Home Sweet

I am home. Finally.

After an emotionally draining 2 weeks, 6 finals, 3 boxes of tissues, 20 hours in the car, and 5 loads of laundry later... I am in Flower Mound, Texas.

Finally.

It's been hard. No lies... I love being home, but there's so much empty time for my mind to wander into things that I shouldn't waste my time wondering about. Why? What did I do wrong? How do I get over this? What's next? I hate uncertainty, and I hate change. And these are the two things that I am weathering currently. It's storming now, we just heard the tornado sirens go off, so naturally I went outside. Somehow, it seemed like the safest place for me to go. Strange enough, the uncertainty in the air outside was calming to my own uncertain soul. Go figure. Whatever helps I guess, haha.

On my last day of my Family Finance class, my professor gave an outstanding... I don't know what you call it... presentation? talk? It was his final "words of wisdom" for us as we go off into the world to... budget! A story that he told us struck me as one of those "meant for me" stories. It was a story about this man whose wife had died, and he was miserable and depressed. He went to Dr. Frankl, a holocaust-survivor, now psychiatrist, and told him all the miserable things he was feeling. Dr. Frankl paused, then said, "How do you think this situation would be, if you had died before your wife?" The man stopped and just stared blankly for a few minutes, before saying, "I'm sure she would have felt just as sad, and depressed as I am." "Ahh," said Dr. Frankl, "Then you are sparing her from the misery that you are feeling, yes?" And the man walked away a new person. The quote is: “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” It makes me wonder about the meaning of this suffering. I know all trials are given to us for specific reasons, and to help us learn and to grow. Knowing that this suffering is for the purpose of shaping me into the person I need to be makes it easier. Sacrificing momentary happiness for eternal happiness, even. That's what I'm going for.

Anyway, I had forgotten some of the reasons why I love Texas so much, and I thought I'd reflect on a few of those reasons.

1. The air. The air is thick. Most people wouldn't like that, and sometimes I really don't... but it reminds me of my childhood. I drove down wichita trail yesterday, past the tree that is shaped like a dog and just let my arm hang out the window.
2. The thunderstorms. Like I said, some of the safest feeling times are the ones where I am out in a thunderstorm. I count to however many mississippi's to see how far away it is, like I was in elementary school or somethin. It's like watchin fireworks. And the rain is warm.
3. The fried chicken smell. On the intersection of long prarie & flower mound road is chick-fil-a! And I can smell the fried chicken as I drive past. Next to chick-fil-a is culver's, and their "butter burgers"- burgers that are sure to make you feel like you've just ingested a quart of grease, and it is now lining your stomach. but they're sooo good.
4. The trees. You'd think that there wouldn't be any trees, its texas right? nothing but flat, dry, grassy plains. Trees are everywhere. Big oak trees. We've got a couple in our backyard, but my favorite climbing tree is Isaac's tree in the front of the episcopalian church on wichita trail.
5. The people. Didya know texas is the friendship state? of course you did...
6. Time. Time moves slower here. I feel like I've sat on the back porch for hours just sitting and thinking, and still have time to spare.
7. The mexican radio stations. Yep. I even missed those, haha.
8. The warmth, oh the warmth! After 4 months of frigid provo, I am warm! The air doesn't go cold after dark, its always warm.
9. my family. Nothing could be better, happier, more healing. home sweet.


only one thing... i miss krista roy :(

Plans

Dear Readers,

For most of you, this is my first post you've read. In the future, I will be talking about what goes on in my life, but today I want to break from my usual format and talk to you about the subject of plans. Not so much my plan for this blog, but life plans, and how we all make them. And how we hope that we will make good, smart, safe plans on our own. But if we're really honest with ourselves, our plans usually don't work out as we had hoped. So instead of asking others "What are you plans? What do you plan to do with your life?" maybe we should tell them this: Plan to be surprised.

Lugazi or bust!

