The Big Apple

New York City couldn’t be more iconic. I feel like I know exactly what to expect when I get there because I have heard so much about it and seen so many movies and TV shows that take place there.

At the same time, I know it’s going unexpected because that’s what New York makes New York. You can’t understand it until you’ve been there.

I leave for NYC Saturday. Since I’m going for work, I won’t have a lot of time to explore. But I’ll be taking the subway, eating local food, and talking with hair stylists who live and work in New York. I’ll also probably be battling my people claustrophobia.

Wish me luck!

Trust in the Invisable

I loving learning by antecdotes. That's why I love blogs so much. Stories are one of my favorite parts of church. Stories are what make the scriptures come alive for me.

I love sharing my own stories. I'm my favorite person to write about. And while I get pretty personal, there are many things that I don't tell the whole world. There are myriad reasons that I don't share, and I can't even tell you those reasons.

You're just going to have to trust that there are good reasons. Some of these invisable, untold stories are the most moving and important stories of my life, but they must remain untold.

Thinking about my own invisable stories can be frustrating, but it has also helped me have more compassion for others. Everyone has untold stories. We have to be OK with not knowing everything about everyone and still being kind to them even though we don't understand their whole story. My mom always said that the people who are hardest to love need it the most.

I've also realized that other people don't think about invisable stories. So they're judgemental and rude. And that's OK. They just haven't learned that lesson in life yet. They will get there.

This weekend has been so wonderful. LDS General Conference concluded today and it warmed my soul and strengthened my spirit. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts with you. I want to start writing more on this blog. Because I have plenty of very visable stories.

-Meg

My life story: Hairs in Mysterious Places

If you're a girl who wears her hair long, or if you're a dude has ever had long hair, then you know what the unpleasantness of having a long hair stuck in your butt crack is like.

I don't know exactly how they get there, but they do, and it's miserable until you can get to the bathroom and get it out.

But when you're in elementary school, you can't just go to the bathroom whenever you want. ("That's what recess is for!")

One time. when I was in third grade, I had a really terrible hair in my butt. It was made worse by the fact that I was wearing leggings, and I just couldn't wait until recess to go get it out. So when I thought that no one was looking, I reached my hand down the back of my pants and got that butt hair out.

But of course, to my horror, what do I hear from across the room?

"Megan's itching her butt!"

I felt as stupid and useless as a hair stuck in a butt crack.

And the kid's name was Ty. I remember him because he was pretty much bald himself and I was bothered by the fact that his name didn't have any proper vowels.

I'm sorry if you were offended by this post. But this is a true story, and the world needs to know that butt crack hairs are the worst, and there are millions of men and women with long hair who have to deal with this misery.

-Meg

I'm going to the windy city tomorrow

I like the way that the second C and G softly ricochet around my mouth when I say “Chicago.”

I hadn’t really thought about the city a lot until I knew that I would be going there. But I knew that it was one of those giant cities that was different from New York and Los Angeles, the first two biggest cities in the US. Chicago is the third biggest, and I know it has its own identity, even if I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it is. I think I'll know more after I visit it.

Chicago reminds me of red, the world fair, deep-dish pizza, and that really big fire. Oh, and Michael Jordan and the Bulls. I know it is a windy city and that it is really cold.

I go to Chicago for the first time in my life tomorrow. I am excited to eat, fly, and hear other accents. Those are my favorite things about traveling.

Eating is the best part of any trip. I love eating good food.

I will miss Sam while I am gone.

Nothing as lovely as a tree

We took in a stray tree a few days ago. We just found it on our apartment doorstep and couldn’t bare to send it back into the cold.

We weren’t sure about its breed, but we knew it was sick and hungry and that it needed our help.

We’ve never been parents, so we turned to one of the experts for help--Sam’s mom, Sue.

She suggested some disciplinary tactics...AKA pruning. Sam lovingly started working with our newly adopted child, clipping away and cleaning up the poor little tree. Although the mother in me kept saying, “You’re being too hard on him!”, Sam kept trimming and shaping the disheveled tree.



I know that it doesn’t look like much now, but at least no one can accuse us of being sissy parents.

We are working on nurturing this little guy back to health. Our apartment is not well lit and painfully small, but we hope to turn it into a positive environment for the tree so it can grow up healthy and strong.

-Meg

Laissez les bons temps rouler

We're not Catholic or anything (Mormons, if you must know), but we celebrated Mardi Gras yesterday. This is mostly because Sam served his mission in Louisiana, and that's the land of Mardi Gras. So I figured it was a great excuse to have New Orleans food and celebrate in our very tame, Mormon way.

I made seafood gumbo. It was hard to pick a recipe because there are so many different types of gumbo out there, but one can always trust Martha Stewart.

 Notice the "Bon Appetite" sign. And you thought I didn't like French.

OK so the masks make us look kind of creepy. OK, so they make Sam look kind of creepy.

We were also going to have bananas foster, but it got late and we were tired. So we'll make them tomorrow.

-Meg

An Update

I guess it took a sick day to force me into writing a blog post finally! Life has been pretty crazy for us Thorntons lately, but we are getting settled.

We moved into a new apartment. I would post pictures but it's kind of scary right now and trust me, it's nothing you'd want to put on pinterest.

We were sad to leave our old place, but we came up on the list for Married Student Housing, so we decided to take the offer and make a change! We love our neighbors and it's nice to be so close to campus. Even though I am done with school, Sam is still going strong.

Christmas and New Year's was great! It was our first as a married couple. That meant a lot of figuring out how to split our time between our families and creating new traditions.

The year 2012 was a crazy year for us. I graduated and got a job, Sam and I got married, and we've already moved twice! (I moved three times this year!)

I know I still haven't posted wedding pictures yet, but I promise one day I will. We got more than one thousand pictures, I kid you not. It's a lot to sort through.

Well, that's a little update! I'm hoping to start feeling better by tomorrow because tomorrow I am turning 22 years old. But whatever.