xO.

V-day had more of a "D-day" ring to it the past few Februarys as I prepared myself to lose my best friends to their significant others for the day, and direct my efforts to avoiding the awkard just-happens-to-be-Valentine's Day-but-let's-hang-out dates. Which was fine, as long as roommates brought me back some chocolate or cookies ("Do you know how many calories are in that?" is an effective line). Anyway, just wanted to share my favorite passage from POSSIBLY my favorite essay by my UNDOUBTEDLY favorite writer, Mr. Ralph Waldo. Emerson's description of love will forever be unparalled by any stupid movie or Nicholas Sparks book. Whatever your relationship status, Emerson will speak to you. Promise. From his essay, "Love." "I have been told, that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations. But now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are love's world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. For, though the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those of tender age, and although a beauty overpowering all analysis or comparison, and putting us quite beside ourselves, we can seldom see after thirty years, yet the remembrance of these visions outlasts all other remembrances, and is a wreath of flowers on the oldest brows. But here is a strange fact; it may seem to many men, in revising their experience, that they have no fairer page in their life's book than the delicious memory of some passages wherein affection contrived to give a witchcraft surpassing the deep attraction of its own truth to a parcel of accidental and trivial circumstances. In looking backward, they may find that several things which were not the charm have more reality to this groping memory than the charm itself which embalmed them. But be our experience in particulars what it may, no man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and brain, which created all things new; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art; which made the face of nature radiant with purple light, the morning and the night varied enchantments; when a single tone of one voice could make the heart bound; when he became all eye when one was present, and all memory when one was gone; when the youth becomes a watcher of windows, and studious of a glove, a veil, a ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when no place is too solitary, and none too silent, for him who has richer company and sweeter conversation in his new thoughts, than any old friends, though best and purest, can give him; for the figures, the motions, the words of the beloved object are not like other images written in water, but, as Plutarch said, "enamelled in fire," and make the study of midnight. "

To Clear the Record...

The previously mentioned "Baby Wood" is referring to Melissa & Chris Wood's child. Not mine (seeing as I don't yet know what I'd like my baby's first outfit to be, it would be completely unpractical). Thanks for all the texts though! :)

'09 all mine.

This year, I was a little pensive to see the year come to an end. It could be because I’m slightly unsure on the pronunciation of 2010 (is it twenty-ten or two thousand ten? I can’t decide), but I’m pretty convinced it’s because it was the best year of my life. Everrrr. Recap? Sure.

I rang in 2009 after my sequin-clad self successfully ditched my future husband. Oops. Brian came all the way down to Las Vegas, and after hanging out with him and some guys for a little bit, I insisted on being with my girlfriends instead…which is where I had this great photo op to showcase the side of my face. Also, shout out to the creeper in the back.



And that was the beginning of my storybook year.

Luckily for me, Brian was just as sweet post-ditching, and the rest of 2009 (as well as my life) just fell into place and flew by. I got to be a teacher, graduated college with both a Bachelor’s AND a fiancé, had an exciting job, multiple bridal showers, and married my favorite person in the world. I even have had the opportunity to begin working on a longtime project I'd hoped for…hair school! The year was sprinkled with long talks with old friends, and visits from family I haven’t seen in a while. I got some great in-laws. I was even able to go to both Disneyland AND Disneyworld in the same year! Also not to be overlooked: I ate the best granola I’ve ever had at Bellagio, and the best dessert I’ve ever had at N9ne. Delicacies like that don’t come around every day.

I thought of all these things as I stood with Brian and let the last minutes of 2009 melt away into memory. Past tense. The year 2009 will always be the amber of my mind’s eye, but I will never again get to live it. Isn’t that the case with every year, though? We race through the whole year, trying to scramble through each day, and then it’s over. I learned in 2009 to (try to) make a conscious effort to luxuriate in every minute. Yes, “luxuriate.” (The common “Enjoy each moment!” phrase has a blasé air to it. As any busy person would know, minutes are too important to use a mundane phrase like that.) I counted down each day until I was done teaching, until I graduated, until I got married…why? Those are moments in time I’ll always want to relive. Enjoy the doing. Soon it will be a page in your life’s script, stored away in your mind, only available for reminiscing.

Don’t get me wrong; we’re very much looking forward to the exciting opportunities 2010 will present! Up to this point, we have no idea what jobs we will be applying for, where we will be living, or even how we're going to pay the bills 6 months from now.This will definitely be a year of big decisions and crossroads!
Some things we DO know and are excited for:
Brian graduating

Ashton graduating...if that's the title you give those who have completed 2000 hours of cosmetology school. Moving out of Utah!!! Ashton running her first half marathon…at DISNEYLAND! Brian’s brother coming home from his mission in Chile Ashton’s brother coming home from his mission in Germany Going to Virginia/DC area for Spring Break Taking a summer vacation…TBA. Our first anniversary! Both of us finding employment…like, with a salary. And I’ll be honest…baby Woods will be a highlight of the year, too!

Brr.

