Impatiently Waiting

**Warning: this is a serious post filled with a lot of not-very-serious High School Musical jokes/references.**

I was watching High School Musical the other day (yes, I'm twenty and yes, I still watch that movie). It got to the part where Gabriela wanders the empty halls of East high and sings her heart-wrenching song in front of Troy's blown-up sports poster face. Know which part I'm talking about? Cool, we can be friends. Have no idea what I'm talking about? See below:

Anyway, after the song is sung Troy and Gabriela part ways for approximately six minutes and eighty-four seconds of the movie. And I skipped it. I'm not sure why. Yes, I've seen the movie before so I've already gone through the agony of wondering whether they'll be able to work, work, work this out. we'll make things right, the sun will shine...oops, that's the second movie, but man, doesn't everything just lead back to High School Musical?

So I know they get back together, but what, I couldn't wait six minutes and eighty-four seconds for it to happen? Then this got me thinking about things that have absolutely nothing to High School Musical and I zoned out for the rest of the movie, lost deep in thought. 

We can't go back in time, but we can't speed it up either. We can remember the past, and hope and dream for the future, but I think there is a limited amount of remembering and dreaming we can do before we start to lose grip on reality and forget that we have a life to live...and it is right now.

Maybe I'm the only one dealing with this and the rest of ya'll just have it all together, but I do this a lot, mostly dreaming. The thing about my little day dreams is that I filter out all the bad stuff. I know exactly what to do and say in every situation in my head.

Then I get all excited. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be so much more fun when __________. Man, it's gonna be so great when _________ happens. I'm so excited for __________to be different. Whatever it is, it's going to be so much better that what I'm doing right now. 

Then tomorrow comes, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and pretty soon it's a week, month, year, later and nothing has changed. And I find myself thinking

How can that be??? I imagined this point in my life so much better than it actually is!! I feel normal, just like I did before...what is going on? This isn't how it's supposed to be. 

And it's all because I was trying to skip the "bad" parts. I find myself watching these movies and I can't even make it through the whole thing without skipping the "boring" moments. If I'm so impatient to get through a two hour movie to the happy ending that I can't even watch the whole thing, how am I going to make it through life?

There's a great scene in Letters to Juliet where the grandma is looking for an old love and they pull into the driveway of an incredible mansion sitting on a lot of beautifully manicured gardens. Her grandson says "you got to skip the messy bits" and she replies 

"Life is the messy bits."

So in movies, we almost always know that they'll get past the messy bits and have a happy ending. It's pretty clear. But in life, it's not always so cut and dry. 

I sit wishing and wanting and waiting away the "messy bits" until...what?

Marriage? then kids? then money? then kids leaving? then travel? then retirement? then, then, then. But I've realized that life doesn't have a culminating moment. Where we've finally figured it all out. Where we don't have anymore question or problems. Where now that I've checked off this, this, and this, I'm good. Because if we keep a list that says "I'll be happy when..." we'll always have some box that remains unchecked.

While some might find this news a little sad, I find this sudden revelation freeing. I don't have to sit around waiting until certain things have happened before I can be happy and at peace. In the rare moments when I just sit and appreciate what I have and where I am right now, I realize that I've got it pretty dang good, and I've got every reason and right to be happy where I am now. 

Not because I can skip the "messy bits," but because I can always find two sides to my story. It's like a spinach and strawberry smoothie that gets blended up into one off-colored, delicious life drink. We can choose whether we focus on the icky brown color we see, or we can choose to savor the taste of the strawberries. Either way, they are blended together and we can't separate them. And though we might not want to hear or believe it, the spinach is actually good for us, even if it doesn't taste very good and doesn't look appetizing at all.

I know there will be times when this concept just won't seem very clear. There will still be times when we think:

But seriously, this time if I just had __________ then I really would be happier. Why can't things just be better right now?

And it might take us a little while to come around, but we just need to sit down, take a deep breath, and hopefully realize over and over again that we can decide to be happy, content, and at peace with our life right now and no circumstance can make us otherwise unless we choose to let it. 

