Can I Just Say...

"So, Amelia, how are you liking BYU?"

"Oh I love it so much - can't wait to go back!"

"You have some good friends down there now I bet."

"Ya, it's been so fun, I've made lots of great friends."

"Any one in particulaaar?"

"Ha ha ha."

"You know you can't go marrying one of those Americans or they'll take you far away and we'll never see you." (then they might throw in a line about my sister)

"Har har... well we won't have to worry about that for a while."

"Ya that's what they all say."

"Heh heh.........."

I'm sure everyone from here who goes to byu has this conversation and I'm sure they all get tired of it too, but CAN I JUST SAY: what if that's exactly what I want? What if I want to marry someone who happens to be American, and I want to be taken far away, and I want to only come back to visit occasionally? What if that "yankee who'll make you go live in the US" is exactly what I'm praying for?!

I love Magrath and I love Southern Alberta and I love Canada. But this is all I know. And we just can't have that, now can we?

supplemental vid

I took my camera to work one day and snapped some pictures to document my summer. Isn't this place beautiful!? Read about the greenhouse in the post below, and enjoy the video! Watch it in 480p, full screen!



p.s. the citrus flower has a real name I just can't remember it.

also. I don't know why I didn't wait until I looked better to take the pic at the end... I look like I just woke up! I did just wake up! I guess this video is to summarize my summer, and in summary I usually looked pretty awful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgSGRsegBJ4

Garden City Greenhouses... *growing with you*

I still have about a month left at the greenhouse, so I'm sure I will still learn some more, but this is just a small list of new knowledge I have since working at the greenhouse this summer. (Wooah someone needs to be writing more - that sentence was horrifying.)

So aside from the technical stuff like peat moss to soil ratios and pollination habits,

I have learned that:

1. "Gardener" is not a type of person. People from all walks of life garden.
2. Therefore, gardening is for anyone!
3. Petunias are sticky. VERY sticky.
4. I love to weed.
5. Water is incredible.
6. You shouldn't drink out of the hose. because one day I was asked to refill the fertilizer that gets pumped into the water system. what? fertilizer? I refilled it and smelled like pee for the rest of the day.
7. Knowing that I water the plants with pee water doesn't stop me from eating the tomatoes.
8. You could go out and spent 15 bucks at a restaurant and eat it away in about half an hour. Or you could buy a flat of 6-Pack flowers and enjoy them for the whole summer! I stole this one from Cathy (my boss). (I hear a LOT of rationalizations from people when they're dropping the monies on flowers... well I don't drink or smoke like lots of people do, and that would be much more expensive. So really my husband should be happy about this!)
9. People care about my opinion.
10. The best tasting flower is the Fuschia Swingtime. Yup I know this.
11. I just love old people so much.
12. Snapdragons hate me and I'm not too fond of them either.
13. It's best to just be nice to mean people.
14. Folding boxes is an awesome task.
15. Sorting tags is not.
16. You must always turn off the tap before you take the wand off the hose.
17. I love planting planters and hanging bags.
18. I love planting topsy turvy tomato bags too (as seen on various infomercials). It's tricky at first but I had it mastered after my third beefsteak.
19. Beefsteak is a type of tomato. Along with Patio, Early Girl, Prairie Pride, Roma, Heirloom, Tiny Tim, Tumbling Tom, Sweet Million, Sub-Arctic Maxi, etc.
20. So. Many. Names.
21. Wind is a nursery's worst enemy.
22. The sound of rain on the greenhouse is just lovely.
23. Spiders multiply at an impossible rate.
24. Big box stores might discount but they don't actually care about the plants. I mean have you seen the way they pack those shelves? There's a little thing called air flow and flowers like it, but oh ya who cares what the plants want.
25. Hutterites are so rich because they're so cheap.
26. A bird inside a greenhouse is the scariest thing ever.
27. I look like I'm still in high school.
28. I sound like my boss's 10-year-old daughter. (I have this phone conversation almost daily: "Hello, Garden City Greenhouses." "Hi sweetie, is your mom there?" "Uhh.. ya I'll get her.")
29. Most people don't care what their total comes to, they just gotta have their flowers. I love these people.
30. B-93 plays some good songs. Wanna know which ones? 'Cause I can name all ten of them.
31. When I wear shorts with the apron it looks like I'm not wearing pants. I don't really mind though.
32. Some people will pay $18 for an 8" tall yard gnome. (THIS is what the big box stores are for, people.)
33. You should just stop watering when customers are in the greenhouse. I know they seem far away and you're going to be very careful, but 9 times out of 9 you will spray them!
34. Flowers aren't as fragile as I thought. But it is still important to be gentle with them. I seriously believe that plants have feelings. I've heard that they remember people. Like if someone comes in and mangles their plant-friend, they will sense that person's presence in future encounters and lean away, or activate whatever defense mechanisms they have. And I also heard that plants grow healthier when they are surrounded by classical music, as opposed to rock music. They even grow towards the source of the music, or in rock's case, they lean away from it. Something to do with the sound waves. COOL RIGHT?! I believe it. When I slide open the greenhouse door in the mornings, I feel like the plants acknowledge my presence. I'm sure they recognize my voice too. I believe we can actually have personal relationships with our plants! Some angry lady the other day tried to return a planter she'd gotten a few days earlier, claiming all the flowers were dead. Well, those flowers were certainly not dead but they were looking a little sad, and the way their owner talked about them it's no wonder they were. She didn't believe in them at all! I told her to sit them out in full sun for a couple of hours and they would perk right up. But she mumbled something negative and reluctantly took them back to her car, and I knew then that they would not perk up and it had nothing to do with the quality of the plants. Plants react to us. So as plant owners we need to be the kind of people our plants will want to flourish for!
35. Flowers are pretty awesome. Vegetables too. I'm sold on this gardening thing.

