some pics of the fam back in the day...

post #125

i realized that i haven't written a real post for awhile. what to post about? life just keeps going and going. i guess i feel like nothing extremely exciting has happened... but here's a list of highlights from the last few months...



1. i finished the semester at good ole san juan college, with straight a's!

2. as of yesterday, i have a job as a pharmacy tech at walgreens, hopefully starting next week.

3. because of #2, my plans are changing. i won't be doing the medical lab tech program in january. and if i like pharmacy, i may go on to further schooling in that.

4. thanksgiving was spent in dallas with the parentals and two of my sisters and their families. it was great fun and lots of food! of course there were many pies, as is the jones family tradition.

5. christmas was also great fun. it was celebrated here, with one sister and fam coming down and the brother coming over. a full house, with lots of boys (6 nephews were here), lots of wrapping paper, freezing weather, and the usual cranberry pudding.



that's all for now, folks!

Christmas Spirit

firelight

i won!!!

so, we had an enchildad cookoff today for the branch brunch at the singles branch. and i happened to make the winning enchiladas! i was pretty excited and i must admit that they were pretty darn good. so here's the recipe...


Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas


1/4 c. butter or margarine
1/4 c. flour
2 c. chicken broth
1 c. sour cream
1 7 oz. can chopped green chiles
2 c. cooked chicken
2 c. grated cheddar cheese
12 corn tortillas
1/4. c. oil

In medium saucepan, melt the butter; add the flour and stir one minute. Add chicken broth and stir until it thickens. Turn off heat and add sour cream and green chiles. Set aside.

In small skillet, heat oil and soft fry tortillas very quickly; drain on paper towels. On each tortilla, place some chicken and grated cheese. Roll tortillas up and place seam side down in a sprayed 9 x 13 baking dish. Pour sauce over enchiladas and top with remaining grated cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.

Enjoy!

a wintery day in farmtown

theme song of the day

my ipod keeps choosing to play this song when it shuffles. then it was playing today when i went to lunch with a friend. it's a good one, and always makes me smile for some reason. so i figured i'd make it the theme song of the day. :)

what i'm listening to right now...

mr. sexy voice

aka brad paisley, salt lake city, american saturday night

finally!!!

i finally transferred all my photos from my camera to the computer. so here are some pics from mexico (back in april...)

trees with bromeliads

san cristobal, chiapas


walking down the street in san cristobal

a bromeliad with a lake view

one of the many lakes in chiapas

rachel and me on a raft at one of the lakes

me and my coworkers

look at how clear the water is!

me!

a distant view of a mayan pyramid

the wonderful lunch provided for us at the production site

pretty napkins...

there was an orchid garden at the production site as well

question

you've made a decision. and you feel great about it. but while working towards whatever you decided, there are roadblocks popping up at every corner. no matter what you do, it doesn't look like it's going to work out. do you give up and go a different direction? or do you keep trying to get past the roadblocks?

promising... very promising... :)

alice in wonderland trailer

highlights - not the hair kind

i have really become a bigtime slacker on this thing. i used to be soooo addicted. i thought i'd put another little update on here. i STILL have not uploaded my pictures to the computer, so you have to keep on waiting for that. i'm not the most organized person, you know. anyway, here are a couple of random highlights from the past little while:

1. i'm taking 3 summer classes: phlebotomy, anatomy & physiology, and nutrition. so far, i would have to say that anatomy & physiology is my favorite one. am i an incredible nerd or what?

2. i went river rafting in durango with the institute. and yes, as usual, i got sunburned on the top of my head, the top of my shoulders and the top of my knees. the rest of me is still pasty white.

3. while watching two of my nephews last week, i got to see the move UP! in 3D, which was pretty darn good. i also went to the library to see the singing zoologist, who was quite entertaining. if you need a good song about the migration of the monarch butterfly, check him out.

4. i still haven't unpacked all of my boxes, surprise, surprise.

5. a couple weeks ago, two of my best friends in the world got married, and i got to be there for it! and glaze about a billion shortbread cookies.

6. my cat has finally gotten used to being here in new mexico. although i think the heat is getting to her. yesterday she ran in from outside panting, just like a dog. i have never seen a cat do that before. i swear she's part dog. and maybe part deer too.