So let's do this. Because we're all in this together, right?

Awesome is not synonymous with married.

**This is definitely geared toward those people living in/knowing about the LDS culture**

**This is for people who are not married, but isn't meant to belittle married people IN ANY WAY**

There is a word that can instill an entire spectrum of emotions in people. For some, excitement and anticipation. For others, dread and apprehension. Some might be sick of the word, others may never tire of it. Some people post about theirs on social media all the time and we would like to punch them in the face  kindly tell them to relax with the mushy posts. If you haven't guessed it yet, I'll spell it out for you:

m-a-r-r-i-a-g-e

Yup, that word. As saints of the latter day, we hear about it a lot. It's kinda the main point of life. Okay, not really the main point...but since we believe it is central to our salvation, it's a big deal. This is something that's been on my mind a little for a while. But first, I just need to introduce the context a little bit. 

I am in a fantastic singles ward right now. The best way I can think to describe us would be this: we are a group of people who are weirdly passionate about a myriad of things, and we all get along fantastically. Seriously, we're great. Anyway, I was talking the other night to someone and I was saying how much I loved our ward and I said:

"I don't even know why our ward is a singles ward because everyone is seriously soooo amazing. We have such great people in this ward, how are we all single????"

And then I thought, that's silly. But the more I think about it, the more I realize I hear things along those lines all the time and don't even think twice about it. Hear what things? Well, things like:

"How is _______ not married? I mean, seriously, she's amazing!!"

or

"He is honestly the sweetest guy, how is he still single?"

You've probably said/heard these things too. So all I have to say is this:

AWESOME* ISN'T SYNONYMOUS WITH MARRIED.

*Insert any other complementary descriptive word here

Now, I don't consider myself extreme in really any of my views, so I'm not saying that phrases like these are tearing us apart from the inside out, and the only way to be saved is to eradicate these phrases and we're all going to die in a zombie apocalypse if we don't. But I think sometimes little thoughts like this sneak into my head and I think

What does that married girl have that I don't?

(Well she's got a husband, for one thing.)

Almost like there is an "awesomeness game" in which our wonderful married peers have some secret cheat code figured out that bumps them up a level. Or like there is a certain amount of awesomeness needed, and once you reach that level of achievement, you'll quickly find another who has reached their awesomeness requirement and then you get married. Or how about this one:

Don't look for the right one, be the right one.

Uh, great. Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful to always be looking for ways to improve ourselves, but if the search is because we think there is a magical quality which--once attained--will bring marriage with it, we'll be left feeling inadequate and incapable. It's dangerous to start tying marriage to ANY of our qualities, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. 

If I was prettier

If I was smarter

If I was more fit

If I was more kind

If I was more funny

If I was more spiritual

If I was more

If I was more

If I was more

If I was more

It's a dangerous cycle to say that if we were more of anything, then we'd be worth loving enough for somebody to marry us. But here is the good news:

  

We are worth loving right now, and we are loved right now.  

We are loved enough for our brother, our Savior Jesus Christ, to suffer in a garden for not just our sins, but our heartaches, our struggles, our pains, and our sufferings. 

Yeah, we have a brother who loves us enough to die for us. 

And you didn't have to earn that love, you are worth that love. 

So here's the thing, a person can read their scriptures every darn day, attend the temple weekly, go to all their church meetings, magnify their calling in their ward, serve others, continually work to improve themselves, and still not be married.

But they're so awesome, how are they not married?

You're darn right, they are. They are awesome. And God knows they're awesome. And they should know that they're awesome. And they should keep being awesome. Because being awesome, humble, sweet, caring, selfless, dedicated, faithful, honest, helpful, and positive are no more synonymous with marriage than ocean (yes, that was totally random) is synonymous with marriage. While many married people possess these qualities, they are neither a requirement nor a standard for being loved and/or married.

So by all means:

be awesome.

Because, while being awesome certainly is not a requirement for marriage, you'll have a whole lot more fun on your way there if you are.

