Packing is hard.

But having a little Desmond certainly helps.

We wish you the happiest of New Years.

Oops, we got married.

I don't mean to give anyone unrealistic expectations, but it was literally perfect.

thank you to everyone we love who helped us celebrate our love.

I can't believe I married an angel.

This is happiness.

All I wish now is for a Christmas for everyone full of joy, family, and a little taste of this L O V E that is engulfing me with absolute bliss and perfect completion.

I don't want to write papers anymore.

I just want to get married.

When sad things happen

Let's hold our precious ones close and resolve to love and serve more than ever.
Let's heal our world as best we can, a little bit every day. Let's just love people.

So many prayers.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Well, in nine days I'm doing the biggest thing I've done so far.

Brookie took some lovely fall fairy bridals for me. 
Film, like my love, just can't die.

I know I haven't been much of a blogger lately. Between my happiness and grad school, there just hasn't been much room for existential musings. But my permanent boyfriend-to-be and I will be leaving for London Town in a couple weeks, and I think it just might be the perfect occasion for a little resuscitation, no?

oh wow, I'm getting married.

Jacob finally wrote it

"Our Story":

Anna Daines' move to Provo, a small, perpetually rainy town in Utah, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Jacob Rennaker, Anna's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Jacob has managed to keep his scholarly identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Anna, the person Jacob holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-- between desire and danger. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Anna and Jacob's wedding captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.

 

 

ummm thanks, dear.

I asked Jacob to write "Our Story" for our wedding website...

...and this is what he gave me.

yup.

by the way: our website (password: happiness)

here's the zombienite music video we were dressed up for. Jacob is featured as Edward Cullen.

yikes.

Bridesmaid Dresses

are proving impossible.

love,
Banana

SAVE THE DATE

12.21.12

The last day of the world?

Or the best wedding ever?

you pick.

Guess What?

 

When you get offered a role in a movie and you accept in but then you turn it down because you realize you just feel so icky about anyone you know potentially seeing that movie.

That's what I did today. I would have been able to join SAG and get paid some seriously needed money, but I feel so much weight lifted after telling them I can't do it. Decisions like this suck but I'm glad they have to be made or life would just... suck.

So, I lose my SAG card, but I preserve my self-respect.

phew.
what did you do today?

And then Jacob's knee exploded because he ran a half marathon with me.

 
One of the dangers of dating a really quality human is that he might sacrifice his body to spend quality time with you.

Like: hardly train for a rather extended run, then decide to do it with you.

Then get really hurt on mile 11 or so.

Three cheers for finishing, Jacoboo!

 

I might add... we received "cutest couple award" from a water station officiator.

I mean... look at us.

 

 

Love, lavender, and IT bands,
Banana

To my mama

It's your birthday today, and I'm so glad you're my mama.

some thanks are in order. 

 

Thank you for reading to me from the womb.

Thank you for encouraging my "strong-willed"ness, but not my selfishness.

Thank you for loving God and your husband and your babies.
Thank you for being so beautiful, in lots of ways.

Thank you for marrying my daddy (with the tommy gun).

Thank you for making music and for making it a part of our lives.

Thank you for loving beautiful things and for teaching me that they're important.

Thank you for being at my plays and class parties and ballet recitals and parades and soccer games and girl scout meetings and pageants and concerts and letting (and sometimes making) me do all those things, but most of all, thank you for being on the edge of my bed when I crashed and cried and thought I couldn't do anything. You have always believed in me more than anyone has.  

And no one can soothe like you.

I'm sorry I'm not blonde (like you've always wanted me to be), but I know you love me anyway.

 

Thank you for being my

friend

confidant

cheerleader

role model

psychiatrist

life giver.

Thank you for being my mama.

Happy Birthday.

 

 

love, bosey

I just thought you should know...

...that I am in love.

in love, I say!

goo goo, gaga, lovey dovey love bird, jaw-dropping, cartoon heart eyes popping in love.

And it's so cool.

A belated tribute

No... not to the 75th annual Hunger Games.




But to the same kind of man who taught Katniss to be awesome so she could WIN the 75th annual Hunger Games;



that is, to my father.