7. i have read through the entire fablehaven series, and i'm on the third inkheart book. i'm addicted to reading, despite having to study for class.

8. i moved a large bookcase down two flights of stairs (one of which was too short for it, but i succeeded nonetheless) all by lonesome. i only left a mark on one door and some dents in one wall. not too shabby, i say.

9. a couple weeks ago, i got to see the play at the amphitheater, annie get your gun. it was soooo good! i highly reccommend it to anyone. even if you don't live here...

10. ummm, i can't think of a tenth thing, but i couldn't just leave it at nine, cause that's not an even number. so there you go.

lazy crazy days of summer

i haven't posted anything in awhile... i think it's because i don't have my own computer set up just yet... hopefully i will soon. i have some pictures i want to post from mexico and san diego, but i haven't gotten them off the camera yet. so i guess this is to be continued...

as far as what has been happening the last month, not much to say. in case you didn't know, i moved back home. i've been hanging out with the parents, relaxing and trying to figure out what is coming next. no final decisions yet, but its been a good time. i'm loving the big sky, the afternoon lightning storms and not having to be in an office everyday! i'll be travelling around a lot this summer, so i will probably have even more photos to catch up on by the next time i post. until then, happy summertime!

everything's a crisis

i've been getting a little frustrated with people lately. maybe it's because i've been watching too much tv, but it seems like everything is supposed to be so horrible and we all should be terrified of dying from swine flu or the economy or climate change or whatever it may be. well, i'm here to say that life is not as bad as the comentators are telling us it is. and i think everything would be a lot better and everyone would be a lot happier if more focus was put on the positive. i'm so sick of hearing about negative things. not everything is a crisis. so there. that's my opinion.

here's a little something to make you smile:

Doctrine & Covenants 6:34-

Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.

check out my sister's new blog

Main Street Home Economics

hola de comitan!

just a quick note, as it's beyond late and i need to get up early. i just wanted to say that i'm highly impressed with comitan. it's a city in chiapas, mexico, in case you didn't know. i'm here with some coworkers on a business trip. but the only other place i've been in mexico is baja, and chiapas is so much cleaner and greener and nicer! at least in my humble opinion.

tonight we ate at a outdoor restaurant in the town center, next to this huge church. i asked for lemonade, and i got lime juice. :) all the streets are tiny, cobblestone, from the days before cars. everyone is so nice, maybe cause they know i'm american and think i have money. little do they know, i forgot to exchange any and have absolutely no pesos... i've only seen the military guys with the big guns once so far. (in baja they are all over) my hotel is nice, and i'm deeply grateful for the air conditioner.

the only drawback so far is that they are burning the leftovers of the corn fields all around the area, and the smoke is kinda getting to me. besides that, i'm hoping that we get a chance to visit some mayan ruins while i'm here. there are some not too far away from the company site, so if they plan too many meetings for me, i may just have to sneak out the back door and go sight seeing...

i'll post pictures later...

careers

i've always considered myself one of those people who will never figure out what they want to be when they grow up. someone recently suggested (or should i say highly encouraged) me to find a career aptitude test and take it, as the path that i'm planning didn't make sense to them... so i did a google search for a test, found a free one, and took it. 485 questions later, these were the results...

1. Conservation or Environmental Scientist
2. Medical Scientist or Epidemiologist
3. Agricultural or Food Scientist
4. Counselor
5. Editor
6. Dentist
7. Dietician or Nutritionist
8. Surgeon
9. Medical or Veterinarian Technologist
10. Proofreader

the first two were in the "very high" category, while the others (in no order other than alphabetical) were "high".

i've already had a job in the environmental science field and the agriculture field. and actually, my plan to go from here was to take classes to be certified as a medical technologist. maybe i didn't need this test at all! or maybe i should give each one of these a try. anyone want to pay for my schooling?

overplayed

there are two songs that are played on the radio everyday when i drvie to work, drive to lunch, and drive home for work. i hear them 3 times a day, no matter what radio station i listen to. ok, maybe not the spanish ones...

