I am Lord Voldemort

Now I realize that this may seem like a very bold claim, but it's been a thought on my mind for a while now and I think I'm finally ready to come out with it.

It's not the half-blooded dark wizard that killed our beloved Albus Dumbledore part of him that I claim to be, it is just the horcrux-making part of him that I seem to have inherited. Not that I am trying to achieve immortality by making horcruxes like he was either. I already know what I have to do to achieve immortality and it doesn't have a whole lot to do with horcruxes. You can find the true plan for that here.

I don't really understand why it is that I seem to like making horcruxes. Also, I shouldn't really use the word "like" because in reality, I don't really like that I make horcruxes it's just something that I seem to do.

What do I mean about leaving horcruxes? Well it just seems like everytime I move I seem to leave a part of me or at least a part of my heart behind. The first time I noticed this happen was when I left my home in Utah to serve a full-time mission for the LDS church. I was orginally called to serve in Spain but due to my visa application being lost, I got the opportunity to serve 5 months of my 18-month mission in Richmond, Virginia. And for the first part of my being in Virginia, I just couldn't seem to be able to wait until my visa would come so I would get to go to Spain, but the more time I spent there, the more I started to be okay with the idea of staying until the point that when my visa did come I almost didn't want to leave at all because it broke my heart to leave all of the people I had come to know and love there. But because my leaving wasn't really my choice, to Spain I went and then experienced the same thing there leaving Bilbao after having lived there with those great people for 7 months and then leaving the people I had come to love in Burgos after 5 months to return "home."

Now I put the word home in quotation marks because upon returning to Utah, I started to realize that I couldn't ever really feel "at home" ever again. Not because it didn't feel good to be with my family and friends that I had loved for so many years, but because I had left pieces of me, horcruxes if you will, in each of those places--Richmond, Bilbao and Burgos. And no matter where I was, even if I returned to one of those places where I had left a piece of myself behind, I would never be able to have all of me in the same place and thus that lack of feeling whole or "at home."

And now I've added yet another horcrux to the group by leaving my beloved Boston to come down here to Austin, Texas. And as much as I miss all of my friends I made there terribly, I know that even if I went back, it wouldn't be 100% home because even after having only lived here in Austin for a little over a month, I know that I am already in the process of preparing a horcrux to be left behind here as well.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a sad post! Reading back over it, I am scared that it might seem that way. It's not. It's just a thought I've been having. It's not sad because as much as it is sad and hurts to not ever be able to be with ALL of the people I love, I wouldn't ever trade having been able to meet each of those people and I know that couldn't have happened had I always just stayed in Utah. Also, airplanes are a huge blessing, right? :) Anyway, it's just a thought I've had and wanted to share.

PS This 2:45 pm church schedule thing may be a good thing for this blog. Not really quite sure what other positives there are to it right now, but if it helped me write my first blog post in over a year, then that's at least one positive, right Mom? ;)

Another post is up for May 10th.

Click here

Something I Would Do Well to Keep in Mind

when I am OCD-ingly planning out every hour of each day in my planner.

Now available: Ngorongoro crater

See below (May 10, 2011)

I Love. . .

this song.

And probably most of you have already heard it or know about it because I am usually pretty much the last person to catch on to new songs, but in case you haven't or in case you've forgotten about it.

And I have to give credit to my cousin Geri for blessing me with this little gem because I first heard it on her blog.

It's just so cute. It makes me want to skip and prance around my house.

PS I know. I know. I need to finish our trip. I promise to post at least 2 new posts about it TONIGHT. There you go. I've said it and now it must be done.

Ruckus Run

So I realize that I still need to finish my posts about the trip, and it really is just laziness on my part because I have most of the actual writings of the posts already done, it is just the putting them together and uploading pictures that I have left.

BUT right now I want to talk about this Run Ruckus Boston race I did 2 weeks ago which was basically like a 5K course with military-like obstacles. It was SUPER fun. It was also really hard, but it was great because they do it in waves, so once you finish you can look back out over the course and see people still running it and actually even over the next few days, I could just see the course and the obstacles in my mind, and think, "wow! I did that!"

Don't be fooled by the medals.
Everyone is a winner in the Ruckus Run.
I did finish in 46 minutes though and the avg. for men AND women was 45 minutes.
So yeah, you should be somewhat impressed. ;)

If you click on the link I put above you will be able to see a map of the course and some pictures of some of the obstacles they had. One of the first obstacles we came up to was "down and outs" which was this series of 4 or 5 mud pits in a row where you had to jump down into this pool of muddy water and run across it and then climb back up the other side and over a mound of dirt just to find that there was another one to go through and another and another and another. Although it definitely wasn't the hardest one, it was a little shocking to find such a wet obstacle right at the beginning of the race when you knew that it meant running the next 3 miles in soaking wet shoes and shorts.


Here is a link to some photos that were taken of me during the race. Two of the pictures were of the "gorilla bars" which when I heard about there being monkey bars on the course, I definitely didn't think that they would be one of the hardest obstacles for me, but these bars were made out of wood and they weren't stuck into the sides very well so they rotated around (I don't know if that was on purpose to make it harder, or just poor-craftsmanship) and so as you will see I was only ever able to get through 3 or 4 before dropping to my death below. And then the other obstacle that really gave me trouble were the 8-foot walls. I was able to get over the other ones that were shorter, but I had to pass after two unsuccessful attempts at each of the two 8-foot walls.

Anyway, it was a really fun and rewarding experience overall. I did it with 3 friends from my ward and I think that each of us along with other people we've talked to since the race will be running it again next year.

Brent, Melanie and I BEFORE the race

Melanie, Brent, Mary and I AFTER the race

And after a quick but necessary rinse.

Sorry for the delay

I have had most of these posts written for over a week, but we haven't had internet that would upload one picture in less than 60 minutes since we left Spain, so that is why you are only getting these now and all at once.

PS You should be able to make the pictures bigger by clicking on them. They are pretty small but I was afraid if I made them any bigger the post wouldn't all be able to fit on one page.