Letter to 15 Year Old Stephanie

Dear 15 year old self,

I’ll go easy on you to start, because I know how hard you are on yourself. First off, blonde is NOT your color. I know everyone else is getting blonde highlights, but unless you keep that tan up year round (you know, the one responsible for the wrinkle lines I have now), blonde just washes you out.

Second, it’s important that you begin to understand that people-pleasing is not a mantra for life. Don’t worry, eventually you will understand this. Until then, don’t base your worth and identity on being whatever you perceive you are supposed to be for other people’s sakes. Be you. I know it’s hard to accept, but “you” is not so bad.

Stop it with the boyfriends already! Gah! You really don’t need to be in those dramatic, energy-sucking black-holes. In fact, you should probably just have fun dating without getting serious. What will really be your parachute when you get that daily feeling that you are falling off a cliff are your friends, not your boyfriends. In fact, Junior year of HS is going to be your favorite. You will be single, have stellar best friends, a rewarding and challenging academic curriculum, and a blast going to several different proms with several different, nice, fun, NON-boyfriends. But you will still have bad skin. Learn to roll with it.

I know you think everyone keeps you around simply because you are “nice,” but there is a whole lot more to you than that. Nice is not bad, but as your dominant, one-dimensional personality trait, it is going to suffocate you. It is going to make you compromise on things that are important to you, and make you sacrifice developing your own voice. You are going to get swept up and lost in the out-going current by being strictly “nice”. Again, don’t worry, all is not lost. You’ll make a fight for your right to be something along with and other than just nice, like interesting, sometimes off-color, and IMPERFECT! I know, I know, I just said the ultimate swear word. But trust me, perfect is boring. It doesn’t have nearly as much to offer the world as the rainbow of personality where mistakes, sillyness, boldness, rebelliousness, integrity, and freedom dwell. You’ll find your way back to shore eventually. And yes, there are sharks in the water! Swim for the shore anyway! Make a big splash!

Keep it up with the morals. They really do matter, and they will help you avoid a lot of heartache in life. So will your mom, dad, granddad, and the Pentecost’s.

A couple of your best friends now will still be your best friends in 10 years. Even though you can’t see the future, you know which ones they are. It will be unspeakably gratifying to have people in your life who have known the you of years past. In fact, they will know the you in this letter, and when they read it they will probably say to me “You were too hard on yourself back then.” They still say that to you, btw. And they are right.
Keep those friends close. Be brave in a different way than you are trying to be brave now. Let your true self shine – and that INCLUDES your brunette hair for the love of all that is holy!

Sincerely,
27 year old you

Today

Today I danced with a hundred-year-old man in front of dozens of strangers. He asked me to promise that I'd never forget him. I won't.

Genes

This makes me smile.

Tsss sss sss

I don't love to just stare at Dan while he's sleeping... I love to EXPLOIT him! And also to share with you the terror that is sharing a bed with a man who sleeps with his eyes partially open.


It's hard to see in these pics, but his eyes are open in all of them except for one. Look for the glint of the pupil!

Making any Place "Home Sweet Home"

Dan and I have moved 10 times in 4 years. We've lived in Washington State, several cities in California, Minnesota, and Utah, from luxery apartments to basement apartments to apartments whereupon our first day of moving in we found an official letter on our door that read, "The serial rapist terrorizing our apartment complex has not yet been caught..." and then detailing his description, the latest person he assaulted (an elderly woman), and warning us of ways to stay catious (which I translated into "stay indoors all day with the blinds drawn and the doors locked. If you must buy food, starve. If your dog has to urinate, TOO BAD. If you open your door you WILL be raped.") That's how I felt living there, at least.

Moving so much has been both an adventure and a pain in my hASSle! (That's not technically swearing, right? Points for me.) We've experienced the feel of different cities like the lush greenery of Washington, the pristine buzz of Minneapolis, the dry desert beauty of Murrieta, CA, and so on.

We own a home in Lehi, but as it is quite large for the 2 of us (do the math. 1 large house + 1 husband who works + 1 wife who takes care of the home = too much house for Stephanie to clean without plotting ways to hire young children for cheap labor) we are fortunate to rent it out. It's an investment property, not the home we want to have a family and a life in. Currently we are tackling the idea of either buying a condo, or finishing our basement in our Lehi home and turning it into a separate entrance apartment and living there rent free for a few years while we save up to build our custom dream home.

So. In the meantime we have gotten very good at figuring out CHEAP ways to make rental spaces our own. In many rentals you can't paint the walls, so I realized that if I wanted a warm, inviting, colorful space without painting, and even without putting holes in the walls, I could buy lightweight Styrofoam insulating sheets from Home Depot, buy several yards of fabric to wrap around and glue to the sheets, and then get that thick double-sided tape to tape it up on the walls. The result has been turning these ugly-ducklings of rental rooms into..., well, maybe not swans. But definitely geese. Geese are a worthy comparison. Here's the result:




We used to move so much because of Dan's work. However, as Dan has been promoted and chosen a better company to work for, we now have the option of staying in one place for good! No more moving!

Kaitlyn and Todd's Wedding

Few things make me happier than the marriage of a loved one to a well-chosen person. Close seconds are flan and Harry Potter.

Kaitlyn McGuire is now Mrs. Todd Whitcomb, and I couldn't be happier for her! My favorite moments of the day were when the newlyweds kissed (so every other second of the day was my favorite) and when the mother of the Bride, Amy, invited me to stand with her extended family for the formal McGuire family pictures.

Some of my favorite photos from Dan and my wedding are the ones where we are hugging loved ones right after the ceremony. So I took a lot of these for Kaity.

Shadows

We cast a shadow, a hole in the light, a ray of darkness that is shaped like ourselves -- some might say that it contains no information save the profile of our own forms -- but they are wrong. --Neal Stephenson Quicksilver

Shadows are what's between the lines on a page, the detail that makes art have depth, and the part of ourselves that we can't ever see unless we are in the light.