1. Love Story - Taylor Swift. this one has gotten quite annoying. first of all, she sings a range of what, 4 notes? second, the words make no sense. "you were romeo, i was a scarlet letter". these are two completely different stories, neither of which have a love story that i would like to aspire too. did she seriously just call herself an adulteress?

2. Shattered - OAR. this one is growning on me. plus i find it slightly ironic when i'm driving to work, and it says "i always turn the car around". i'm taking it as a sign.

do any of you have songs that you hear daily? please share!

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

I found a podcast on itunes that has LDS talks, so I downloaded them to my iPod. On my most recent trip, I listened to a few of them on the airplane instead of music like I usually do. This one talk in particular stuck with me, so I thought I'd put a few quotes up here to share with you all. It is called "Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled" by Gordon B. Hinckley, given at a BYU devotional in 1974. I felt that much of his counsel was very applicable to our situation today.


"I come this morning with a plea that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that we "accentuate the positive." I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort."

"What I am suggesting and asking is that we turn from the negativism that so permeates our society and look for the remarkable good in the land and times in which we live, that we speak of one another's virtues more than we speak of one another's faults, that optimism replace pessimism, that our faith exceed our fears."

"We hear much talk of economic depression these days. Heaven forbid that we should ever slip again into the kind of monetary quagmire through which we struggled in the 1930s. Those were the days of the long soup lines, of suicides that came of discouragement, of a bleakness of life which few of you can understand. I hope and pray that such hard times will never come again. But I think it not impossible or even improbable if enough people, in the spirit of negativism and defeatism, talk about it and predict it. We are creatures of our thinking. We can talk ourselves into defeat or we can talk ourselves into victory."

"It is a responsibility divinely laid upon us to bear one another's burdens, to strengthen one another, to encourage one another, to lift one another, to look for the good in one another, and to emphasize that good."

You can read the entire talk here.

It is so easy to get caught up in the spirit of cinicism and negativism. Everywhere you turn someone is talking about one "crisis" or another. In reality, life isn't really all that bad. I'm going to try to be more positive about things. I don't want to waste any more time having a negative attitude. That is my new resolution for this year...

google it...

1. kera is... an Equal Opportunity Employer
2. kera is... emotionally and mentally prepared
3. kera is... a changemaker
4. kera is... the entire range of counterculture fashion in Japan
5. kera is... an uncommon female first name
6. kera is... worlds away from my teenage experience
7. kera is... pure
8. kera is... a common misspelling or typo for: era, karat, karma, kea, kern
9. kera is... learning basic manners
10. kera is... a human gene

*disclaimer: i admit that i skipped over a few, namely those that had to do with KERA being a public television station in dallas, or the Kentucky Education Reform Act, or the language spoken in Chad. just cause they weren't as interesting...*

who knew i was so important? i mean, the entire range of counterculture fashion in japan AND a human gene?
try it with your name and see what you come up with.

my personal style

everytime i watch a show on HGTV or catch a glimpse of a design blog, it makes me want to be a designer. my friend anelieze has started a design blog, and i found this quiz on there. i've always had a hard time putting a name to my style, so i guess now i finally know. :) here's what it told me about my personal style...

46% Rustic Revival
31% Traditional Country
23% French Eclectic

Rustic Revival

You can take kid out of the country but you can't take the country out of the kid... or is your theme "you can take the kid out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the kid?".

Either way you play it, you are one of the unique individuals who loves a mix of modern and country. The clean lines of the modern softened by rustic/vintage elements is the perfect mix in your mind. And can we blame you? You've taken the best aspects of two popular designs and mixed them in a manner that appeals to young and old alike. A subtle background of white or light colors provides a nice canvas for all the wonderful flea market, eBay, or garage sale finds as well as the classic modern pieces that you love.
Traditional Country
Even if your backyard isn't acres of farmland and you don't actually have a cow out in the barn, your house sure brings you back to a time when that was the case for many.
You love spaces that feel casual and lived in. Furniture is practical and comfortable, and yet at the same time its very stylish. The best part of country style is how much it highlights collection and found objects. Antiques here, garage sale finds there and Aunt Milly's hand-me-downs throughout. Unique items that used to serve very practical purposes are now on display, and their history seems to permeate the home. Each space in the home seems to invite friends and family to come in and stay a while. There is a true sense of home felt throughout.
French Eclectic