I got accepted to Help International's Lugazi, Uganda Team this Monday, and had training from 9-5:30 on Friday and Saturday... super long but really good stuff. I'm so excited! I'm scheduled to leave in the 3rd wave from July 13-August 24. But I will probably try to leave a week early and roam around Europe for like a week before I get to Uganda. I have been wanting to do this since I was in 9th grade, and its FINALLY going to happen! i'm psyched to go help the people and grow and learn from them myself. Its going to be an incredible experience.

Rachel came for the weekend!! She was supposedly coming to check out campus, but everyone knows she was just here to see me :) We hooliganized a lot, going to Festival of Colors, Ihop, Cafe Rio, and a bunch of other random places. I love her so much and I am so happy she is coming to BYU next year!! It's going to be a PARTAY AND A HALF!

Also... festival of colors. It was like half-raining/half snowing when we were driving down there... so i wasn't super excited, but it always turns out to be fun. We didn't even have to buy any chalk, cause there were just a couple packets layin around on the ground. Got to see some llamas, explore a desecrated Krishna temple, and be inducted into the Hindu religion... just kidding. I'm Mormon and proud of it. Afterwards we hit up IHOP. SO GOOD. Its been way too long since i've had me my NY cheesecake pancakes. to. die. for. Cept everyone was lookin at us kinda weird cause we were "Queen Elizabeth's runaway orphan step-children" (Krista Roy). The things she comes up with haha.

There is love in the air! The boy that wrote Kim on her mission is here for a couple of weeks, his name is Josh, and they are precious! I love to see Kim happy and twitterpated!! :) Didn't get to see John very much this weekend... After getting out of a half hour shower trying to scrub hindu paint off of my scalp, he had called me up, leaving a message of him singing his alternate lyrics to "Fallin for You" by Colbie Callait ("why aren't you answerin your phooooooone? Why arent you answerin your phoo-ooo-ooo-ooone?") So I headed over there for the rest of the allotted time before curfew... 20 minutes. haha. But worth it :) Oh and grandma invited us to go to the sizzler with her! surprise surprise! when i told her we were going to ihop, and that she could come with us she's like... 'no... thats ok." :) gotta love my grandma. I've eaten out so much this week... that I don't want to eat out ever again. barf. Too much food. Speaking of FOOD!! Me and rach, and hopefully Kris & Sum-bum are going to take an intro to cooking class next fall! I'm psyched! Yesterday when I was walking down to the sewing lab... I saw three people walk by one after the other... all holding apple pies. I was like DANG I NEED TO TAKE THAT CLASS!! excitement!!

Also this weekend... went over to Heather & Alyssa's for Heather's bachelorette party. CRAZY. She is getting married!!! Still can hardly believe it. It was fun to see all the flo mo's, and eat some reeses haha. Lys... dating someone?! Crazy!

I AM GOING TO GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!! My momma got me tickets from our Stake President in Lewisville, so I am GOING!!

Anyway.. the point is... I'm gonna go. k bye.

Babies.

So I got this call from Kris this morning, and she was panting and sounding really stressed. You know why? CJ's water broke. and Krista was going to go down and watch her give birth. sick huh? But also pretty cool. So she drove and drove and drove down to Monroe, and witnessed the birth of CharlyAnne Jill Carter! Such a joyous occasion.

Also, today there was an Earthquake in my motherland. Japan. Thoughts are going out to all the victims.

But the point is.... UGANDA!!! I applied for the Help International Program to Uganda this summer, and I got a call today asking for an interview! I'm so psyched! Man, if I get in... it will be the best adventure of my life to date. I have been wanting this since I was in 9th grade, and it might actually happen this summer!! What the heck?!

John found out that he is jobless in Utah, which makes him happy, because that means he gets to go to Alaska this summer, haha. He said he has never been so happy to hear that he isn't getting hired. He will have a blast catching birds, growing facial hair, and building trails, or whatever the heck he is doing. A whole summer is such a long time to be away from each other!! But I think sometimes distance is an important thing. You get to see if things actually will work out. So I am happy, with reservations.

