falls (in August)


Hyrum giving his Aunt Nicki some lovin'


Iwo Jima- I live 10 minutes from here. Pretty much AMAZING!

p.s. Happy Mole Day!

Take Two...

I spent a lot of good quality time today trying to get my computer to be friends with my camera so I could post all my awesome pictures, but alas. They still won't get along. Makes me sad. So only some quick verbage tonight. Nothing too new and exciting going on. October is the month of midterms this semester. A couple of big ones every week is keeping me on my toes. I must admit, I have been less dedicated to school this semester than those in the past (as evidenced by my grades), but I have been a lot more involved in church activities, missionary discussions, etc, etc, and I must admit I rather like it. Only one more year and I will be in clinicals full time so I won't have to study for exams everyday and I won't even feel bad about it!!


http://www.gwumc.edu/medctr/news.cfm?view=news&d=9123

Exciting? I think not.

Since it's been two months since I blogged, you would think I have an amazing post to post- right? Wrong-o. I actually was going to make an amazing post complete with pictures this weekend, but it turns out that I couldn't load my pictures on to my computer. Troubling though this is...there is something more troubling. My computer also won't read my ipod (and it used to) and doesn't always recognize my printer. It runs as slow as a tortoise with a full stomach and the battery (which is only about 3 month old may I add) dies after about 15 minutes. Hmm....problem. So I set out to blog a fabulous post and began to wonder if I actually might be getting a new computer in the near future. Hmm... I know so many people who can do so many amazing things with computers, but alas, I moved to the east coast- blast and blast again! So, no new cool pictures for my blog.

I have done some awesome things in the last two months though like- visiting Kirtland, OH, Palmyra, NY, New Haven, CT, Gettysburg, PN, and Richmond(ish) VA. I finally got accepted as a volunteer at a local hospital and jumped through all their hoops (including a very long 3 hour training where I learned how to wash my hands, why I should wash my hands, etc. etc. Very useful information, but as we had an entire unit on such things my first semester of school I thought the training might never end), started regularly going to institute class (because they started a class near my house!) and oh yeah, started a new semester of school. I am finally learning what I am going to be doing with real people, real patients. This semester I get to learn how to figure out what people's problems are and how to fix them. Wow! Life is busy.

So, there you go- the exceedingly brief update on my life. Hopefully more to come and sooner rather than later. I hope this lovely blog finds all of you well! :)

Favorite moments in the last little bit of life:

"I don't treat my TBI (traumatic brain injury) patients like three year olds, I think I treat my three yeaer old like he has a brain injury." As said today in my neuro class

"fast like a cheetah"- this is one of my clinical instructors favorite phrases, she says things like "Wow you did that fast like a cheetah" all the time and it makes me laugh!

So there is this super cute family who lives in the area that I have gotten to be friends with. I had the four girls over for a slumber party so we could play and mom and dad could have a break. In the morning my computer was on and the three year old girl looked at the picture on my background which is of Stephanie kissing a sting ray in the ocean (she was on a cruise). All the sudden I hear her pipe up and say "Why is your friend holding a sting ray?" In the most exacerbated voice that a three year old can make. It made me laugh so much- she thought that was just the craziest thing a person could do.

The River

Just two weeks ago I was a "white water virgin", but no more! I took a trip to West Virginia (cue John Denver music here) to go white water rafting with some friends from church. We had a grand time. Turns out that I rather enjoy white water rafting and would love to go on a more exciting river next time. This one was great to start on, but I love the rapids and wanted more. We went on a day trip which included a grilled lunch on the river banks, jumping off of "jumping rock" which is about 25ft high (you don't realize that part until you are already off the edge), "surfing" in the rapids, and swimming/floating down the river and some of the smaller rapids. It was a blast. The folks in my boat all pitched in and bought the photos they took (with the copyrights, so don't worry I am not being illegal!) and I thought I would share. I completely recommend white water rafting. I had so much fun!

Just the Highlights

Obviously, my contact with the outside world has been lacking this summer. Some how things always stay busy, yes? It's not a bad thing, but keeping in touch with other people and staying updated on my blog have not been my strengths of recent. So here are a few pictures highlights from May and June. The July pictures are not yet on my computer, but I have been busy so there are more to come!

My car after the accident. Wasn't terribly, but they had to replace an awful lot of stuff. I was so grateful that I didn't have to go through the hassle of getting a new one though!


One night my roomie walked her sister out to her car and they found this turtle. After some online research, I decided it was an eastern box turtle. They are found in the wild of VA.


Over my break in May, I got to travel out west. One of my desinations was Las Vegas to attend my friend Kaylene's wedding. It was a beautiful occasion and I was so grateful to be a part of it.


This is Jeremy and Kelly and me at Trent's house. Utah was my primary destination of the trip out west.


Lucie, Jack, Ruby and I at Trent and Ashlie's house. Also my trip in May.


I had the opportunity to go through the temple for the first time in May! It was such a wonderful experience. I had a lot of family there because Robbie also blessed his new baby, Estella Grace, the next day. I love this temple. I loved being able to live so close to the temple while I lived in Utah.


This is Emily and I. We road tripped down to Vegas for Kaylene's wedding!


We stopped in St. George on our way down to Vegas and did a session in the temple and also stopped for dinner at In 'N Out- good stuff.


Laura and I in South Jordan


So, there's the short version. I have actually been able to do a lot of fun things this summer and the next few weeks are packed with even more! Yeah for summer time (even if I am in school full time still!!).

Still going...