Parlez-vous français? Even if the answer is no, you can confidently say your home does! French Eclectic somehow manages to be both formal and casual, classy and unassuming at the same time. You like your spaces to feel inviting from the moment you (or your guest) opens the front door and this feeling should continue even after you've entered your most formal room.
Even though there are French antiques here and gold details there, the rustic country elements provide a balance and warmth that seems to say, "come in, relax and stay a while." Your love of antiques leads you to flea markets, garage sales and hours of eBay hunting.
apparently i need to shop more on eBay and garage sales... what's your style?

photo tag

Here are the official rules:

1. Go to my documents/pictures.
2. Go to your 6th folder.
3. Go to your 6th picture.
4. Blog about it.
5. Tag 5 people to do the same.



this is from halloween, a looooong time ago, before kate existed. i think i actually stole it from callie and saved it to my computer. i'm the pumpkin, if you can't tell.

i tag callie, kate, and 3 other people who want to do it. :)

meditation

i haven't posted in awhile, but i HAVE been thinking a lot lately. a lot. it seems like life is all about decisions. every day decisions that may not affect anybody but ourselves, but also huge life changing decisions that can affect our families and friends, and even people we don't know and future generations. to me, that's a lot of responsibility. how do you go about making decisions like that?

i have also been feeling the need to study lately, almost like a hungering for more knowledge. i want to learn, i want to go back to school, i want to read about anything and everything i get my hands on.

what it comes down to is that i am trying to figure out what the next step in life should be, and i want to make it a good one. something that challenges me, but not to the breaking point. something that will let me feel like i'm contributing and doing my part, not just existing from day to day.

i've been reading a book the my mom gave me awhile back, called "a twenty-something's guide to spirituality- questions you hesitate to ask, answers you rarely hear." there are two sections in particular that hit home to me. one about lds women and education, and one about diverging roads. these haven't necessarily answered all my questions, but they have at least given me comfort to know that i'm not the only one who struggles with these things. anyway, here is a question that is asked in this book that i can really, really relate to. i'm going to quote it, but it sounds exactly like something that i have asked before.

"Sometimes I find myself growing dizzy from my own indecisiveness. Each road has different people to meet and different experiences to be had; these things shape who I ultimately will become. I find myself becoming unduly anxious to make the right choice between two great options; of course, what I really want to do is the Lord's will. Sometimes it seems the importance of the question has little correlation with the clarity of His answer.

The decisions between two goods are hard, and I have constantly inquired of the Lord for guidance. With some decisions, however, there have been no 'bolts of lightening.' With these decisions I have tried to be guided by the peace that I felt. Sometimes I have simply had to start down one of the possible paths, hoping for the best. This has not always proven successful, resulting in self-doubt and fear with respect to later decision-making efforts.

Why does the Lord give stronger answers to some questions than others? Are there circumstances when the Lord really doesn't care what I choose to do? How much does He leave up to me? What is the Lord's role in my agency?"
there is a response to this question by Virginia H. Pearce, which i am currently reading and meditating upon. which leads to the reason for the video... this is meditation from thais by jules massenet, my absolute favorite violin piece of all time. i have done a ton of meditating to it, and it still continues to inspire me. i have a goal of learning to play it before i die...

the getty

last saturday, i went on a little outing with some of my "mid-single" friends to the j. paul getty museum in l.a.

if you ever get a chance to go, DO IT! it was amazing! and the best part is, it's free! (except parking) it reminded me of some of the museums i was able to go to in france. maybe it's because a lot of the paintings and furniture were french... anyway, i need to go back and spend some more time there, since our time was limited. here are a few pics for your viewing pleasure. (i wasn't allowed to use a flash indoors, so some of them are a little blurry.)

kathy jo and me, at the getty museum

a beautiful haze over the city and ocean (actually not too bad for l.a.)

the central garden

kathy jo and natalie, on the bridge

a view from the stairs

i'm not sure exactly what this was, but i thought it was cool.

monet, the bridge over the water lily pond

another monet, cathedral at rouen

these last two are at 3rd street promenade, where we had lunch and watched the street performers. quite the afternoon outing...