Not-So-Little Black Dress

The end of the semester is upon us, and I could not be more excited. Seriously, things have just been heating up this week with school, with my biggest project being in my Patternmaking class.

Now, I'm just gonna say that I would rather work on a final project than a final paper ANY day. It's just the way I am. So from the very beginning of the semester, I looked at the syllabus and have been waiting for this assignment to come ever since.

It's called the Little Black Dress assignment. We design a dress from sketches to construction. A little play on words here because while it was a project to make a little black dress, the play on words is that it's actually little--as in designed and sewn in 1/2 scale.

I've shown people pictures of the dress and they ask me if I could wear it. I repeat: this dress is 1/2 scale...as in 36" tall. Even if it looks different on the mannequin, this is not a life size dress. But it was a life-size project. I present to you

KAYLA 1137

(Kayla because that's my name, 11 is my number in volleyball, and 37 is the number of hours I spent working on it.)

 I wanted to do something spectacular, and what's more spectacular than a full-length formal gown? If it looks tall, it is...I made the length and set the mannequin to be my height (in half scale, of course).

It started with this sketch

 Apparently I sketched the back a LOT lighter than the front:

The pattern pieces ended up looking like this. It's fully lined so almost every one of these pieces was cut out on both lining fabric, and the outside fabric.

 Usually I'm lazy and don't pin very much, but let me just say that when you've already logged twelve hours on making patterns, you're not gonna take any chances. As seen below, I may have gone a tad overboard with the pinning.

All necessary nothing and clipping was done

Pins for days:

One of the four fully lined, fabulous ruffles.

Want more pictures of the final dress? Cool, because I want to show you some:

FRONT:

BACK:

RIGHT SIDE:

LEFT SIDE:

This project was seriously so fun. I logged in a lot of late night hours to crank this bad boy out and I am so proud of it. It's so fun to have a vision in your brain, but then to see it in real life from your own creation is one of the best feelings there is in the whole wide world. 

Again, just because it's rad:

Cinderella

Let me start off by saying that Cinderella has never been one of my favorite princesses. I'm no feminist, but I think it might have something to do with the fact that I always saw her as someone who kinda got everything handed to her. There was an era, I think, of Disney princesses just being girls who were found by men and swept off their feet. I think Disney has gone away with that with more "go get 'em" type attitudes in the heroines of their movies.

Disney's new "real people" version of Cinderella changed my about her. I really loved it. I thought the costumes where impeccable (I'm pretty sure I started hyperventilating when she ran around in her gorgeous blue ball-gown--that thing moved like cascading water), I loved the casting, and I thought it was beautifully shot with lots of vibrant visual interest. But honestly, I loved the story and the things it made me feel and think about. It went much deeper than the typical story which I loved. 

Now for the important part:

I came away uplifted. Seriously. I need to go watch it again because there were so many thoughts in my head about what was going on. I think the best way to break this all down a bit. **Spoiler alert**

What I loved:

• I loved Cinderella's goodness and kindness
• I loved the anthropomorphic mice who were "realistically" unrealistic.
• I loved the prince, and how he and Cinderella were attracted to one another because of their mutual goodness. kindness, and maturity
• I loved, loved, loved the costumes
• Seriously, Cinderella's ballgown is swoon-worthy. The whole time she was wearing it I was just imagining how much fun that would be to wear/make and wondering where they find fabric that moves like that.
• Oh, and the stepmother's dresses were also fabulous. Let's bring back the column dress with the whole pseudo-bustle-train thing.
• I loved the respectful, loving relationship between the King and the Prince
• I loved Cinderella's kindness and strength even with so. many. sad things happening to her
• I loved the fairy godmother played by Helena Bonham Carter. I usually just see Bellatrix when I see her, but blond hair and poofy silver dresses kinda do away with that image
• I loved the song "Strong" at the end during the credits
• I loved that there was much more to this story than a picked on girl who rides a pumpkin to a ball because her fairy godmother came along
• I loved that I honestly came away uplifted
• I loved that the main message of the movie was to "Have courage, and be kind"

What I didn't love:

• I didn't love the lizard-turned-footman. Seriously, he was creepy
• I didn't love how many times I cried because someone died
• I didn't love when it ended

Now that I've got the basics down, I'm gonna do a little run through of each character and what I like about them:

Mother:

I loved the mom, it was a shame she had to go so early. I thought she portrayed a sort of free spirit, love all, type of person who loved her family and just wanted them to all be happy. I loved that her words to her daughter before she died were "Have courage, be kind."