A thought from C.S. Lewis

Rats in the Cellar

We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (1952)

Quote of the Day

This quote came from little Andrew in Mrs. Porter's kindergarten class that I volunteer with. We're just sitting there, working on our "U" booklets, when he randomly says:

"If anyone wants to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you can just come over to my house because we are always reading the scriptures. We have like 4 bibles and 10 scriptures."

hahah I wish you could hear this in his voice. He anunciates really well, almost spits his words out. so cute! Also, Jorren (not Mrs. Porter's favourite student... but definitely one of my favourites) stood up for me today! I was telling Dallin to avoid stroking the paint brush, but do little splotches instead (we were painting like Monet), and he replied something like "I know how do to it okay?" and then wonderul little Jorren said: "Dallin, don't be rude to her."

I KNEW we had a special bond!

Tension

I thought I would share a poem of my favourite (well, America's favourite too) contemporary poet, Billy Collins. His poems are so hilarious, I could post like 50 of them. The background of this poem is:
He was teaching a fiction writing class at some university. Now, he doesn't actually write fiction, so he was reading a book about how to write fiction and then teaching what he learned to his students. One rule in the book was: Never use the word "suddenly" just to create tension. He smiled because he got an idea for a poem--because poets don't have to follow those rules.

TENSION by Billy Collins

Suddenly, you were planting some yellowpetunias
outside in the garden,
and suddenly I was in the study
looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.

When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.

A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen
where you suddenly opened a can of cat food
and I just as suddenly watched you doing that.

I observed a window of leafy activity
and beyond that, a bird perched on the edge
of the stone birdbath
when suddenly you announced you were leaving

to pick up a few things at the market
and I stunned you by impulsively
pointing out that we were getting low on butter
and another case of wine would not be a bad idea.

Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
another drip from the faucet?
another little spasm of the second hand?
Would the painting of a bowl of pears continue

to hang on the wall from that nail?
Would the heavy anthologies remain on the shelves?
Would the stove hold its position?
Suddenly, it was anyone’s guess.

The sun rose ever higher in the sky.
The state capitals remained motionless on the wall map
when suddenly I found myself lying on a couch
where I closed my eyes and without any warning

began to picture the Andes, of all places,
and a path that led over the mountains to another country
with strange customs and eye-catching hats,
each one suddenly fringed with colorful little tassels.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse...

Tuesday starting out as what I imagined Alexander's (^) terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day must've been like. The night before, I set my alarm for 6:30 thinking I always look awful for my 8:00 class. I'm actually going to get ready this time. I woke up on Tuesday morning to banging on my door. I slowly fell out of my bed and opened the door, wondering who the heck would be doing that in the middle of the night. Turns out, it wasn't the middle of the night--it was 7:47 a.m. and it was Whitney ready to walk to school with me! "Shuut UP" was all I could say as I slammed the door (I apologized to her later).

Fast forward to 8:01 a.m. (ONLY 14 MINUTES LATER) and I burst throught the Maeser building doors and up the stairs into my Comms class. I was a little bit mad at myself but mostly just proud that I was able to get there so fast. This pride lasted only a few minutes until the professor asked for our papers to be turned in to the TA....... oops. I didn't think it was that big of a deal though, I would turn it in later and still get partial credit for it--it wasn't a huge assignment anyway. Wrong again! It was one of two major assignments for the whole year and according to the syllabus, which I read when I got home, NO late work is accepted. I decided I would take my paper to the TA during her office hours anyway. SO after Creative Writing, I quickly spit out this paper in the 40-minute break before Book of Mormon. Then, right after Book of Mormon I ran to the library, printed it out, and hustled over to the TA's office JUST in time.

This probably doesn't sound as hectic as it really was. It actually doesn't sound that bad at all, but for whatever reason it was probably my worst day at BYU yet.

So I'm on the top floor of the Brimhall when I look outside and see that it is POURING rain. Then I look regrettably down at my flipflops, capris, and short sleeve t-shirt, which were perfectly appropriate when I left the dorm that morning. By the time I reach the bottom floor of the Brimhall and am about to leave, I see that it is now hailing! big chunks of hard snow! I just wanted to be home already, so I didn't even consider waiting it out.

Now picture me: I am walking home slowly (so my flip flops wouldn't slip on the wet sidewalks.. which they ended up doing anyway...). My greasy woke-up-13-minutes-before-class hair is now drenched in rain. My clothes are soaked as well. I get hit in the head by one of those hard banana-shaped leaf things on the trees down here. The skittles I bought as a pick-me-up spill over in my vest pocket as I bounce down the stairs by the RB. I try to catch them, but miss mostly and just end up getting stained with wet skittle-paint all over.

I wanted to cry.

And all it took was this mental image. I pictured how ridiculous I must've looked, and couldn't help but laugh. I was bent over in laughter by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs. hahahah I still laugh out loud just thinking about it. It was all so cliché! It was so typically horrible that it was hilarious.

The hail storm made that awful day one of my favourite memories. Isn't that nice?