I kept trying to think of a more tactful way of saying this, but I'll just be honest. I hate, HATE the cold. I honestly do. I’m not just saying that because it’s what all people in cold weather feel they should say in order to fit in with the rest of our beach-worshipping society. No, I’m really serious. And I feel I have less of a tolerance for the bitter weather as I get older. Brian and I were both raised in the dry, Southwestern heat (and we mean HEAT), and I’m pretty positive that our bodies were biologically adjusted to accommodate those temperatures. I’m also pretty sure we were destined to never leave them. Hence the new blog name. No allusions to us being in any way acrobatic, just the declaration that we hate the cold. In a nice way.

I came across some of our honeymoon pictures, and it made me wonder why we ever came back. Warm, gorgeous...should have stayed.






Check out this water!!! Unreal. It's like a pool.








Oh, Cayman Islands, how I miss all 12 or so miles of you.

Oh yes, and Brian asked me to address a specific issue: people that choose to take the elevator instead of the stairs when the destination is only one floor away. Well, Brian Scurr. After much contemplation, I realized that there is nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, I am the person that does it. Not all the time, depending on my shoe choice, but most of the time. There is nothing like the thrill of the elevator, Brian. Wondering who will be inside the elevator (an old neighbor? a friend? a celebrity? my grandma? do the current passengers’ combined weights already exceed the maximum capacity?), trying to manipulate the elevator’s speed of arrival in your head, the novelty of pressing the buttons and watching them light up, the excitement and tinge of terror surmising the very real possibility of getting stuck in such a confined space with only the contents of your purse and one bar of battery on your cell phone…yes, I can relate to all your button-pushing peers Husband. Sorry. Maybe you should stop being so practical and stop to enjoy the ride.* :)

*Brian, disregard this statement if you are late to class and somehow have to retake it, causing us a prolonged sentence in Utah. Just take the stairs and push people out of the way.

Seriously, the 5th time i've tried to post this.

I was recently deemed as being elusive. . .I'm not. Just busy! We've been all over the place lately. Las Vegas, Newport, Disneyland, Park City. . .Disney Princesses on Ice (just had to throw that in)!

Brian is working now! I’m so proud of him for working while already having his plate full with school work. It’s great news, although after I had worked all summer, I WAS enjoying the financial dictatorship I had almost established in our marriage. Maybe I can still commandeer a room in the house.

And finally, I dyed. I’m brunette now. This deed was done prior to hair school so I wouldn’t do anything too crazy. A few pictures to catch you up.

Why do I always have these huge blank spaces I can't get rid of? Seriously.

Just Bringing To Your Attention Something I've Always Questioned.

Fun Size? Really? I've never thought so. Possibly "Only Big Enough To Get Stuck In Your Teeth Size," but that's actually not fun. How about selling REGUALR size candy bars at Halloween for less...? That would be fun.

UVU, Taylor Andrews...We're Professionals.

Check out our new married blog! Doesn't it feel different? When you stop by our page, doesn't it just fill your whole screen and whole room with feelings of marital sophistication? Aren't we just maturity personified? I know. Brian’s made a few cameos on my blog, but now he’s the main man. On OUR blog. Welcome to our uber-girly blog, husband. Now we can officially title our blog something like, “How to be poor,” or “What insurance?” We can also officially title me as a wife! And for the first few weeks, I felt like I was on a reality show. Newlyweds or something. Newlyweds: The Mormon Edition. Like it wasn’t my actual life, because it was (and any Newlyweds: The Mormon Edition viewer would agree) unreasonably perfect. Fun jobs, big city, trips to CA and AZ, an amazing wedding, and a honeymoon so unbelievable that Nick and Jessica would consider reconciliation just to be back on the show. After a whirlwind summer in Las Vegas, Brian and I are back in Utah now. Even though I’ve been up here over 4 years, it feels completely different here being married instead of in college living with 7 girls. I can’t understand exactly what I had anticipated. I married my favorite person in the world, but perhaps somewhere in the teeny dark corners of my mind that are so small and unvisited that they could only have been created to store math knowledge, I had envisioned the same lifestyle I experienced living with girls. I guess I just assumed impromptu dance parties to Britney while getting ready for the day was customary in life. Borrowing clothes, being borrowed from, going to the gym and then stopping to get ice cream right after…isn’t that the archetypal college life? Sure, I’d go grocery shopping with my husband and do wifely things, but we’d hold hands and go teetering down the isle in fun shoes. Yeah, that would be great…if he was gay. But Brian is very not gay, so we don’t do that; thus the need for acclimatization to this new Utah life and a slight feeling of separation anxiety from those friends who have moved and forsaken me in the arctic. I AM excited to begin married life in the arctic though…because it is just for 15 months, right husband? :) Brian is in school and loving it, and will continue to love it until next December. Since I received both my Bachelor and M.R.S. degrees this year, I thought I’d also continue on with my education. I have mixed feelings about not teaching high school this year, but am looking forward to a different direction of schooling. In Brian’s words, I’m going to grad school to study hair follicles and chemical alterations. In laymen’s terms, I’m going to hair school while he finishes up. So begins Utah part deux.