A tribute to the man who taught me to read at stoplights.

Who threw me an unsurpassed 12th birthday party, wherein my house was transformed into Hogwarts (This is before  HP movie paraphernalia, people. We MADE chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's EFBs and used chopsticks for wands).

A tribute to the most consistent mustache-wearer and 3x5 card carrier.

A tribute to always having "a back up" and wheezing like the penguin from Toy Story when being tickled.

A tribute to the smartest human being I've ever met.

To the most thoughtful, loving and generous human being I've ever met.

 To the man who has kept my skinny, cold-blooded lizard body warm and alive for over twenty years.

 And to the man who still tucks me in and sings cowboy songs  every time I'm home.And who probably always will.
 
I love you, Daddy.
"Now, what was your name?"

-Banana Lassie

Poor banana

Today I went on a great run and got an amazing facial and made lunch for my darling girlfriends and went to the temple (and it was nice and very holy) and performed in a beautiful play. Then I came home and cried my false eyelashes right off. Literally...they slipped off my lids and down my lashes due to my powerful, seemingly bionic, glue-eating tears.

Why, you ask? Is your uterus bleeding? Are you a victim of a sublime, destructive unrequited love? Are you just bored and tired and inferior and lonely?

yes yes yes.
 But I'm also a beneficiary of a very nice life.
So why is it such a poor, sad, desperate little banana?

HMMM?

The thought occurred to me while I was dish washing today, this very nice little day, that I need to start writing.
I need to start writing.
I NEED TO START WRITING.

What should the poor banana start writing about? She's awfully tired of her weepy little self. 

Hi

I'm eating my cereal with a fork, but that's fine because I HATE soy milk and want to taste the least amount of it as I possibly can.

In other news...
I graduated from college (big wup).
I jumped out of an airplane (bo-rring).
I received an awful lot of rejection letters (cool).
I had a few existential crises here and there (what's new?) and took this picture of the lovely, consistent spring weather:

I took some more Holgas in Moab:

Ally Snack and me

Every time someone said "there's cairn" I said, "who's Karen?" 

...And I meant it.

Everyone seemed to know her.

so.
I'm trying to decide what to do now.
It's cool because I can technically do anything (nothing tying me down, dontcha know), and yet the rejection letters and bank account seem to say that I can't. I wish I was some sort of economical genius and could create a large, glittery loophole that created a huge demand for my skill set. You know, like, watching clouds and taking long showers and stuff.

uh.

clocks and things

I'm either happy or productive.

Today I'm happy

(Which sucks).

I need to be productive.

"If some great Power would agree to

make me always think what is true and

do what is right, on condition of being

turned into a sort of clock and wound up

every morning before I got out of bed, I

should instantly close with the offer."

-Thomas Henry Huxley

I would so much rather be happy and a little selfish and happy and a wee bit oblivious than to always be doing something I'm supposed to be doing. All the time! Yerrghghgh. 

Today I want to eat Gardettos and ice cream and shave my legs and get started on my reading list in the sun. I want to write a song and a few letters and play with a baby or two and go on a hike and perform on stage tonight.

I suppose today I want to be a housewife.

yerghghghhhhhh.

Come to My Garden

When I was very little, I watched this movie over and over, and sometimes it made me weep:

When I as a teensy, tiny bit less little, I loved this book to death:

I spent most of my childhood looking for this door:

 When I was in France this summer I thought I found it. In the sprawling English garden of Fontainebleau Castle, I found a dilapidated door covered in ivy, opening to a magical little garden filled with bits of medieval pillars and things. I was in the middle of having a conniption of the long-forgotten secret that was MINE! ALL MINE! when the gardener came in to look at me strangely, mumble "bonjour" and move the sprinkler.

So, the point is, you should come see this play because the modern world is conspiring against us all and it's impossible to find a real secret garden (trust me, I've scoured Europe), BUT for two hours you can forget all that and watch one of the most beautiful, magical live theatre performances you'll ever see and hear some soul-shaking voices sing some pretty legit/ bad a#$/ glorious music.

Anyway. Monday, Wednesday, Friday through the end of May. You're welcome.