I am going home. In like... 7 weeks. CRAZY. I get to see my family, and hopefully get a job somewhere cool, and see my family, and maybe take an online class, and see my family, and watch Rachel graduate, and see my family. oh yeah, did I mention I get to see my family?! What's super cool, is my cousins from Missouri are coming down for Rach's grad, and I haven't seen them since I was 6. That's FOURTEEN YEARS, PEOPLE! It's gonna be a party and a half!

And in other news from the past...

On Valentine's day we didn't really have time to do much... John had a test the next morning. So we went to Cafe Rio, and then headed up to campus to study! The weekend before we actually did some fun stuff though... We went up to Payson to ride horses. It was a little snowier than the last time however, and my horse started slipping down the side of the mountain we were riding on, and I fell off, miraculously above the horse, and not below it where I would have gotten trapped under. A couple weekends ago, I went up to Rexburg with John, and three random Asians that didn't speak very good english that we found off of the rideboard in the wilk. what. an. adventure. The weather was nasty and cold, but the experience was great! We stayed at John's brother & sister-in-law's house (Dan & Anne). They are awesome! And so funny! And Anne makes the best food ever! We got there, and she's like, 'how bout some chocolate pizza?' what the heck? haha. OH YEAH and we ate at this taco bus thing... It was like a Mexican restaurant... in a bus. Way weird. but such good food. I got to go to my 11th temple- Rexburg. I did baptisms with my favorite cousin, Ryan, and we chilled at his house for a bit and went to Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe, which is super good. We climbed a butte, and Dan told us all these random facts about rocks (He's a geologist), and then I accidentally threw a rock at John's face... and hit him in the head with a tree branch... He wasn't very happy with me haha. And that's... pretty much it. Rexburg is like a ghost town, but it was just fun to get out of p-town. The next weekend, the wildlife club was having an activity up at an Alpaca Farm owned by one of the BYU professors in Moroni. We stayed in wood-stove log cabins, and ate llama burger for breakfast, and john taught me how to drive a stick-shift tractor. Weird, but pretty cool. And we tried to cow-tip in the middle of the night, but the cows had tags on their ears and we thought they were horns so we (John) got freaked out and ran.

Today

• Song of the day: Paperweight by Joshua Radin
• Quote of the day: "I love Mark Ruffalo. He reminds me of my future husband." (Krista Roy). Also, "Buffalo! You know what rhymes with Buffalo? Ruffalo!"
• Bird of the day: Wood duck. they are freakin good looking
• Dessert of the day: donuts topped with oreos or butterfingers
• Tree of the day: Chinese Elm Bonsai. Named Fawkes.
• Boy of the day (and of the day before today... and the day before that... etc): John Hill.
• Roommate of the day: Krista Roy
• Craving of the day: Pirate booty
  
• Favorite Moment of the day: Seeing Krista Roy's face when she saw my face... under her bathroom stall
• Picture of the day:
• 
• Sandwich of the day: The Satisfier from Sensuous Sandwich
• Sister of the day: Nicole, for saying that she wanted a country for her birthday
• Sticky item of the day: my pantry shelf... somebody spilled their honey all over it...
  
• overheard conversation of the day (some lady talking on the phone): "Well I'm sorry that I grew up being taught to love other people... I'm sorry I show love to others... I'm sorry that I show emotion... and I'm sorry that you obviously suck at it."
  
• Shoes of the day: gray converse. with purple & yellow socks.
  
• Waste of time of the day: looking up Harry Potter names on babynames.com
• Dumbest video of the day: The Mean Kitty song... as posted by Rachel. oh dear rachel...
• Lie of the day: Brock Solomon saying that he can beat me up... as if... he's only like twice my weight...
  
• Surprise of the day: John bringing me lunch!
  