Father:

I also liked the dad. I liked that the movie didn't portray him as someone that was stupid enough to marry this evil woman. It was basically a marriage of convenience with a shot in the dark of bringing him happiness after being sad for so long. I thought he realistically showed us a man who was really just broken by his wife's death and reached out for something that had a chance of bringing him happiness again. I also thought it was interesting that when he realized she wouldn't bring him happiness, he drew away. I think in trying to remain respectable and to keep from hating his "wife" he had to stay away.

Cinderella:

Holy smokes, guys. Lily James is awesome. She had a really beautiful quality of true goodness and sweetness that couldn't be argued, and you could really believe in her kindness even when her step-mother and step sisters were cruel to her. I like how near the end, she asks her stepmother how she can be so evil, and you really feel that she just can't comprehend that kind of nastiness because of her purity and true kindness which was refreshing. Her hardships didn't make her colder and harder, they made her tougher and stronger and I think the difference between the two came across beautifully as she continued to remain happy and kind--unlike her stepmother--without seeming naive. I really, really, loved that her goodness and kindness was emphasized and how those were qualities that led the prince to fall in love with her, not just her beauty.

Stepmother:

Man, I'm just saying she was good. Cate Blanchett truly was excellent in her part. So often in movies these days, we are manipulated by the villains story to feel sorry for them. You never want to feel bad for the villains, and it's kind of refreshing to just hate fictional character, but with this stepmother, you really don't know what to feel. Because of what she shares, you can't totally hate her, but you can't get all the way sympathetic either. Because she is never really redeemed or condemned, it's up to you to decide what happens to her which is really nice. The juxtaposition of Cinderella and stepmother is excellent and enthralling. Both experienced sadness and heartache and fear because of what life handed them yet they each ended up in very different places emotionally and mentally. Like I mentioned above, Cinderella decides to be made tough instead of cold and hard while the stepmother chooses just the opposite. 

Stepsisters:

There wasn't a whole lot different here, except that they did make me believe that they were really just kind of dumb girls who were following in the pathways of a mean mother. Everyone has the choice how to act in situations of course, but you really just get the feeling that they've got no thoughts of their own. They provided some good humorous moments of course and were perfectly over-the-top.

The Prince:

Ah, the prince. I can't say how much I loved him. Seriously, he was so cool. My favorite thing about him is that he wasn't a jerk who met a beautiful girl and suddenly changed. Because in real life, that doesn't happen. Kindness attracts kindness and good people are drawn to other good people. His dad balks at the fact that he loves a girl after meeting her once, and the prince says something to the effect of "I could sense her goodness." I like that because I think you really can see true goodness in people without really knowing them. I loved how he has a good, kind, respectful relationship with his father. One of the scenes that touched me most was right before the king dies and the prince is shown all tucked up on the bed hugging his father. I was an honest and beautiful shot and I loved that this boy had respect for his father, but also had his own opinions and thoughts and was able to communicate with his father maturely. Again, I loved him.

The King:

I loved the king. Man, it was just refreshing to see such a loving and mutually respectful father-son relationship. I mean, he had his ideas for what he wanted but is able to communicate with his son in a loving way that shows how he respects him. I love that Derek Jacobi could masterfully represent a king who was good and strong, but who saw the importance of being a good father over being a good ruler. 

The Advisers:

I loved the two men that were advisers to the throne. It was good to see the one who genuinely cared for the prince and truly wanted to help him be happy. It was nice to have someone I could hate in the other adviser who just made me angry. I had to keep reminding myself that I knew how this movie would end because he was so rude and manipulative that I kept getting worried he was going to foil the plans.

