2009 Theme: FAITH

Faith is knowing the sun will rise, lighting each new day.
Faith is knowing the Lord will hear my prayers each time I pray.
Faith is like a little seed:
If planted it will grow.
Faith is a swelling within my heart.
When I do right, I know

Okay so I'd seen a couple of these and felt intimidated at the idea of doing it myself. That is, until I read Seriously So Blessed and realized that if the fake, superficial Mormon mommy could choose a ridiculous one, I could definitely put the time into choosing a real one for myself. And it's still January so I'm good ;)

As I thought about this year and what it holds for me there was really only one topic that stood out in my mind, and that is that I need to have faith! I need to have faith in the Lord and in my Savior Jesus Christ that everything is going to work out as it should. That said I also need to remember to keep my feet moving-- faith without works is dead (James 2:17), and everything I do should reflect the type of person I want to become. I need to have faith that all of the righteous desires of my heart will come to me as I keep the commandments and work hard to serve those people in my circle of influence.

When I was in young woman's and started working seriously on my personal progress, my leader asked me which value I wanted to start on. I looked at here blankly and told her immediately I wanted to start with Faith. This was mostly because my logical brain said, "Start at the beginning of the book, and work through it until you're done!" but the more I finished the Faith experiences and learned the lessons intended in those I realized there was a reason Faith was first: everything else is based on faith! If you don't have faith that you are of infinite worth to Heavenly Father, you have a hard time thinking positively about yourself. If you don't have faith that good works will make you happy, you're probably not going to be as adamant about looking for those opportunities. So we're going back to the basics here, friends! I tend to be afraid about the future and doubt myself so a focus on faith will drive both of those away. They cannot exist at the same time!

I have no doubts this year will be a good one, and I'm grateful for the hope of the Gospel and the blessing it is in my life. Every thing good that I have is a direct result of it!

How I've been keeping "busy"

Having so much spare time has been more paralyzing than I could have ever dreamed. It's kind of like how in May you can think of all these things you want for Christmas but two weeks before, when it really matters and people are asking for ideas persistently, you can't think of a single one. When I was incredibly busy with classes, reading, homework, etc. I had so many things I wished I had time to do. Now I wish I had written them down.

It's especially hard to keep busy when you are trying to save money (it would be effortless to find entertainment otherwise! Food, clothes, movies, ah! Just thinking about it entertains me! And makes me feel broke). Every day is a little bit different! Here are a couple of ways I've been keeping myself occupied:


This one has not been optional-- Isaac has made sure I play with him daily. I was exceptionally surprised the other day when I played a level for the first time...I was pretty sure I'd experienced all of them by now! I'm almost as good as Isaac with all the practice I get. Should I be proud of this?


I had an amazing sleepover with my roommates the other weekend. I love those girls :) To expound: at one point in the night, Stacey, Megan and I randomly came up with upwards of 10 ways to wear a Snuggie in the time that Kristin and Sarah went to get pizza from Brick Oven a few blocks away.

Headless Horse Guy, a little German girl, and a Jedi (just to give you a sample!)

Fantastic :) All of the sudden I realized a major source of my boredness at home: I was having amazing roommate withdrawals! I tend towards staying 3+ hours whenever I go back for a visit and just love soaking in all the wonder and fun of Apt. 201. I may not pay rent or own a bed there anymore but I am still a resident at heart :)


This picture combines two ways I've tried to occupy my time: figuring out my new camera and making bracelets!
The bracelets provided entertainment for about...2 days. My mom found me the thread and I was well on my way to anti-boredness! Right? It was short-lived. As soon as I had made the 2 types of bracelets I knew how to tie I realized I'd maxed out my bracelet making-knowledge...and youtube videos just weren't helpful enough to keep me trying.
And I actually started reading the manual to my camera. Some of the info was more "Well duh" than others of it, but it was still really helpful. I haven't learned everything there is to learn yet but it only held my "pleasure seeking/stay productive" attention for one solid afternoon.


And definitely a lot of this...
I had a piece of music I'd found before fall semester started that made it pretty sad to move to a pianoless apartment and not be able to practice. I was way pumped to move home and work on it! Although two weeks of living here and I've nearly mastered it...now what?? Play until it's memorized??? Not the funnest thing ever but that's probably what'll end up happening. And the hymns :) Oh how they bring me joy for so many reasons! It's nice to slide this hobby into my day whenever I need to do something fulfilling right away (there's a certain amount of time you can go without doing something amazing--anything more and you scramble madly for anything worthwhile! Have you noticed that?).


Annnnd I had an amazing video of Isaac and I jedi battling but it's too big to upload through Blogger. I've tried a couple other ways and it's just not happening. I'm devastated. Just know you are really missing out on some major action, homemade sound effects (mostly me going "swish, wishoo, wheeeow" imitating a lightsaber and Isaac narrating the action), my epic death and re-death as another character a minute later, a 4 year-old running around in his pajamas and a storyline that rivals Lucas' work itself.

Yep. I get to do that a couple times a week.

It was definitely on my To Do list to watch Mulan before going to China and I can check it off now! Amanda and I are already planning to use some of the lines from the movie at some point during our trip, whether it be pretending to be Huns on the Great Wall or asking, "Who spit in your bean curd?". We'll be all grown up and safe in China soon enough!