One way or another, I have made it another month and still not blogged. No good. Life just never slows down does it? Somehow, things are always so busy. So, here's the run down on my month: I managed to live through the semester and finals- though finals were a breeze after a miserable semester- and the next morning (early, as in leaving at 5am) I flew to Utah. I went through the temple for the first time (in Provo) and my brother Robbie blessed his adorable baby on Sunday. I spent the rest of the week in Utah visiting people, but unfortunately didn't get to do all that I wanted to because I got rather sick a sinus infection...allergies, don't get them. So, if I didn't see you on my visit, I am sorry, don't take it personally, I was sort of miserable. I did however make it to a friend's wedding down in Vegas and then made it home to VA. I had a pretty good week doing some organizing and project type stuff around the house and sleeping to try and get myself better, then Friday came. While I was going to Target pick up the last thing I needed for my project in my room, someone pulled out in front of me on a busy road and I didn't have time to stop. Ah yes, life just has to stay interesting. A trip to the emergency room, many calls to insurance companies, a trip to the tow yard to empty my car and a rental car later, and my life is starting to feel in one piece again...sort of. And then school started and it was a rough start. I think I felt more ready to start the semester before my vacation than after. So, I am ok, I've just been sore this week (whiplash, bruised ribs and a sprained ankle from the accident, but nothing serious thankfully!). My car is still in limbo, I don't know whether it will be totaled or fixable but I am super counting on fixable so I don't have to go car shopping, and I am in Chesapeake, VA 30 minutes from VA beach and so grateful for an escape. I've never needed a 3-day weekend so badly after only 5 days of school! Wow...life.

I want to be this cool someday

It might be lame that I am doing another youtube video for my blog, but I watched this today and I thought it was amazing. Really, I want to be as cool as this lady someday. I find her truly inspiring. Sometimes I feel like it is easy to give up our dreams and aspirations because they can be hard to achieve. But really, what is life without the dream and the hope? I hope that in 20 years I am still dreaming and reaching for those dreams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

And on a similar note, but a more spiritual level- here's one of my favorite quotes- hangs on my mirror so I can read it often:

"God is anxiously awaiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can't if you don't pray, and He can't if you don't dream. In short, He can't if you don't believe."

Jeffrey R. Holland

Sometimes our dreams don't turn out quite the way we expect them. Sometimes it seems like hoping and dreaming and trusting in a God who we can't see is just too much. But I've learned in my experiences that even when we feel alone or abandoned- He is closer than we know. Sometimes to fulfill our dreams we have to wait a long time, sometimes our dreams must change, but I know that we should never stop believing. Our hope in the future- sometimes the very far eternal future- is what gives life meaning and light and goodness. Life isn't what we expect, but we must keep living.

A long break

So, school has taken over my life this semester and blogging has gone to the bottom of the list. Alas, I am sorry to keep you all in the dark about my life. We shall just say that it is full of school and my free time is generally exercise, reading, or playing the piano. Not too exciting. However, just because it makes me so happy, here is a link to an amazing video my friend showed me on youtube over spring break. Hope that you all live in a wonderful world!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WlbQPmXg08

Turns out that it works

Sorry for the exceedingly long break. Sometimes blogging just falls to the bottom of the list. It's been a very long start to the semester, so this has been one of those times. Hopefully things have settled down enough that blogging will become more important. Really, there have been some exciting things going on, so you all have missed out on great stuff in my life!! :)

So, here's my favorite story for today. Last night my roommate and I had some people over. It was all us folk who were lacking in another half for Valentine's day. A couple of guys from the ward came over and a couple of girls from school. We made monkey bread, which is basically a big pecan roll made in a bunt pan that pulls apart in small pieces. It was quite the adventure because first, the brown sugar/butter goodness boiled over onto the bottom of the oven and then it turned out that the bread wasn't even close to being cooked all the way through when we pulled it out, so it was pure dough in the middle. Fortunately, another 20 minutes in the oven did the trick and even the middle goo turned out edible. I didn't really think about the mess in the oven until this morning when I heard my roommate call my name. Conversation went like this:

Lori: "Nicki" (said very calmly I will add)
Nicki:"Yes?"
Lori: "There's a fire in the oven." (still matter of fact)
*Nicki walks out of her room to go upstairs to the kitchen*
Lori: "Baking soda?"
Nicki:"Yes"

It was a pretty good fire in there. We aren't talking little sparks or anything, but a full fledged fire as you would expect to have in your fireplace. She threw a little bit of baking soda on it and it went right out. As it turns out, just like they told you when you started cooking, throwing baking soda on a kitchen fire really does put it right out. Maybe you haven't tried it before, but I have, and I will give a testimonial. I have to admit, we thought it was pretty fun. We've had quite an entertaining weekend-this is just a small taste of the doings in a house full of singles. So here's to oven fires and baking soda!

p.s. We had our apartment inspected this week and found out that our smoke detector on the middle floor (where the kitchen is) doesn't work. I know it's weird and not really safe, but I must admit, I was kind of grateful for that as our kitchen filled with smoke this morning.

The latest photos

So, it has been a very long time since I have actually taken the time to blog, so here's a whole bunch a pictures and a few words to fill you in. Over Thanksgiving Laura came to visit me and we spent a number of days seeing the sites to see around the city and enjoying each other's company. We cooked an amazing Thanksgiving dinner with Trista and enjoyed it over a few Star Trek episodes. We decorated our apartment for the holidays and then I managed to survive my first semester of grad school and even made it out with decent grades (surprising, I know :)) and then headed home for the holidays. I spent the first week in Colorado with the fam there, eating, celebrating Christmas, cooking, and decorating gingerbread houses. Then I headed to Utah for a few days to visit the family there and see some of my friends! It was a grand trip. I loved the snow and really appreciated being able to drive places without getting lost or stuck in traffic. I love the grid system and I especially love mountains and snow. I just don't think winter will be as fun out here. So, there ya go. I hope this new year has some exciting things in store for you. I have no doubt that it will bring some new adventures for me!