Overall, this movies was mostly wine with just a teeny bit of cheese but it's Disney, what can you expect? The expanded story really resonated with me and I loved this new retelling of the old class Cinderella. Be sure to go and watch it. This will definitely be one that I get on DVD. 

A Love Story

This is the story of how I fell in love:

Today I was wandering around a lovely shopping center when I was surprised to stumble across a Lulu Lemon* store. Excited, I walked into a white soccer-mom's dreamland: yoga pants galore!

The wearing-yoga-pants-even-or-especially-when-you've-done-absolutely-no-physical-activity-nor-do-you-plan-to craze as been steadily picking up speed, but I have yet to find a pair of yoga pants that doesn't stretch to translucency when forced to cover my, shall we say: "over-abundance" of thigh and calf. (My knees are a perfectly normal size.) Not to mention the 36" inseam.

I have heard from many sources that the quality of lulu is unequaled, but knowing how expensive they are, I couldn't bring myself to even look. Feeling brave today, I walked straight to the back where they have yoga pants displayed in as many styles as jeans at the Buckle. A friendly associate approached me and said,

"I'm guessing you're looking for something long enough?"

(It was kind of her and probably a strict company policy not to mention any other physical feature of concern.)

She proceeded to recommend several styles that ran long and also several styles that they carry in an actual long size. The very first pair I tried on fit like a dream. I could tell right away that this was no ordinary pair of yoga pants. Plus, the most shocking part of all: THEY REACHED THE FLOOR. 

I'm telling you, when the girl called out from the sales floor to ask if I was doing okay, I flung the door open with a smile and said

"I'm doing great!"

Then when I realized that she didn't actually want to see, I awkwardly and quickly retreated and shut the door to the dressing room and looked at my legs in the mirror for another solid 5 minutes. Who knew that heaven was 87% nylon, 13% lycra, and comes in size 12?

How can something this comfortable look so good at the same time? What kind of trickery is this?

And then I remembered the trickery. The string attached. For a whopping 108 smackaroos, a little slice of heaven can be yours. (They do, however, offer a payment plan called "selling your soul to the devil" in just six easy installments.)

Then a little orange sticker caught my eye. It said:  Last chance $48.

People, heaven was half off today only! Glory hallelujah! I picked my peasant clothes up off of the floor and quickly put them back on, taking care not to desicrate the Lulu's by letting them touch the ground.

I rushed out of the dressing room with a wild look in my eyes and asked anxiously, is this the price of these pants? The reply was sweet nectar to my ears. I swiped my card and was handed my happiness in a nice little fabric shopping bag. These people know how to getcha.

When I got home, I decided I really should go do some cardio today. I reached for my pants, but stopped. Did I really want to dirty these beauties up on the first day? Then it hit me. This was not a new pair of workout pants. This was a pair of lounge-around-and-read pants. This was a pair of slept-through-my-alarm pants. This was a pair of I-wanna-look-casual-but-fabulous pants.

Let's get something straight here. I am not looking to make a fashion statement when I go to the gym. I go to the gym to workout and it is not pretty. I'm talking the sweaty, red-faced, frizzy hair, free t-shirt and hand-me-down basketball shorts, kind of "not pretty."

Ha. No, I sweat.

So I paid $48 dollars for a pair of workout pants that I fully intend to use for the exact opposite. Because these pants are the most wonderful thing ever.  Also because I'm cheap and cannot afford to spend 48 dollars on a glorified, wearable sweat mop.

So I'll lounge and sleep and eat and play and do whatever the heck I want in these pants in order to hopefully preserve their thick, mixed-fiber, long, stretchy goodness for years to come.



That is the story of how I fell in love with a pair of pants. (And I didn't even have to sell my soul.)



*I do want to state that I do have several issues with the company founder and such, but everyone in the Farmington store was very kind and helpful, and they make awesome pants.

Let the Temple Touch You

Lakayde Photography

Lakayde Photography

Lakayde Photography

Lakayde Photography

Lakayde Photography

Lakayde Photography