I've been exercising my creativity: I decorated all by my lonesome for Josh's birthday (everyone else went to bed...) and over-compensated by putting up more streamers than usual plus an awesome trail of streamers leading from Josh's bedroom, around the family room, and up to the kitchen where a birthday surprise awaited him in the cupboard...

(It was late, okay!)

Other sanity-saving activities I have tried: going to the library, working out, starting a scrapbook, cleaning, loading the dishwasher, doing my hair (novel, i know), picking up carpool, watching Idol, doing laundry, babysitting, playing freecell (which proved too easy...), going to dinner with friends who have begun to realize how long 4 months really is, walking home from church with Isaac, making my room messy, cleaning my room so I can mess it up again, checking the mail, checking the mail again, sending packages, thinking about packing, making lists of what I'll need in China, sleeping in, staying up, uploading pictures to Facebook, selling my books from last semester, watching Phineas and Ferb (re-runs included), eating those little tangerine Cuties things, listening to music, reading the Ensign, checking my email (with no professors to send me class announcements this one has actually proved pretty disappointing!), helping with the nursery at my stake's humanitarian service day, and planning a bridal shower. That's pretty much it! No really, that's January up to this point.

Things will start to pick up with the less time I have left, I'm sure of that, but ever since the kids went back to school after New Year's, life has definitely been interesting.

I leave in less than a month though! China is almost here!!! And then this can officially be my "China blog."

Won't that be nice :)

New Glasses!

I've had the same pair of glasses since 8th grade. I prefer my contacts, yes, but that means I haven't been able to see through my specs adequately for...years. I don't recommend that. Imagine my excitement when my cute mommy took me to American's Best in November for NEW ONES! They were slow at calling me when they were done, but I finally picked them up this week and here they are:



...and yeah, did I mention they look almost exactly like my last ones? Except the frames are bigger (longer vertically?) than my old ones so I have glasses instead of bifocals, which is a huge plus.

Anyways, exciting! It will be SO nice in China to have the option to wear glasses without sacrifice vision for comfort. They are a teensy bit tight on my head though (by teensy I mean they give me a headache when I wear them for longer than 5 minutes...) so I'm going back next week to see if anything can be done about that. Headaches kind of cancel out all the helpfulness and convenience. Also I'm not used to being able to see that well so part of the headaches could be due to that ;)

But still!! Way fun :) This is how I wanted my first glasses to look, I'm glad to finally have them safe on my face.

(Once again, be a dear and don't mind the roots. Thanks! )

A Noble Aspiration

Teaching English to children is actually just an excuse to get to China and perfect my kung fu.

Just kidding :)


BUT here is my main source of inspiration:



Pure "awesomeness and attractiveness." Who doesn't want a little bit more of each of those?

[Please note I am in a skirt and heels. Appreciate that for a moment. Thanks :) My ward's Break the Fast happened to be in a building on BYU campus that houses a ginormous statue of Kung Fu Panda 365 days a year. Wonderful, right?? My roommates know I sleep with a stuffed Po every night and made me pose like this. I had no objections ;)]

Oh boy...

This post is called "Stuck somewhere in between blonde and brunette"

It's about how Andrea is too cheap to color her hair until RIGHT before she leaves for China. This is what it looks like when you go from August until January without it.

....prepare yourselves...

Yikes! Blonde?? Brunette?? What is this girl?!
(It is a little worse with the flash on, mind you. but still!)

My roots were so bad I cut my bangs to lessen the barfiness..I used to cut my hair as a kid and get in trouble for it. I wish I had learned my lesson then! The bangs haven't gone out in public yet, we'll see if I get brave enough to show them or chicken out and let them grow a little. They'll be perfect in a few weeks ;)

Seriously though, isn't this semi-brown looking situation weird??? Is this what the term "dishwater" or "dirty" blonde implies?? I'm not liking it!

Blonde forever, I say!

(and don't mind the poor sickly face! It's sad, I know! Ignore it anyway :p)

Getting into the [China] Spirit

I went with my friend Dee Dee from work and her friend Mo from my ward to the Christmas Devotional by the first presidency in December. It was freezing but I was really glad we got there early for stand by tickets because we totally got in! The Devotional was awesome! The Spirit was so strong and it a blessing to actually be there, in the presence of so many other people eager to hear the words of our living prophet and apostles. They are truly inspired men!


Later we walked around Temple Square enojoying the beautiful lights (it was more like cattle grazing.. so many people just scuffling along!) around the temple, which I LOVE! I need to go at least once during the Christmas season every year and I was grateful for this chance! All the little multi-cultural nativities are so fun and I was especially excited about the Chinese one :) And there was only one posing option: classic Asian pose with the fingers and squinting the eyes... I'll have to work on both of those!


Dee Dee makes friends with people like no one I've ever met before, it's insane! Mo knew one of these guys from his mission, I think, but they were all our instant BFFs anyway.


I'll go inside someday! Thanks to Dee Dee for the great photo spot :)

Is this thing on?

Wow first post? Already?? Ahem...

Ta-da!!

...Okay so I didn't really plan anything epic for this... I'll make up for it later :)

Hooray for getting a blog and feeling intimidated because it looks harder than Facebook! I'll figure it out eventually ;)

Until then, here's a lame post. A bland appetizer, if you will ;)