• Scream of the day: when I tried putting a sweetheart in Krista Roy's mouth and she thought it was a soybean.
• Accomplishment of the day: Applying to a Humanitarian Aid Project in Uganda with Help International
• Motto of the day: "Live (until you die) Laugh (until you cry) Love (Until you hate somebody a lot) (I just made that up... hahahaha dumb. and dumber.)
• Shock of the day: I spent twice as much $ as i should have on groceries last month... heh.
  
• Most beautiful thing of the day: watching the sunset (with Johnny boy)
  
• Best food of the day: Homemade cafe rio sweet pork, rice, and bean burrito. (with my roommates cheese and tortillas)
• Biggest disappointment of the day: discovering that there was blood coming out of my...
• Missionary of the day: Jim White, because I saw his brother, and thought it would probably be a good time to write him before he comes home in 3 months...
• Awkward moment of the day: Went to work. "How are you doing today, Elise?" "Oh, I'm super." "Well that's weird" "Oh... well I'll try to tone it down..... ohhh i guess today's ok I guess...." (Silence...) "Uhh what are you talking about?"
• Best advice of the day: Consulting an online 8-ball, who we asked if the Krispy Kreme light was on. he said "absolutely" and it was.
• Pain of the day: When I went to lay on Brenda's bed on my side seducingly and serenade Kelcey with a song... and i slammed my already bruised shoulder and messed it up even more.
  
• Wish of the day: that it was windy enough to fly a kite.
• Best overall thing about today: The BEAUTIFUL WARM WEATHER!!
  
• Biggest insult: Krista telling me that no one reads my blog except her...
  

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a sophomore at BYU named Elise McAllister. She lived at 760 E 820 N #108 at Regency Apartments in Provo, Utah. (84604, if you were wondering). She got a keyboard for Christmas, and liked it a lot. She got a broken TV the first week of school. But she still liked it a lot. She had 5 roommates. Amber was a BYUSA freshman representative from Arizona who enjoyed boys named Derek, and political science. Kim was a recently returned missionary from Los Angles who was from Colorado Springs, was a mechanical engineer major and loved to run. Brenda was the boisterous and wild one from Renton, Washington majoring in business, and loved to curl her hair. Kelcey was also from Arizona, and loved to make animal noises and call her grandmother a weiner. Krista... well was positively sleepy and bashful and grumpy and happy and doctorate and dopey and sneezed a lot? anyway the point is, she loved to run, even though she had an injured knee. she was a communications major and always had the dream to go to Jerusalem with her precious "sole" mate Elise! And then she had a boyfriend named John. John was a wildlife and wildlands conservation major (whatever that is), who loved to feed roadkill to Elise, tease her about the gigantic age gap between them, clean otter poop, and take her on many wonderful adventures into exciting lands and to see exotic animals. (such as a turkey). but most of all, he LOVED... to eat peanut butter. she also had two strange friends named tristram and dan. Tristram was a registered child molester. as you can clearly see by this picture. He liked to run. and swim. and bike. and dance like a jellyfish. But he was a pretty good bowler. his cousin Dan was quite similar. he had an unfortunate accident as a child... and ever since has been afraid to use a razor, leaving him a hideous growth under his nose on his upper lip. It was a tragedy for all that knew him. Dan liked to dance with walls. it must have been another strange childhood accident, because he danced with walls like they were actually people. weird. anyway, all these people interacted with each other daily, and had lots of fun adventures together. Once, they went to a basketball game for BYU vs. SDSU (which we won). They commandeered a couch from the memorial hall to watch it on. it was quite the event. Also, actually no that's pretty much it. Kris just got mad at me for not posting on my blog recently, so i made up this lame and COMPLETELY untrue story about fictional people. Disclaimer: this is NOT my life. i don't know if there is a person out there that looks somewhat similar to me in any way shape or form who does have this life, but it is certainly not mine. the end.

What the...?

What? There's a blog here with my name on it? Random I can't recall making a blog... probably since its been so darn long since i used it... I have to start being better about that... as this is my only form of joural. (the song "genealogy... i am doing it!" is screeching in my head)

So I finished the semester with grades that I am honestly... still angry about. Usually I'm like, "ok i probably deserved this grade... I needed to work harder." This time, I really didn't deserve the grades I got... and grr. I'm mad. Anyway. its over, and I don't have to do it ever again. I think. I decided on my major- family & consumer science education (being a home ec teacher). Yes, it was a hard decision to make, yes i am still embarrassed sometimes because its a very "domestic" "molly mormon" "female" major, yes some people just nod their heads and smile when i tell them what i am doing... and I can't really blame them, yes i've had several doubts about it since the decision was made, but also yes, it is absolutely and undeniably the thing that Heavenly Father wants me to be doing. I have felt what i have felt, and I can't deny it, as much as I want to go back and say, "are you sure?" haha. I started dating this guy named John Hill from Alaska. He's pretty cool, as far as Alaskans are concerned. haha :) We have lots of fun and tease each other about where we are from because apparently, Texas is a crazy place, but so is Alaska in my opinion. Go figure. Maybe someday we'll compromise. I went home for Christmas break, went on a cruise to the bahamas, went to disneyworld and harry potter world in Universal Studios (SO COOL!!), and am now sitting on my couch bed which is nightly littered with popcorn and soda, because there is a tv and xbox in here, and apparently its the cool place to be for all the tweenagers. lame sauce.

Next semester is going to be a very different one... NO TWINS!! :(((((((((((( I have never gone to college without the twins, and I'm not very happy about seeing them go, but in all honestly, they're going to Jerusalem... how can me and Kris compare to that?! It's going to be incredible, and they're going to have a blast... i hope that I can get to go there sometime during my stay here at the Y. It would be quite the adventure. Also leaving the 108 is Katrina, who is getting married in february. It won't be too much of a change, because i only see her a couple times a week anyway. ha. Brenda is stickin around (yay!!), and me and kris will be up to our old shenanigans as usual. I called Kris today, and she said that one of our new roommates' names is Amber. and that she's really nice. and that she lives in the twins room. and that the point is, they slaughter dolphins (disclamer: the last statement is not related to amber in anyway.) I miss Kris! :( she is back in provo working her butt off at her lame job. Speaking of jobs, they only scheduled me for 10 hours... so how i'm going to be able to provide for myself... is a very good question. lame sauce. Schedule is quite time consuming... as one of my classes for my major (intro to sewing or something like that) is a 3 credit class, consisting of 2 lecture hours and 6 lab hours. WHAT?! also, human development (3), interior design (3), family finance (3), and mission preparation from the bottster (2). that should be fun. its a good schedule, just very packed... it'll be fun. i'll make it fun. and i better get good grades this semester or else...... yeah i dont know or else what. it would be really cool to get a scholarship? haha.

christmas! christmas is great! I got a sewing machine, a cover for my snowboard (so i can take it back up to UT), a keyboard, a mug that says "i eat losers for breakfast" and a few other little knickknacks. emily got a baby doll, who she strolls around everywhere, and a princess kitchen set. she fell down the stairs tonight... poor baby. she's way cute though. rach got a new camera, nicole got dad's (i mean santa's *cough*cough*) old guitar, and lauren & brooke got... some random stuff? idk. this is brooke's last year as a believer. kinda sad. but its been cute. we got mom salt & pepper shakers of mickey & minnie on the cruise (she collects salt and pepper shakers- off the top of my head i can name buddah, cowboy boots, teacup, watering can, eggs with duck feet poking out, pumpkins, birds.... ), and dad a book of pictures of walt disney (he loves walt disney). and i got rach a byu sweatshirt for when she COMES TO SCHOOL HERE NEXT FALL!!! so excited! my lil baby sis all grow'in up. one minute she's biting my... you-know-whats and then she's going off to collegegegegegeeee..... presh.

well that's all i have to say about that.